40, fit and FABULOUS!

Ambia Ali is 5st lighter and feeling happier and healthier than she has in years

Coming through the door, I could smell the aroma of delicious spices bubbling away. My mum Aisha had been making one of her signature dishes – a traditional karahi lamb curry. As she caught sight of the takeaway kebab in my arms, she sighed. ‘Home-cooked food is so much better for you, Ambia,’ she said. She had a point. Mum’s curries were the stuff of legend and I knew she’d have spent hours at the stove. But ready-made food, takeaways and meals out just seemed so much more exciting to me, whether it was going for a pizza with friends or grabbing a sandwich from the shop for lunch. I was in my 20s and enjoying life, and as I still fitted into my size 8s, I didn’t see a reason to change my eating habits.

Another excellent cook joined the family when I met my husband Syed, who was a chef. I still stayed wedded to my takeaways, though, and after we got married I noticed that I was beginning to gain weight. I had epilepsy and I put my increasing size down to a change in my medication. As my dress size continued to creep up, I felt less and less like myself, and before long I’d stopped socialising altogether and bothering to do my hair and make-up.

I remember the day I lost my love of clothes shopping, too: I had to return a size-14 leather jacket I’d been excited about when it was far too tight. I was that much in denial that I wrote to the company telling them their sizes were too small!

In March 2020, when lockdown started, my weight gain seemed to accelerate. Soon I had to order new clothes in a size 16 and by the following year they were too tight as well.