Now I'm the same size as my daughter

Jane Unsworth, 61, needed to make a change, and now her daughter’s jealous of her clothes

- EMMA ROSSITER, CHARLOTTE NISBET

Rummaging through my wardrobe, I tried to find something to wear. It was March 2009 and, although I had plenty of tight-fitting dresses that would be perfect for my 50th birthday, none would flatter my figure. The only thing I was left with was yet another unflattering, baggy black number.

‘You look beautiful,’ my daughter, Maddie, then eight, said when she saw me, and I gave her a weak smile. In my mind, there was no way that could be true – at 15st and a size 20, I felt enormous, and no amount of black fabric could hide that.

For as long as I could remember, I’d always had an unhealthy relationship with food. At school, I was used to being one of the bigger girls, and often turned to sweet treats on both good and bad days, something that stayed with me into adulthood. I tried to diet here and there, losing enough weight to squeeze into a size 12, but it wasn't long before I’d give up again.

Love handles

Even when I met Karl, at age 39, in 1998, I was still battling with my relationship with food. On our wedding day, in November 1999, I was a size 18 and didn’t feel like a beautiful bride at all. While I’d fixate on my love handles or jiggling thighs in the mirror, Karl, then 35, would just wrap his arms around me.

‘You’re perfect to me,’ he said. I only wished I could feel it, too. Our daughter, Maddie, arrived in May 2000, a few months after the wedding, which is when my weight really got out of control. By now, my wardrobe had been through as many changes as my body, with its range of sizes expanding at the same rate as my waistline. In fact, I had so much stuff that some of it was stuffed into black bin bags, labelled ‘skinny’ or ‘fat’ clothes.