Having been “plus size” most of my life, I have never loved my body. Because I had large breasts I got away with being a little bigger as it was easy to hide my belly. In school, kids would make fun of me because I was c cup at age 13 and was never sized properly or bought correct fitting bras so they would spill from everywhere and get uncomfortable. At age 17 I was given the opportunity to have a breast reduction on the NHS because i had hit a size GG and they were effecting my back and confidence but my mother refused to drive me to swansea to the meeting because she didn’t agree with my decision and at the time, I had no other way to get there and no one who was prepared to take care of me after the operation so it just wasn’t an option. Very soon after this was meant to happen, I fell pregnant with my daughter and my body changed even more. By 18 I hated everything about my body and social media made it worse. I was a teenage mother with stretch marks and scars from a c section, excess weight from pregnancy and breasts that just wouldn’t stop growing. My weight had never been something I thought about, Id never been on a diet and didn’t know anything about nutrition as I was raised on food from a chip fat fryer and knew no better. After some postnatal depression my weight crept up even further. It wasn’t until I went back to work when my daughter was 2 that I noticed my body was changing and the weight loss had my confidence growing. After being in a couple of toxic relationships, I noticed I had gained even more weight so I started cutting out snacks and eating less. I was still considered overweight on the bmi scale and was always on the curvier side but it didn’t bother me. Soon after I lost some weight, I met my wife and as most couples do, we gained weight together choosing to stay in with takeaways and showering each other with treats out of love. Within 2 years, we were both unhappy with the amount we had gained so decided to reach out to get some help. We joined slimming world. With the incentive of being able to access fertility treatment to expand out family if we hit target, it was easy. 6 months later we were within the bmi needed to start treatment. We were one of those ridiculously lucky couples and my wife fell pregnant first time with twins! This is where everything changed with our relationship with our bodies. As lucky as we were, one of our babies wasn’t. She had complications from the very beginning and the years of medical intervention she needed to keep her alive took its toll on us in every way imaginable and all through this we were also trying to raise a new-born and 10 year old from a Ronald McDonald room on our own. Needless to say, we stopped worrying about how we looked and lived in survival mode where food became our best friend. The weight piled on quickly and people were quick to notice and comment. This definitely made it worse. It almost became a game to rebel. Once our daughter came home from hospital, we then had the challenge of learning a new way of life. We had to have extensive training and then recruit carers and train them ourselves. We spent 99% of our time at home or in the hospital because she had another infection. There was no time for cooking or even thinking of nutrition. More weight piled on. Looking back I truly believe I was addicted to processed foods. Good day meant movie night with all the snacks, bad day meant takeaway and chocolate. Everything could be fixed with food. When our daughter was well enough, we tried to go back to slimming world but the addictions were too strong and we failed every time. This would just make us feel even more like failures. Our daughters body wasn’t working correctly and here we are with our health and we were slowly killing ourselves. I started looking at surgery. We were both morbidly obese and could apply on the NHS but who would look after the children as well as each other while recovering? Not a possibility. Our children have high care needs and neither of us could do this alone for weeks without a breakdown. Next we tried several online fads. Pills, teas, supplements. Nothing worked. One afternoon I came across a video on a new drug called saxsender. It was an injection ( I HATE needles) and was expensive. At first i dismissed it. Why would anyone inject themselves with some crazy drug and spend all that money on something that probably wasn’t even safe?! Crazy right? As we all know, when you look something up on your phone it then sends you a million posts about it. I started reading more about the drug, what it does and who can use it. Not all was as it seemed. This particular drug had been used for years for people with diabetes but had only just been regulated to use for weight loss. I then reached out to a friend who had used it before and she was very complimentary about it. My wife and I sat down and talked about if this is something we wanted to try. We had to budget carefully because we both wanted to try it and some friends and family didn’t agree with it but still we persevered. In January 2023 we started a saxenda course. Within a month we both noticed that the cravings were going, although the side effects were not pleasant. Nausea, heart burn and feeling very tired. Still we continued as it was working. In March 2023 a new drug called ozempic was released for weightloss. After reading about this drug, it had better results and was slightly cheaper so we moved over to the new drug and very quickly we started losing weight. By July 2023 we made the decision to come off the injections to save some money for Christmas. We maintained the weight loss we had managed in the months before all over Christmas and new year thanks to an amazing fittness group we joined called gladiator camp. Excercise is so underated! Come January we talked and agreed we would like to lose a little more before we come off them for good so January 2024 we started the newer drug that had been approved for weight loss called mounjaro. This has by far been the best drug we have tried. The side effects are minimal and the effects are almost immediate. We have little to no appetite and if you eat fatty foods, your body soon lets you know with nausea. Its given us the chance to replace fatty processed foods with healthy whole foods and our sugar cravings are gone completely. One of the biggest worries for us was monthly cost but the money we have saved on shopping, takeaways and meals out is more than the treatment by far. Since starting my journey I have gone from 16st 9lbs to this mornings weigh in at 10st 5lbs. I was a dress size 22 and I now wear a size 12-14. My wife has done even better than me but I wont be sharing her results as its not my place. There is a stigma surrounding these drugs and its almost viewed as cheating because you didn’t lose it the hard way but what chance do people have when you start to realise what big companies are putting in our food and all the back handed ways advertising is used to get you addicted to processed foods?! Its no wonder we need help to break the cycle and rid our bodies of these severe cravings of foods our bodies are not built to eat. After reading ultra processed people by Chris Van Tulleken, my views on food have completely changed and I don’t see using these drugs as taking the easy way out but giving people the tools they need to break free from a life of addiction. I have now finished my last injection and don’t plan on losing anymore weight however I still have a long way to go to accepting my new body. With rapid weight loss comes excess skin and new flaws I didn’t know I had. My journey isn’t over, its just beginning but at least Im facing it healthy and with the knowledge I need to make better choices. For anyone wanting to try these drugs, we highly recommend the company rightangled. They have been first class service from the beginning and everything you need to know is on their website.
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