So based on your own experience do you think that one of the messages to other people who are trying to lose weight, who are overweight or obese would be to try to understand or to give answers to the why they are overeating?

Yes definitely. I think it you can get to the bottom of the reason why, why you are seeking to fill this hole in your soul with [ha] pasta, [laugh] Just recognising that certain triggers will lead you to self-destruct. is really crucial, a crucial part of this I really do.

Is understanding that bit isn’t it?

I think so. I think it is understanding that. I mean nobody want to be fat, nobody. And for a lot of people they feel out of control. I certainly did. It was beyond my control. So I would say get help. Get every kind of help you can. Take every bit of help that’s available to you. Go for psychiatric counselling. Go for [ah] physical help from your doctor, dietary help from a group of people. I hate that Weight Watchers where you get weighed. I hate that in public. So I would. So my groups are online. And they are anonymous. The people are living in the States most of them. So I know I will never meet them but it’s good honest advice from them how they’ve coped. So yeah take all the advice and help you can get because it’s difficult.

What would you advise people based on your own experience?

[whoosh]

What do you think is important for them to

Well you know, what I would say, Get some counselling if you can Get support from a trained person because you don’t, you don’t really want to expose yourself if you are vulnerable. Psychologically if you’re in a difficult space in your life you don’t want to be exposed to anybody who is not really professional in what they are saying. And somebody who can give you good advice and find out the root cause and help you to love yourself again. Because a lot of overeating is self-harm. And so yeah that’s what I would say. I’d try, I’d say try, try and get the root cause of this sorted, sorted out.

I would say, don’t be frightened about facing it. I think people put off and perhaps I did, in that respect. I put off, although I knew there was an issue. I put it off that there was an issue because I was fine. I’m fine. I don’t feel ill. I don’t, I don’t look awful. I don’t. So, it’s something that you can do another time perhaps, if you do at all. So, I think sometimes you’ve just got to be honest with yourself and to accept people’s advice, you know, when you go to somebody like your GP, you’ve got, if they’re, if they man up to telling you that there is an issue, then they’re not doing it to be horrible. they’re not sitting there saying, Oh gosh, aren’t you fat they’re saying, You’re overweight and it’s going to affect your health

But I think if you look round, you’ve only got to turn the news on and I look at people and I actually said to my husband, Do I look like that and he went, No, but you did So, I think sometimes that can come as a shock because I thought, Gosh, that woman looks really overweight. Really overweight. And that’s when I said, I don’t look like that, do I and he said, No, not now but he said, but you did And I think sometimes you’ve got to come up front, you’ve got to face it really ad I think sometimes that’s a difficult thing is actually facing you’ve got to do something about it. That does mean stopping doing the things you like, or eating the things you like and requires you to do a little bit more

What would you like to tell other people about kind of changing sort of weight maintenance or trying to reach a healthy weight?

Yeah, I think going back to what we were talking about earlier, finding the right plan for yourself is key. Not making it too restrictive. You’ve got to find the thing that suits you best. I think if I’ve learnt one thing from talking to you this morning is perhaps go and have a chat with your doctor and your local nurse and find out if there is something out there that might help you. don’t perhaps go for Slimming World and Weight Watchers because you don’t know that they’re right for you. But perhaps have a chat with your doctor and see whether they could recommend something. I’m, I am going to go down and ask even though I’m doing Slimming World, I’m still going to go and find out if there’s something else that I could get some more information because if I can’t go in a few weeks when I’m not probably going to have the money, I’m going to want something else and I don’t want to fall back and hopefully they’ll be there but I would definitely go to your doctor first and your local nurse and see if there’s somebody you can have a chat with and just get some advice on what track to take first rather than jumping around from one thing to another, I think that’s, that’s probably been my worst thing I’ve done is jumping from one diet to another and not sticking with one thing and finding out what suits you. That’s got to be the key.

Well, you’ve got to be in the right frame of mind. When you’re in the right frame of mind it is a good idea to join a group, Slimming World, Weight Watchers. Get advice from your doctor. See how much overweight you are and write things down. Write a daily diary of what you eat and drink every day to see what you’re actually taking in, and maybe have a goal or a focus, you know, something like an event coming up that you need to lose weight for or something you want to buy, some clothes or something and that sort of thing. But it’s just a very personal thing really. Nothing works the same for everybody. it’s all individual.

What would you like to say to people who are interested in losing weight?

I think, I think I’d say you can’t do it on your own and that you really need to, most people I think would find going to some sort of group helpful because you get a huge amount of support and, not only from the leaders but from other people who are going through the same thing as you and you don’t feel quite such a freak, you know.

Okay.

And I think people are frightened that you’re going to be, your weight is going to be read out in front of everybody and you’re going to be harangued if you haven’t lost weight and it’s, it’s not like that at all.

No?

I know it’s not everybody’s thing, you know, but, you know, the lady who runs our group says that if you if you’ve, you know, if you’ve had a bad week, she won’t let you go home until she’s made you think positively and think what you can do to turn things round and I think that’s really important, you know.

I think I would mainly say, try, try things, if you haven’t tried something I don’t mean in a diet. I would say in a group or some sort of local offering of like the, Keep it off for good’, try something and if it doesn’t work for you or you don’t like it, don’t be put off trying something else because I think in lots of other areas of life, if we don’t like something, we don’t blame ourselves, if we went to the cinema and it wasn’t a good film, we didn’t enjoy the film we wouldn’t say, Oh, it’s my fault I didn’t enjoy the film So don’t say that about, you know, it could be that the group’s not got a great leader or it could be it’s too late in the day for you to be alert and taking in all the messages or but the only other thing I think is that I do think that cost is a big factor, you know, and one thing I try to say to myself is I tell myself, I can’t,’ at times, I’ve said, I can’t afford to go to a group because it’s five pounds a week,’ and you have to be honest with yourself and say, Am I spending five pounds a week on food that’s doing me harm?’ And if the answer to that is, yes’ then you should go to the slimming group really.

Do you have any messages for other people who are interested in losing weight or people who might have gone through or might be going through a similar situation that you, that you are in?

I think just keep, keep trying. it’s not giving up. it’s keep trying to find the solution, you know, again it, it’s, it is just keep trying, I’m not going to give up. I had my little six months of rebellion that I’m not going to be like this, but I realised that was no good to anybody. I was, but I think I probably needed it to sort of do that and I will keep trying and it is frustrating. And then you get on the scales and think, Oh. But, you know, even if I can get one kilo down then I’ll feel that’s great. I don’t want to put that back on and I just can keep trying with the doctor, keep trying different things, you know, slimming world online is, is something that will work but I’ll try that. If not, I’ll try something else. I, I will just keep trying.

Just take small steps to lose weight and to achieve a healthy status. To do small steps with exercise. To do small steps in maintaining stress levels. Just do things in small steps to achieve a positive conclusion to a goal that you want to reach. Doesn’t have to be a big goal. Make it a small goal and take small steps to reach it and be happy in the process. That’s all.