Post by jackie on Apr 22, 2010 7:40:20 GMT 1
Wow, wish I had this 'problem'!
'Sara Bird, 44, lives with her partner Richard, 43, in a farmhouse in Nottinghamshire with daughters Lottie, ten and Izzy, eight. The couple run their own business and Sara's book Fatorexia: What Do You See When You Look In The Mirror? has just been published. She says:
Until five years ago I had no idea I was fat, let alone grossly overweight. I was a busy working mum to two little girls, with a thriving career and a man I adored.
Life was good and although I knew I wasn't ultra-thin, after a life time of yo-yo dieting, I certainly didn't see myself as having a major weight problem.
When I looked in the mirror I saw an attractive face, with immaculate make-up and perfectly groomed hair. I always had manicured nails, wore gorgeous shoes and chose my clothes carefully. But crucially, I only looked in small hand-held mirrors rather than full-length ones and had avoided the scales for some time.
Then, during a routine check-up with my GP, he asked to weigh me. In my mind, I was around 13 to 14 stone - not thin, I grant you, but at 5ft 10in I thought I could carry a few extra pounds.
But, as I stepped on the scales, I was stunned. Almost immediately, they crept past the 17st mark. 'You are obese,' the doctor told me bluntly.
It may sound unlikely, but I was genuinely shocked. In my mind I was far from obese. To me, obese was beyond fat - with connotations of someone who was greedy, lazy and uneducated and that wasn't me.
I even looked behind me, thinking a fat person had walked into the room and he was talking to them. Sadly, of course, that wasn't the case - and I fought back tears as my GP said there was a seminar about weight loss I could go to.
I refused to contemplate it. I was a self-taught expert on dieting - I knew the calorific value of everything from a roast dinner to a peanut. I had lost and gained more than 30st during 20 years of dieting and where had it got me? Considerably fatter than when I started out, deluded about my weight and in denial about my problem.
Distraught and humiliated, I stormed out of my GP's surgery, too ashamed to tell anyone, but deeply affected by it. Once home, I went straight onto the internet to look at BMI charts to check out how obese I was. For my height, I should have been 5st lighter - a huge amount which, incredibly, I had let creep up on me.
Gritting my teeth, I stripped off and forced myself to look in a full-length mirror for the first time in I couldn't remember how long. I wanted to see what 'obese' really looked like and, I must admit, I was shocked. I was so used to just looking at my face, I never saw the rolls of fat on my size 20 figure.
I was like the Pillsbury Dough boy. While women who are too thin appear to have a lollipop head, mine seemed much too small for my body. I would not have recognised it as being me.
Angry with myself for having got into this state, I began to ask why hadn't I seen it before?
But then it hit me; just like an anorexic who sees a fat body when they look in the mirror, I'd been seeing a slim one. Where the anorexic wears baggy clothes to hide behind, I was wearing big clothes with the size labels cut out to hide my vastness.
Occasionally, deep down, I'd compute that I was wearing plus-size clothes, but I told myself that dress sizes were bigger these days and besides, many of my clothes had elasticated waists to accommodate my expanding girth.
And while the anorexic pretends she is eating plenty, I was pretending to be eating less when actually I was constantly grazing. I loved double fish and chips, savoury foods, potatoes, cottage pie, Yorkshire puds, mashed potatoes with lashings of gravy. I was addicted to carbs and huge volumes of food.
My symptoms were the opposite to anorexia - I was fatorexic, a term I coined to describe what I felt my condition was.
I have been fat and thin throughout my life and while I do question if thin is always better, I never wanted to be obese. And as a willowy teenager growing up in West Yorkshire with tall, skinny parents, I never expected to be. I was brought up on wholesome food and thought I could eat what I wanted.'
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1267883/Fatorexia-In-mirror-Sara-saw-slim-woman-Just-problem-17st-So-deluded.html#ixzz0loBiAAVD
'Sara Bird, 44, lives with her partner Richard, 43, in a farmhouse in Nottinghamshire with daughters Lottie, ten and Izzy, eight. The couple run their own business and Sara's book Fatorexia: What Do You See When You Look In The Mirror? has just been published. She says:
Until five years ago I had no idea I was fat, let alone grossly overweight. I was a busy working mum to two little girls, with a thriving career and a man I adored.
Life was good and although I knew I wasn't ultra-thin, after a life time of yo-yo dieting, I certainly didn't see myself as having a major weight problem.
When I looked in the mirror I saw an attractive face, with immaculate make-up and perfectly groomed hair. I always had manicured nails, wore gorgeous shoes and chose my clothes carefully. But crucially, I only looked in small hand-held mirrors rather than full-length ones and had avoided the scales for some time.
Then, during a routine check-up with my GP, he asked to weigh me. In my mind, I was around 13 to 14 stone - not thin, I grant you, but at 5ft 10in I thought I could carry a few extra pounds.
But, as I stepped on the scales, I was stunned. Almost immediately, they crept past the 17st mark. 'You are obese,' the doctor told me bluntly.
It may sound unlikely, but I was genuinely shocked. In my mind I was far from obese. To me, obese was beyond fat - with connotations of someone who was greedy, lazy and uneducated and that wasn't me.
I even looked behind me, thinking a fat person had walked into the room and he was talking to them. Sadly, of course, that wasn't the case - and I fought back tears as my GP said there was a seminar about weight loss I could go to.
I refused to contemplate it. I was a self-taught expert on dieting - I knew the calorific value of everything from a roast dinner to a peanut. I had lost and gained more than 30st during 20 years of dieting and where had it got me? Considerably fatter than when I started out, deluded about my weight and in denial about my problem.
Distraught and humiliated, I stormed out of my GP's surgery, too ashamed to tell anyone, but deeply affected by it. Once home, I went straight onto the internet to look at BMI charts to check out how obese I was. For my height, I should have been 5st lighter - a huge amount which, incredibly, I had let creep up on me.
Gritting my teeth, I stripped off and forced myself to look in a full-length mirror for the first time in I couldn't remember how long. I wanted to see what 'obese' really looked like and, I must admit, I was shocked. I was so used to just looking at my face, I never saw the rolls of fat on my size 20 figure.
I was like the Pillsbury Dough boy. While women who are too thin appear to have a lollipop head, mine seemed much too small for my body. I would not have recognised it as being me.
Angry with myself for having got into this state, I began to ask why hadn't I seen it before?
But then it hit me; just like an anorexic who sees a fat body when they look in the mirror, I'd been seeing a slim one. Where the anorexic wears baggy clothes to hide behind, I was wearing big clothes with the size labels cut out to hide my vastness.
Occasionally, deep down, I'd compute that I was wearing plus-size clothes, but I told myself that dress sizes were bigger these days and besides, many of my clothes had elasticated waists to accommodate my expanding girth.
And while the anorexic pretends she is eating plenty, I was pretending to be eating less when actually I was constantly grazing. I loved double fish and chips, savoury foods, potatoes, cottage pie, Yorkshire puds, mashed potatoes with lashings of gravy. I was addicted to carbs and huge volumes of food.
My symptoms were the opposite to anorexia - I was fatorexic, a term I coined to describe what I felt my condition was.
I have been fat and thin throughout my life and while I do question if thin is always better, I never wanted to be obese. And as a willowy teenager growing up in West Yorkshire with tall, skinny parents, I never expected to be. I was brought up on wholesome food and thought I could eat what I wanted.'
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1267883/Fatorexia-In-mirror-Sara-saw-slim-woman-Just-problem-17st-So-deluded.html#ixzz0loBiAAVD
