Where my comfort eating began.
I eat large portions, I always have done, I am the tallest of my 2 brothers, I also have a large frame, the comment I always received as a child was ooh he looks like a rugby player, and i did enjoy rugby so, i guess i fit the mould.
However this also meant that the larger food portion at the dinner table was given to me (like i needed more food), so as a teen growing up i had a voracious appetite. But I never overate, I never kept going after I felt full, i ofcourse had a pudding stomach (what child doesnt), but as a family we ate healthy, meat veg potato, nothing to extreme and dessert once a week. yoghurts and fruit always available. No sweets, no pop, etc...I wasnt a fat child, i had no problem with weight.
Skip forward to college, I maintain this lifestyle, perhaps creeping in a few more snacks here and there, but balanced and healthy, never happy with my shape, but nothing a gym membership couldn't have fixed (i didn't join a gym). Again not fat, but i was not a top off at the beach with friends guy, not confident. Quit drinking at 18 (yes i know), havent touched a drop since.
Skip ahead a few more years, life goes into turmoil, 5 years of very difficult times and I cope, but my vice becomes self harm whilst my descent into depression hits full speed. Not concerned with what I am eating nor with my weight, nothing changes, weight maintains and i am too busy to be bothered. but not obese, not clinically overweight, still unhappy with shape but normal.
Skip ahead...Life begins to become normal, counselling and mental health is on the rise, happiness creeps in and i feel normal(ish), meet a girl, get married, life is better...your happy you eat....weight pointed out by wife, join slimming world together, both lose weight.
Skip ahead...weight has crept up beyond the point it ever had before, Cousins wedding fast approaches, i go on CD, lose loads, look better than ever had, feel great, wife leaves me, divorce....eat, eat, eat, all manner of terrible binges and fast food, baskets of terrible food for one sitting, completely off the rails, i eat...weight increases, meet someone new, fall in love, get married, we cook, we eat, we live, we enjoy, we dine out, we live a life i hadnt before, we laugh, i am truely loved, but i cant stop eating, i continue eating bad foods.
December 2010: I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window and stop dead in my tracks, that cant be me....i cant believe it. Horror of horrors, i look appalling! I come home and cry!
I walk into the chemist, and join lipotrim....I am never doing this again.
I realise now, I have no mental capacity to stop myself eating what i want, when i want, I have amazing willpower, never smoked, never done drugs, stopped drinking at 18, dont do this dont do that...but ask me what i want from kfc and ill say is it ok to have everything, should i have a shop sandwich before i go home for lunch, sure, why not...
If i could tap into what it is that stops me from stopping myself i think i would have the key. I have eaten for comfort, but it is true to say the biggest i have been (now) is at the same time that i am the happiest i have ever been. so comfort from what exactly?