We are not alone...

I read this article about childhood obesity on the BBC website today. Reading the stories of some of the people who contributed reminds me of some of the experiences I had in my younger (and not so younger) years:

• I seem to be one of the few people who enjoyed school dinners and quite often had seconds, especially of pudding!
• I received a lot of verbal relating to my size whilst I was at school, and that led to me being extremely miserable. I enjoyed my education, by hated some of the people I had to share it with.
• Once I got to university I discovered alcohol as a way to help me interact socially (believe it or not I've always been quite shy) and indulged frequently in fast food (the Pizza Hut buffet challenge was at least a termly outing).
• I left home to move down south for work and continued where I left off from uni in terms of my alcohol intake. I resorted to food as a comfort when I felt low or homesick, or simply had nothing else to do.
• I moved to a flat in Leeds and on 2 separate occasions was verbally abused in the street. On each occasion I was by myself whilst the offenders were with a gang of friends so had strength in numbers. I took comfort in the fact that I coudl lose weight, whereas they would always be morons.
• I had no reason to lose weight until I met my wife. Once we got together I had a reason to live and began enjoying my life again. I lost 1 stone in the year before I joined SW by changing my eating habits (in particular making sure I had breakfast every day and having a jacket potato for lunch).
• We joined SW to lose some weight for our wedding and I managed to shed 2.5stone.
• I slipped back a bit up to the end of the year, then started this blog and have fluctuated around the same weight for most of this year.

I know that I have issues with food - I resort to it as a comfort when I'm down or a friend when I've nothing to do. If I can shake that habit and get back into the swing of being a food optimiser then I'm sure the next chapter will see me at target weight living life to the full.