I’m so sad I can’t stop binge eating

DEAR BEL,

I am a single mother of three, 51, single for ten years and extremely obese after years of emotional binge eating. For the sake of my health I need to lose a lot of weight but I simply cannot do this. I never go out (very low income) and don’t see friends as I’m either working or looking after the children — one disabled, all under 13.

I detest the way I look, feel repulsive and ashamed. My family think I’m greedy and selfish for not losing weight. Food addiction followed years of alcohol addiction, which began after suffering two traumatic sexual assaults in my teens. I suffer from anxiety and depression but cannot afford therapy.

The problem is, I eat when stressed or low (most of the time) and use food to help me through each day. What I actually need is a hug from someone who cares. I’d love the safety a loving partner can give but know I’ll never have it looking like this.

I get very anxious about my future if I can’t change things. I want to be here for many more years for my children and my parents (mid-80s) who’ll soon need more support. People ask why can’t I lose weight for the sake of my children, and I feel guilty and inadequate when yet again I fail. Please can you offer advice?

LINDA

YOu ask an impossible question — since you answer it yourself: ‘For the sake of my health I need to lose a lot of weight but I simply cannot do this.’

That’s a thundering negative — so here’s some tough talking: if you are so utterly, absolutely determined that you ‘simply cannot’ tackle your chronic weight problem, then why are you bothering to write to me?

Ah, but there’s a change of tone at the beginning of that last paragraph, with that hopeful word ‘if’. I felt like cheering when I read, ‘If I cannot change things’ because there you open the door to possibility, suggesting that the issue is still something that can be worked on. That’s where we have to start.

You describe a sad, stressful past. All of us should be aware (and I do mean ‘should’ because there’s now so much information about obesity) that people usually over-eat and become chronically obese through struggling with mental health or other problems, when food and/or booze becomes a crutch.

How many of us say, when tired or fed up, ‘Oh, I need a drink’? I certainly do. So people might withhold easy, quick judgements and look at their own lives first.

Having said that, I sometimes notice people’s supermarket shopping trollies and want to weep. You’re hard up, Linda, but I wonder how much money you spend weekly on junk (meaning fatty, processed or too sweet) food. You know the truth, don’t you?

I understand you can’t afford therapy, but you know quite well that you need to start your very own ‘treatment’ by looking ruthlessly at your food shopping, for your own sake and your children’s health too.

Are they also overweight? You want to stick around for them and for your elderly parents, therefore there’s no choice but to call time on killing yourself with food.

It seems easy to say diet and exercise are key. But it’s the truth, even if extremely hard. You can either continue as you are (which would be terrible), or acknowledge that plenty of people with issues as chronic as yours DO manage to lose weight and start new lives.

There’s plenty of free advice online. Look at nhs.uk/livewell/healthy-weight/start-thenhs-weight-loss-plan. Read through everything and make some notes.

Of course you won’t go jogging any time soon, but you can make yourself walk a certain number of steps, increasing them each week.

You can buy a pedometer for less than a tenner. And take a can of beans in each hand and start lifts until you’re puffed. Get one of the kids to help with exercises and make it a game.

There’s also a lot to read at verywellhealth.com/copingwith-obesity-4690812. I suggest you give it some time. Also look at weightmatters.co.uk/onlinetherapy-online-counselling.

Start a food diary, because listing everything (to the last biscuit) can encourage change — through a bit of a shock. It would be marvellous if you could get a family member or friend to go shopping with you. It has to start somewhere, Linda. Don’t blame your past; take charge of your future.