So why AM I fat?

Since I am embarking on a new chapter in my life, one where I'm NOT going to be fat, I've been giving some thought as to why I gained so much weight in the first place. If I can work it out, I have some chance of being able to avoid getting there again in the future.

I was never overweight as a child - only very slightly plump. I did loads of sports, dancing and swimming right through till I left home to study aged 19. At this time I weighed about 11 stone. I'm 5' 8" and have a large frame so 11 stone is well within a 'normal' weight for me. While I studied I played volleyball, basketball and joined a caving club - so kept pretty active. It wasn't until I went on to do a Master's degree that I stopped exercising. For two years I just worked, worked and worked. I gained more weight and reached 13 stone for the first time. However, I soon lost this once I got my first proper job because I took up running as a hobby! I got down to 10 stone and 4 pounds without dieting because I was burning so much energy. Success continued until I badly injured my ankle and had to give up running. I then started to gain weight.

Over the next eight years I slowly but steadily gained weight and reached 17 stone by the age of 34. During this period I was moderately active. I went skiing once a year and occasionally went hill walking. I also was involved in Scuba diving (though this doesn't burn much energy) and swum once a week. However, I also worked long hours and got into bad habits of eating the wrong things at the wrong times. Horrified at my new weight high of 17 stone, I went on a low fat diet and got down to 13 stone again. However, nothing in my lifestyle had changed so I put it all back on again over a period of about 18 months.

In 2001 I started a new job - the one I have now. I weighed 17 stone when I started that job but again began a gradual but steady rise to 19 and a half stone over the next two or three years - the most I have ever weighed. Over the last few years I have yo-yoed up and down between 17 stone and 19 and a half stone several times.

Analysing that potted history it is clear to me that there is a common denominator in all of my periods of weight gain, and it's work. Basically, the reason I am fat is because I have put WORK far too high on my priority list. In fact for much of my life it has been No. 1 in my life. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my job. It has it's bad points and stressful times but on the whole, I wouldn't want to do anything else and I am very lucky to have the job I have. However, I need to learn a stark lesson: We work to live, we don't live to work. If I continue to live to work, work will kill me. Simple as that.

In the future (I am practising hard at this already), I am going to make my LIFE No. 1. That means my faith, my husband, my family, my health, my cats (!) and my home. Then, somewhere down the list, there will be my job. In the past, if I have had several back-to-back meetings scheduled from 10am till 3pm, I've attended them all, and survived through them eating crisps and chocolate for 'lunch'. If I have had a whole series of impossible deadlines, I've met them all, left for work at 6am, arrived home at 8pm, grabbed rubbish food along the way and picked up a take-away on the way home. If my boss has been looking for a volunteer, I've always put my hand up and said 'yes'. But the new me is learning to say 'no'. I'm learning to do the things I am able to do to the best of my ability, and put the rest on hold. The new me will opt out of a meeting if it means working through lunch. I'm learning that I don't get any extra respect by working myself to the bone and disrespecting my body. I'm learning that if 'x' or 'y' doesn't get done, nobody will die, but if I don't look after my health, I just might.