The water had been cold for a long time, but I could not reach to turn on the hot water variety. I couldn't even move at all. I was stuck.
In the bathtub sandwich, my skin was pressed into the porcelain, every attempt to move left me out of breath when the tears of humiliation rolled over my washed cheeks. I should call one of the children to relieve myself from the bath.
How did this come about?
I was 35, worked as a financial planner and tilted the scales at 156 kg (344LBS or 24th). I was wearing size 28 clothing – the biggest thing I could find – but even they became tight. At work I made sure that I used a chair without an armrest so that I would not get stuck.
My obesity was got out of hand. On six feet long I had previously succeeded in hiding my body under flowering clothing, but there was no hiding anymore.
It was not only sandwiched in the bathtub – I couldn't wash myself well or tie my shoelaces because I could no longer bend. I was trapped in my heavy body and the daily tasks became impossible.
With my toughest I had been a single mother of three children for almost 10 years. My middle child, a boy, died after five weeks; Sadness and heartache overwhelmed me.
I had always struggled with a food addiction. I was born hungry, my mother would say. “You are just like your grandmother,” was the family trap (she had been obese). In my adult life I had experienced loss and divorce. While my life spirited, my weight did that too.
Kate Daniel, known as 'bariatric_chic' on Instagram, lost 70 kg in two years after surgery for weight loss. She maintains that the most important part of her journey was addictive sugar
On her heaviest, Kate tilted the scales at 156 kg (344LBS or 24th) and wore size 28 clothing
The soundtrack to the age of thirty was that I was in bed in the middle of the night and wanted to vomit. Some nights I wondered if I would live in the morning.
A more frightening thought was that my children had to become my carers. In my worst I felt disabled – I couldn't play with them, couldn't clean the house, couldn't walk up the stairs or see my feet, so I stumbled endlessly over.
It was not just the weight; It was the constant spirit chatter. I had a spirit as an addict: one bite of junk food was too much, 100 was never enough. I would have panic attacks if I had no food in the house that I would like to binge – cakes, chocolate, cakes. I bought caramel Tarts with family-sized, would be gorge at night when the children were in bed, followed by savory food, then sweet and then savory.
Then the fault, self -hatred, shame … I would get up the next day, buy more nonsense and repeat the toxic cycle.
Crème brûlée chocolate bars for family-sized, vanilla ice cream with ice magic … it was never about food, but the feelings that kept it. It was about all the emotion I suppressed – I had never felt good, smart or attractive enough and eating was my narcotic tool. Gorging on sugar was my secret addiction. I was powerless.
One day, in 2022, I was in a skin care clinic and I saw an advertisement for a center that treated obesity. They offered stomach shell surgery, which fell under the umbrella of 'bariatric surgery', surgery in which surgeons remove parts of your stomach to make it impossible for binge-eaters to have large portions.
I had just started a job in the railway industry. The fluro jacket did not suit me and I could hardly get on a train without lifting. The shame was too much to wear more.
That was my solution, I thought, and in March 2023 I underwent an hour -long stomach shelter surgery. Eighty percent of my stomach was cut out. The price was a little more than AU $ 20,000 (US $ 12,760 or £ 9,840). The recovery was remarkably fast.
Kate admits that they – and doctors – feared that her weight would crawl back after her stomach sleeve. But she was able to maintain her weight loss by completely cutting out sugar
Half a sip of water would fill me. I had to puree my food. Within a week I had lost 13 kg (28.7 pounds or 2nd). In just a few months, 30 kg (66.1 LBS or 4 stone 10 pounds). The weight glides off.
You would think that was my happy ending, right?
But I knew the reality: I predicted that the weight would crawl back within a year or so. The risk of stretching my stomach again was high. Doctors call the first weight loss of a patient the 'marriage travel period', but if your stomach stretches, it stacks back.
Depression started. It was only after my operation, I realized how much time I had wasted in my life thinking about food. The stomach sleeve had part of that sound to a quiet way – but not entirely – and now I was left with the empty space to feel all those painful emotions I had tried to smother with junkie.
It was one thing to physically change the size of my stomach, but just like an alcoholic alcohol, I longed for the medicine that I realized that I was addicted: sugar.
A few months after the OP I realized that my stomach shell surgery did not solve the underlying addiction to sugar. It limited my ability to eat too much, but did not deal with the emotional side of my habit, the way I had used sugar as an aid to numb emotions.
For those of us addicted to food, sugar is stronger than cocaine and the addiction is just as powerful and destructive. I couldn't eat that much, but I was still looking for a dopamine, hit, the immediate satisfaction that every sugary mouth would give me.
And so I dropped in a depression because I could no longer approach sweet food myself.
I had crazy recordings – headache, nausea. But it was the emotional roller coaster that I really struggled with. This was my Lightbulb moment: I knew that if I didn't treat the cause of my addiction, I would never recover.
Kate's skin also looks fantastic because cutting sugar, which is so harmful and addictive that she compares cocaine
I have done online research on how we use drugs – and I classify sugar as a medicine – as a way to dull emotions. So instead I allowed myself to feel the pain: I Journalled, I was nice to myself. I worked hard to sit with my feelings, to feel at ease to be uncomfortable.
I was determined not to re -introduce sugar in my diet, and the further away from the sugar I got, the better I felt. Clarity, control, energy, not always feeling tired, no guilt, no shame.
The longer I went without sugar, the better I felt. You would not tell an alcoholic to 'just try a little drink' after they have been sober for years. So why would I touch sugar again, a woman in obesity?
That was my turning point. Doctors had expected the weight to crawl back, even with the stomach sleeve, but within two years I had lost 70 kg (154LBS or 11th). I had proven them wrong; I kept the weight away.
Cheesecakes, cookies, smallness -I still eat them, but now all sugar -free with Stevia, a replacement made of the leaves of the Stevia Rebaudiana factory of South America.
Another replacement where I swear is my lasagne recipe. I have always loved lasagne, but now I make it with low carbohydrate wraps instead of pasta cells and mixed cottage cheese. Small swaps are so easy to do, so I never feel robbed. In the end, over time, the 'food noise' was silenced; The monkey in my brain had disappeared.
Stomach shelter surgery was the best decision I have ever made – but it was only half of my story.
If you are struggling, I want you to know how life -changing weight loss operations can be. But I would also emphasize that shrinking your stomach will not tackle the mental aspect of binge eating. If you do not tackle the reasons why you abused your body with junk food, you are destined to stack the weight back possibly.
There is a lot of stigma around weight loss operation. I tried to fight that by sharing my story on social media (@bariaric_chic) ​​and performing coaching courses that help other women. Yet I am opposed to trolls that say that I have done it in the 'lazy' way.
People judge very quickly, but the truth is that I have done so much work on myself in the last two years; The operation just gave me the space to do it.
After the desire for food was removed, I was forced to do the work to tackle the cause: the feelings. I have undergone the operation at the age of 36 and I still lose weight steadily at 38.
If I feel sad now, I will see friends or read a book instead of eating. It's not about running your emotions, but allowing yourself to feel them in a healthy way.
Recovery is not about replacing the food – although finding healthier substitutes is important – but reading how to feeling About food. If we cure the underlying issue, positive results follow inevitably.
That is why I am worried about Ozempic and other weight loss medicines. Unlike surgery, which only eats a physical limit for too much, I hear people talking about how Ozempic has magically eliminated their 'food noise' at night. I fear that millions of medicines use to restore their toxic relationship with food, instead of doing the required hard psychological work.
In my opinion, if you don't do the healing yourself, you are for life on Semaglutide. Instead of running away from the food noise, I stood frontally – and now I am free.
