I’ve always struggled with food and eating it and then eating too much of it and always the wrong kind.

When I was a child there was very little I could eat or would eat and I infuriated my mother. I was a fussy eater and nothing was good enough for me in her eyes. Nowadays it would be recognised that I had what became Disordered Eating.

I was so skinny and undernourished that there were serious doubts about my lifespan. I can remember our GP telling my mum if I didn’t begin to eat properly then I would die. I was put on Complan which was a meal replacement drink associated with, back then, old people.

I survived (obviously) but it’s only for a short time that I could be described as thriving. All through my teens and early 20s I didn’t eat because my mother constantly harped on about how poor we were. I thought if I ate less then our income would stretch further. It would have stretched much further had she spent less on clothes and make up.

Then I moved to Bristol and became a full time drinker for six years and stopped only when I was brutally informed that if I didn’t sort my lifestyle out I’d be dead within two years. As you can see I sorted my lifestyle out.

Then I began to eat and became a decent weight but of course there was no happy ever after. I met a man who decided I was all skin and bone and that I needed to put on weight. He was a feeder whose manipulative behaviour led me being twice the weight I was at my thinnest. Later, whilst under the care of an amazing psychiatrist, I learned that I had Disordered Eating which is the stage before a specific eating disorder emerges.

I got down to being not too overweight but also not in a comfortable place about it.

Fast forward to eight weeks ago. Having had a series of falls, I bought a rollator and due to feeling “wobbly” my GP suggested that I always carry a snack with me (I chose protein bars) so that if my blood sugar dipped and I began to wobble then I could unwobble myself.

It has worked to the point that not only has my walking and balance improved I have lost weight in a steady an healthy way. I’ve just had to buy some clothes in a size smaller than I’ve worn in years.

Here’s to being healthier and wiser.