Help me...I have been trying to resist for so long....

I have come to terms with the fact that I have a problem.

I have been trying to give up for years. I can go for quite long periods of time reducing and doing without but I always fall off the wagon! And now as I approach my forties I realised that I have to do something and get it sorted for good.

I love food, no really love food. I enjoy just looking through cookbooks for fun. I experience a small high just looking at the photos and reading the list of ingredients!

But it is an addiction, I constantly think about what I want to eat, plan meals, if I am feeling down or I want to cheer the children up then I automatically think of food.

Cake and a cup of tea is my panacea, my anti-biotic.

The problem is I eat too fast; I inhale the food without tasting it so that when I have finished I want to eat it all over again just to taste it properly.

I know what Paul McKenna and all the other self-help gurus have said and 'yes' I do put my fork down between mouthfuls and count my chews! I have even trained the kids to tell me off when I am eating too fast.

Mind you this has been a lifetime addiction. When I was younger my lifestyle balanced the food I ate, I was naturally more active. It has been as I became a young adult and left home that eating became more out of control!

Loaves of homemade garlic bread, in the halls of residence; chips and cheese after the nightclub and cakes in crinkly paper trays, fresh from the bakers.

Add to that the fact that I have always put on weight in times of stress and I am doomed.

I am anxious and I eat. I am depressed and the food tastes like sawdust, I eat more to get a taste, to feel that taste bud high. Anaemic and lacking in energy, I eat hoping that I will get out of bed with a Popeye-spinach-induced' vault of energy.

As for childbearing! What joy being able to eat for two? Feeling that I couldn't refuse my tadpole anything and the urges, the flip in the tummy as I passed a bakery were my 'bean' saying I am hungry go on in!

So here I am, I have acknowledged my addiction. I have shared it with my family.

Small boy " Are you fat Mummy?"

Me " No I am not fat, that is not a nice word, I am overweight, which is not healthy so I am trying to lose weight so that I can be healthy."

Small Boy " Is that the same as fat?"

I have tried to wage a war on my appetite on my own.

I run but my knees and ankles are going to go on strike unless I shift some of the load.

I serve my meals on smaller plates. I cook healthy low fat dishes and Big Boy gets thinner whilst I...lets just say Jack Sprat and his wife!

I run, I run, me and Forrest Gump...but I still grow,it's the hidden mouthfuls, the crusts when I am making the packed lunches, the kids leftovers, the odd treat with the cup of tea, the late night snacks ( does it count after 9pm?

I knew I could not do it alone…and so I walked through the doors of Weight watchers (for the 4^th time) and got on the scales.

I am Jo and I love food…