Undoing the bad habits of a lifetime

I'm currently studying Linguistics at university and I have been astounded by some of the case studies we have discussed. Without going into excessive detail about the "hows" and "whys" the upshot of what I have learnt is that if a child doesn't receive exposure to language by the time they are six years old, they will NEVER possess a grammar and will NEVER be able to speak sentences or make anything other than a 2 word utterance. Let me just re-emphasis this NEVER. No matter how much intervention or speech therapy is done later on in life that child will never be able to communicate or understand the concept of communication beyond the level of a 1-2 year old.

This is because the brain needs the positive influence of language to grow the areas of brain that facilitate speech and communication and after 6 years of age the damage is permanent.

This isn't a theory, it is a reality. A sad reality but it's the truth.

It ties in with a discussion I had about brain development with a friend last year concerning abused children and their brain development. These kids brains became hard-wired into certain responses that were impossible to change. With enormous therapy the child could trigger a fail safe to not physically respond in a certain way, but it would always be the brain's first response to react how it was hard-wired.

Anyway, what has any of this got to do with losing weight? Heaps. Some of us grew up in households where our parents taught us sensible eating for example, fruit for breakfast, plenty of exercise (as a preventative rather than a curative), low-fat, low-sugar foods, chocolate as a rare treat. Others grew up in households where "healthy" was making sure that children were given heaps of dairy, meat, potatoes and if junk food was around then it was okay every day, or every other day.

I grew up in the latter household, although curiously, my mother fed me the treats and my father took them away from me.

My first understanding of nutrition was provided by my friend Jennifer, who bought me a calorie-counter and explained that if I ate 1,000 calories a day (or less) that I would lose weight. Let's bear in mind that at that point in my life I should have been consuming about 2,400 calories. It was always going to end badly, and it did.

I have battled anorexia, bulimia, all sorts of diet and exercise fads, an abusive and miserably unhappy father, an over-indulgent mother and a grandmother who force fed us with the cries of "Think of the starving children in China" (No shit! She really did say that).

I grew up either stuffed or ravenous (from the self-starvation) and never, ever learnt about correct portion control and how to walk away from the table satisfied but not stuffed. My sister has, so I know that it's possible for our family to do it, but my sister also never got as enormous has I did.

To me, if I am not fully loaded I have this almost pathological fear that I am going to be starved and my brain tries to override my body . If I can get away from food for 20 minutes then I calm down and I can forget about it and be okay.

I am trying to undo a lifetime of bad behaviours and yet I still become so sad when I slip up and think that I am a failure because society thinks that I am if I can't get slim and stay slim.

It is impossible to explain to someone who has merely "struggled" to keep their weight within 5-10 kilograms. I know that it is a struggle for everyone, but when you are battling your own bad hard wiring which screams at you "eat this food before someone takes it away or before you have to diet again" it becomes a monumental life-obsession.

I think about food, diet, and exercise every waking moment of my life. I am literally obsessed by it. Earlier last year I would skip lectures to go to exercise classes and then panic when I couldn't get my study done.

I still have an eating disorder, I will have an eating disorder for the rest of my life. This is not me giving up, this is me accepting that I have spent much of the last 40 years fighting with myself about food.

I can put all the plans on the fridge that I want, I can work on motivation for the rest of my fucking life (and I can guarantee I have done more motivational, and goal-setting workshops than anyone who reads this post) but deep down I have hard-wired my brain to ignore satiety and to believe that I will always be a fat kid.

I have started seeing an eating-disorder specialist who works with severe cases of anorexia and bulimia and she told me after our first session that to have made it as far as I have without ever having had any professional help is a miracle. Apparently most people in my situation become extremely ill, die, or kill themselves if they don't receive help.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I want to say here to you today other than, I know that some of you think that I am weak and have no-self control. I picked that up from a few conversations in the past. So I'd just like to say this to those of you who do believe that I am weak-willed ...

I could have laid down years ago and given up, I could have let myself slide into obesity, or continue to binge and purge until I ended up without teeth and suffering osteoporosis, or I could have taken Speed to stay slim for the rest of my life, instead I chose to try to face this head-on and get help and work out a framework to support my mind and body and at least try to live a lifestyle that is 2nd-nature to you.

I'm happy for those of you who know when you've had enough to eat and can walk away from the table without severe feelings of deprivation. You're lucky if you have this, even if you've worked hard to keep it that way you're still luckier than the millions of people out there who cannot seem to master this "simple" habit that you do everyday.

I have not mastered this yet, but I am still trying, I am not weak.