I divorced in 2011, my choice, after 22 years together, lots of the later ones chaotic due to my ex who had become a functional alcoholic.
I rebuilt my life over the following 2-3 years and got myself into a good place both mentally and physically. O&M spent every other week with their hands-on Dad. In late 2015, the children's Dad moved 50 miles away, resulting in the children only able to see him at weekends and my ability to be able to have a social life and gym time went on hold.
In early 2016, our lives were turned upside down, when my children's Dad was diagnosed with 2 untreatable, advanced cancers and he died less than 3 weeks after diagnosis just as my son O was undertaking his mock GCSEs. To add insult to injury his step mother of 45 years forced me to pay half of my ex husband's funeral!
Six month's later the children's Grandma died followed quickly by my partner's Mum!
From late 2015 I had suffered terribly with digestive issues and an endoscopy and biopsy diagnosed me as borderline coeliac and an intolerance test then identified a number of food intolerances including: wheat, gluten, all dairy, eggs (yoke and white), lentils and cherries. My diet became difficult to manage with limited options for breakfast and every other meal seemed to be protein and salad but my digestive issues never eased.
In early 2017, just recovering from the previous year my adorable Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and over 6 weeks of daily radiotherapy followed.
Then in 2018 it was discovered that my Dad's radiotherapy hadn't worked and his prostate cancer had returned. His oncology team decided chemotherapy was his only route but after only 3 of the planned 10 sessions, Dad was admitted to hospital in September 2018 with sepsis and pneumonia where he spent over 5 weeks until my battle to get him home was over. At this point Dad was a former shell of himself, he'd lost so much weight, he was so weak, My mission at this point was to try and spend as much time as possible with Dad and try and give him some quality of life for as long as physically possible.
In the period from early 2016 to Summer 2019 I had comfort ate and my weight had ballooned. I was severely overweight, my sleep was poor, my energy levels were so low. A so called friend sent me a message whilst on holiday in August 2019 asking what had happened to me to which I gave them the reasons above and they answered 'that's just excuses, you're better than that'.
I returned from holiday in September 2019 and reached out to my Personal Trainer friend Edd to help me with my nutrition
