I was obese and lost half my body weight by walking

I grew up as an obese child and having members of my family being obese, no one ever explained the implication of my status on my health, or how to make better eating decisions. Instead of having normal clothes my size, I had to put on medium sized adult jeans when I was only 13. 
 
Since other girls my age had boyfriends, I thought I do not get attention from the boys as much as I should. I also belong to a Turkish family and back then, nobody is going to marry a fat woman was a common mentality that we grew up with. I resorted to fasting to lose weight; today, I would not encourage anyone to do that but it worked for me and I shed some few pounds. 
 
By the time I got married as 21 to my husband Eyup, I was measuring 1. 90M tall and had slim down to a size 14. Once I was married I just started eating whatever I felt like eating. I had a relatively normal eating pattern up to when I gave birth to my first born in 2006 and that was it; my eating became worse and I began to gain weight rapidly. I could not shed the baby weight. 
 
It was hugely stressful and if only I knew my baby had special needs, I would have done something different back then. I resigned from my of insurance broker in November 2011 and things were, as I mentioned, worse. I felt as though I was locked in a room; I really did not know the problem with my son; I had no one to run to and where I reside I am alone since there is no family around. I resorted to taking food in a bid to make myself feel better. I did not possess a pair of scales, therefore I could not tell my weight, and would simply dress in whatever I deemed would fit me. 
 
I got pregnant again in 2011 and since I did not shred off the baby fat I simply put on more weight and during this pregnancy doctors said I was borderline diabetic. 
 
Over the period between 2011 to 2019, my weight had a tendency of rising steadily. My heaviest I was seventeen stone. I was not even taking proper meals; only taking snacks and usually the frozen food. I was able to exclude snacking from the general classification of eating thereby considering it as a different activity. Perhaps this is why in my head I was eating just once a day at most. 
 
I was so exhausted to even get up from the bed and cook something for my kids to eat. This got to a stage where I found it difficult to even look at myself in the mirror. Now I have to get changed in the dark. I was disgusted in the way I was, but if that is what it took for me to break free, then that was what I had to do. Since I did not know where or how to effect change I simply close my eyes ad continued living my life. 
 
After that I went on holiday alone and that was in 2019 to Cyprus. On the way back, as I mentioned, I was sandwiched in the middle of those two aisles. The ‘Measuring the Nation’ documentary featured me, and at the time I was 4ft 11 and 17 stone, so I ‘overspill’. 
 
This man got up and moved closer to me; he was very thin and I was extremely large meaning my silhouette was displacement most of him on the seat. He requested the air hostess saying, “I can’t sit here beside this fat person who is made to sit beside me, by infringing on my space. I want to change. ” Everyone heard. That was rather awkward. I realized I did not want to go through such feeling again, which forced me to act. 
 
When I came back, I focused on the possibilities of shedding some weight. In the beginning even 100 metres was difficult; I couldn’t physically walk. I required something for getting to know how to eat correct so I viewed Slimming World. In particular, it seemed easier because it did not eliminate pasta, rice and potatoes – so I sat down at the computer and applied. 
 
I was cooking fresh food every time and was not very hungry so I consumed less on snacks. To be precise, I was consuming three or four meals, and yet, I hardly experience the feeling of hunger. I was down from when I began, roughly six weeks to about a stone, and I decided it was time to incorporate exercising. The weight was just flying off so I just wanted to keep it off so that was my motivation. 
 
I wanted to know whether there were any exercise clubs in my area of operation, but all the movements appeared to be energetic and then, I could not perform a jumping exercise. Well, I had to begin somewhere; thus, I used my feet and started walking. I bought a fitness watch for myself, it can tell me how many steps I took in the day, it was around 1,300 steps. I wanted to increase this slowly The number of men that had only their needs met with their partners was higher in this group than the previous one. 
 
I made small goals. Initially, it was to get down to the end of my road, which would be half a mile at most, if not less. Then once I felt comfortable, I would up it. This actually had me go from no exercise for half a year to taking a 10,000 steps and it felt like a normal thing for the body to do. 
 
There was never a point that I felt like giving up, or wished to go back to the diet consisting only of crisps, chocolate and no exercise, because…I felt alive. Especially, for the first time, it drove me and gave me this real energy. I was seeing my body shape and wished I had maintained my figure, I was losing weight. In the first six months of my course I shed off six stone. Coming to the third month, the weight loss progress briefly came to a halt a little. 
 
When I was 9. In June 2021, I joined the NHS Couch To 5k app and it only took me 9 weeks to be able to run 5km non-stop. 
 
I remember seeing an advert for a Ramblers Wellbeing Walk during one of the Covid restriction’s easing up in April 2022. At first it was considered by me as an ethnicity organization because I was lonely, I wanted friends, I wanted to go out for a walk with somebody. However, my husband and all my kids however supportive did not accompany me. 
 
By this point, I was my goal weight of 8. 5st. I was physically okay and the only need that I had with the group was companionship. 
 
Since, there were no walk leaders for the Ramblers Wellbeing Walk, I volunteered to be a walk leader. Initially, the purpose of the whole proposal was to establish an environment to which people could come to, and should also inspire slow walkers like the old me into walking as an exercise, because it is not given enough attention. And you can do it with friends or alone if that what you prefer or if that is your desire. 
 
My walk community means everything to me like my own family does. There is one among them, who is slightly on the plus size of the scale and she always struggles to overcome her lethargy in the morning. Yes I can understand that but I think that what you said is great. And so Now I do a one to one walk with her.

I must admit, looking back at my past life, I was a complete and utter ghost. I was surviving but I was not living my life I was reduced to being a wife and a mother. 
 
I always slept on three pillows because I could not breathe as a result of this condition. Though now, I can sleep like a real person, not to mention breathing properly. I don’t get tired. In May I did 33km walk and next year I am planning to do 50km walk in wales. Well, I now can run up to half a marathon also I mean the distance because I have lived to increase my capacity of cover up of distances. 
 
Once upon a time we would go on holiday, and I would never step out of that hotel room and actually mingle with other people. It was just my husband doing all that carrying; for any activity was strenuous for me, especially when feeding the kids. 
 
There is one thing that I have told myself and which I won’t change, it is that I will never attain my previous weight. Now my thinking process becomes if I have to attend any place then I leave the car behind if the place is nearby and prefer to do walking. Earlier I would not be able to even consider performing any kind of activities, but today, I can perform activities thoughtlessly.