Vicki's best friend loved her and
stood up for her whatever her
size, even when she ballooned to
22 stone. But for Vicki, who had
to request a seatbelt extension on
board an aeroplane and eat her
meal at a slant because the food
tray wouldn't fit over her, it was
a different matter entirely.
Vicki Ellis, 33, a social worker from
Brighton, first became aware of her
weight as a teenager and by the time
she went to university in Lancaster to
study social sciences, it had really
begun to escalate.
The lifestyle - constant meals in the
canteen and full-fat lattes and cakes
between lectures, soon saw the pounds
pile on. Instead of having a simple
bowl of cereal for breakfast, she'd
have scrambled egg, beans and then
buttered toast with marmalade as well.
She'd always have a pudding with
lunch (apple pie and custard or a chocolate
brownie) and snack on a large bag
of sweet potato crisps or a king-size
Twix in between.
"I've always been a bit of a secret
binge eater," Vicki admits. "I'd go to
places like M&S and eat an entire
packet of luxury' biscuits or chocolate
covered flapjacks. Or I'd buy a box
of Cadbury's Miniture Heroes or
Celebrations and eat the whole lot. I'm
an all-or-nothing person and that's
why it has been so difficult."
See Vicki today, however, and she
is a different person. Having lost
ten stone in total - nearly half her
body weight - she is brimming with
confidence and feels she can finally
hold her head up high.
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With hindsight, Vicki believes much
of her problem stemmed from comfort
eating. By the time she moved to
Brighton, aged 24, she was 15 stone.
As much as she loved the city, she
missed her friends and family, who
lived in Yorkshire, hugely.
Her weight increased further after
the break-up of her seven-year relationship.
She met her ex at university
and they bought a house together in
Portslade in 1998. But, realising their
lives were going in different directions,
in May 2000, Vicki made the decision
to leave.
"He was attracted to me when I was
big and he loved me when I was big.
We were both very much in love with
each other but I made the right
choice," she says.
By the time the relationship ended,
Vicki, then 28, was 18 stone. Finding
herself suddenly single when all her
friends were settling down and having
children, made her feel even lower and,
again, Vicki resorted to comfort eating.
By 2002 she had reached 22 stone
and it began to affect her whole life.
One of the most humiliating episodes
being an Easyjet flight to Belfast.
"I had to ask for a seat belt extension
and eat my food at a slant because
the food tray wouldn't fit over my
stomach," she recalls. "I always felt
self-conscious. Even sitting on a bus
I used to think people were walking
past because they didn't want to sit
next to me."
As a football fan, she also dreaded
going to Premiership matches in case
she got stuck in the turnstyle.
"It's that apprehension - Oh, my god,
am I going to fit through?," she
explains.
In desperation, Vicki signed up to
Slimming World and two years later,
aged 30, she'd lost seven stone.
Then the pressure of a new job at the
Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital
saw the weight pile back on. As
a senior social worker, it was Vicki's
role to assess whether or not pregnant
mothers should be allowed to keep
their unborn baby. A lot of the cases
were high risk and the parents had
issues such as drug use or domestic
violence. "Ultimately you are trying to
keep babies safe from harm," she says.
"But the mothers were incredibly
attached to their babies and loved
them dearly, so it was never an easy
decision to make."
The pressures of the job gradually
began to wear her down. By the time
she got home she felt tired, stressed
and emotionally drained. The long
hours meant there was no time to
prepare an evening meal so she'd fill
up on bread and jam instead.
"The job began to take over my life,"
she says. "It just sucked a lot of the
resilience I had out of me."
To make herself feel better, Vicki
would sit in front of the TV and feast
on a ready supply of snacks. She'd tuck
into two bowls of Kellogg's Crunchy
Nut Clusters, chocolate brownies,
slices of buttered malt loaf and
a packet of Tesco Finest chocolatecoated
hazelnut biscuits, often on top
of a microwave meal or bread and jam.
By the time she reached 32, she was
back up to 20 stone again.
Vicki remembers once sitting on
a plastic chair at a barbecue party and
it collapsing with everyone staring at
her. On top of that she had to endure
constant snipes and cruel remarks
from strangers.
"Sometimes I'd be in a bar and
someone would comment on the size of
my bum," she says. "Then there would
be a combination of my friends feeling
really sorry for me and me trying
to laugh it off when, in fact, I felt
quite hurt."
Although she'd spend time on
making her hair and make-up look
nice, as soon as she caught sight of
herself in a window or mirror, it would
take it all away. "I'd just long to
be someone different, especially when
my friends all looked so attractive,"
she says.
Vicki tried all sorts of fitness fads
and extreme diets, to no avail. Step
class gave her headaches and even
a stock-pile of cabbage soup she made
got eaten by a friend's dog.
As far as shopping for clothes went,
for the past 15 years she was restricted
to two shops - Evans and Ann Harvey.
If she ventured anywhere else, she
knew she'd be limited to shoes and
handbags. "Whatever weight I've been,
I've always tried to make myself look
as attractive I can - but I'd never wear
dresses or skirts because I'd look like
the back end of a bus."
The turning point came when she
lost one of her best friends to cancer.
"He was one of my closest friends,"
she says. "His heart was huge, he had
time for everybody. He valued every
aspect of who I was, despite my
size, and losing him I felt I'd lost the
person who helped me feel confident
about myself."
Following his funeral, Vicki made
a conscious decision to change.
"I remember thinking I really need
to do this, life is precious and I am not
going to get my self-esteem back unless
I lose weight'," she says. The week of
the funeral, she made a call and signed
up to weight-loss programme Lighter
Life in June last year.
Unlike previous times, when her
weight had fluctuated, Vicki made
a vow with herself there was no going
back. "I was motivated, focused and
completely committed," she says.
The diet involved Vicki having to
eat four Lighter Life food packs a day
(including soups, strawberry milkshakes
and rasberry and cranberry
crunch bars), combined with four litres
of water. As the food packs had all the
necessary vitamins and nutrients,
Vicki also abstained from normal food
for six months.
Determined not to let her social life
get in the way, she pre-planned
everything - taking the food packs with
her on a trip to Barcelona and phoning
restaurants in advance to ask them if
they would make up the packs for her.
They were more than happy.
"I didn't allow my life to be a reason
for me to come off the programme,"
she says.
In addition to the weight-loss
programme, Vicki also made changes
to other areas of her life - she cut down
her hours by changing jobs (she
now works with parents who have drug
and alcohol problems) and signed up to
a body jam dance class at Moulsecoomb
Leisure Centre.
On top of that, she plays badminton
and has recently taken up Latin and
ballroom dancing. "That's definitely
something I wouldn't have done before
and I love it," she says.
She has also taken advantage of the
chance to buy a whole new wardrobe,
showing off her legs for the first time
and buying skirts, dresses and tops
that accentuate her curves rather than
hide them.
"The difference now, when I'm out, is
that I'm walking with my head held
high and making eye contact with
people," she says. "I don't think you're
aware, when you're big, just how much
impact it actually has on you."
With the help of Lighter Life
Counsellor Mary Kemp and the rest of
the class, Vicky has lost eight stone
in the past eight months. She was
20.4 stone when she started the
programme and weighs just 11.3 stone
today. She hopes to lose another half
a stone and then maintain a healthy,
balanced diet.
Tragically, her situation is not
uncommon.
Almost half of British women and
a third of men think their weight is
out of control, according to research,
which has also found the bigger people
are, the less control they feel they
have over other aspects of their life.
Although she is taking it one day
at a time, Vicki believes the key to
not going back to her yo-yo dieting is
understanding the reasons behind the
overeating.
"It's changing the way you think
about eating and developing selfawareness,"
she says. "When you can
do that, your confidence is enhanced
and you feel you can take on the world.
"Everybody knows why they overeat
and often it's because they're using
food to compensate for something
else. Unless you put the time and effort
into seeing what that something else
is, it will spiral out of control."
The fact Vicki is about to fly to
Thailand on a two-week break shows
just how far she's come. She wouldn't
have dreamt of lazing on a beach
in a bikini before and spent the
previous two visits in tears because
of her size.
"I can't wait to go," she says. "I'm
especially looking forward to sitting
on the aeroplane and not getting the
food tray stuck."
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