Never in a million years would I have believed I’d lose 140 pounds [64kg]. I’d been big my entire life. My family were in the food industry and there was always food around. I’d eat adult-sized portions as a child and, age 10, I was wearing adults’ clothes. By 17, I was a size 18 and bigger than all my friends, but it never bothered me. I grew up in Australia, played sport and was always confident. Someone could say, “You’re fat,” and I wouldn’t care.
My mum told me that big is beautiful and my weight was hereditary, so I just went about my life. ‘In 2010, aged 24, I backpacked round 25 countries in seven months to get to the UK, then ran out of money. My plan was always to travel back home, so I got a job in recruitment to start saving. Working in the UK was a drastic change from life in Australia. I’d gone from being quite active to spending most of my time indoors. My only exercise was walking to and from my car and up stairs at work for cigarettes. I was always eating. I had two desserts at night, and could eat a packet of biscuits in one sitting. If I had a burger for dinner, I’d want pudding, too. It’s like I had no threshold for feeling full. I went up to a size 26 in four years and weighed 280 pounds [127kg].