My name is Emma. I am a sugar addict. Well, ok my name isn’t really Emma, but for the purpose of the blog it’s going to be. This weekend seemed like a perfect weekend to start off my diary of a sugar addict as tomorrow I turn 25 and it will be ten years since I started on my journey through various diets and eating plans. All have failed.

Let me start from the beginning… When I was five years old, I was the skinniest, shortest girl in the classroom. How things went so disasterously wrong, I honestly don’t know. Did I eat a lot? Not really. But somehow I went from the smallest to the biggest kid in the classroom in the space of a few years. I was like any normal kid. I didn’t like vegetables. I loved sugar. Perhaps too much.

The years passed with my weight getting higher and higher. Bullying started pretty early in my childhood although I was never punched or kicked. It was always verbal. I guess if you ask the people now who used to pick on me if they were bullies they’d tell you they were messing about. But to me, the kid who used to cry herself to sleep at night, It was bullying.

My weight gain didn’t go unnoticed however. In primary school, I was taken out of a sex education class to see a dietician. Our new headmaster was overweight herself and saw me as a cause for concern. I saw that dietician once. She asked me what foods I liked, what foods I didn’t like then basically told me and my parents I was a lost cause. That hurt.

I ventured into secondary school a few years later trying to reinvent myself. There were so many new people to impress and for the first time in my life I was really showing an interest in boys. They, of course weren’t showing an interest in me.

It was when I was fifteen I decided to do something serious about my weight. I’d had enough of the taunting and looking different to everyone else. Ok I wasn’t the only fat kid in school but I certainly felt like it. I started eating breakfast, skipping lunch and instead filling up on a bottle of previously frozen water. For dinner I would eat whatever my family were eating which didn’t really include vegetables unless it was a Sunday! Don’t get me wrong my parents were not fat. They never forced me to eat what I did. I was fat because it passed through my mouth. No one elses.

After a few weeks, I lost a little bit of weight but starving myself during the day was taking its toll on me. I was ratty, tired and completely uninteresting in anything. So, I tried replacement meal milkshakes. I did this for a full year, doing an exercise video every day in my bedroom and taking more of an interest in physical education lessons. I was too embarrased to do sports with the other kids and regularly wrote myself sick notes to get out of it, but my teacher was understanding. She put me in a squash court by myself and a skipping rope for an hour each week.

I lost four stone over a year on milkshakes. I was finally getting into size 12 clothes which, for me was an achievement. I managed to stay the same weight until after I finished secondary school where things took a slight turn for the worse…

So where was I… right Secondary school. I had a few boys take an interest in me in my final years at school. I had my first kiss! I even looked fantastic at the end of school prom. I decided after school I was going to go to college and study computers. I was already a geek in the making and had met a number of nice guys online. I also met some freaks! I was chatting to one guy who seemed really nice and interested in me so I asked my parents if I could meet him. He was a few years older but they agreed as long as my sister came along with me.

I arrived at the train station eager to meet my new man. Then he walked up to me on the platform. He was hideous but he loved me. Now I know that is really mean of me to say especially being in my boat but I wasn’t attracted to him one bit. I was living in a fantasy world, attracted to tall, dark handsome strangers. He was short, fat and I eventually found out had a very small penis that he didn’t know how to use!

I stayed with him for four years. I didn’t think anyone else would ever love me! I got comfortable and gained all of the weight I lost back on. Secretly, I think he hated people looking at me as I used to wear mini skirts and we used to eat lots of high fat foods which went straight to my hips. I was still with him during college, but started talking to a few guys there who were showing an interest in me. The fat me I must add. One guy was really sweet but again wasn’t my type. He was very tall, skinny but he was a little simple on the conversational issues. He invited me to a party (One that I found out I was already invited to by family and was taking my boyfriend!) so I made my excuses and didn’t go. My mum said Adam was talking to her all night about how nice I was. If I remember rightly, I kissed him too.

Now don’t get me wrong I am not a slut. I’ve slept with 2 people, including my current boyfriend and my first. Both long term relationships. Whilst I was at college I made friends with a “popular girl”. She was on my course and seemed pretty bitchy but friendly so we started hanging out. To be honest I think she stayed with me because I made her look good. There was a boy on the same course as me but a year above who I started chatting to. He was VERY popular and did a lot of event organising for the college. I really liked him and I was a bit suprised to find out that he liked me – it seemed too good to be true, and it was.

We spent a week kissing, hanging about the college and spending a lot of time together. He had this rule – no kissing with tongues. I found this so odd, but I went along with it. All of the girls from my old school couldn’t believe he was with me. I was also still with my first boyfriend too – I know naughty! But I never slept with this new guy. That weekend I plucked up the courage to dump my boyfriend of 3 years. He was really upset. Moreso than I imagined actually and he phoned my parents to try and sort things out. He got on the next train down but I told him it was over and I wasn’t interested anymore.

The next day I met the “new guy” in town for some shopping. As soon as I got there, he said he didn’t really like me and he only did it to split me and my boyfriend up. I was right, it was too good to be true! I was devestated, got on the next bus home and cried my eyes out all the way home. I then, foolishly, phoned my dumped boyfriend and begged him to have me back. I didn’t want to be alone and I had come to the conclusion that no one would ever want me.

We stayed together for nearly another year but things were never the same. The one day, I met a guy online who I was doing design work for. He was really friendly! My boyfriend got jealous and told me I’d end up with him. Six months later and I was. I had a new boyfriend.

I lost a lot of weight, yet again to try and impress him before I met him face to face. We chatted for hours online yet I only showed him a face shot. We met that July and he spent a week visiting my family and I with his parents. I have to say I hated sex before I met him. That soon changed!

Let’s fast-forward six years. I moved four hundred miles away from my family and friends to go to university. I am still with my new man and I am currently 13 stone 12 lbs which is actually the same weight that I was when I was twelve years old!

I have decided enough is enough. I know there is more to life than being thin, but when you have grown up like I have with everyone telling you it’s wrong it puts an imprint on your brain to be perfect. To be honest even if I was a size 8, I would find something else wrong with me. One of our friends says I need to learn to love myself the way I am now.

So I’m starting this diary. I want to share the highs, the lows and the sugar cravings with you all. I’m not giving up sugar entirely but I am determined to lose weight, tone up and be healthy. That’s probably the most important reason…