My personal journey and the knowledge I bring

I thought it might be a good time to properly introduce myself and share my journey so far.

When I turned 40 I weighed about 110kgs (242lbs) and was in hospital with massive gallstones. The doctor said my weight had contributed to the problem, so I knew it was time to finally do something more radical.

I had tried every diet in the book between the ages of 18 to 40, and had just got fatter and fatter over that time.

I visited a local surgeon to talk about surgical options. I took the option of a gastric band and lost 40 kgs (88lbs).

At the time I had also started studying counselling/psychology, and began to realise that many of my previous issues with food were psychological (I knew what I SHOULD be doing, but always seemed to self sabotage). I had a traumatic childhood, developed binge eating disorder, and many issues needed to be resolved from that time!

Once I had my degree I undertook further study into eating disorders, obesity and nutrition. I talked myself into a job with the surgeon that has fitted my gastric band and was now supporting other patients through the process.

I lived with the band for 8 years, then swapped to a sleeve gastrectomy as that seemed to be a much more 'livable' solution (IT DEFINITELY WAS!). That swap was nearly 9 years ago, so for 17 years now, I've maintained this smaller body.

I'm now 57 years old, I work in 2 multidisciplinary bariatric teams and I've coached thousands of people through surgery, and more recently started supporting people using one of the GLP-1 agonists such as Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro.

I have an award winning podcast called Change your Relationship with Food and I'm the Director of the Australian Centre of Eating Behaviour.

I have always wanted to build an amazing community of people who are willing to share struggles and triumphs with each other.

I'm so glad you are here!

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