Oh my God. It's almost impossible to begin to tell you
how much my life has changed over the past eight years. To
go from being a mother of two toddlers who was so obese I
could barely squeeze through my front door to
"Australia's favorite diet mum," as the press
have dubbed me, with people all around the world following
my weight-loss plan is…unbelievable! I still pinch myself
every day.
When I first started on my weight-loss journey, walking
around the clothesline in my backyard, I weighed almost 300
pounds. I lost 150 pounds—that's actually a whole
person—on my own by devising a simple diet plan and walking
tiny laps of the clothesline in my backyard. No pills, no
potions, no gimmicks, no prepackaged meals, no points to
count. Trust me, I'd tried all of the fad diets so many
times I'd lost count, and none of them worked for me.
But this diet did. Why? I think it's because it's a
real down under diet—it's simple and straightforward
with no bulldust. I'm not a doctor or a dietician,
I'm just a mum who spent most of her life struggling to
get off the diet roller coaster. I finally did it by
following a simple diet I created myself, literally in my
own backyard. I'm not an educated person, but I made my
dream come true—and if I can do it, anyone can.
In 1999 I hit rock bottom. I weighed nearly 300 pounds and
my self-esteem was so low I often wondered if life was worth
living. I was disgusted with myself.
Normal day-to-day behavior that thin people take for
granted—like talking to friends and going shopping or, for
that matter, any activity that made me step outside my
home—became a terrifying ordeal. I had quite literally eaten
my life away. I could barely walk to the mailbox, let alone
play with my two toddler sons or try on a pair of jeans at
the local mall. I avoided playing with my kids because I
simply couldn't keep up with them; I'd have to lie
down and have a rest afterward. My poor knees felt like they
were crumbling under the weight of my enormous body. There
were days when I would do a load of laundry and actually
feel as if I were having a heart attack from lifting the
clothes into the washing machine—and I was only twenty-six
years old!
My house had become a physical and mental fortress. It was
the only place where I felt safe, away from the stares,
whispers, taunts and sheer disgust that overwhelmed me every
time I stepped outside the door. I hated having to get ready
to go out somewhere—my home offered me protection, and the
mere thought of having to face the world sparked an
unbearable anxiety for me. What was the point of making an
effort to do my hair, or put on some makeup when, in my
eyes, I was still the same ugly, overweight Karen no matter
what I was wearing.
Most women, as they go to leave the house, will have one
last look in the mirror to make sure their hair is in place
and their lipstick is right. I always had one last look in
the mirror, too. But not to admire myself.
I would turn to the mirror and spit at myself in sheer
disgust because I hated how I looked and who I had become. I
would stand there, staring at myself until the very last
dribble of saliva had run down over the reflection of my
face while tears rolled down my cheeks. I hated myself so
much, and I loathed the way I looked and felt. I had reached
the lowest point of my life, and I was drained of all
self-esteem. This was my routine every time I left the house.
My wardrobe was a constant source of depression. Sliding
back the closet doors to the racks of "fat" clothes
would remind me of the life I didn't have and, worse,
the life I did. All of the clothes were the same—straight
fitting, size 24 to 26, an array of bright colors and
patterns supposedly designed to disguise my weight. The
theory was that the bigger the shirts, the more they would
hide the rolls of fat bulging beneath, but in reality there
were few clothes that could hide my rippling roly-poly shape.
My ultimate nightmare was going out with my husband, Jason,
like a normal married couple. Hours before we were due to
leave the house, I would begin to worry about what I was
going to wear. Popping something on a few minutes before we
were due to walk out the door, like slim women can do, just
wasn't an option. I tried on each piece of clothing that
I peeled off the hanger over and over again, until
eventually I'd tortured myself so much and was so
frustrated that I would lie on the bed and cry my eyes out.
Nothing looked right, or felt right, and in the end I would
be so angry with myself for being overweight that I would
grab the first thing I saw and put it on, even though
I'd tried it on four or five times already.
The tears, the hatred and the anguish didn't happen once
in a while—this was how I lived all the time, every day.
This was what my life had become, and all because of my weight.
After the tears I would try to convince myself that I
didn't care what people thought. They would like me for
who I was, for my personality. But somewhere in my head,
eating away at me constantly, was the truth—I did care what
people thought.
The Courage to Change
All of this changed for me during a Mother's Day
dinner-dance in May 1999. I remember it as if it were
yesterday. I really didn't want to go, but Jason and my
children, four-year-old Brendan and three-year-old Ryan,
were so looking forward to it.
I dreaded walking into any room full of people and this
night was no different. All the mums in the ballroom that
night were so beautiful—except me. I felt so embarrassed
about the way I looked and, as we walked into the hall to
find our table, it felt like every pair of eyes in the room
was staring right at me. Here I was wearing something that
resembled a tent, plodding across the dance floor like a
baby elephant, desperate to get to our table so I could sit
down and hide myself. What I would have given for the ground
to open up and swallow me right then and there.
Aside from the sheer embarrassment, I was disgusted with
myself. Disgusted that I had gotten myself into this
situation. Disgusted that I was so big, and angry that I had
allowed myself to get this overweight. I couldn't
believe how fat I had become and I had no one to blame but
me—nobody else shoved food into my mouth, it was my own
fault. Dropping my head as low as I could so as to avoid all
of their faces, I sat straight down in my chair. I just
wanted to die.
This was supposed to be a night of celebration, so when the
band struck up and they invited all of the mothers onto the
dance floor with their partners, Jason grabbed my hand and
said, "C'mon, Kaz, let's go." He was only
trying to do the right thing, but I refused. It felt like
every eye in the room was on me, the fat girl.
Jason could sense I was upset and kept pushing me to dance,
thinking it would cheer me up. Feeling so guilty that I was
spoiling his fun, I agreed to get up, and as the band began
to play we took to the floor. We lasted half a song before I
made the excuse that I needed to use the bathroom and fled
from the crowd.
People probably weren't staring at all, but I felt like
the whole world was watching, and I was desperately
embarrassed. I just wanted to hide. I felt like I didn't
fit in. I was so uncomfortable dancing in front of people
that I had to get away. The restrooms were close to where we
were dancing, so I didn't have to walk past too many
people, and once inside, I could hide from prying eyes and
my problems would disappear for a moment.
I closed the door of the cubicle and sat on the toilet seat
for about fifteen minutes, praying to be taken home. I
stayed there for what felt like forever. The other women
must have wondered what was going on. There was a huge line
but I didn't care. I wasn't getting out for anyone.
I buried my face in my hands and rocked backward and
forward, blocking the world out of my mind to comfort myself
before I finally built up enough courage to walk back out.
I didn't look at any of their faces—I just brushed past
them all, went straight back to my chair and sat staring
around the room at the other mothers. All the mothers that
night looked so happy; they were smiling, laughing, having a
great night out with their husbands and families. After all,
isn't that how life is meant to be? They were the center
of attention on Mother's Day. It was their night to
celebrate, but I didn't feel much like celebrating with
them.
I spent a lot of that night just looking around the room at
all the other women, staring and admiring the clothes they
wore, how their hair was done so nicely and how beautiful
they all looked. Most of them were older than me, and yet
they were living the life I wanted to live. They looked the
way I wanted to look. They smiled the way I wanted to smile.
And here I was, twenty-six years old with two beautiful
children and a gorgeous husband, wearing a size 26: so fat
that I struggled to walk, carrying the weight of the world
on my shoulders.
As I looked at their faces, something inside of me clicked.
From that precise moment I knew I had to change my life. I
knew that I deserved to smile and laugh just like them. I
wanted to look and feel gorgeous, no matter what I had on. I
just wanted to be part of the real world and, most of all, I
wanted to live a normal life. No more huffing and puffing
and no more sadness—I wanted the life I'd never had.
People treated me very differently when I was obese;
they'd look at me with pity or laugh at me. I was never
treated as an equal and it destroyed me, slowly eating away
at my confidence.
Jason and I barely spoke in the car going home that night—my
mind was too busy dwelling on the changes I was going to
make. So many things were going through my head.
We got into bed and Jason fell asleep straightaway, but not
me. I lay there for hours wondering about the future I
longed to have. There was something stirring deep down
inside me—and it wasn't food! I knew that when I got out
of bed the next morning, the steps I took would be the first
toward a new me. My life was going to change—and it did.
The First Small Steps
I woke up at 7:00 a.m., got up and made myself a cup of
coffee. The kids and Jason were still in bed asleep and the
whole house was blissfully silent. I sat quietly at the
kitchen table, sipping my coffee, going over and reinforcing
my goals in my head.
Over breakfast I plucked up the courage to tell Jason about
my dreams.
"This is the day I'm going to turn my life
around," I told him, but he just looked at me and rolled
his eyes and said, "Here we go again."
I don't blame him—boy, hadn't he heard it all
before! His lack of faith was understandable because I had
tried to lose weight so many times I'd lost count. I
think there's barely a diet plan, weight-loss potion,
lotion, pill or gimmick that I haven't tried. The soup
diet, the water diet, the starvation diet! You name it,
I've tried them all, and I couldn't count the number
of diet pills I've taken. I hate to think now what all
of that was doing to my body.
But it was at our kitchen table that morning where I started
the journey that has changed my whole world and given me a
second chance at life.
I knew this time that I really had to change; I had to lose
weight. If I didn't I would die—I was dying on the
inside anyway and I didn't think I could continue to
face the world if this wasn't a success and I let
everybody down yet again. I had to make it work.
In my heart I really knew I could change and I could make
myself happy. It was just a matter of making it happen. I
was always smiling on the outside. I was happy-go-lucky,
"bubbly" Karen. I was the extrovert, always the life
of the party. Nobody could see how much I hated myself and
how much I was hurting on the inside. But a few seconds away
from people and I would be in tears, constantly.
It's amazing how much your mind controls you—until that
morning I'd never really allowed myself to believe I
could change my life. It was always in the back of my mind,
but I would make excuses for myself: "You're so fat
you don't deserve to be happy." And I would actually
talk myself into believing that I should be unhappy because
I had made myself fat.
When I started to believe in myself, it dawned on me that
for the first time, it wasn't my head talking, but my
heart. This was different from all the other attempts,
because the need to get my life back came from somewhere
deep inside. It wasn't a thought that my mind could just
discard, it was a desperate shift within my soul. It was
almost as if there was someone else inside me, telling me I
could do this, making me listen and not accepting any of the
excuses I had used before.
The feeling was so overwhelming that in some ways it felt
like my own angel from God had come to rescue me.