Eating in my sleep made me fat!
Wednesday 21st January 2009
As soon as I heard my son, Darren, calling me from the kitchen, my stomach lurched.
'Mum,' he shouted. 'Where's the Mars bar that was in the fridge last night?'
Suddenly, a horrible feeling of déj" vu hit me. I must have eaten it.
But the weird thing was, I didn't remember going to the fridge, putting the chocolate to my mouth, or throwing away the wrapper. Only when I spotted it in the bin, I knew I was the culprit and that I'd been eating in my sleep again.
As a child, I'd sneak downstairs in the night to pinch chocolate. Sometimes, though, I'd wake up in the morning and find chocolate crumbs on my pillow, even though I couldn't remember eating it. I'd never worried too much about it until one day, I was watching The Ricki Lake Show on telly.
'I'm a sleep eater,' a woman said.
I watched the tape of her climbing out of her bed, going downstairs, frying chips, then eating them.
'I'm not awake when I do it,' she told Ricki. 'I can't remember a thing in the morning.'
'That's me!' I gasped. 'I'm not the only one who does it.'
To be honest, I'd been so embarrassed about my problem, I'd never mentioned it to anyone.
There hadn't really seemed any need anyway, as the only evidence was a few crumbs on
my pillow or some wrappers in the bin in the morning. And despite my midnight snacks, for a long time, I managed to fit into my size 12 clothes. But after having Darren, now 11,
in January 1997, then his brother, Alfie, in September 2005, I got bigger and bigger.
By the time my partner, Mark, proposed a few months later, I was a size 22. Enough was enough.
With the wedding to aim for, I joined WeightWatchers and started keeping track of what I'd eaten during the night. It wasn't easy. But by checking the bin in the morning, and counting how many biscuits there were before I went to bed, I could work it out. Then, I'd eat less the next day to make up for it. And somehow, whether it was that, or the fact that I had the wedding to focus on, the night binges happened less and less often. So by the time I walked down the aisle in August 2007, I felt proud to fit into my size 14 dress.
Trouble was, after I took the dress off, everything went downhill. Loose skin and flab hung down like a massive piece of meat and my belly button swung off to one side.
'It's disgusting,' I moaned to Mark as we lay in bed one night.
'If it's making you this unhappy, let's find out about getting it fixed,' he said, giving me a cuddle. So I went for a free consultation with a cosmetic surgeon in nearby Maidstone.
Things were worse than I thought.
'You need a whole body lift,' he announced. 'Your stomach and midriff need pulling up a few inches.'
'How much would that cost?' I gasped.
'Around £9,000,' he replied.
I knew we couldn't afford that.
But when I found a company on the internet that arranged cosmetic surgery in Belgium for a third of the price, I showed it to Mark.
'This would be £6,000 cheaper,' I said, as I emailed them my details and some photos of my stomach.Within a couple of days, the surgeon phoned.
'I can definitely help you,' he said. 'A tummy tuck will cost £3,300.'
It was still a lot of money, but Mark knew how much it meant to me, so seven months later, I arrived at the hospital in Antwerp, Belgium. During the operation, surgeons sliced off the 7lb apron of excess skin, then stapled me back together, and created a new belly button for me.
When I woke up, my back felt sore, but even though my stomach was covered in bandages, I could see it was flat for the first time in years. Now, three months on, I'm back at work and loving my flat stomach. I still wake up to find I've raided the fridge in my sleep. But now I've got my body sorted, the next thing on my list is seeing a sleep specialist. With their help, I reckon I'll be able to beat the binges for good.