Dionne’s Weight Loss Journey

For as long as I can remember I had always been overweight, but when I think about it my journey stems from the age of 5. I was a child model being in plenty of magazines, photoshoots and adverts. The world was my oyster and even at such a young age I could have pretty much anything I wanted EXCEPT food. To continue modelling, the one thing that was monitored was the amount that I ate, nothing very strict, but I definitely couldn’t eat whatever I wanted. This continued until I was 10 when, as much as I was enjoying a successful career, I was starting to miss a bit too much school and as this was my first priority, the modelling ended.

Hallelujah, I could eat what ever I wanted, and that I did, and did, and did! Before I knew it I had gone from a sleek child size to an adult size 14 and just 11 years old. I started secondary school and began to hang out with friends attending chip shops every lunch time and sometimes again after school. Before I knew it at the tender age of 16 I had gone up to a size 22. I felt depressed, nothing fit and I was always known as the nice face but BIG friend. I started to take desperate measures to starve myself and when that was too hard because I was hungry I began to binge eat and make myself sick. Silly I know, but at the time it all seemed to be the perfect answer. Temporarily it worked and I went down to a size 8-10 but this was an unnatural quick fix that could never last. I knew if I wanted to have any kind of health or life I couldn’t continue, so decided to stop and try and do things the right way.

Slowly but surely the weight crept back on to a size 16-18 and there I remained until the age of 32 when I had my first son. Most people’s first thought would be the joy of creating a life, but my initial thought was how much weight was I going to gain and how was I going to get rid of it afterwards. Naturally I did gain weight and during my pregnancy developed gestational diabetes. This was partly hereditary but also quite a lot to do with my weight. I managed to give birth to a healthy baby boy but was under a lot of monitoring due to my health. I made a promise to myself that after giving birth, I was going to become healthy if not for myself then most definitely for my son. I stuck to my promise, fluctuating between a size 14-16 but over the years started to see a slight gain to bring me back to a size 18-20. 6 years later, aged 39, I found myself pregnant with my second son and already a size 20 – what had changed from all those years ago? My mindset! This time I didn’t care if I gained weight as long as I had a healthy child, but vowed to be mindful and sensible of what I ate. I once again got gestational diabetes but this time it progressed to type 2 diabetes which made me determined that once my second child was born that I would get back on track once and for all. After giving birth I was 17.5st and the heaviest I had ever been. My partner had spoken about us getting married but I couldn’t help having negative thoughts. Me, getting married in a wedding dress at this size – No Way!

He eventually did propose and assured me that he loved me at any size but I thought about my 2 boys, my health and just the overall feeling of how I felt. It was time to take some serious action. I looked into a gastric band but didn’t want to go down the surgery route. So I investigated other options and saw a programme with a man who had lost a remarkable amount of weight with a gastric balloon. You only had to keep in for 6 months and it was non-invasive, well there was no more to be said! I started to do my research, watching YouTube videos of patients, joining groups to ask others about their experiences and noting the pros and cons.

I eventually made up my mind that although it wouldn’t be a walk in the park, I wanted to do it. I contacted the Gastric Balloon Group who were really friendly and helpful in answering any questions. They were very honest in what to expect but I still wanted to go ahead.