‘I stopped comfort eating & LOST 6st’
After her brother died in a tragic accident, Zoe Podesta, 35, saw her eating habits spiral out of control…
Growing up, I was always the biggest out of my friends. I had a sweet tooth and although Mum would try and limit my snacking, I’d hide chocolates under my pillow and scoff them in secret. By the time I was 16, I was a size 16 to 18. I felt self-conscious and hated shopping for clothes.
After finishing college, I started working as a beauty therapist and in 2011, I had my son Jack and then my daughter Izzy, two years later. I broke up with their dad and it was tough being a single mum, especially as Jack was diagnosed autism and would get up several times in the night, waking up Izzy in the process.
I was sleep deprived and stressed and didn’t after look myself properly. Instead of cooking proper meals, I lived off junk food. For breakfast, I’d have a huge bowl of cornflakes and would snack on Belgian buns, chocolate, Pringles and cheese sandwiches before having a frozen pizza or Chinese takeaway. To try fight my exhaustion, I’d drink four litres of sugary cola a day and went up to a size 20.
In 2015, I met my partner Richard, now 41, who was super-supportive and got on brilliantly with the kids. Then, in September 2017, my world was turned upside down. My brother Jake was killed in a road accident when a tree fell on top of him while he was riding his motorbike. He was just 27. We’d been so close – we were more like twins. The grief from losing him totally broke me, and telling Jack and Izzy their uncle had died was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.
But instead of reaching out for help, I sought comfort in food and began eating around the clock. I was so ashamed of how much I was consuming that I’d throw away the wrappers and packaging in the bins outside, so that no one would see. At night, I’d get through whole tubs of ice-cream while watching TV with Richard. I kidded myself that as long as the children were well-cared for, my own welfare didn’t matter.
Then in December 2020, I was waiting at the school gates, wearing my usual black leggings and white vest. A little girl came running up to me. “Are you having a baby?” she asked, looking at my tummy. “No,” I replied, feeling my face flush with shame. When Jack and Izzy appeared, I managed to keep it together, but once we got home, I broke down in tears away in my bedroom. I was too ashamed to tell anyone and carried on burying my head in the sand over Christmas.
Then a few days into the New Year, I woke up one morning and decided to properly look at myself in the wardrobe mirror. I also weighed myself for the first time in years. At 5ft 5ins, I wei
