If you had asked me a couple years ago to share this story, I probably would have said no. Not because I don’t want to help other people, but because it was so damn personal to me. I was never the most secure child, I was never one to SHOW that I wasn’t secure, but I wasn’t, I was the complete opposite actually, and I felt that by sharing stories of things that had made me feel that way, I was showing weakness, I was contradicting the whole strong girl, loving herself, “idgaf” attitude that I show on Instagram. Truth is, it took me SO long to get that way, and this is only one part of it.

I was a pretty chubby baby, not fat but I had massive cheeks and a big face (please ignore the outfit it pains me to look at it too) but as I got older I lost A LOT of that weight. It’s not that I wasn’t eating, I ate A LOT, but for some reason I don’t know if it was metabolism or something in my genetics, I just didn’t put on weight.

At the age of around 14/15 I was super skinny, pretty much a size zero, at that time skinny was seen as pretty, so I got complimented on my weight and my figure, and because I wasn’t UNHEALTHY, just skinny, I never really gave my weight a second thought.

Fast forward a few years and I’m in college, I’ve started wearing makeup and dressing prettier, I’ve naturally become more self-conscious, girls have naturally become bitchier, and having “curves” was the next “in” thing. I had friends and even some family making comments on my weight constantly “Ewww you’re so skinny” “Ugh you have no curves” “You need to eat more” were some of the most common (please bare in mind I ate more than some men I know). Sure I was ALWAYS the type to tell them to shut their mouth, but inside it did get to me; I felt ugly, I knew I wasn’t ugly, but I FELT like I shouldn’t be looking the way I do, because I was being told left right and centre, that I was too skinny.

At first, I started layering my clothes, buying fleece lined tights, wearing thick leggings under my jeans, long tops under my jumpers, but it was uncomfortable, and I got way too hot, so I started forcing myself to eat more.

I would FORCE myself to eat when I was full, FORCE myself to eat things I knew had fat in them, I would search for things with the most calories and FORCE myself to eat them, I would deliberately eat late at night and go straight to sleep – honestly, it was disgusting. I’m talking 3 large sized burger and chips meals one after the other, a full Nando’s chicken with 3 or 4 sides, I would layer butter on my toast so thick and eat disgusting amounts of chocolate and sweets, fill my plate with massive portions of food so people would stop saying “omg is that all you’re gonna eat, no wonder you’re skinny” and start thinking “wow she eats a lot”, but because my body just couldn’t take that amount of food, I got sick, REAL sick.

At the time I was working part time too, so often I had force fed myself shit loads of food, ran to work, been on my feet at top speed all day, then got sick after a few hours and thrown up all the masses of food I’d just eaten. I didn’t force myself to throw up, it just happened, because I’d eaten way too much. I wasn’t bulimic, but looking back I guess it was some sort of eating disorder, and it definitely was NOT giving me the results I wanted, I was actually losing more weight instead of gaining it.

I was depressed, my self-confidence was so low, and so was my dress size. On one hand I wanted to be strong enough and love myself enough to not care what other people thought about my body shape but on the other hand I didn’t like feeling like I was some weird freak of nature. In all honesty it wasn’t even that bad, I was like a size 4/6, and it’s not like I was FLAT or even boney, my body wasn’t even fully DEVELOPED yet, I was a late bloomer ANYWAY, I was a TEENAGER, and before I had started force feeding myself, I was eating like any normal teenage girl, I was actually just small, but I couldn’t see that.

People who you think are close to you, making comments about something you are already insecure about CONSTANTLY, fucks with your head in so many ways. You don’t see what the majority of other people see, you end up seeing yourself in the most disgusting way possible and noticing every single thing about yourself that anyone could possibly criticise. No matter how many amazing people I had around me telling me I was perfect and I was beautiful, I didn’t see it, not even for a second, I was convinced they were just saying that to make me feel better.

Anyone who is a massive perfectionist like me, would know how disgusting you feel when someone criticises your work or you, because you strive so hard to be the BEST, you strive for perfection, “okay”, “fine” or “normal” is never ever good enough for you, and that’s exactly how I was. I didn’t have a massive problem with my body, but at the time, because SOME PEOPLE were criticising it, I felt like it needed to change, it needed to be perfect, no matter what it took.

I did some research and thought I would try a different diet, I downloaded a calorie control app, put in the weight I wanted to be and it calculated how many calories I needed to eat daily to get there, but it was a lot – I was already sick from force feeding myself and I didn’t want to go down that route again. I did a little more research and decided to make high calorie milkshakes every morning, it ended up being 1000 calories which meant for the rest of the day I could eat only slightly more than before and I should still put on weight. So, every morning without fail I would get out the blender, and make this shake from full fat milk, bananas, peanut butter, honey and raw oats, and drink it, EVERY SINGLE MORNING without fail.

The rest of the day I would eat normally but just choosing higher calorie and full fat options of everything, and it worked! I gained weight, a lot, & pretty fast too – I went from a UK size 4 to a size 8 in about 6 months. My thighs and legs in general looked so much healthier and actually filled out my clothes properly! I had to get new clothes because so many didn’t fit! Even my shoe size went up slightly from a 4.5/5 to a 5/5.5, my face was fatter too! If you scroll back up and look at the previous picture before this, the difference is definitely noticeable. The same girls who had been telling me I had no curves were asking me “what I do for my body”, and “if I work out”, and I thought that was it, I thought I was finally at a good place – but I was far from it.

For starters the milkshake started getting sickening, the first month it wasn’t so bad it actually tasted nice to me, then the second month I treated it like medicine, but by the 6th month I couldn’t even finish the whole batch because it made me feel physically sick. I had put on a good amount of weight by now and was no longer considered “skinny”, that wasn’t the problem, the problem was I obsessed. I thought that if I didn’t have this drink every morning, I would somehow magically turn underweight again, and it was depressing me. I was super insecure about going back to the way I had looked before, the obsession with the shake  made me feel like I wasn’t in control, and I HATED it. I was insecure, depressed, angry that I couldn’t snap myself out of this, DONE with people telling me I was being stupid and my body was perfect, and nauseous every morning. 

The problem with doing things based on the comments of other people, is that you will never be happy with yourself. Acting solely on negative comments from other people, will do nothing but affect you badly. You are changing yourself to try look better for a bunch of people who don’t give the slightest shit about you, your health or your well-being in any single way, and THAT is why you are still depressed. Your body could be the literal image of perfection in every possible way and that still won’t make you happy because you did it for them, and not for yourself, and that is always where the problem lies, I wish I had realised that sooner than I did.

I was praying a lot anyway but I started praying more, and researching a lot and I think it was during Ramadan a couple years back that I had this change in mindset, I DIDN’T CARE IF I WAS SKINNY. I am going to eat WHAT I WANT, WHEN I WANT, and if I end up back at a size 4 then I WILL CUT YOU WITH THESE SKINNY ARMS. So that is exactly what I did, I went back to eating exactly as I had been, before I let the words of poisonous nobodies affect me.

I stopped having the shakes every morning and just had whatever breakfast I felt like, I had regular normal meals, snacked on whatever I wanted in between, and made small conscious decisions to slightly increase my calorie intake; choosing full fat instead of low fat, keeping snacks in my bag at all times, nuts, cereal bars etc. eating SLIGHTLY larger portions of food slower and more often, but never forcing myself to eat anything I didn’t feel like, and not doing anything that didn’t feel natural to me.

Maybe it was because my appetite had increased or maybe because I was just feeling so much happier, I didn’t lose weight, I carried on gaining – much slower than I had been, but my weight was definitely still going up! My hips had always been a lot wider in proportion to the rest of my body, even when I was super skinny, but now that I was bigger everything was so much more in proportion, and I felt so happy! I was happy because I was eating what I want, I was happy because I wasn’t stressing about how I looked to OTHER PEOPLE, I was happy because I WAS IN CONTROL, and I was happy because I FELT GOOD.

The only problem was I did not have the healthiest diet, I was eating whatever I wanted when I wanted, which meant if I wanted chocolate cake at 2am that is what I would have, and eventually I  wanted the weight gain to stop. I was proud of the amount I had managed to put on, I was around a size 10 now, but I guess because I had been NATURALLY skinny before, too much extra weight just didn’t suit my face, I just wanted to maintain what I have now, and just be healthy.

I stopped eating late at night unless it was something low calorie that actually had nutritional value, I cut out SO much junk food, I stopped salting all my food all the time, cut down the sugar in my tea from 4 (yes I know it’s a lot I’ve heard all the jokes before) to 2 and a half, I had always loved fruit and salad but I increased the amount I ate, if I ever ate dinner after 10pm I would try make sure it was healthy and fresh and low carb. I was still eating what I want but I was being just slightly more disciplined, and it felt good.

I introduced some light daily work outs just to tone up parts of my body I felt needed it, and that is where I am at now! I am a size 8 now, and I’m happy, so SO happy. I eventually reached such a high level of not giving a f*** that the words fat, skinny, curvy, flat, boney, had no effect on me, I became deaf to those words and comments and it was AMAZING. I am a size 8 which still might be skinny to some people but MY happiness is all that matters to me, and yours is all that should matter to you. Sure, the morning shakes and the choosing high calorie options helped me get here, but it wasn’t until I changed my mindset, and I changed the REASON for me doing what I was doing that I felt truly happy with my body, and I wish I had someone tell me this all those years ago.

I wrote this only to help all you girls who dm’d me asking for tips, and only because when I needed help and I wanted to put on weight, there was no information out there for me, literally everything was about losing weight and honestly that just made me feel worse. But I also want you to make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, for yourself, because YOU would like to be bigger and not because some bitter hater has made a comment. You need to love yourself completely, you need to love who you are, your body and the way you look, fully and completely, before you start trying to make changes to “improve it”. When you’re so focused on another person’s image of yourself, you will ALWAYS make the worst decisions, you will ALWAYS end up choosing the completely wrong way to do things, and you will regret it.

Those weeks of force feeding myself made my stomach so weak, being sick constantly isn’t a joke. I still find it hard to eat large amounts of food, it STILL makes me sick even if I slightly over eat, something I never had a problem with before. I’m talking if I have one mouthful left in my plate, I can’t physically eat it, either because I will actually be sick, or because I am so mentally scarred from BEING sick that I can’t bare the thought of forcing myself to eat even one mouthful more. These stupid decisions we make have long term affects, we don’t think of them or even see them at the time, but they really do. We don’t even see the decisions as stupid at the time but they are, anything you do for the approval of other people will always be a stupid decision – you can quote me on that because I promise you it is the truth.

If you love yourself, and just feel like YOU, YOURSELF, would like to be a little bigger, then that is amazing and I hope it goes amazingly for you! I have written up the recipe for the milkshake below, and also a few easy substitutes and ideas that I had at the time that really helped me add extra calories into my diet. If you need any more help or have any questions please comment them below and I will get back to you asap. This was a super long post but I had a lot to say, I hope it was helpful in some way, at least for a few of you 🙂

High Calorie Milkshake Recipe:

Makes 1 serving

1 Pint full fat milk

2 Bananas

3 Tablespoons smooth peanut butter

Handful of dried raw oats

Drizzle of honey

Ice cream (optional)

Throw everything into a blender and blend for 1 minute until smooth.

Some other additional tips that really worked for me:

Disclaimer – I am not a nutritionist or a personal trainer, I’m just sharing what I did and what gave me good, quick results. Whether it is the best way to do things or not, I don’t know.

• Switch to full fat milk instead of skimmed or semi and try drink a lot of it.
• Eat more often even if it is just small meals.
• Do NOT force yourself to eat/drink anything, if you can’t finish the milkshake above then drink what you can and just try snack more and drink more milk or other high calorie drinks throughout the day to make up for it.
• Download a calorie control app to keep track of what you are eating, to make sure you meet your calories every day and get the results you want.
• Always have snacks with your tea (nuts, toast, biscuits, anything…)
• Keep food in your bag at all times, generally nuts or cereal bars worked well for me.
• Eat something as SOON as you feel the slightest bit peckish, hence the snacks in your bag.
• Order larger portions of food at restaurants or put more food in your plate than normal but eat it SLOWLY while watching TV or something so you actually end up finishing it. Sometimes it would take me an hour to finish my meal but at least I finished it!
• Invest in some good nut butter, my favourite was peanut butter and I used this on EVERYTHING because it was easy calories. I had it on toast, sandwiches, fruit, any time I wanted a snack it usually contained peanut butter.
• Whenever you have a craving for anything, GET IT. When you crave something you end up being able to eat a lot more of it somehow, so take the opportunity!
• And finally – WORK OUT. I know it feels like working out will make you lose weight but it is actually the opposite, it increased my appetite massively and made my extra weight fall well on my body instead of just being extra flab.

That is all and if I think of more tips, I will update the post.

Love you always!! xx