DON'T TELL ME I CAN'T… …love my curves

After a lifelong battle with her weight, Lizi Jackson-Barrett has embraced her body

- FIONA KINLOCH

Wriggling into a pair of jeans that had once perfectly complemented my slender frame, I quickly realise they now won’t even make it past my thighs. I can only imagine that most women would be distraught to have gone from a perceived ‘ideal’ size 12 to a size 22 in the space of two years, as I have, but it doesn’t faze me in the slightest. I spent decades loathing the way I looked and striving for ‘perfection’. And though at my heaviest weight yet, I’m happier than ever.

My tumultuous relationship with my weight began as a child. Unable to say no to crisps and chocolate, by the time I was 17, my 5ft 1in frame would only fit into size 16 clothes. I envied my slim friends and, desperate to be just like them, joined a weight-loss programme. While I initially shifted a few pounds, I gave up after a few months and resorted to my old ways, piling all the weight back on. And what followed was a twodecade-long cycle of yo-yo dieting and fluctuating weight.