The moment I knew that I’d finally run out of excuses about my weight, came in July 2010 at Papworth Hospital.  I had just been diagnosed with sleep apnoea; a condition where you stop breathing during the night.  For treatment I was issued with a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) device, which you wear overnight to keep your airways open overnight.  When the nurse had fitted the mask and left me to try and sleep in it, tears ran down my cheeks. Twenty years of failing to do anything significant about my weight had come to this.

When I say mask, this isn’t a little thing that pops over your nose and mouth.  A CPAP mask extends from your forehead to your chin, covers half your cheeks, has two sets of straps to secure it to your head, virtually vacuum-seals itself to your face and has a metre-long pipe to the compressor unit by the bed.  Trust me; I could go to a fancy-dress party convincingly dressed as Darth Vader’s sister.

A CPAP manages the condition and you can use it for as long as you like; but it doesn’t cure sleep apnoea.  Papworth made it clear that one of the best chances I had of eradicating it was to lose weight. At my heaviest I was 18st 7lbs and a dress size 26, but for most of the last twenty years I’ve hovered at around the 17st mark.

While I didn’t have any trouble using the CPAP and was getting a good night’s sleep, I didn’t like having to use it. Four months in, I decided that I would take Papworth at their word and lose weight. This time nothing would get in the way.

After many years of going to slimming clubs, I decided to do something different and opted instead for the Cambridge Weight Plan. When I said that nothing was getting in the way, I was quite serious.  Christmas, Easter and my birthday came and went and I stuck faithfully to the plan.  Yes, I did say Christmas.  I didn’t stop my weight loss for Christmas and you know what? It was still Christmas!  Father Christmas came, Jesus was born and there was still a load of tripe on TV.  “Oh I couldn’t possibly do that!”  Was the cry from many of my friends and true, I appreciate that it’s not for everyone.  But you try sleeping in a Darth Vader mask and the incentive not to fill your face with Toblerone is very great indeed.

It took me eight months to lose seven stone in weight.  If you can’t visualise what that looks like; it’s essentially Kylie Minogue.

On my return to Papworth I was re-tested and discovered to be sleep apnoea-free!  I handed back my CPAP, took a picture of the word ‘discharged’ written on my notes and left the hospital in tears - of happiness this time.  I’d never succeeded in losing weight before; but the incentive here was so great that it kept me going; even when I was convinced that I couldn’t possibly have one more shake or soup.

My weight has settled and I’m a comfortable size 12 now.  I’m learning how to manage myself and to make better choices than I did before.  If I should ever be tempted to let things get out of hand again, I know that in a store room at Papworth Hospital there is a CPAP device with my name on it...