Even weight-loss surgery couldn't silence the 'food noise' in my head. Then I ditched a toxic ingredient I had NO idea my body was addicted to and got my life back

The water had long gone cold, but I couldn't reach over to turn the hot water tap on. In fact, I couldn't move at all. I was stuck.

Wedged into the bathtub, my skin squeezed into the porcelain, every attempt to move left me breathless as tears of humiliation rolled down my flushed cheeks. I'd have to call one of the kids to ease me out of the tub.

Just how had it come to this?

I was 35, working as a financial planner and tipping the scales at 156kg (344lbs or 24st). I wore size 28 clothes - the largest I could find - but even they were becoming tight. At work, I made sure to use a chair without an arm rest so I wouldn't get stuck.

My obesity was becoming out of control. At six foot tall, I had previously managed to conceal my body under baggy clothes, but there was no hiding it anymore.

It wasn't just getting wedged in the bathtub - I also couldn't wash myself properly or tie my shoelaces up because I could no longer bend down. I was trapped inside my heaving body and daily tasks were becoming impossible.

At my heaviest, I had been a single mother of three children for close to 10 years. My middle child, a boy, had died at five weeks; grief and heartache overwhelmed me.

I'd always struggled with a food addiction. I was born hungry, my mother would say. 'You're just like your grandmother,' was the family joke (she had been obese). In my adult life I had experienced loss and divorce. As my life spiralled, so did my weight.

The soundtrack to my thirties was me lying breathless in bed in the middle of the night, wanting to vomit. Some nights I wondered if I would be alive in the morning.

A more frightening thought was my children having to become my carers. At my worst, I felt disabled - I couldn't play with them, couldn't clean the house, couldn't walk up stairs or see my feet so I was endlessly tripping over. 

It wasn't just the weight; it was the constant mind chatter. I had a mind like an addict: one bite of junk food was too much, 100 was never enough. I would have panic attacks if I didn't have food in the house that I liked to binge on - cakes, chocolate, pastries. I bought family-sized caramel tarts, would gorge at night when the kids were in bed, followed by savoury food, then sweet, then savoury.

Then the guilt, self-loathing, shame… I would get up the next day, buy more crap and repeat the toxic cycle.

Family-sized crème brûlée chocolate bars, vanilla ice cream with ice magic… it was never about the food but the feelings that came with it. It was about all the emotion I was suppressing – I'd never felt good, smart or attractive enough and food was my numbing tool. Gorging on sugar was my secret addiction. I was powerless.

One day, in 2022, I was at a skincare clinic and noticed an advert for a centre that treated obesity. They offered gastric sleeve surgery, which fell under the umbrella of 'bariatric surgery', an operation where surgeons remove parts of your stomach to make it impossible for binge-eaters to have large portions.

I'd just started a job in the rail industry. The fluro jacket didn't fit me and I could barely get on a train without being lifted up. The shame was too much to bear anymore.

That was my solution I thought, and in March 2023, I underwent an hour-long gastric sleeve surgery. Eighty per cent of my stomach was cut out. The price was just over AU$20,000 (US$12,760 or £9,840). The recovery was remarkably swift.

Half a sip of water would fill me up. I had to puree my food. Within a week, I had lost 13kg (28.7lbs or 2st). In just a few months, 30kg (66.1lbs or 4 stone 10lbs). The weight was sliding off.

You'd think that was my happy ending, wouldn't you?

But I knew the reality: I predicted that, within a year or so, the weight would creep back. The risk of stretching my stomach again was high. Doctors call a patient's initial weight loss the 'honeymoon period', but if your stomach stretches, it piles back on.

Depression set in. It was only after my surgery I realised just how much time I had wasted in my life thinking about food. The gastric sleeve had quietened some of that noise - but not completely - and now I was left with the empty space too feel all those painful emotions I'd tried to smother with junk.

It was one thing to physically change the size of my stomach, but like an alcoholic craving alcohol, I craved the drug I realised I was addicted to: sugar.

Several months after the op, I realised my gastric sleeve surgery didn't fix the underlying addiction to sugar. It limited my capacity to overeat, but didn't deal with the emotional side of my habit, the way I had used sugar as a tool to numb emotions.

For those of us addicted to food, sugar is stronger than cocaine, and the addiction is just as powerful and destructive. I couldn't eat as much, yet I was still searching for a dopamine hit, the instant gratification that each sugary mouthful would give me.

And so I slumped into depression as I couldn't self-soothe with sweet food anymore.

I had crazy withdrawals - headaches, nausea. But it was the emotional roller coaster I really struggled with. This was my lightbulb moment: I knew if I didn't address the root cause of my addiction, I would never recover.

I spent hours researching online about how we use drugs - and I classify sugar as a drug - as a way to dull emotions. So instead I allowed myself to feel the pain: I journalled, I was kind to myself. I worked hard on sitting with my feelings, of getting comfortable in being uncomfortable.

I was determined not to re-introduce sugar to my diet, and the further away from the sugar I got, the better I felt. Clarity, control, energy, not feeling tired all the time, no guilt, no shame.

The longer I went without sugar, the better I felt. You wouldn't tell an alcoholic to 'just try a little booze' after they've been sober for years. So why should I, a woman in recovery from obesity, touch sugar again?

That was my turning point. Doctors had expected the weight to creep back even with the gastric sleeve, but within two years I had lost 70kg (154lbs or 11st). I had proved them wrong; I was keeping the weight off.

Cheesecakes, cookies, trifle - I still eat them but now all sugar-free with Stevia, a substitute made from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana plant of South America

Another substitution I swear by is my lasagna recipe. I always loved lasagna, but now I make it with low-carb wraps instead of pasta sheets and blended cottage cheese. Little swaps are so simple to do, so I never feel deprived. Eventually, over time, the 'food noise' was silenced; the monkey in my brain had gone.

Gastric sleeve surgery was the best decision I ever made - but it was only half my story.

If you're struggling, I want you to know how life-changing weight-loss surgery can be. But I would also that shrinking your stomach won't address the mental aspect of binge eating. If you don't address the reasons why you abused your body with junk food, you're destined to pile the weight back on eventually.

There is a lot of stigma around weight-loss surgery. I've tried to combat that by sharing my story on social media (@bariatric_chic) and running coaching courses helping other women. Yet still I face trolls who say I've done it the 'lazy' way.

People are very quick to judge, but the truth is I have done so much work on myself over the last two years; the surgery just gave me the space to do it.

Once the desire for food was removed, I was forced to do the work, to tackle the root cause: the feelings. I had the surgery at 36 and I'm still steadily losing weight at 38.

If I feel sad now, I go and see friends or read a book, rather than eat. It's not about running from your emotions, but allowing yourself to feel them in a healthy way.

Recovery isn't about replacing the food - although finding healthier substitutes is important - but readdressing how you feel about food. If we heal the underlying issue, positive results inevitably follow.

That's why I worry about Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs. Unlike surgery, which only places a physical limit to overeating, I hear people talk of how Ozempic magically eliminated their 'food noise' overnight. I fear that millions are using drugs to fix their toxic relationship with food, rather than doing the hard psychological work required.

In my view, if you don't do the the healing yourself, you're on semaglutide for life. Instead of running from the food noise, I faced it head-on - and now I'm free.

• As told to Amanda Goff