From early on I used to be slim and it felt completely natural to me. As a child I naively thought that our weight and figure were given to us by nature. Someone is just born slim and someone else with a few extra pounds. And my reality was mirroring this belief, I could eat anything – a lot of sweets included – and was still slim. Calories and diets were completely beyond me. Until I got a hormonal treatment for a severe form of acne at the age of 16. In the course of 3 months my metabolism went completely out of balance and I put on 20 pounds of extra weight. The medication paradoxically harmed my skin and my acne got even worse. The extra pounds were bothering me, I felt bad in my own skin and the reflection in the mirror showing me a face full of pimples was increasing my feelings of sadness, frustration and powerlessness which I was trying to “eat away” with high-calorie foods. This led to a vicious circle of diets, counting calories and emotional binge eating. I was terrified when I realized how many calories there are in one small yogurt and how long I would have to run for to burn those calories. Of course, this was a wrong belief, but unfortunately it became my reality and I actually felt that I was gaining weight just from looking at food. I did not do any sports at that time and the only solution I saw was to cut down the calorie intake to a minimum. This worked and I was able to get back to my initial weight, but the price was too high and for the next few years I was wandering in a labyrinth of a slight form of anorexia. Until one day I said enough, I am done and I started to eat in a regular and healthy way, to exercise in a healthy way and to listen to my body. Over a period of a few months my metabolism gradually speeded up and now, years later, it is so fast that if I don´t make sure I have a sufficient calorie intake throughout the day I wake up hungry in the middle of the night, even though I ate 2 yogurts or a plate of honey-sweetened porridge before sleep as a “preventive measure” 🙂