Perth, Western Australia June 9, 2007 Home News Time Out Letters Write a Letter Classifieds Search Real Estate Trades & Services Submit About Contact Us Advertising Legal	"They used to call me the fat girl" Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis was called a fat girl while at John XXIII College during the '80s but discovered how to lose the weight through her research in medicine. A teenage memory of being the "fat girl" at school, of desperately trying to shed kilos, led Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis to branch into a career in medical research and discovering how to keep the kilos off. The former John XXIII College student presented her findings in a book, called The Don't Go Hungry Diet. Last week she met students to tell them her story and donate her book to the library. Dr Sainsbury-Salis shares her experiences with other students while she signs and donates a copy of her book to the John XXIII College library. At her heaviest, Dr Sainsbury-Salis was 93kg, she was unhappy with starving herself and chewing on carrot sticks, only to go home and binge-eat. Starting as a normal-sized teenager, she developed faster than her friends, so she believed she was fat. "That's what made me start the yo-yo dieting, the starving and the erratic eating behaviour, which ended up with me putting on 40kg," she said. "I tried every diet imaginable, and although I'd lose a few kilos in the beginning of every new weight-loss attempt, eventually I'd stop losing weight despite doing 'all the right things' and I'd get really hungry and just give up and gain it all back again. "It was awful, especially when you liked a guy who never noticed you. "One of the boys who I had a crush on for years said to me one day, 'What happened to the beautiful slim Mandy we knew before?' and I went home bawling. "I went to one party and one girl took out a tape measure and everyone was beautiful like Barbies, and I was enormous. "I was often tired and hungry and I found it difficult to concentrate on my work because I was dieting all the time. "I suffered terrible depression, which just exacerbated the situation, so I felt bad and then I ate more." After finishing Year 12 in 1986 she was accepted at the University of WA to do a science degree with majors in physiology and biochemistry. Then she completed her honours in physiology and was accepted by the University of Geneva, Switzerland, to do her doctorate in medical sciences, specialising in weight loss. She studied natural chemicals in the body, leptin and neuropeptide and how it affects the way body breaks down fat. "I know from research that if you lose weight and then feel hungry all the time, it is the worse thing you can do. "It makes the body go into a famine reaction and reduces the metabolic rate. It's a survival mechanism. "But you can deactivate it by eating when you're hungry and eating enough to satisfy you, which switches off the famine reaction. "Through my book, I hope young people will realise that if you want to be lean and healthy, eating enough to satisfy your physical hunger is the key." Dr Sainsbury-Salis said successful weight loss resulted when a person worked with the body, rather than against it, by never going hungry. Putting her research to the test, she lost nearly 30kg and has kept it off for more than nine years. Do you have something to say? Write to us and we may publish your letter next week. BACK TO TOP < PREVIOUS - HOME - NEXT> Copyright © 1996 - 2009 Post Newspapers Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.