A mum who developed an eating disorder after losing "baby weight" for her wedding got healthy again when doctors warned she was "digging her own grave". <br /><br />Ailsa Gardiner, 29, chose a wedding dress which was fractionally small because she was only six months postpartum.<br /><br />But by the time she got married she'd started to develop anorexia, and her dress had to be taken in.<br /><br />The stay-at-home mum battled the eating disorder for two years - eating just one meal a day and walking as many steps as possible.<br /><br />The mum-of-two wore baggy clothes to cover up her weight loss, and weighed herself three times a day.<br /><br />But after she collapsed while queueing to buy a coffee with her mother and two children, she asked her husband Richard, 36, for help, and turned her life around.<br /><br />Doctors warned she was "digging her own grave" and Ailsa realised she "wasn't prepared to not see my children grow up".<br /><br />Now in recovery, Ailsa from Balloch, Inverness, is happy and healthy.<br /><br />She eats the recommended amount of meals and says she never even checks the calories on foods. <br /><br />Ailsa, mum to Lucas, five, and Vanessa, four, said: "I was so unwell, but at the time I didn't see the severity of it.<br /><br />"Until the day I collapsed - that was when I first realised things had got out of control.<br /><br />"The night I told Richard about what was happening, I hit rock-bottom.<br /><br />"Calling the ambulance was a wake-up call - I wasn't prepared not to see my children to grow up.<br /><br />"The doctors told me if I didn't accept help, I'd have weeks to live.<br /><br />"My recovery wasn't all plain sailing and there were bumps in the road - it was exceptionally hard work.<br /><br />"I don't really think about calories now - but if I ever feel guilty about what I've eaten, I just remember how good it feels to finally be free and happy.<br /><br />"I've got my personality and my life back and that means more to me than anything."<br /><br />In January 2020, six months after giving birth to her second child, Ailsa went wedding dress shopping.<br /><br />When lockdown came around, the mum-of-two was furloughed from her job as a wedding and events coordinator - so put more attention on weight loss than before.<br /><br />She said: "I started going out walking religiously because I wanted to fit into the dress.<br /><br />"But it started to spiral out of control - by the time the wedding came around, I'd lost so much weight I had to actually get the dress taken in."<br /><br />At her wedding, she was still what is considered a healthy weight by the NHS, but was exercising excessively and restricting her food intake.<br /><br />Soon she was eating dangerously few calories and eventually weighed very little for an adult.<br /><br />She managed to hide the severity of her situation from her family, until in February 2022, when she collapsed while queueing for a coffee in Costa.
