The overwhelming pressure of it all was doing more harm to me and my mental health than it was worth (Picture: Naeemah Dudan)

I winced as the first needle went into my stomach.

Then, I had 19 more on my tummy, five on my arms and five on my chin – all in the same sitting.

A few moments later, I experienced a burning sensation in all the places I’d been pricked. My body felt like it was on fire.

I was undergoing injection lipolysis, which aims to eliminate the fat cells around the injection site.

It wasn’t your average way of losing weight, by any means.

Throughout the whole procedure, I just kept telling myself that the pain was worth it, as it was part of an effort to lose weight for my wedding in seven months’ time.

I desperately wanted to be thin, and pictured how I would look in my wedding dress after all this.

I’d already spent months trying to procure the perfect wedding-ready body because that’s what I thought society wanted me to do, right?

Back then, I didn’t realise that the overwhelming pressure of it all was doing more harm to me and my mental health than it was worth.

I first met my partner Mukhtaar in university, and we got engaged in February 2022 after two years together. The following week, preparations began for the big day.

And that’s when I knew that the race was on to lose weight. I had gained a lot of pandemic weight and wanted to shed it, to conform to some societal expectation.

I tried everything to fast track my weight loss. I was going to the gym at least four times a week and trying to eat healthy by eating fewer calories – which only made me feel hungry.

But as much as I tried, I felt like nothing was helping me lose weight and I felt awful, so I turned to some alternative routes.

I came across fat loss procedures on Instagram – I’d seen them come up on my ads a few times, but never thought I’d be one to click on them.

Since I wasn’t satisfied with the more traditional routes, I went for injection lipolysis.

I completely broke down (Picture: Naeemah Dudan)

These injections expel fat cells through bodily fluids such as sweat and urine. You’re expected to drink lots of water to make this happen and ideally you should see a reduction in the injected areas within around eight weeks.

Maybe I didn’t drink enough water or I needed more injections, which I couldn’t afford, but I still wasn’t happy with the results because I expected something more instantaneous, like a quick fix.

Then, I tried a lymphatic drainage massage, which involved various wooden tools that were used to ‘drain’ the water in my body. The massage targets your tummy and legs.

After one session, I still wasn’t happy with how it’d turned out. I felt extremely big around my stomach, where I hoped the massage would give me a flat tummy.

Fat freezing was my next option.

The first time I did it was a bit daunting, and I questioned my sanity. By this point, I felt like I’d turned into someone who hopped onto weight loss fads, which – to be honest – was exactly what I was doing.

During fat freezing, there’s a cup that suctions your fat in the desired area, so I chose to do my stomach. The cup then basically freezes those fat cells. It felt cold at first and then my stomach became numb. This was done for 30 minutes, every week for six weeks.

It wasn’t painful, just a weird sensation and a bit cold – but I still felt awful about my body afterwards.

The pressure on brides to lose weight is awful, outdated and just plain old mean

I think that my expectation of what these treatments were going to do, and what they actually do, is where the problem came in.

My mental health was dipping and I really expected an overnight change.

I spent around £500 on all of these treatments. Looking back, I want to scold myself on how I could have better used that money on something else.

Throughout all of this, I was under a lot of wedding pressure and stress unrelated to my weight loss.

As a result, stress was making me binge eat the foods I’d banned myself from having – a coping mechanism I often used when I felt anxious.

After each bingeing cycle, I felt worse than before. I felt like I’d failed myself and it made me more anxious and depressed. It was a vicious cycle.

At some point, I completely broke down. The pressure of losing weight to create the ‘ideal’ type of wedding body was just too much.

I cried to Mukhtaar, which was extremely cathartic. Throughout all this, he has been my biggest strength and support. He mentioned how he loved my body the way it was and if this is what I really wanted, hard work in the gym and good eating habits would make a difference but I had to give it time.

But it was hard to find comfort in this advice. When you struggle so much with your body, there’s a constant nagging shame you feel.

The day that I went for my first wedding dress fitting was daunting because I was worried about how my body would look in the dress.

But when I put it on, I needn’t have worried. I was surprised by how good I looked. The dress fit me like a glove, and my insecurities melted away.

At that moment, it felt like all the pressure I’d put on myself seeped away and it was as if there was a weight lifted off my shoulders. I felt good, and I looked good.

It wasn’t because of all the weight loss fads I’d tried, it was because – in that moment – I felt beautiful, and I was marrying the man I loved. Nothing else mattered.

The pressure on brides to lose weight is awful, outdated and just plain old mean.

When I walked down the aisle on my wedding day, I felt amazing, happy, like nothing else mattered. I didn’t think about my body or weight at all.

Months later, people are still talking about how great I looked and I keep thinking about how all that stress was for nothing.

To other brides, I want to tell you that you don’t have to lose weight or have the ‘perfect’ body to get married.

Our bodies do so much for us, and I think that we owe it to them to love it and embrace them – no matter what.

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I really expected an overnight change.