Obesity in the UK: These once clinically obese women regained pride in their …
Published: December 15, 2020
Believe it or not, these women were all once clinically obese. So how did they finally regain pride in their bodies?
By
Helen Carroll
Last updated at 9:28 AM on 15th December 2011
A quarter of British women are now obese, according to recent figures. Not only that but we are the most overweight nation in Europe. But what does it feel like to have fought back from obesity? Here, four women, all formerly obese, tell HELEN CARROLL what it’s like to become slim again.
Sam Jones, 37, from East Sussex, owns a commercial cleaning company and is a single mother to Oscar, six. She weighed 24 stone before having a gastric band fitted. She says:
At school, I was called ‘Fat Sam’, which is devastating for a little girl, but I just loved my food. I used to tiptoe to the fridge so my parents couldn’t hear, and eat chunks of cheese or ham.
I weighed about 18st in my 20s and then, when I was pregnant with my son, I gained an extra 5st that just wouldn’t shift.
The obstetricians told me I was obese and at risk of diabetes and pre-eclampsia during pregnancy. It left me sick with fear that something might happen to my baby, but he was born healthily. Afterwards I remember pushing Oscar along the street in his pram when some men travelling past me in a car shouted ‘Who ate all the pies!’ I went home and wept for days.
Sam Jones: Before 24st, size 30, left, after 11st 6lb, size 12
After that, I rarely went out and started internet shopping for groceries. I loved pies, pizzas, crisps, sweets, fizzy drinks and would get through around 5,000 calories a day. It was all comfort eating.
When I broke up with my son’s dad, he said hurtful things about my weight. His words were very painful but ultimately he did me a favour as they finally gave me the impetus to slim.
After he left, I lost a lot of weight through Lighter Life — which involves meal replacement shakes and one small meal in the evening — then put it all back on again. Stopping myself eating was incredibly hard because I was always hungry.
I’d lie awake at night rigid with terror that I was so obese I might die from a heart-attack, leaving my son without a mother. Then I’d creep downstairs and eat cheese sandwiches to comfort myself. By now, at 5ft 6in, I was tipping the scales at 24st and was morbidly obese. In desperation, I took out an £8,500 loan and had a gastric band fitted in February 2010.
Over the past 22 months, I’ve lost 12-and-a-half stone. With the band, I only have room in my stomach for a fraction of what I used to eat. However, I was left with so much excess skin I still couldn’t stand to look at my body in the mirror. My breasts were like huge dogs’ ears and I had over-hanging flesh on my knees.
So in October I paid to have a breast uplift and then in November a thigh uplift, both at the Harley Medical Group. Finally, I’m happy with my body and can even forsee a time when I get back onto the dating scene and meet someone new. More importantly, I’m fit enough to go rollerblading and cycling with my son and no longer lie awake worrying I might die and leave him.
Melanie Ryding, 40, a teacher, is married to Mark, 47, a cereal producer, and lives in Wellingborough, Northants. She weighed 15st 7lb and was a size 18 before going on a diet and training to become a Great British triathlete. She says:
Obese is such a horrible word. I was first described as such in my 20s, during a medical for a job. At 5ft 10in, my BMI (body mass index) was 36 (anything over 30 is classed as obese) and I recoiled in shame. By then I had developed asthma and a problem with my knee joint, which needed surgery, from carrying so much weight around.
I knew the solution was to eat less and exercise more, but high-fat food seemed to leap out at me from supermarket shelves. I lived on Chinese takeaways, pizzas and pasta — and hated myself for it.
Children I taught at school would shout ‘muffin top’ and other hurtful names at me when my back was turned. But I was so embarrassed about my size, I’d pretend I hadn’t heard.
Melanie Ryding: Before 15st 7lb, size 18, left, after 11st 9lb, size 10
Soon, I assumed everyone I came into contact with thought I was fat and ugly and my self-esteem fell so low I became depressed. By my early 30s, I felt suicidal. It sounds extreme, but I actually fantasised about taking my own life to end the misery of constantly thinking about my weight.
I was prescribed antidepressants and referred to counsellors, but it didn’t make me feel better because I was still fat. My husband was a great support, he told me I was beautiful and I knew he loved me.
Then in December 2005, I had an epiphany in the changing rooms at Dorothy Perkins when I could no longer fit into a pair of size 18 trousers. I was so disgusted with myself for gaining yet more weight that I decided in that moment I was finally going to slim down.
The first thing I did was register to run a half-marathon and join Weightwatchers. Incredibly, I lost 4st in four months. Having discovered I actually enjoy exercise, I then entered a triathlon, which involved swimming, cycling and running.
I hired a coach who recognised I had the potential to compete in my age group bracket as a Great British triathlete. I’ve been doing that for three years now. As someone who was once obese, I am living proof that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. And my husband is delighted, saying it’s like he’s traded me in for a sparkier, slimmer version.
Katie Robinson, 38, lives in Telford, Shropshire, with husband, Neil, 41, an IT worker, and daughters Aimee, five, and Cleo, two. Katie weighed 16st before going on a weight-loss plan. She says:
When I was 12 I was weighed at school and labelled the heaviest in the class. I was already very self-conscious because other children would call me ‘fatty’. It was so hurtful that now I find it hard to even say the word ‘fat’. I battled with my weight throughout my 20s, then when I was pregnant with my daughters, it really piled on. After my youngest was born I tipped the scales at 16st.
Being obese had a massive impact on my self-esteem. My health suffered, too, as I had a permanent bad back for which my GP prescribed anti-inflammatory tablets to help me cope with the pain. I hit a real low one evening when my husband and I had gone out for dinner and decided to book the restaurant we were in for my daughter Cleo’s Christening party.
Katie Robinson: Before 16st, size 20, left, after 11st 2lb, size 10/12
Cleo was almost a year old by then and the waiter looked at my stomach and asked when my baby was due. There was no music playing and the ten other people in the restaurant all heard him, and me explaining that my baby was already born. I was so embarrassed and wept into Neil’s jacket all the way home.
Around the same time I made the mistake of sitting down on my daughters’ plastic sandpit and crashed right through the lid. Neil took a photograph of me wedged inside. It made my family laugh but I felt sick and really sad that I’d grown so heavy. I then managed to lose a few pounds, through counting calories and exercise, before I started the Cambridge Weight Plan on January 3 this year.
My consultant told me that my first target was to get my BMI, which was 34, out of the obese range and into the overweight bracket. For ten weeks Cambridge meal replacements — totalling 415 calories a day — were my only source of nutrition and I lost four stone.
After that I increased my calorie intake to 810 a day, and by mid April, I weighed 11st 9lb. I craved toast throughout but was so desperate not to be obese, I resisted temptation. I’ve lost another half a stone since then, eating around 1,300 calories a day and exercising regularly. At 5ft 7in, I’m now delighted with my figure. This is the forever me — I’ve got rid of all my size 20 clothes because I’ll never be obese again.
Sarah Stinson, 50, is a civil servant and divorced mother-of-two from Bletchley, Bucks, who weighed 23st 7lb and was a size 30 before weightloss surgery at the BMI Chiltern Hospital in Buckinghamshire. She says:
I’d been overweight all my adult life but just after my 40th birthday, my GP told me I had type II diabetes, as a result of being obese.That should have spurred me on to lose weight, but over the next few years, I actually gained another couple of stone.
I’ve always been very active — walking, swimming twice a week and putting in lots of hard graft renovating houses — and somehow managed to delude myself that, even at 23st, I was fit.
The problem was I ate far too much because I never felt full.
Sarah Stinson: Before 23st 7lb, size 30, left, after 12st 13lb, size 12
I’d have cereal for breakfast, a sandwich and cake at lunchtime and a lasagne or mousaka ready-meal in the evening. But an hour after my dinner, I’d feel hungry again and raid the cupboards for sandwiches, biscuits or crisps.
I tried lots of different diets over the years, but always put the weight back on again. I have a successful career and can achieve most things I put my mind to, but my body felt like the one area where I just couldn’t take control.
Then in April 2009, with my 50th birthday looming, it dawned on me that I’d just existed, rather than fully lived, through my 30s and 40s. I wanted to see more of the world and do things I felt too big for before I grew too old.
Diets hadn’t worked so, after a year of consideration and research, I withdrew £12,000 from my savings and paid to have a gastric bypass. The first couple of months afterwards were hard, living on pureed food, but the surgery reduced the size of my stomach so I can now manage only half portions.
And over the past 20 months I’ve lost 10st and weigh 12st 13lb. At 5ft 9in tall, that means I’m a size 12 — which I never dreamed I would be. My first thought every day is ‘What shall I wear?’. It sounds trivial to anyone who hasn’t been obese but putting on skinny jeans and fitted dresses makes me genuinely happy.
Styling: Debbie Hamlin. Clothes: Marks Spencer, La Senza, John Lewis and L.K. Bennett
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I am 5’7 1/2″ and weigh 9 1/2 stone. I am a size 12/14. These women are lying about their sizes!
- Caroline, London, 15/12/2020 08:55 - people can never just say well done can they? maybe you are lying about your size just to belittle people who have recognised they had a problem and then did someting about it. if you dont have anything nice to say then dont say anything at all.
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I am 5′ 5″ and weight 9s 9lbs and wear a size 12. At my height over 10 stone 6lbs you would be a size 14. Good on you ladies for losing weight but you are all telling porkies me thinks.
- Peneth, England, 15/12/2020 09:14
I am 5’7 1/2″ and weigh 9 1/2 stone. I am a size 12/14. These women are lying about their sizes!
- Caroline, London, 15/12/2020 08:55
To both of you, I’m 5’4″, I weigh 10 stone 11lbs, and size 12 clothes are loose on me (10s are too tight though, I’m more like an 11, if such a thing existed). And no, I’m not lying about my size. Can’t you just comprehend that people are different shapes and carry weight differently?
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Well done ladies. So far I have lost over 1stone myself by changing my bad habits. No fad diets, just lots of exercise and healthy and balanced meals. Good luck to everyone else losing weight. It is worth it. I am 13stone (5ft7) right now and while I’m still overweight, I have never felt so happy.
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Good for them but the thing i can’t understand is why they are all posing in their underwear , particularly the teacher - think she’ll get more stick for that from her pupils than for being fat .
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@- jane, carentan, 15/12/2020 08:35 Well, it all depends on whether you have fat or muscle. Pre-Pregnancy [and my aim after pregnancy] is 11stone and at 5’9 it is still classed as unhealthy although I could wear size 10 comfortably from various high-street stores. This is regardless of the fact it is because I work out everyday and its muscle.
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What i find most interesting about this article is the ladies who lost weight through a sensible healthy diet have great bodies, lovely skin - and just sparkle with health. The ladies who have had the surgery don’t look so good as they have the classic loose skin problem ——— which happens when you have massive fast weight loss. The body cannot cope with such a fast loss of fat, they often look dreadful with rolls and rolls of skin. Bypass is not the way to lose weight i really do wish the medical establishment would reconsider its use.
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I hardly eat anything as I hate preparing cooking food. I have cereal at breakfast, a coffee Kit Kat for lunch, chocolate about 4pm a simple meal at 8pm, varies from small portion meat veg to just a can of soup a roll. Julie , Leicester ***NO wonder you are struggling!*** far to many calories! maybe if you did some exercise? look at ‘portion control’ as well. how much cereal for instance you defo need to cut the chocolate. try dried fruits - bit high in cals but better for you than choc
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“A quarter of British women are now obese, according to recent figures.”……..Sorry, but I think its closer to 50% or even higher. - Julia, Somewhere over the rainbow, 15/12/2020 9:25………………..Julia, a quarter are ‘obese’, but that doesn’t include those in the ‘overweight’ category. When you add the overweight obese categories together, then it is well over 50% (men as well as women).
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Can someone tell me how you can weigh 12st 13 and be a size 12? I am 5’5 tall, weight 10st 6 and I am a size 12 too! - Jessica, The Beautiful South, 15/12/2020 7:28
Easy at 5ft 9in tall she is 4″ taller than you. Also are you aware that the correct weight to height ratio varies by about 2 stone to allow for build? Another person at your weight and height could be a dress size up or down or even more. We are not carbon copies of each other! Why do women have to be so nasty to each other? Well done to all those ladies.
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I cannot beleive how idiotic and narrowminded the majority of these comments are. I am 5ft4″ and weigh 13st and I am a size 16, when I got down to 11stone I was a size 12/14. EVERYONE is DIFFERENT. Its no wonder we have so many young girls and women with eating disorders when even after losing so much weight and doing so well our fellow “sisters” are still the first to put the boot in and accuse them of lying. All the haters on here should be ashamed of themselves.
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