I’d been overweight all my life, probably; certainly, since I was a teenager; and, being from a farming family, I was always complimented on my “healthy appetite”. I always cleared my plate, and every other plate, too. As I got older, the weight just crept up and up, and any diet I ever did was short-lasting, and the losses were soon reversed.
I could see it in my clothes sizes, especially the waistband of my trousers. When I had to get a larger, 36”, waist, I remember saying to myself: “I won’t ever allow myself to go above size 36!” But I said the same thing when I eventually had to get a 38” waist, and then the same again when I had to get a size 40. It was demoralising!
It’s not that I was having take-aways every day or eating whole tubs of ice cream in one go; it was my everyday portion sizes! If I was having my standard dinner, there would be three or four potatoes on the plate: and if seconds were available, I always indulged. If I was just having a bowl of soup, I’d have four slices of bread with it. And my great love is cheese; I could put away any amount of it, accompanied by bread and butter.
I had to get a scare to really make me think. It turned out that my snoring, that my wife and children had been complaining about for years, was threatening my health. I was told, after seeing a respiratory specialist, that I suffered from chronic sleep-apnoea, which could adversely affect my heart and blood pressure, and I remember him saying: “You could do with losing a couple of stone”.
Luckily for me, at about that time, my sister had found LighterLife, and everyone marvelled at how well she looked afterwards. My wife soon joined LighterLife, and in no time was seeing, and feeling, the benefits. I decided it was time to get serious and do something that would benefit me for life, I owed it to myself and my family, so, to cut a long story short, I signed up with a LighterLife Mentor, and quickly began losing weight and inches, I lost 10lb in my first week which was so motivating.
Since losing 5st 3lb my waist has gone from a 40” to a 32/34” When you meet friends after a long absence, and they say: “You’re looking well”, it does one’s self-esteem no end of good!
My health improvements
I also undertook a sleep test, with a view to seeing the respiratory specialist again. A few days before the consultation, his secretary phoned to say that the results were so good that the consultant didn’t need to see me; whatever I was doing … keep doing it! Because of the weight loss, I had gone from more than 30 episodes of sleep-apnoea per hour … to less than one! The snoring is gone, too; I don’t get any complaints anymore!
