Callander mum celebrates huge weight lossstirnews(2009/11/3 17:50:03) 点击:
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212.* * * CALLANDER housewife and mum-of-four Joan Cronin found it hard to lose baby weight with kids running around the house.
But a serious health scare made her determined to get to grips with the issue.
Now she’s lost almost four stones and is celebrating after being named a finalist in the Scottish Slimmer of the Year competition.
The 41-year-old said: “My weight crept up gradually after I had my first baby Callum, who is now 12 and then Liam who is now 10.
“As a result I weighed 15 and a half stone before I became pregnant a third time, when I actually lost weight because I was carrying twins.
“After Aidan and Fraser were born four years ago my weight went back up again, although I still didn’t think of myself as overweight. I kept insisting that clothes sizes were smaller than they used to be, rather than me being bigger than I used to be!
“I tried to lose weight but it was difficult with kids in the house and pregnancies.”
Joan said it took a serious health scare in 2006 for her to finally take action about her weight.
“For six weeks I had double vision and felt weird and my tests revealed that I might have Multiple Sclerosis. My doctor stressed that, if it was MS, it might well have been a one-off episode but it was very, very upsetting.
“I was terrified it would return and my kids would end up with a mum who couldn’t do anything with them, especially as my husband is only at home at weekends and works away during the week. I asked my GP how I could reduce the risk of further episodes and he said the best thing I could do was ‘lose a little weight’.
“My sister recommended Scottish Slimmers so I found a Scottish Slimmers class in my area that fitted in with when the twins, who were two- years-old at the time, were at nursery.”
With the help of Scottish Slimmers class manager Denise Feist, Joan was able to change her eating habits..
“Suddenly I was eating so much better and so much healthier. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything or that I was dieting. If anything I was eating more than I used to and because I was eating the right amounts of the right foods at the right times my weight quickly started to drop.’’
After only nine months Joan had lost three stone 11 pounds to reach her target weight of 11 stone six pounds.
In the two years since she has successfully maintained her weight and is delighted to report there have been no more episodes of double vision or “weirdness”.
“Obviously there’s no way of guaranteeing that, if it was MS, it won’t return. However, thanks to losing all this weight I feel healthier and stronger and I’ve not felt so good about myself since I was in my 20s.
“Shopping for clothes is one of the definite bonuses of being a size 12 instead of a size 20. It used to be such a struggle to find something new to wear, but now it’s fun.”