A 21 stone man has lost over 6 stone after swapping fast food for homemade meals.
47-year-old Mark Smith told how a year ago he would struggle to breathe while climbing the stairs.
His wife Sarah would ask him to join the gym but he would say: ‘No thanks, you enjoy it.’
He felt ashamed for being the ‘cuddly dad’ in a family of fit women.
His wife Sarah would attend four gym sessions a week while her eldest daughter, Jodie, ran fitness classes and Emma won a national street dance competition when she was a teenager.
In 2017, he gained more weight after he visited a family grave.
Mark said: “On a family grave visit, I saw the marble gravestone had toppled over. When I tried to pull it up something gave way with a snap. An operation to repair my distal tendon, detached at the forearm, didn’t go to plan.”
“A nerve was trapped and I ended up with agonising radial nerve palsy and on strong painkillers. I was off work for eight months, watching endless TV and eating takeaways.”
He would eat burgers, pizza before the dinner, and became 21 stone.
Mark was finally told by the doctors he was likely to get a heart attack but he still couldn’t find the motivation to lose weight.
A year later, when a friend told him he was going to try Slimming World to lose weight for a friend’s wedding, he decided to give it a try.
He joined Slimming World in February 2019 and even went for a 2020 ski trip to Poland.
Mark started skipping meals and became weak and shaky to lose more weight. When he told this about his Consultant Kate, she told him to follow the food plan she suggested.
He said: “I got stuck into the plan properly, and in five weeks I’d lost 2st. Soon, I developed an interest in food I’d never had before. Fish became my favourite thing to cook at home and Sarah enthusiastically threw herself into preparing meals with me.”
He started eating homemade meals like salmon or cod with pak choi, kale, spinach, and rice and totally gave up takeaways.
He loved making burger and chips with salad, or a chicken curry with plenty of fresh chili and coriander.
For breakfast, he would eat poached eggs, beans, mushrooms fried in low-calorie cooking spray, and low-fat chicken sausages.
He also started attending weekend gym classes.
Mark said: “Cooking healthy meals and exercising regularly was really paying off, and I was beginning to look leaner. My mates certainly noticed, and started messaging me for meal advice and recipe recommendations.”
In October 2019, he finally lost 6 stone and now weighs 15 stone.
Now, everyone is amazed by his incredible transformation and his friends ask him about his homemade meals and Slimming World.
He said: I no longer felt like the Mark who made excuses not to join in. In fact, I felt 20 years younger.”
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