Exmouth slimmer losses more than four stone and shares story to inspire others

An Exmouth slimmer has shared her incredible weight loss journey to inspire others.

In 10 months and through two lockdowns, Jacky has lost four stone and is three dress sizes down.

Jacky has now told her story in hopes it will show others it can be done:

In July 2019 my nephew and his wife bought their first home. It was in need of a lot of TLC but my nephew, being young with lots of ideas for the old place, got my husband in to help him and I would go over to the new house with lunches, walking the 1.5 miles between us with the dogs.

In December when I was on my way over, I was about halfway when I was getting out of breath and started getting pains in my chest with breathing heavily, I knew it was connected to my weight and decided it was time to take action.

So after chatting with my nephew's wife who was a Slimming World member I went along with her for the first group meeting in the new year at Ali Burford's Exmouth group, January 2020.

I was amazed at the amount of food you can eat. I had never heard of food optimising and speed foods, so it was a whole new world for me.

Reading through the new member pack I started cooking and eating healthier foods. No longer did I cook things with sauces from jars, instead I started cooking our favourite meals from fresh produce, and from scratch.

Three weeks in and I had lost half a stone which felt great. Staying to group helped as I started learning more and more about food optimising, and what it meant to change something high in syns for free food when snacking between meals.

I enjoyed the taster nights and the group support from other slimmer's. Then for the whole country life changed as we went into lockdown, with the coronavirus.

Then we started with the Zoom group meetings and still I seemed to be getting it right as I was losing weight each week, I even won Slimmer of the Week and Slimmer of the Month for March.

I started doing more walking with my young dog as we were allowed an hour's exercise per day.

To start with I would only walk for about 20 minutes, but as I kept losing weight I was able to increase our time out and we can now walk for up to an hour and a half, covering more than miles, not only has it been good for me but the dog is much fitter too! So soon I got my bronze Body Magic Award and then my silver.

Also during lockdown I found new hobbies, as I started enjoying gardening, managed to get hold of some tomato plants, cucumber plant and even a couple strawberry plants plus brought some seeds to grown on and plant out in tubs, and now I have brought myself a greenhouse and I have started growing my own lettuces from seed, we have various fruit trees in the garden too, it not the biggest of gardens but enough to enjoy.

As I have enjoyed the garden and growing my seedlings I plan to do lots more next year. All this is because I am eating and enjoying salads and other fresh vegetables so much more than I used to.

My husband also wanted to lose some weight, so we have been cooking and eating together, and we have both been losing, more than five stone for him now!

By August when we were back in group I was picking up my three and a half stone award and more Slimmer of the Month award for August and my gold and platinum Body Magic Awards.

By the middle of October I got my four stone award, so I treated myself to some new jeans, three sizes smaller than I was just 10 months ago, this is one of my proudest things, I wouldn't of believed it this time last year.

I have tried losing weight many times in the past but never seemed to work or I couldn't stick to it, I think it's different this time as the food you can eat is just normal food, I enjoy the meals and the variety you can have.

I have made so many different recipes like making my own BBQ sauce that is free of syns and more enjoyable than the ready made ones.

Now we are back into lockdown again because of the coronavirus, I am still keeping up with my daily walking, my gardening has changed to sweeping up leaves (good for body magic) more than harvesting produce and most of all I am enjoying my cooking of meals, and as the weather has turned colder I'm enjoying trying new recipes. One of our favourites is beef in red wine from the recipe book 'Take 5 second helpings'.

Slimming World has truly changed my life in more ways than one, as I have osteoarthritis in my knees and I was having injections every six months for pain but I haven't had one at all this year as losing the weight has taken the pressure off so reducing the pain 100 per cent.

I feel fitter and when I look in the mirror I see a whole new me.

At the start of my journey I decided I wouldn't tell my sister and brother that I was going to Slimming World I would wait until July when we were going to have a family get together and surprise them with the new look me but unfortunately the coronavirus changed all that and we didn't get together so instead when we were due to meet I posted on Facebook my achievement and it made me feel so good to say I had lost three stone, in six months.

I still have about six pounds to lose to reach my target but I may well set another when I get there, before the year is out would be nice.