Weighing in at 35 stone, an embarrassing fiasco at a supermarket made a Suffolk man realise he desperately needed to lose the weight.
Glyn Woodward has now lost around 20 stone, despite doctors telling him he would need surgery to shed the pounds.
Scared of the risks of bariatric surgery, the 64-year-old joined a slimming group in his hometown of Needham Market.
He said: “At more than 30st, my life was completely dictated by my weight. I couldn’t walk without sticks or a wheelchair. To be honest, I had lost the will to go on, I had given up on life.”
Mr Woodward suffered from sleep apnoea, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and could barely leave the house.
He said an incident while out Christmas shopping with his wife Gillian was a turning point.
“Because I couldn’t walk unaided for more than a few steps, Gillian took me to the shops in my wheelchair,” he said.
“We hadn’t considered that there was an uphill stretch back to the car park though, so when it was time to head home, Gillian found that she didn’t have the strength to push me back up the hill to the car.
“The exertion of it actually caused her to have an asthma attack, and it was only down to the kindness of two passers-by that she was able to get me back to the car,” he said. “It was just such an awful experience.”
After seeking advice from doctors, he discussed surgery with his wife but decided against it.
“Eventually she convinced me to try Slimming World and so finally I took the plunge,” Mr Woodward added.
After seeing the benefits of eating the Slimming World diets with his wife and shedding several stone, he joined Nicole Beatty’s Needham Market Slimming World group.
“During the 12-week referral I lost almost 3st,” he said. “There was no doubt in my mind that I could continue on that journey and lose weight naturally. Nicole is incredible, she somehow made it possible.”
Three years later, Mr Woodward now weighs 14st 10½lbs. He said: “My life has been completely transformed, so much so that I’ve gone from a man who couldn’t walk around a shop to someone who has gradually taken up cycling as a hobby.”
Glyn recently came fourth at the Slimming World Greatest Loser 2017 Awards in London on May 16 2017.
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