I was too ashamed to go out Now I’ve lost 10st and my l has begu
STARING into the mirror of the changing rooms on a rare clothes shopping trip with her mum in the summer of 2017, Lucie Hadley burst into tears.
She was just 19, struggling to fit into a size 24 and already feeling like she’d wasted her young life.
At 19st 3lbs, she weighed the same as her age – and didn’t have the confidence to do anything her fellow teenagers were doing.
She’d pulled out of girls’ holidays, stopped going on nights out and was even embarrassed to hold her boyfriend Sam’s hand in public.
But now all that has changed – because Lucie is literally less than half the woman she used to be.
Now a trim 9st 1lb, she loves nothing more than dressing her tiny size 8-10 frame in slinky dresses.
And last summer she wore a bikini for the first time in her life on a Spanish holiday.
“I have lost 10st 2lbs and feel like a completely new woman,” says Lucie, now 21. “I missed out on all the fun and excitement my teenage years should have been – going on nights out and on holiday – because of my weight.
“So I didn’t want to ruin my adult life by being obese.”
Lucie, a teaching assistant for special needs children, realised just how awful her life had become shortly before her 20th birthday in August 2017.
ASHAMED
She had been living as a recluse, scoffing her favourite junk food because she felt too ashamed to go out.
Her friends started asking what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday – and she realised the answer was nothing.
“Finding something to wear, then getting the confidence to go out, and then hearing remarks from people when I finally plucked up the courage to go out was too much,” says Lucie.
“Strangers would make comments about what clothes I was wearing and how they didn’t suit me and weren’t flattering.
“My friends eventually stopped asking me to go out with them because I would always just say no or come up with an excuse.
“From the age of 17 to 19 I practically didn’t go out at all and I rarely went clothes shopping. I had lost all of those years. I didn’t have any life experience.”
Lucie’s weight had started to creep up throughout her teenage years after she was diagnosed with asthma.
It fuelled her appetite and she remembers losing all self-control. “Food was like a blanket for me, a comfort,” she says. “It never let me down. Whenever anything went wrong, food was always there for me.
“The times when I did go shopping and couldn’t fit in anything, I would go to Mcdonald’s afterwards because I would feel upset, and then the whole vicious cycle would start again. ”
Lucie, who is 5ft 7ins tall, didn’t even have the self-confidence to meet her boyfriend Sam’s friends and family.
They stopped holding hands in public because Lucie struggled to keep up with
19st Lucie couldn’t face going shopping for clothes his walking pace. “Sam has been through this whole process with me and it just means so much to me now that he can be proud of me as his girlfriend,” she smiles.
Now, over the space of 14 months, Lucie has done everything she has always dreamed of.
Not only has she been on holiday with Sam’s family, she loves going to adventure parks, no longer worried she won’t be able to get involved in all the activities.
Sam’s friends even joke that he’s got a new girlfriend.
“It feels like we’re in a new relationship, like our relationship is just starting now – it’s so great,” she says. One of her biggest inspirations to lose weight and change her life was her mum Catrina’s own successful weight loss at Slimming World.
She had shed three and a half stone and eventually managed to persuade Lucie to join a local group.
Within her first week at the Paston and Gunthorpe club in Peterborough, Cambs, Lucie had lost five pounds and was over the moon.
“I was clearly the youngest person there,” she recalls. “I was terrified walking through the doors, but my mum was with me every step of the way. I was just so embarrassed that I was so young and I had let myself get that big. It was so upsetting to get on those scales and see how heavy I actually was.
“But everyone was so friendly and put me at ease straight away.”
GOAL
As her self-confidence rose, her weight went down. Her original goal was to lose six stone, but then when she had shed that she aimed for eight, and then she just kept on going.
“I found myself thinking, ‘Oh, this really isn’t too bad’
“Slimming World taught me how to adapt some of my favourite meals, such as fry-ups, burgers and fish and chips, meaning I could still eat them
I was 19st and missed out on all the fun my teens should have been
– so it didn’t really feel like a diet at all. It didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.”
That’s one of the reasons Lucie has found it so easy to avoid falling off the wagon, even at Christmas time, by opting for healthy versions of her favourite festive treats.
She’s also taken up exercise, which has been another learning curve.
“I didn’t exercise at all throughout my weight loss, and my excess skin really hindered me going to the gym as I got a lot of sores,” she explains.
“So me and Sam go on lots of walks to improve my fitness levels.
“Generally, I can just be more active in my day-to-day life now. I don’t get ou Sa at th
re fo w h su
Sp an in
ge an ri