Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
What looked like big bean bag was my leg
Slimmer tells how shock pic inspired her to lose 10stone
A MUM lost half her body weight after seeing a photo of her son on what she thought was a bean bag but turned out to be her leg.
Lauren Hinchliffe had ballooned to 20st and the picture shocked her into taking action.
The 30-year-old ditched her daily diet of fast food takeaways, chocolate and crisps for pasta, salad and fruit. And over the next 10 months she lost 10 stone.
Lauren said: “I had some photos taken and I was looking through them and I noticed one where my son looked to be sitting on a bean bag, but then I realised he was actually sat on my knee.
“I thought he would be starting school soon and I didn’t want to be the overweight mum taking him there.
“I knew I had to do something. I started to lose weight on my own at first but eventually I started to struggle.
“My sister said she was going to Slimming World so I thought I would give it a try.”
Lauren, who has sons Ben, four, and Christopher, 17 weeks, with husband Alex, 30, admitted she put off going for a couple of weeks. But she added: “I was
making so many excuses and then I just said, ‘You know what, I’m going’.”
And after her first visit she lost half a stone in just one week. Lauren, of Sheffield, added: “I was not eating breakfast at all previously. I was grabbing anything ready made, takeaways.
“Now I eat a lot of pasta. The whole family absolutely loves pasta and we do all sorts of things with it. I can’t begin to explain how amazing I felt after losing the weight. Little things, like I actually started to check my reflection in the mirror for the first time in a long time.
“It has also made me realise just how bad my mental health was as well. I never used to leave the house, apart from to pick up my son from nursery once a week. Now there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not outside.”
Lauren became a Slimming World consultant after shedding the pounds in 2019 and now runs three classes a week.
Mum Zena, 59, joined up after seeing the change in her daughter and has since shed almost four stone.
Lauren urged anyone struggling with diets not to give up. She said: “It has made such a difference to my life.”