Slimming banished tot blues
With the threat of diabetes looming, young mum joined Slimming World to help turn her life around. She’s now happier and healthier – with a new career into the bargain
SHEDDING more than six stones helped young mum Rachel Faulkner-Jones beat post natal depression and changed her life so much she’s made it her job to help others lose weight.
After starting as a Slimming World member, PhD student Rachel – who dropped from a size 20 to a 10 – is now a Slimming World consultant, helping more than 200 people who attend her five groups in Edinburgh.
She said: “I’d tried so many diets before, but this plan was completely different and is the only one that’s ever worked for me.
“I was really struggling with post natal depression when I joined and losing weight helped me massively.
“I began to feel better about the way I looked and the support I got from my own consultant and from other members helped me so much.
“It’s changed my life and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, so I thought, why not do exactly that?
“I wanted to give other people the life-changing support that I was offered as a member. What could be better than a job where you can change people’s lives?”
Rachel, 28, of Dunfermline, who is mum to three-year-old Ada, had always struggled with her weight. She’d been big as a child and her weight spiralled through her teens.
In 2012, when she was 22, she hit the gym and dieted for her wedding to university professor husband Alan, now 30. Rachel managed to get down to a size 14-16.
But after having Ada in November 2015, her weight crept up again.
Rachel, who’s also working towards a PhD in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, said: “I’d actually lost weight while pregnant with Ada because I had hyperemesis, which causes you to vomit excessively.
“But when I did start to eat normally again, the weight piled on. I developed post natal depression soon after Ada was born and I was using food as a crutch, comfort eating and having too many takeaways.
“I’m vegetarian but I wasn’t a very healthy one. I’d rely too much on pasta with butter and cheeseladen béchamel sauce. I’d also have lots of frozen pizzas and chips – I was eating all the wrong things.”
Severe knee and ankle pain meant Rachel couldn’t walk far and she struggled to bend over the bath to wash her baby.
More serious health issues were beginning to cause concern, too. Most worrying was a warning from her GP that she was pre-diabetic – at only 26.
Rachel said: “That was a massive shock. My GP was lovely and was trying to point out to me that I was facing medication within years, if not months, if I didn’t sort out my blood glucose and insulin levels. It was all down to my horrendous diet.” The final straw came in late 2016 when Rachel saw a picture of herself taken during a family visit.
She added: “My brother sent me a snap of me, Alan and Ada. I was utterly horrified. It was the first time I’d seen a photo of myself full-length since my daughter was born nine months previously and I couldn’t believe it was me.
“I think I’d been so focused on trying to get over the post-natal depression that my physical health had totally fallen by the wayside.
Rachel added: “I didn’t have scales at home, so I didn’t know how big I’d become. But I could feel myself getting larger and when I realised I couldn’t fit into my ‘fat coat’, which was a size 20, enough was enough.
“After that talk with my GP, I knew things had to change. A friend had lost 4st with Slimming World so I thought, why not give it a try? I went home, searched online for my nearest group and joined the next day.”
Rachel steadily lost 1-2lb per week and achieved her personal target of losing 6st 1lb in just under a year, dropping from her 18st 0.5lb starting weight to 11st 13.5lb. She’s gone from a size 20 to a 10.
Rachel’s weight loss journey was backed up by increasing her activity levels, too. In summer 2017, she started the 10-week Couch To 5K programme and is now a keen runner, with her first charity 10K under her belt and another one planned.
Her eating habits have changed hugely. Unhealthy takeaways have been ditched in favour of healthy home-cooked meals with lots of veg on the side.
Breakfast is Rachel’s favourite meal – she loves porridge with lots of fruit or eggs fried with low-calorie cooking spray on toast with melon or yogurt.
She added: “My breakfast keeps me full all morning, which means I’m not grumpy and absolutely starving by lunchtime.
“Running gives me loads of energy, too. I don’t have that awful problem of my legs rubbing together any more, I’m more flexible and stronger. My blood pressure and cholesterol are at textbook levels, as are my blood glucose and insulin levels.
“There’s not a shadow of diabetes on the horizon, which was my main goal all along.
“Losing the weight that I’d gained during the period of post-natal depression felt like I could finally leave that dark chapter of my life behind. I wasn’t physically lugging around the reminder of it on my body and I could finally reach a place of peace and forgiveness within myself.”
Rachel plans to finish her PhD thesis next year, but sees running her five Slimming World groups in Edinburgh’s Gorgie and Morningside as her main career.
She added: “I’ll finish my PhD, but I couldn’t imagine not running my groups now, I’m so passionate about it. It gives me such a massive boost to be able to help others in the way my consultant helped me.
“I shudder to think what state my health would be in if it wasn’t for Slimming World.
“I look in the mirror and like what I see and I feel I’m the best mum I can be for my daughter.”
There’s not a shadow of diabetes on the horizon, which was my main goal all along