We kept it th in the family to beat bulge
A RELATIVE SUCCESS!
A DAD and daughter duo have lost more than 13 stone between them during lockdown. Jonathan and Charlotte Howes decided they'd had enough of hating the way they looked. They piled on the pounds by snacking on chocolate and biscuits which left them both overweight, unfit and miserable.
Charlotte, 22, said she was so unhappy with her size 20 frame that she watched herself eating chocolate in the mirror then thought about how much she loathed the way she looked.
Jonathan, 51, said he was sick of yo-yo dieting after hitting his “lowest point” in
2010, then losing and gaining back the same two stone.
Now, after a year of transforming their lifestyles, Charlotte has dropped 6st 10lb to a size 12.
Her dad has shed 6st 6lb – losing at least 10in from his waist – and gone from a 6XL to a 2XL.
Jonathan, who works for a housing authority, said: “I was eating the wrong things at the wrong times.
"I used to have jobs where I would drive in the day, so I'd have packets of sports mixtures, mints, anything like that and start picking at them.
“I'd buy six bars of chocolate and eat four of them while driving home.”
Charlotte said university life plus the loss of her grandma lead to her ballooning to a size 20.
The dad and daughter had dubbed themselves “one-day dieters” as they would eat healthily for 12 hours but then stuff themselves with sweet treats in the evenings. By April last year,
Charlotte was determined for change. The pair, of Chesterfield, Derbys, said during the first few weeks of lockdown they were “just not moving”. Having clocked up a measly 100 steps one day, Charlotte challenged her dad. She explained: “I said to Dad, ‘We're going to start on Monday and we're going to go for a walk and we're going to eat better.'
"He sort of chuckled and was like ‘Yeah, sure...' and I was like, ‘No, we're going to do it this time.'” That day they took a short walk, but it was enough to trigger a change in them. Jonathan said: “We walked a bit, and then we did a half a mile, then a mile and every day we built it up. Now we do three or four miles a day.” Unable to work due to Covid, the two put all their efforts into losing weight. Calorie-laden lunches were swapped for light salads, while evening meals now comprise "carbs, protein, veg and then a healthy pudding". After losing the weight, Charlotte's boyfriend of five years barely recognises her as they have been meeting sporadically during lockdown. At one point she lost two stone between dates. Jonathan found people in the village he has known all his life said he is unrecognisable. He said of their transformation: “The first week is the hardest, but once you get past it being new, it starts to become a regular thing.” Charlotte added: “I don't like the word diet because to me that just means a temporary fix. It's a lifestyle change, definitely.”