Slimline friends unite to shed the stones together
TWO Yorkshire insurance advisors, who became pals through their love of vintage and retro clothes, have showed off their joint six-stone weight loss after slimming down together.
While Sophie Mitchell-Bradford, 26, had scoffed her way to a 16st 12lb Size 20, after finding love with her hubby James, 29, a customer services representative, and ignoring her growing girth, Liv Russell, 28, was overweight, at 13st 6lb, due to downing double breakfasts, as she comfort ate because of depression.
She was told to lose weight by her doctor after being diagnosed with high blood pressure, and when Sophie, from Huddersfield, told Liv, from Holmfirth, she was joining the slimming group WW, in summer, 2018, her friend decided to join her.
Sophie, who has dropped four stone to 12st 8lb and a Size 14, said: “I’m so proud of how far both of us have come. It really helps having someone on that journey with you.
“I met Liv a couple of years ago when we started working together and we bonded over our love of vintage style and unique clothes, or ‘vintageish’ as we called it! Now we text every day.”
Sophie continued: “I told her I was joining WW and she said she wanted to lose a bit of weight, too, so she did the same.
“Liv would really encourage me and we have an understanding of each other and what it’s like. We talked about lots of things like binge-eating or how to keep motivated.
“She would come over to mine and we’d cook healthy meals together. She’s also vegetarian, so has opened my eyes up to lots of different dishes.”
At 5ft 8in, Sophie had a BMI – used to gauge a healthy weight – of 35.7, well above the 18.5 to 24.9 recommended by the NHS, classing her as obese.
While she reached a Size 20 when she stopped watching her waistline after settling into married life, she identified with Liv’s emotional eating, as she had struggled with the same problem in the past.
“I was not a big child, but when I went to college at 16, I started to suffer a lot of depression and anxiety and would deal with that by binge-eating,” she said.
“I was a secret eater and would hide chocolate bars in my room at home. Eating was a way of coping and I’d eat more snacks than meals.”
After tying the knot in 2017, having lost some weight in the lead-up to the wedding, Sophie gained two stone as she settled into married life.
So, in the summer of 2018, after stepping on the scales and seeing she was the heaviest she had ever been, she became determined to do something about it. I’d also gone to the doctor for a routine health check and been told I had high blood pressure,” she said.
“Seeing that it had started to affect my health and that I might end up on medication for it in my twenties made me determined to lose weight.” After a work colleague suggested she try the WW app, Sophie started using their points-based system and slashing her portion sizes - sometimes to half of what they were before.
Meanwhile, car insurance advisor Liv, whose fiancé, Davey Clegg, 33, is a team leader, says that when she switched from working in retail to a more sedentary office role three years ago, she started eating convenience food she picked up from the supermarket next door. At 5ft 8in and weighing 13st 6lb her BMI was 28.5, classing her as overweight, but since joining WW, in September, 2018, she has slimmed down to 11st 12lb - dropping three dress sizes from 16 to 10 - and now has a BMI of 25.1.
She said: “It helped me massively having somebody to do it with, because if I was having a down day or a wobble, Sophie would be there to pick me up and vice versa.”
WW has launched a six-week challenge to get the nation fit after its research found 42% of Brits had put weight on during lockdown.
To join the challenge, which encourages people to move for 30 minutes a day five days a week, follow WW on Instagram @ww.uk or Twitter @ww_uk or subscribe on YouTube where they will be posting free content including recipes, expert advice from WW coaches, weekly live workouts with online home workout channel FitOn.