BRIDE-TO-BE ON
BRIDE-TO-BE Charmaine Brooks can’t half wait to get married to the man she loves after putting off her wedding for 18 years – and that’s because she’s HALF her old weight.
After years of loathing her 18-stone body and a rollercoaster life that kept her comfort eating, mum-of-two Charmaine, 36, tries on wedding dresses and says: “Now I have a new confidence.
“There was a time looking at holiday pictures made me cry and the thought of getting married and being looked at made me feel sick and hideous. Now I can’t wait to wed the love of my life.”
And proud fiance Darren Squires, 44, says: “She looks as beautiful now as the day we met. When I see her walking down that aisle towards me it’ll the happiest moment of my life.”
Charmaine – who has lost a remarkable eight-and-a-half stone – admits she didn’t have an easy start in life and was put into care for a year when she was 12. After battling her weight for years she became so heavy she could hardly stand.
She ballooned from a size 8 to a 16, then had to be mum for her three siblings while sitting GCSEs when her own mother was in hospital.
But then, at 17, she met roofer Darren. They became inseparable and in a year Charmaine was pregnant.
“My home life growing up had been surrounded by alcohol, drugs and violence – and now
I had this gorgeous man in my life who loved and me was so dependable,” says Charmaine.
RISK
But by the time she had given birth to son
Nathan in May 2002, she had put on five stone. “I ate for four, not two, and was told by nurses I was putting our baby at risk of gestational diabetes,” she says. “Luckily, Nathan was born without health issues but, looking back, I know I dodged a bullet.”
Six weeks after the birth, Darren proposed. “I jumped at the chance to say yes,” says Charmaine. “But we’d had a few drinks and kind of left that thought lingering as we dealt with sleep deprivation and nappies.”
Knowing she had to shed her baby weight, Charmaine managed to lose three-and-a-half stone before finding out she was expecting again.
“Nathan was just six months, so during that second pregnancy I was so exhausted I survived on junk food. By the time Aimee was born I was 17 stone.”
Again, former care worker Charmaine, from Southampton, fought to lose weight and slowly reached 13 stone, but then had to deal with the shock of being told Nathan and then Aimee had special needs at school.
“I had to give up the job that I loved, working with adults with mental health problems, to be there for Nathan and Aimee,” she says.
“Within a few months we’d lost my income, our children were really struggling, and then the 2010 credit crunch hit and Darren’s work dried up,” she said.
Charmaine sunk into a crushing depression. “I was so bad I told Darren I didn’t love him any more as a way of
making him push me away,” she says. “I felt so negative. I couldn’t deal with the kids or the house. I slept almost all the time. Darren was left to do everything.”
Then, as Charmaine started to come out of her depression, Darren, unable to be the provider he felt his family needed, had own mental health problems.
“We went from frying pan to fire, but we never let go of each other or our kids,” she says. “When you’re dealing with that kind of nightmare, health is the last thing on your mind – and my weight rocketed