Losing 8 stone transformed my life!
Weighing more than 26 stone Andrew could no longer walk a few metres without getting out of breath. With the help of his local healthy weight service, he has managed to break habits of a lifetime and completely transform his lifestyle.
Andrew’s story
After struggling to walk along the promenade at Blackpool two years ago Andrew Beardwood, 47, realised his weight had started to become a problem. Weighing more than 26 stone and with a waist of more than 60 inches, he could no longer walk a few metres without getting out of breath. It was then that he decided to do something about it and booked an appointment with his GP.
Andrew was referred by his doctor to one of the Trust’s health weight services. The team soon got to work helping Andrew change his lifestyle to lose weight and boost his overall wellbeing.
Andrew has attended his fortnightly appointment with the service where he receives advice about how to break lifetime habits to get healthy at the same time as introducing exercise into his daily routine.
Andrew found that taking part in exercise was an easy way for him to shape up and soon took to walking each week through a walking project and an outdoor activity gym scheme.
As well as increasing the amount of exercise Andrew was encouraged to keep a food diary to keep track of what he eats so that he could start to make more informed choices about his diet. With the help of the diary, Andrew has managed to kick his evening craving for crisps and nuts and instead eat a more balanced diet and monitor when he eats.
Andrew has so far lost more than 8 stone and is still maintaining a healthy weight loss in order to reach his target weight of 15 stones.
Speaking about his achievement Andrew said, “Before I lost weight it found it difficult to tie my shoelaces and even faced name-calling by local children. But since making changes to my diet and lifestyle I can walk for miles without feeling out of breath!
“I feel a lot more confident in myself and have had a great response from people around me, who say they can barely recognise me with all the weight I’ve lost. I’m still focused on losing some more weight but feel confident that I have the knowledge and support in place to be able to meet my target.”