Surgeon's chilling words after cancer scare spooked mum into losing nine stone
A woman lost nine stone after being shocked into changing her life by a surgeon during a cancer scare.
Judith Gibson, from Ballymena in Co Antrim, was overweight ever since the age of 11 when her father was killed in a car accident. The now 45-year-old says she was "so miserable" that she simply ate crisps, chocolate and sweets following her dinner. Judith said: "I then gained weight and as I started gaining weight, I started being bullied at school, being taunted for being 'fat' but also for having no daddy.”
As her weight increased she was unable to go into the clothes shop to purchase clothes in the same way as her peers. Judith said: “I remember in particular going in to get my school uniform for going back to school and they simply couldn’t get one to fit me. My mother was so embarrassed that I cried the whole way down to a ladies plus size shop to buy a skirt that would fit me. I knew then and there that I would get absolutely tortured by the bullies at school for wearing it - there seemed to be no end.”
The secret eating carried on into adulthood, she got married in a size 24 wedding dress which needed to be made specially because the largest size they did in the shop was size 16.
Judith Gibson from Ballymena knew she was overweight
She lost nine stone following a cancer scareJudith told Belfast Live: "I tried to fool myself into believing that I was happy now that I was married and I had someone to love me, and yet again with contentment I ate more, especially when my husband was out working on the night shift and I was at home on my own."
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Additionally, she had always had gynaecological problems from an early age and was told she needed to shed weight in order to benefit her polycystic ovarian syndrome. Yet she tried several diets and ended up losing some weight, but it was never sustainable.
She explains: “I was coming to a point in my life where I knew something needed to change. I knew what I needed to do but doing it on my own was scary. I had heard about this Slimming World group that a friend of mine was going to in another town and I couldn’t believe my ears! He was telling me about all the food he was eating, food that I really loved - pasta, rice, potatoes, chips - foods that I was always told I couldn’t eat to lose weight and here he was eating them and losing weight!”
A small seed was sown in her mind, but nothing happened until Judith was taken to hospital with suspected ovarian cancer. She said: "Nothing else mattered. I was in pain, I was in shock and I was frightened that I was going to die and leave my children with no mother."
In the end it turned out to merely be an enormous cyst which had to be surgically removed. It was a huge relief, however she began to panic as she knew her weight would be an issue regarding surgery. She recalled: "I remember it so well, the surgeon came round, took one look at me and straight away said, he couldn’t operate on me because I was morbidly obese and wouldn’t fit on the table. That was the worst feeling of them all."
She became desperate and fell further into depression, thinking she could do nothing about her weight. Judith said: “I came home from hospital and instead of doing what I always did and eat crisps and chocolate to comfort myself, I looked up the nearest Slimming World group to me, I never ever thought that walking through those doors I would be able to change my life completely."
The Slimming World consultant told Judith that she would be able to turn her favourite foods into healthy meals that she could fill up on and never go hungry and never have to miss out with family meals or socialising. She added: “I couldn’t believe that I could make my curry, lasagna and chips, and good old family favourite cottage pie with veg and still lose weight.”
Judith was amazed that she wasn’t ever hungry and in that first week of eating proper foods, she came back to a 9lb weight loss! She comments: “I knew then this was the way forward for me, no hunger, no deprivation, just good honest food and lots of help and support from my new friends in the Slimming World group.
Judith is now just over nine stone lighter, and knew that she wanted to continue on her own journey and also help other people. She says: “There is so much confusion and so many myths around weight loss, from calorie counting to drastic surgical procedures because people are seriously desperate to lose weight.
“For me there is no better way than learning how to cook from scratch, be in a room of people that understand and also help support the mindset and behavioural changes that need to be made around food and activity.” These are just a few of the reasons that she took that step further and became a Slimming World consultant, as she goes on to explain: “I wanted to be able to help people who felt as desperate as I was and to see people transform their lives by losing weight and improving their health and become more active and then be able to do things that were once impossible - there simply isn’t a better feeling.
“I am so proud to say that our Ballymena group was awarded the prestigious gold award group from Slimming World, an accolade for top weight losses and support. We are proud that we just don’t offer a weight loss group, we offer a whole package of support through food, activity and more importantly behavioural changes because we know that the psychological needs of a slimmer need to be met to help sustain life-long weight loss.”
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For more information contact www.slimmingworld.co.uk.
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