Sophie celebrates her birthday in style

The 29-year old from Oswestry celebrated her birthday this week in a size 12 dress and with fiancee, Robert Jones.

Yet last year she was told she was facing surgery because of her weight.

Sophie had reached a dress size 32 and had a chronic skin condition connected with her obesity.

"I saw the consultant and was told that I had the option of losing weight or having surgery."

"I came out of that appointment in January 2019 and decided then that I had to lose the weight. I contacted Emma Thompstone a slimming world consultant and she suggested going along to her group in Oswestry.

"Walking through that door was the hardest thing I have done but I knew I had to do it. I had had a problem with my weight since the age of four but I was too rebellious to go 'on a diet' and when my dad died it really piled on."

Sophie said that she had a warm welcome from Emma and the other members of the group.

She lost weight quickly, averaging five and a half pounds a week.

"By the July I came off all the medication that I was on for the skin condition, it had cleared up."

"Slimming World fitted round my role as a support worker with adults with learning disabilities because it was so flexible.

"There is a disco that the people I work with go do and I would never get up and dance with them. Now they tell me to slow down on the dance floor because they can't keep up with me."

"The rest of the group have become my extended family," she said.

"I grew in confidence and no longer hid away."

Reaching her target weight she celebrated as she did each week, with a coffee with her mum, who she said was so proud of her weight loss journey.

As lockdown hit Sophie panicked.

"I didn't know what was going to happen. But the group went online and for the first time in my life I bought a pair of bathroom scales."

She not only did not put on weight, she lost a little more. Now she is concentrating on keeping her dress size stable.

"When you have never been able to buy clothes in a 'normal size dress shop' going and choosing an outfit gives you such a buzz. I am having the best life."

Sophie got engaged on Valentine's Day this year.

"Robert met me when I was at my biggest and said that as I lost weight I came alive."

Emma Thompstone said group members had voted Sophie as the group's slimmer of the year and she will now go forward to a national competition.

"She has been like a butterfly emerging."

She said her classes in Oswestry and Chirk, like other Slimming World classes, had restarted again under strict Covid guidelines.

Information is available from the Slimming World website.