A woman who paused her weight loss journey after being diagnosed with breast cancer, beat the disease and went on to lose five stone in a year
Andrea Paterson, 65, weighed 21 stone at her heaviest and said her weight ballooned to the point she needed to ask for seatbelt extensions on planes.
The grandmother-of-two started trying to lose weight back in 2014 but suffered two devastating setbacks – first in 2015 after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Then in September 2018 Andrea tragically lost husband Duncan to cancer. At this point, she had already lost three stone.
After recovering, and 12 months after losing Duncan, the retired teacher went from 17 stone to 12.
Andrea, from Lincolnshire, said: ‘I decided to lose weight because I didn’t want to grow old feeling fat and frumpy.
‘It was all for health reasons, I knew what could happen if I didn’t make a lifestyle change.
‘With things that happened in my life I felt like I was taking two steps forward and three steps back.
‘When my husband died my weight could have gone one way or the other but I decided that I wouldn’t let it affect my weight loss.
‘I was determined to get down to my target weight of 12 stone.’
At the beginning of her weight loss journey, Andrea been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes – a result of her poor diet.
She mainly feasted on takeaway food and ready meals and says her favourite meal was steak fried in butter with deep fried chips and salad doused in mayonnaise.
Andrea then joined Slimming World and started to change her diet.
She had already lost four stone in November 2014 when she was tragically diagnosed with breast cancer, which halted her progress.
Andrea battled the deadly disease for four years, which involved getting a mastectomy, before getting better and kickstarting her weight loss once again.
In total she has lost eight stone, five of which were shed over the course of just 12 months.
Andrea said her lifestyle has changed entirely as a result of the weight loss.
She has gone from barely being able to walk for ten minutes to being able to keep going for up to two hours.
Andrea added: ‘One of the best is that I can play with my grandchildren now, before I wouldn’t have been able to do that.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/20/woman-loses-five-stone-in-a-year-after-beating-breast-cancer-13781115/
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