If your new year's decision to lose weight has long since waned, take heart. JANE O'CONNELL talks to Diana Butterworth who lost more than seven stone in two years

When Diana Butterworth's husband of more than 30 years mildly agreed with his wife's comment that she had put on a bit of weight recently, Diana was deeply hurt.

Diana, of The Walk, Hullbridge, had never been ultra-slim. But her decision to give up smoking after seeing her sister die of lung cancer had meant the weight had piled on rapidly. In three years, Diana gained 3st, taking her to more than 21st.

"In 37 years I'd known him, he'd never said anything about my weight and then he said I had put on weight," Diana, a factory worker, recalls. "I felt terrible."

The weight gain was also beginning to take its toll on her health. She couldn't run up the stairs without getting breathless, and felt tired all the time.

A leaflet extolling the virtues of Slimming World which had been poked through her door weeks before prompted Diana to take action. Two years ago this month, she took the plunge and joined a group in Hullbridge.

"I was impressed by how friendly everyone was," she recalls. "People had lost weight and other people took them by the hand and seemed really pleased for them."

Within a week, Diana had lost 11lbs. By the end of the month she was another 10lbs lighter. Since joining, she has shed an amazing 7st 7lbs. At 5ft 9ins, she now weighs 14st and takes a dress size 16. Ideally, she would like to be another stone lighter.

Through Slimming World, Diana has learned that eating bread tends to make her put on weight, so she sticks to crispbreads.

She also knows that a binge or over-eating while on holiday won't send her back to the biscuit barrel on a long-term basis. "I can put on 1st in a week while I'm away," she explains. "But I know I can lose it - and the people at the class won't judge me when I go back."

Diana now enjoys walks with her husband and has re-discovered the joy of clothes shopping. She's even indulged in a new, shorter hairdo.

"Friends who haven't seen me for a time are amazed," she says. "I feel a lot younger in my ways. I feel happier all round, really."

Distant memory - Diana holds up a pair of the trousers she used to have to wear

(Left) The bad old days - Diana has now learnt healthy eating habits and feels younger and happier

What Diana used to eat

Breakfast: fry-up and six slices of toast with loads of butter.

Mid-morning snack: cakes, biscuits, couple of packets of crisps.

Lunch: two or three rolls, plus several cakes from the trolley which came round the office.

Evening meal: in her own words: "I'd cook as much food for my husband and I as if we still had three hungry boys in the house - and I'd eat most of it."

What Diana eats now:

Breakfast: cereal

Lunch: jacket potato or rice

Evening meal: shepherd's pie made with soya

Snacks: the new slim-line Diana commented: "I'm addicted to crabsticks and on days when I'm allowed I have eaten 16 in a day!"

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