Carrie's outstanding 12st weight loss

01 December 2006

CARRIE Hobbs is half the woman she used to be - literally!

In March this year she weighed a massive 23st 7lbs but now the 30-year-old says her life has been turned round by going on the Cambridge diet.

Carrie, of Thames Way, Caister, has shed an impressive 12 stones since then and says she would have never thought of going on the diet if she had not read the amazing story of Bradwell super slimmer Mike Scott.

Mike's story was featured in the Mercury on March 10 after he lost an incredible 11 stones in 20 weeks on the Cambridge Diet - inspiring her own weight loss efforts.

She told the Mercury: “It's been an unbelievable few months. I had really bad anxiety when I was bigger - I was beginning to find it difficult to leave my own house as I just thought everyone was looking at me thinking 'God how much does she eat?' My weight was putting my life on hold.

“But after I read Mike's story I thought that was the diet for me - I'm quite an inpatient person and I wanted to see results quickly. Mike's the reason I went on the Cambridge diet," she said.

Carrie, who is married to Darren and has a five-year-old daughter Amber, started putting weight on after leaving school at the age of 16.

A typical day would include a breakfast comprising of cereal, three or four slices of toast, then lunch would be two or three slices of bread and crisps, and for dinner Carrie would eat big portions of spaghetti bolognese with a mountain of pasta.

Throughout the day she would also snack on sweets and chocolate and she would drink a large amount of cola.

She said: “I had a really high carbohydrate diet - but if you don't exercise all the energy just turns to fat.”

The Cambridge diet is a crash diet which involves eating four packs of food a day which are supplied by a diet counsellor. These packs include a soup, shake, and meal bar and the packs are managed to ensure that that they provide the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals.

Mike Scott, 32, became a diet counsellor after shedding his weight and he helped Carrie lose hers.

“Mike was my counsellor,” explained Carrie, “it was great having someone like him to speak to on hard days as he has been though it himself so he knew how I was feeling.”

And Carrie has followed in Mike's footsteps by becoming a trained Cambridge diet counsellor herself and hopes to help others like her. “I'm really looking forward to helping other people lose weight,” she said.

“When I was bigger I found it difficult to pick my daughter up from school as I knew the other mums would look at me. I even found going to the hairdressers a traumatic experience because I just didn't have any confidence. But now my life has completely changed I go swimming with Amber, I can run now and I can buy clothes from the high street stores now.”

But Carrie admitted that the change in her weight hadn't fully sunk in yet. “It takes a while for your brain to catch up I think. Sometimes when I walk past a shop I will catch my reflection in a window and think is that me?”