A SLIMMER who has maintained his 12 stone weight loss for four years won a Mediterranean holiday in a national competition. Having dropped from a waist size of 52ins to 34ins in just five months, Mike Scott, emerged victorious from the Cambridge Diet awards on Saturday with a holiday at a five star hotel in Malta and a photoshoot.

A SLIMMER who has maintained his 12 stone weight loss for four years won a Mediterranean holiday in a national competition.

Having dropped from a waist size of 52ins to 34ins in just five months, Mike Scott, emerged victorious from the Cambridge Diet awards on Saturday with a holiday at a five star hotel in Malta and a photoshoot.

The prize, awarded to him for being the maintainer of the year, was presented to the stunned life coach and IT director after he beat nine other contestants.

Father of two Mike, 35, comes from Bradwell and climbed Mount Kilamanjaro this January.

He said: “When I heard my name announced it almost felt like I floated out of my body. I was with my slimming counsellor Linda Jarmen near the front when they announced it and she leapt up, grabbed me and before I knew it I was up on the main stage.”

The winner was read out by last year's maintainer of the year Sharon Williamson after each of the contestant's stories were presented to the audience at the Birmingham National Motorcycle Museum.

Mike said: “They read mine out early in the afternoon, and they had pictures and someone talking through my weight loss and the fact I had initially struggled after losing the weight.

Some of the stories were very powerful and some had me close to tears, and though I went into the awards thinking it would be nice to win a holiday, by the end I didn't really mind whether I had won or not- I was just proud of what I'd done.”

Before the announcement there had also been a fashion show featuring some of the slimmers as well as a performance by Britain's Got Talent finalists Stavros Flatley, and afterwards everyone headed to St John's Hotel, Solihull to party.

“It was a black tie do and we had a nice dinner there. It was funny, because of the slimming nature of the event, to see that we had cheesecake for pudding but it was really small. After that, we all partied there till late and I left at five in the morning.

“I'm excited because I've never been to Malta but I know it's supposed to be lovely and I've heard that they really look after you there. A man in the audience from Malta even came up to me and told me what a great time I would have, and though it's strictly two tickets it'd be great to take the children.”