A mum ditched her 12-pack of crisps a day habit and lost 17st so she could run around with her daughter. Sarah Clarke, 35, weighed 31st 6lbs and was a size 32 at her heaviest after using food to cope with her trauma. She would eat large kebabs, chocolate and get through a multi-pack of 12 crisps in a day.
But the mum-of-one had a wake up call after being diagnosed with sleep apnoea and being unable to run around with her daughter, 11. She lost 3st 13lbs through Slimming World before having a gastric sleeve on the NHS and lost 17stone 5lbs in two years and a half. Now a healthy, 14st 1lbs and size 16, Sarah has switched up her diet to healthy home cooked meals but still struggles with a stone of excess skin she has been left with.
She has been denied skin surgery on the NHS and is trying to raise £10k to undergo the operation and remove the "scars of my old life". Sarah, who runs a mental health peer support group, from Leeds, Yorkshire, said: "I feel I am a women with great perseverance and drive. I feel it's created a strength within me.
"I am beautiful. I am confident. A lot of people say I radiate joy.
I'm feeling more free. I finally broke the cycle of obesity." Sarah suffered a lot of trauma over the last ten years, including becoming homeless in 2021, and turned to food to cope.
She said: "Food has been a massive comfort. It became an addiction. "Food became my therapy when it actually abused me.
I'd have a 12 bag of crisps a day. I got kebabs all the time. A large don.