‘When a man refused to sit next to me on a plane I knew I had to do something about my weight’

I was cooking from scratch and felt full so didn’t snack as much. I was having three or four meals and I never felt hungry. After six weeks, I’d lost about a stone, and I wanted to start including exercise. The weight was just flying off so I just wanted to keep it up. 

I looked to see if there were any exercise clubs in my area, but everything was high energy and then, I couldn’t even jump. So I started by walking. I got myself a fitness watch to track how much I walked in a day which was about 1,300 steps. I wanted to increase this slowly.

I made small goals. Originally it was just to get down to the end of my road, which would be half a mile. Then once I felt comfortable, I would increase it. In six months, I went from doing zero exercise to walking 10,000 steps daily, and it felt easy.

I never lost motivation or wanted to go back to the crisps, chocolate and no exercise because, without wanting to sound cheesy, I felt alive. For the first time, I felt I had this real energy. I was seeing my body shape, and I was losing weight. In the first six months I lost six stone. And then the weight plateaued a bit. 

When I was 9.5st in June 2021, I started to run with the NHS Couch To 5k app and it took me nine weeks to get to a 5km run. 

Once all the Covid restrictions were lifted in April 2022, I saw an advert for a Ramblers Wellbeing Walk. Originally, I just wanted to be a member, because I was isolated, I wanted friends and I wanted somebody to go out walking with. My husband and kids, although supportive, didn’t walk with me. 

By this point, I was my goal weight of 8.5st. I was healthy and the only reason I needed the group was to make friends.