A mum who decided to slim down after she almost capsized a boat on a family holiday has lost more than half her body weight.
Rachel Mellor tipped the scales at 28 stone and was a size 32 at her biggest, but she decided to make a change after the embarrassing incident in August 2015.
It happened when she was on holiday in Scarborough with her daughters Catherine, 12, and university student Elizabeth, 23, and her accountant husband Richard, 52.
“I decided to take the kids out on a boat," she said. “It was a big thing, with at least 20 or so people on it already.
"But when I went to get on the boat dipped hugely under me. With that many people on it already, you’d think one more wouldn’t make a difference. I was so embarrassed.
"I was ordered to sit right in the middle of the boat. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.”
However, when she celebrated her 50th birthday this year, the mother-of-two weighed 13 stone 10 lb.
The former teaching assistant, who is now a size 14, said she has had an unhealthy relationship with food since she was put on a diet at the age of six.
But after her embarrassing experience on the boat, she joined WW (formerly Weight Watchers) the same month and began cutting back on huge portions of bread and pasta and cutting out the weekly takeaways.
She would also send her husband Richard to do the shopping with a list, so she was not tempted to buy any high-calorie treats.
“I was lucky I didn’t have any health issues. But it was only a matter of time until that happened,” she said.
“I couldn’t run around after either of my daughters when they were young. I couldn’t go on funfair rides, but it nearly capsizing the boat that I found mortifying!”
She added: “I was always overweight. But, looking back now, when I was a kid, I was chubby.
"I wasn’t hugely obese. Being put on a diet at just six-years-old simply meant I started eating in secret.”
Always big growing up, she then gained weight once she settled into married life with Richard after tying the knot 28 years ago, which was compounded by her first pregnancy.
Struggling to conceive her second daughter, she managed to lose 5st between having her two children, but then gained more weight with the arrival of her youngest girl.
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She said: “I’m a full-time mum now, but I was working full-time then as a teaching assistant and there wasn’t a lot of time for planning and cooking.
"We’d have takeaways nearly every week. There were always cakes and chocolates in the staff room at school and I’d eat all of those, too.
“Then I’d go to the supermarket to do the shopping and reward myself with a bar of chocolate on the way home.”
While her boating embarrassment got her through the doors of a slimming club in August 2015, Rachel's initial commitment was half-hearted.
She said: “I spent the next few years losing and gaining the same stone. I wasn’t sticking to the plan. Life just got in the way and I wasn’t prioritising myself.”
But in 2019, Rachel and her family moved to Ossett, West Yorkshire, for Richard’s work, and she stopped working, giving her time to recommit to dieting, especially when the country went into its first Covid lockdown. Determined to shift her excess weight for good went back to WW and began planning all the family’s meals in advance.
Only initially wanting to reach a size 18, Rachel’s weight loss continued, and she was soon walking five miles a day. In time for her big 50th birthday party in May 2022, which she celebrated with a murder mystery bash, she was a slimline size 14/16, weighing 13st 10lb, giving her a far healthier BMI of 28.3.
Her current diet sees her eat porridge oats with raspberries and blueberries for breakfast and salad or spinach with smoked fish for lunch.
Dinner usually consists of chicken and jacket potatoes and salad or a small portion of spaghetti bolognese and she occasionally snacks on chickpea cake and fruit.
After losing 14st 3lb in total, Rachel said she is now happy with her weight.
She said: “I’ve got to where my happy weight is. I could lose more, but I wouldn’t be able to maintain it.
“The girls and Richard are so proud of me. And I am proud of myself. I’m active with my family for the first time. Just the other day we were playing Frisbee, while the old me would just have been sat in the car."
Diet before
Breakfast – cereal and skimmed milk
Lunch – three slices of bread in a sandwich, a lot of fruit
Dinner – huge portions of pasta or two chicken Kyivs and tinned spaghetti
Snacks – chocolate
Drinks – water and coffee
Diet now
Breakfast – porridge oats with raspberries and blueberries
Lunch – salad or spinach with smoked fish
Dinner – chicken and jacket potatoes and salad or a small portion of spag bol
Snacks – chickpea cake and fruit
Drinks – water
