A mum who was once too embarrassed to have her photo taken now proudly posts selfies online after dropping five stone.
Jen Hinde, 35, said she can now look at herself in the mirror and wear a swimming costume as she no longer feels like a "beached whale". The mum-of-one suffers from Fibromyalgia, a long term illness that causes pain and muscle stiffness all over the body.
Because of this, she struggles to exercise and would often find it painful to be stood cooking. She would instead fork out on takeaways and convenience food almost daily.
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Jen, from St Helens, would regularly have something from Nando’s for lunch and then gorge on a pizza for dinner in the same day. Her Just East order history was a whopping 50 pages long.
But when she ballooned to 18st 5lb, was told by a doctor that she was heading for a liver transplant if she carried on the way she was. After being jolted by the health scare, Jen decided to ditch the takeaways and was able to shed the stones by cooking healthy, nutritious meals at home.
She now feels so comfortable in her body that she proudly flaunts her slimline figure in photos online.
Jen, now a trim 12st 10lb, said: "Now I post loads because I just think 'look what I've done'. "I don't want to sound up my own bum or anything but I've done awesome."
Jen, who is mum to Lucy, 12, would simply order takeaways when she was in a lot of pain. But looking back, she admits she was "using that as an excuse to not cook" and now batch cooks meals on pain-free days to freeze and heat up later in the week.
She also always has a few Slimming World ready meals stashed in the freezer in case she is in too much pain to stand up and cook.
Jen said: "I was definitely a pizza advocate and I would eat a whole large pizza to myself with loads of sauce and stuffed crust, Pizza Hut was my favourite."
She decided to join Slimming World last year after being told by doctors she had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which was at the fibrosis stage. But when she went back for her annual check-up this year, she was "over the moon" to find out losing the weight had made her liver return to normal.
Jen added: "I was like 'oh my god I've done it' because this is the whole reason why I joined and it made it all so much more worth it.
"Although I didn't like myself, the health aspect was ringing in my mind and I knew I had to do it for my health and not for looks.
"But just having that confirmed to me that I've turned my life around in a year was just great."
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