A 73-year-old widow who was overweight until she lost five stone in her 50s, transforming herself from “Mrs Blobby to The Green Goddess”, has said exercise has “changed her life” – and she has recently found love again through her work as a fitness coach. Denise (Dee) Bristow said her parents nicknamed her “Dicky Doughnut” when she was a baby, and she was called “fatty” at school.
She explained that she hated playing sports - she was always the last person to be chosen by her peers during PE lessons- and she was put on her first diet by her GP aged 10. After having her first child at 25, Dee’s weight kept increasing and she reached her heaviest at 14 stone when she was 50.
She said she felt like “Mrs Blobby” and was “embarrassed” of how she looked, especially when she compared herself to other “sylphlike mums”. Measuring just five-foot tall, Dee said being overweight “really didn’t look very nice”, but it was not until after her auntie took her to a Rosemary Conley fitness class that she became “addicted to exercise” and began her weight loss journey at 50, losing five stone.
Dee went from being a size 18 to a size 10 in approximately two years and, after becoming a fitness coach, she now teaches a variety of classes to the over 65s – and has even met her new partner, Dave Leddy, 76, through fitness following the death of her husband, Fred, 72.
“I used to get upset every time we’d go out to meet friends or something, and I’d never be able to find something that I liked in the wardrobe because it didn’t fit, or I felt frumpy in it,” she said. “They were unhappy times in that respect, but I’ve almost forgotten that now because my life turned around when I was 50; the best thing I ever did was to lose all that weight.”
She added: “I went from Mrs Blobby to The Green Goddess, nearly. It’s just changed my life. I’ve gone from being happy-ish and disappointed in myself, to being reasonably happy, to being extremely happy and comfortable in my own skin.”
Dee, a Prime Time coordinator and Milon Coach who lives in Staines, Surrey, teaches three different classes each week at The River Bourne Club in Chertsey, including low-impact aerobics, a class called stretch and tone, and Otago, which is strength and balance training. The grandmother-of-seven is as active as ever and even trains on her days off.
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But prior to this Dee hated sports and was overweight for nearly 50 years. She enjoyed doing ballroom dancing with her late husband Fred, and they attained their bronze and silver medals together, but she never did any exercise.
“Having always been big at school and called ‘fatty’ and all those horrible names that kids use, when I got older and had the children, each time I had a child, I piled on a little bit more weight, and a little bit more weight, until I was the best part of 14 stone,” Dee explained. Being so short, it really didn’t look very nice, and then the menopause hit… so I said to my husband, ‘I’ve got to do something, I’ve got to try and lose some weight’.”
Dee, who previously worked as a nurse for many years, explained that she lacked self-confidence and was “going through a bad time” when she reached the age of 50, so in an attempt to cheer her up, her best friend Pat convinced her to go to a Bodypump class. Little did Dee know that this class would spark her “addiction” for exercise.
“She took me to the gym, and we did a Bodypump class, and I absolutely loved it,” Dee said. “For an hour, I didn’t think about all my troubles and my worries, it was just wonderful.
“I started doing it regularly and after about 18 months, we saw an instructor’s workshop going on at our club and I said, ‘I could do that’. By that time, I had lost all the weight and I was really strong and fit, and so I became an instructor, and I taught Bodypump for 22 years.”
Two years after that first class, Dee lost a total of five stone, dropping from a size 18 to a 10. She said she “felt like a totally different person,” adding: “My confidence grew about everything I did, I didn’t feel embarrassed… It was wonderful.”
Dee has been a fitness coach at The River Bourne Club for approximately eight years now, and she was even nominated for a UK Coaching Hero award by one of her members, which was presented to her by The Princess Royal in 2021. Dee loves the physical and mental benefits of exercising, but she said the best part is “the companionship of the participants”, as she has made many friends through teaching, including her now-partner, Dave.
This was before her husband passed away in October 2021 due to poor health. Dee and Dave met for a cup of tea after he attended one of her sessions, and they bonded over the loss of their respective spouses, as well as their children.
While it initially started out as a friendship, the pair are now dating, and Dee said they see each other “practically every day, and (they’re) like a pair of teenagers in love”. Dee plans to continue coaching for as long as possible, as exercise has “changed her life” and she loves teaching and helping others, and she would advise anyone else who is on a fitness journey to just go for it, as “it’s never too late to start”.
She added: “Find something that you enjoy, something that gives you pleasure, because if it gives you pleasure, you’re going to want to go back… and do it gradually. I can run circles around some of the younger people that don’t exercise because I’ve made the effort to try and keep myself as fit as I possibly can.
“But of course, it’s one of those things – you’ve got to want to do it, you’ve got to find somewhere that meets your needs, and do things that you enjoy and get pleasure from it. That’s why I love it, and that’s why I hope people love coming to my classes because I make them feel welcome and I adapt for them.”
To find out more about Dee’s classes, you can email her at primetime@rbhealthclub.co.uk
