Woman loses 17st after fearing she wouldn't see her grandchildren grow up
Dawn Lambert, 52, looks unrecognisable after dropping from a size 36 to a size 10 and losing almost two thirds of her body weight.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAWN LAMBERT: I didn't realize how big I was actually getting, and I just ended off putting a lot of weight on and ended up being 27 stone. Then I went to a doctor at the hospital because I wasn't feeling well, and he said I had a gene called PBC, which was cirrhosis in the bile duct. And he said, I wouldn't be alive if I didn't lose weight, he said, in 20 years. And I was only 42. And I thought, I'm going to die if I don't do something about this.
My brother had lost some weight with Slimming World, and they were saying that you could eat anything you wanted. And we both thought, well-- me and my mum we just thought, well, can you really? And we thought we would go along and see if it was true. The first week weigh-in I'd lost 10 and 1/2 pounds on my first week. And I thought, wow, this works.
I'd eat big portions. I would have a cooked breakfast, and then my dinner would be either pasta or rice curry. And then for tea it would be chicken dinner with loads of vegetables or a beef dinner with loads of vegetables. I'd go with my mum, and the whole family does Slimming World. And group's just amazing. The members are amazing. Made lots of new friends from all different groups. And with me being housebound quite a lot, it's lovely to see how they're doing with their families on Facebook and then we keep in touch.
They started doing the blood test every six months for the PBC gene, and they said that my liver was actually starting to repair itself. And that was purely because I changed the way I was eating and living. And I know I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't started losing the weight.
And so I find I've got extreme pain in my arms and legs all the time and I need a wheelchair when I'm out and I have sticks when I'm around the house, but got to keep smiling because I'm still here. And I'm lucky to have two gorgeous grandchildren, and my son got married to his wife. And I wouldn't have seen that if I hadn't changed my life.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
