Rob Phillips burst into tears when he looked in the mirror and saw what had happened to his body. It was in lockdown and all his good work in slimming down from his previous 22 stone had been undone.
"I went out with friends and looked in the mirror and I broke down crying because I didn't want to go out anywhere because I felt like a fraud and a failure because I had gained the weight again. My life was falling apart because my daily routine changed so much. I sat in the house and went back to old eating habits," said Rob, 37.
He had been a member of Slimming World for 18 years, eventually becoming a consultant, a role he has held for 11 years. It helped him lose seven stone. But when lockdown hit, Rob, from Ebbw Vale, found himself slipping back into old habits, and before he knew it, he had re-gained almost all the weight he had worked so hard to lose. You can get more Swansea news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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"I didn't like the person I became. I was very uncomfortable when I gained the weight and it took me back to my main motivation for why I wanted to lose the weight in the first place. I love travelling, I want to see the world, but when I went on an aeroplane for the first time, the seatbelt was cutting into me. A person a few rows in front asked for a seatbelt extension and I just didn't like the way the belt was presented. I didn't want to be the centre of attention like that." There is one type of food you should eat more of to help you lose weight according to an expert - find out more here.
When lockdown lifted, reality hit Rob, and he realised that he needed to do something about his weight. During lockdown, he was eating big bowls of cereal for breakfast, starting on the chocolate by mid-morning, heading through the drive thru for lunch and ordering a takeaway for tea.
All of this changed when his weight loss journey began again, swapping the cereal for fruit and low-fat yoghurt, skipping the drive -thru and having a sandwich, and tea would be a chicken lasagne rather than a takeaway. Rob also rediscovered his love of running. Read about the trucker who dropped from 18 stone to nine stone and then found new love.
He said: "When I lost my weight originally, I made myself a promise I would run Cardiff Half Marathon, because I always wanted to learn to run. But I always felt too embarrassed to run because I felt like I was too big. I felt I could never run because in my mind I thought that people will laugh at me. And then once I'd lost weight I started running, doing couch to 5ks, then 10ks and then I ran the Cardiff half three times. And then when I gained the weight again, I fell out of love with running. So when I started losing the weight again last year, I then started running again, just doing my own little thing. "
Now weighing 13st 3 lbs, Rob still has a stone left to lose before he reaches his target weight. "I only wanted to lose the seven stone I'd put on, but I was doing so well, I lost an extra two and I now want to get to 12 stone. Nothing's as unachievable as it seems. If you can find your why, your motivation for why you want to lose weight, nothing's unachievable." This woman shed half her body weight after finding she could no longer put her own socks on.
If you want to learn more about how Rob lost weight, you can find out on his Facebook page.
