A man ballooned to a whopping 19 stone after drinking up to 30 cans of Pepsi a day - costing him a staggering £7,000 a year.
Andy Currie, 41, downed a litre of the fizzy pop every morning and drank a further nine litres a day. Now, he has been cured - by hypnotism.
He has sipped an estimated 219,000 cans of Pepsi – and nearly 8,000kg of sugar or the equivalent of seven million sugar cubes – since he first started drinking it in his 20s.
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Andy, from Bangor, north Wales, said: “I’ve always loved the taste of a cold Pepsi. Nothing could beat it and I just got hooked.
"I work nights so always liked the sugar rush to keep me going. I’d go through four or five two litre bottles of Pepsi every day. Because I work at Tesco I could just buy it straight after work and take it home.”
Andy, who is married to wife Sarah, 39, who volunteers at a garden centre, splashed out £20-a-day on Pepsi – which amounted to around £7,000-a-year. He added: “It cost me a fortune to be honest. I could have bought a car every year for the same amount I was spending on Pepsi.
“I just needed to have it, as soon as I woke up I’d go to the fridge and pour myself a large glass of Pepsi and just carry on through the day. I remember going to weddings and birthdays and while other people had glasses of champagne I’d be toasting people with a can of fizzy pop.”
Andy decided to take drastic action after he ballooned to 19 stone and his doctors warned him he was at risk of becoming diabetic. Through exercise and diet he managed to lose two stone but couldn’t stop drinking Pepsi.
He contacted London-based therapist and hypnotist David Kilmurry, who identified Andy as having avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. Amazingly, after just one online hypnotherapy session, Andy was cured and drank water for the first time in two decades.
In just four weeks he has dropped a further stone and is remarkably more healthy. Andy said: “David met me online and hypnotised me for about 40 minutes.
“I don’t know what he said but afterwards I just didn’t want to drink it anymore. I’ve still got two cans of Pepsi in my fridge which I was going to have before the session but didn’t have time.
“I haven’t touched them in a month and don’t plan to. I prefer water now. My wife Sarah says my skin looks better and I’ve got so much more energy. I like walking now and me and Sarah are planning to climb Mount Snowdon in the summer.”
David said: “I was horrified at Andy’s disclosure of drinking 10 litres of Pepsi a day. That was by far the worst sugar addiction I’ve ever heard of.
“Resigned to addiction, Andy was overweight, anxious and struggled to get his words out because he was so breathless. This kind of addiction is very dangerous and puts huge pressure on your vital organs.
“Andy was pre-diabetic and needed to change quickly before heart disease and potential pancreatic cancer took him. It became a poison and a crutch to him. Since working with him I am delighted to see him drinking water and healthy drinks.”
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