An overweight mum who managed to drop five stone by overhauling her unhealthy lifestyle says her health kick led to the breakdown of her marriage.
Angela Crickmore, 36, originally from Brazil but now living in London, piled on the pounds in her twenties.
At her heaviest she weighed nearly 14 stone, but she claims her husband thought she was “beautiful”.
Despite this, pressure from friends and family made her feel “self-conscious” and after seeing a pal lose weight she said she felt inspired to make a change.
Angela put her ballooning figure down to her sedentary lifestyle, which revolved around going to work, looking after her child and watching TV on the couch.
She told how she and her husband would spend most evenings relaxing at home after work and visit his parents’ house at weekends, where they would sit, drink and chat.
The 5ft 1′ former property manager insisted she has always been “confident” but admitted deep down she was unhappy because she had previously been very fit while living in Brazil.
Her weight gain made it a struggle to walk long distances and Angela even considered having a gastric bypass at one point to help her shed the pounds.
She eventually bit the bullet in December 2011 after seeing her hairdresser, Karla, lose nearly a stone-and-a-half.
She said: “I thought, ‘If she can do it, I can do it.'”
Angela scoured the Internet for diet tips and settled on a regime that involved eating every three hours.
Though she was suspicious at first about eating more food to lose weight, she said she had to do something because nothing had worked for her before.
She told the Sun: “I had an alarm on my phone so I never skipped a meal and started to carry a food bag with me so any place I went I had my meals ready to eat.”
Angela exchanged her carb and sugar-laden diet for healthy foods like lean meat, vegetables, nuts and natural fats.
As the weight began to drop off she found the confidence to exercise, having previously felt “too heavy and ashamed”.
She started by going for walks in her local park.
Her husband would drop her off, wait in the car and drive her home again.
She said neither he nor her son Luy joined in as they are “both skinny so they didn’t feel the need”.
Angela walked every day, rain or shine, for an hour and eventually progressed to jogging as she became lighter.
After eight months she joined the gym, where her interest in bodybuilding was born.
Angela was now losing around nine pounds a month and eventually slimmed from a size 18 to a toned size six.
But her new active lifestyle was taking its toll on her marriage and family life.
She stopped cooking for her husband and son as her own healthy routine didn’t fit in with theirs.
She explained: “Because I started to want a different life, I wanted to be outdoors more, climbing, hiking, playing tennis, any sports.
“I liked different foods and I didn’t enjoy being at home in front of a TV eating snacks anymore.
“I started to get very scared to go back to what I was.”
After nine years of marriage the couple split up and Luy went to live with his dad.
She said: “At first it was hard and I started to have panic attacks.
“But this soon passed and I began to feel this was the best thing for me and I moved on.”
Three years later Angela is still single and feels ready to meet someone new, as long as that person has “the same lifestyle and is interesting”.
She doesn’t regret her choice to change her lifestyle whatsoever, admitting: “I am in the best shape of my life and feel very rewarded because I work very hard for that.”
Angela now hopes to build a career out of her life-changing experience by becoming a fitness coach and has completed a sports nutrition degree.
She said: “I want to represent a good supplement company, so that way more and more people can see my story and relate to me.
“Not only athletes can have a six pack! An ex-obese girl can also have one and look very feminine like I do.”
Courtesy of: The Sun