Lily’s story

It was only when I hauled myself up on to the crisp sheets of the hospital bed that it finally dawned on me that I was about to go through a major operation.

I felt my throat tighten in panic but the risks of gastric bypass surgery were nothing compared with achieving my dream of being slim like my big sister.

I had always been the odd one out in my family – my mum’s a size 10 and my older sister Hopi is a size six model. I was 5ft 7in and a size 26. When I looked in the mirror I saw an ugly blob.

A FIRST-time father says his life has been transformed after losing 10 stone.

Weighing in at almost 29 stone at the age of 29, Duncan Simpson gazed at his new-born baby daughter Phoebe and realised that things needed to change if he was going to be around for her in years to come.

Chris Land weighs 162 pounds, down from 304 pounds before her January 2005 surgery.

Her neighbor in Hayden, Connie Price, weighs 129 pounds, after topping out at 259 pounds before she went under the knife in April 2006.

A WOMAN who shed a whopping 15 STONES has become the first woman in the UK to give birth after extreme weight loss surgery.

New mum Michelle Bowater, who was once so big she got stuck in a chair on holiday, was told nine years ago that she would never have children.

But the 37-year-old has stunned medics to give birth with with a gastric band AND gastric bypass in place.

If the thought of trying to squeeze into last year’s swimsuit isn’t incentive enough to slim down before your summer vacation, here’s another reason to drop those unwanted pounds: Airline passengers with “extra baggage? may have to pay more.

Actually, what really happens is you chase it until it catches you!

I mentioned in an earlier column that if your health and fitness plan was not working to your satisfaction, do one thing different. I’d like to suggest a “one thing? that I feel would probably go further to helping you than most any other. Do not eat fast food!