‘I Was Too Big To Tie My Shoes'

It took an embarrassing incident for Heather Jackson, 33, to change her life

- Matthew Burton

It was as I was getting ready to go to a wedding in June 2013 that I realised my weight was out of control. Sitting on the bed in my new green dress, I was so excited – until I realised I couldn’t bend down to fasten my shoes.

I held my breath and stretched out my arms as far as I could, but I still couldn’t reach the buckle. Eventually, I had to ask my friend Jenny (who was getting ready in the same hotel room as me) for help. She’d been my best friend for years, so I knew she wouldn’t make fun of me. But as she fastened my gold, sparkly shoes, I felt my cheeks flaming.

It took me right back to being seven years old, when I refused to be weighed in front of my classmates for a school project because I was too embarrassed about my size. Even back then, I was aware that I was bigger than most of the kids around me.

‘It’s just puppy fat,’ my mum, Lynn, would insist. But as a teenager, I swerved exercise as much as possible – apart from a mandatory PE lesson once a week – and I could never say ‘no’ to food. It wasn’t that I was gorging on family-sized packets of crisps or chocolate, but if anyone ever offered me second helpings or a handful of biscuits with my cup of tea, I had absolutely no self control.

New challenge

After school and college, I took a couple of years off to go and teach at Camp America. Thanks to the active itinerary, and the fact that meals were provided, I managed to lose two stone.