'I feel like a pig in you know what - I'm loving life'

CABBIE SWAPS BACON SARNIES FOR FRUIT AND YOGHURT IN WEIGHTLOSS JOURNEY

- By DAVE ROBSON

A TAXI driver from Redcar who weighed more than 28 stones just over two years ago has told how he shed more than HALF his body weight.

Andy Hill tipped the scales last week at 12st 10.5lbs compared to the 28st 5lbs he weighed in March 2023. And in a remarkable story of fighting back from the brink, he puts his transformation down to Slimming World sessions, support from friends and family, and his own determination.

As a child, he helped himself to unhealthy food at home so that by his mid-teens, he admits, he was "probably the fattest kid" at Redcar's Rye Hills School.

When he turned 18, things worsened after "the world of beer, kebabs and takeaways" came along.

And in 1985, when his best friend was killed in a scooter accident in front of him, Andy, who was then driving buses for United, plummeted further into a world of unhealthy food and isolation - “I didn’t want to know anybody. I just stayed in the house, drank and ate.”

By the time his marriage of 14 years ended, Andy, who was now working as a taxi driver, weighed 25 stones. And when Covid came around, he says, “I thought I was in paradise - getting food delivered to my house, I didn’t have to work and I just got bigger and bigger.”