10:00am Monday 1st June 2009
By Katy Islip
WHEN the going gets tough, it’s easy to find comfort in food, but sadly the after-effects often bring their own misery.
One woman who knows this first-hand is Angelina Poulton, 35, who, after giving up smoking four years ago, found food filled the gap cigarettes left, and the pounds began to creep on.
Things took a turn for the worse in 2005 when Angelina lost her beloved father, Michael, then had to go through the pain of seeing her mother Margaret diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
“My weight has been up and down pretty much for as long as I can remember. However when I gave up smoking, I just replaced one bad habit with another and started to pile on the pounds,” she says.
“I was also one of those people who found comfort in food. When my dad died a year later, and soon after my mum got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, my happy family life which I had taken for granted, came crashing down around me.
“I was so low, food became my new best friend. It gave me a temporary feeling of happiness and I started to use it as my escape.”
As the reality of her mother’s situation and grief over her father’s death sank in, the weight continued to creep on.
Angelina hit rock bottom when she found herself wearing a size 24 and feeling desperately unhappy about the way she looked.
The 5ft 3in tall mum-of-one says: “I felt too young to lose my dad, and now I was losing my mum to this cruel illness, and I was powerless to do anything about it.
“I was so very unhappy, and the more I ate the bigger I became, which just made me feel even more miserable.”
So with encouragement from her family, Angelina found the strength to start to turn her life around.
She says: “Mum’s illness is devastating, but I knew I couldn’t carry on this way forever and had to turn things around and enjoy the people I still have in my life.
“I made a decision to stop feeling so sorry for myself and to count my lucky stars that I was blessed to have such a wonderful mum and dad in the first place.”
Last year Angelina, her husband Terry, 41, and six-year-old son Mitchell moved from Barking to Pound Lane, Bowers Gifford, and things began to look up.
With the encouragement of her sister Caroline Chamberlin, 57, Angelina decided to join the Laindon group of the weight-loss support group Slimming World.
Angelina said: “Caroline suggested we join Slimming World together, though secretly I think she joined to encourage me.
“We both went along to Laindon Community Centre and joined. She is slimmer now having lost more than two stone and I have not looked back!”
Caroline, of Rowenhall, Laindon, says: “I am so proud of Angelina, she is my baby sister and she has done so well.
“All her friends and family are so proud too, she is just brilliant. I think she’s a great role model, and she proves if you are determined enough you can do anything.”
Since joining the group last September, Angelina has lost 4st 8lb and now enjoys a healthy diet and an active lifestyle.
She says: “I now eat lots of healthy food, I exercise regularly and the weight loss has made me feel like a new person. In the past I had tried so many diets, which worked while I had the willpower. But I felt I was depriving myself all the time.”
She adds the way Slimming World’s weight-loss programme works has allowed her to carry on eating the things she loves, in a healthier and more balanced way.
Laindon group consultant Carol Hayden says Angelina is an inspiration to other group members.
“She is always up for trying new things and has really taken to the activity programme we run,” says Carol.
“Losing the weight has really changed her and she is much more confident and outgoing, and is always encouraging other members and inspiring them with her success.”
Now a size 14, Angelina has a new lease of life and is hoping to continue to lose weight this summer.
She says: “My husband Terry and my son Mitchell love the new me! I have no reason to go back to the old size 24 unhappy girl. That chapter in my life is finished.”
To contact the Laindon group, call 01268 417805, and to find out more about Slimming World in your area visit www.slimmingworld.com and enter your postcode into the group locator.
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