Wedding dress hunt drove me to lose weight

2:28pm Monday 4th February 2008

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EVERY bride wants to look her best on her wedding day, but a bad experience dress shopping led Tracy Davey to call the whole thing off.

Tracy, 25, of Ronald Park Avenue, Westcliff, had originally planned to tie the knot with her partner Michael in the summer of 2003. Having given birth to daughter Lauren, now five, a few months earlier she was busy preparing for her big day.

That was until she went to find her dream dress.

"I told the woman that I was a size 16, but every dress she brought out that was a size 16 wouldn't do up," remembers Tracy. "I came away from there feeling really upset."

"I knew that in reality I was a size 18, but I would never buy anything that size, I would always buy size 16 and squeeze into it."

Tracy says the experience left her so traumatised that it was a big factor in postponing her wedding.

The nursery nurse went on to share her experience with her supervisor at work, who told Tracy how she had lost six stone with Slimming World.

"She told me that on the Monday and by Wednesday I was attending my first class. She totally motivated and inspired me," says Tracy.

It wasn't Tracy's first attempt at dieting, but proved to be the one that worked for her.

"I always felt quite overweight as a child, but at that age there's not much that you can do," she says. "When I got older I started attending slimming clubs but I never really got on with them, I found having to weigh out foods, or count calories quite fiddly.

Then there were the diets I put myself on, but by restricting myself I would often end up binging on the foods I wasn't supposed to be eating."

"I did get to the point where I thought I'm always going to be this size and that was quite depressing," she admits.

Thankfully Slimming World turned out to be a weight loss plan that worked for her and in her first four weeks she managed to lose a stone. Nine months later she was at her goal weight of 10 stone and has stayed at that level ever since.

"I felt fantastic," recalls Tracy about reaching her goal. "I'd never seen myself that size."

Neither had the rest of her family and her late granddad had to do a double take at Lauren's first birthday party because Tracy had undergone such a transformation.

Although Lauren still gets confused about the way her mum used to look.

"When we look through old photos she's convinced she's in my tummy in all of them," smiles Lauren. "She doesn't realise some of them were long before she came along."

With her weight remaining at a level she was happy with, that just left one thing - the postponed wedding.

Tracy and Michael began planning it again in November 2005 and this time Tracy, who has two step daughters Jessica-Hope and Topaz, couldn't wait to go out and try on dresses.

"It was such a joy," says Tracy. "I had so much choice and when it actually came to my wedding day I was so happy with my dress that my confidence was beyond belief.

"I was so glad we postponed the wedding, because although I would have had a dress on. I certainly wouldn't have looked so genuinely happy."

SLIMMER OF MONTH

Name: Tracy Davey

Age: 25

Height:5ft 4

Weight before:14st 8

Dress size: 18 but I would always buy a 16

Method used: Slimming World

Weight after: 10st

Dress size: 10-12