Teacher driven to diet chooses slimmer body over a new car

She slimmed down from size 34 to 14 and can now buy high street clothes for the first time in years.

The 52-year-old used to be 20st 13lbs but nine months later is 10st 10lbs and still losing weight after sacrificing a new set of wheels for a much slimmer figure.

The primary school teacher in Middleton, Leeds, said: "The diet has probably cost me 10,000 and I had to choose between that and a car.

"I chose the diet and I definitely made the right choice, it has worked out at about 250 a week in special food and treatments but it has been worth it.

"I'm more than happy to be driving an old car but I have to buy smaller size clothes roughly every six weeks, so I've had to buy cheap basics."

The delighted mother-of-two said: "The children and parents at school have all been coming up to me and saying how much weight I've lost.

"I had done every diet under the sun before this and I got to the stage where I thought 'this is ridiculous'.

"I spent a week mulling over the decision and then I decided that I was in the right frame of mind and this time it was going to work.

"I lost 16lbs in the first week and carried on steadily losing weight every week after that."

The divorcee, who has two grown-up sons, lost the weight on the Alizonne diet a medically-supervised protein meal replacement system sold through the Alizonne Clinic in Rothwell, Leeds, run by Dr Mark Palmer.

"I found the diet easy to follow and there is a support group which is very helpful, but my mental image of what I look like hasn't caught up yet.

"I don't recognise myself unless I see my face. I was shown a picture of myself which had only caught my body and I only knew it was me because I remembered the computer memory stick I was wearing around my neck."

She puts her weight gain over the years down to eating too much. "I wasn't a binge-eater, I was a picker. I would be eating little bits all the time, always going off into the kitchen to make some toast or a sandwich or helping myself to a biscuit."

The grandmother, who has been single since the age of 25, now enjoys shopping for clothes.

"For the first time I can look for clothes that suit me, not just clothes that fit me.

"Everyone's been really supportive, my only regret is that my dad isn't alive to see me now."