Six-and-a-half stone down and still going: Lara’s inspiring journey through life’s toughest challenges
Despite multiple disabilities, six operations and ongoing health complications, Lincoln woman Lara is proving that weight loss is about more than the number on the scales – it is about resilience, changing habits and never giving up.
For 42-year-old Lara, from Lincoln, losing six-and-a-half stone has been about far more than changing the size of her clothes. It has been about rebuilding her confidence, improving her health and discovering that, even when life throws its toughest challenges her way, she can still make progress towards a healthier future. Originally from Wiltshire, Lara has lived in Lincoln since 2008. She lives with her partner, her 17-year-old son and their three cats. Alongside family life, she also manages several disabilities and ongoing health conditions, including severe endometriosis and adenomyosis. Her journey has not been straightforward, but Lara’s determination to keep moving forward has remained constant.
Looking back, Lara believes her relationship with food began to change following significant childhood bereavements. She lost both her mum and one of her nans within three months when she was just seven, followed by her other nan when she was 12. With the loss of these important female figures in her life, food gradually became a source of comfort. She grew up eating large meals and was encouraged to finish everything on her plate, often followed by pudding. Rather than seeing food as something to nourish her body, she began to associate it with comfort and managing difficult emotions. Her confidence suffered too and after leaving school, her weight became an increasing source of unhappiness. Following the birth of her son, she gained more weight and tried several approaches to losing it but struggled to find something that worked for her in the long term.
Eventually, her weight began affecting her everyday life and medical treatment. She needed surgery but her weight became a significant concern for medical professionals. She had also dislocated her knee three times, with further surgery dependent on losing weight. Another moment that stayed with her came in 2023, when she won a trip and travelled by plane. For the first time, she needed a seatbelt extender. She remembers feeling mortified. These experiences, alongside the impact her weight was having on her health, mobility and confidence, helped her realise that something needed to change.
Having tried calorie counting and meal-replacement shakes, Lara knew she needed structure but she did not want to spend her life feeling hungry or restricted. When a friend told her about Slimming World and its Food Optimising eating plan, the idea of being able to enjoy everyday foods while losing weight appealed to her. She first joined in 2016 and initially made good progress. However, health difficulties and other circumstances eventually disrupted her journey and she regained the weight she had lost, plus more. By February 2024, she was ready to try again.
Returning just a few weeks after a major operation, Lara had promised her endometriosis consultant that she would work towards losing weight. This time, she was not focused on a particular target. Instead, she wanted to change her habits, improve her health and build a way of eating she could maintain. Nervous and anxious about returning, her biggest fear was the fear of failing again. But she quickly discovered that her Slimming World group was a place where she felt understood. There was no judgment or shame, just humour, encouragement and support from people who understood the challenges of trying to lose weight. She was also surprised by how much food she could enjoy while following Food Optimising. For Lara, the structure of the plan was a revelation. Having never been taught how to approach food in this way before, she found that understanding how to build satisfying meals and make healthier choices gave her the tools she had been missing.
Since returning to group, Lara has lost an incredible six-and-a-half stone and the changes extend far beyond the scales. She now wears size 18 clothes, having previously worn sizes 24–26 and jokes that shopping on Vinted has become a weakness. She says she can genuinely feel her body becoming smaller and lighter, and has noticed that her stomach feels softer, less bloated and less heavy.
Some of her proudest moments however, have come from the everyday things many people take for granted. On a recent trip to Paris, Lara was overjoyed to board a plane without needing a seatbelt extender. Trips to the cinema are more comfortable, too as she can now sit in a standard seat without the armrests digging painfully into her legs. Her body mass index (BMI) has also fallen from 52 to 39 and losing weight enabled her to undergo knee surgery last year after previously being told she needed to lose weight before the procedure could go ahead. Even the mobility scooter she uses was previously unsuitable because she exceeded its weight limit. For Lara, these are the victories that truly demonstrate how far she has come.
Yet her story is not one of uninterrupted success. Since 2017, she has undergone six operations, with more expected in the future. One operation resulted in a stay in a high-dependency unit and periods of recovery have sometimes left her confined to bed, using crutches or unable to attend her weekly group. Living with severe endometriosis and adenomyosis brings additional challenges and Lara recognises that her health can affect her weight-loss results. There have been weeks when she has followed Food Optimising fully, carefully weighed and measured everything and felt confident she had done everything right, only to see a gain or a smaller loss than expected. Naturally, she admits, this can be frustrating.
But Lara has learned not to let one week’s result define her entire journey. With encouragement from her consultant Nicole, she now looks back through her food diary and weight records to compare her progress over six or 12 weeks, rather than focusing on a single weigh-in. She also celebrates the non-scale victories that demonstrate the difference her efforts are making. Her advice to anyone facing similar challenges is simple: keep going, even when the journey looks different from the one you imagined.
For Lara, Food Optimising is not about achieving perfection. It is about finding practical ways to make it work around her health and circumstances. On difficult days, that might mean choosing a suitable and low swip takeaway, preparing a Slimming World meal from the freezer or buying ready-prepared fruit and vegetables to make life easier. When she has plans to go out, she prepares an on-plan snack box to take with her. She has even taken her own food along to afternoon tea and continued losing weight that week. Because of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), Lara also prepares breakfast the night before and measures out her milk in advance, helping her manage mornings when she needs to rest. She does not follow a rigid weekly meal plan, preferring to take things one meal at a time because that approach works better for her.
Her message is that there is no single way to make progress. The important thing is to find an approach that fits your own life and to keep making choices that support your goals. When motivation dips, Lara turns to the Slimming World magazine, tries a new recipe or listens to the Slimming World podcast, presented by Anna and Clare. She describes the presenters as her “special Slimming World buddies”, whose encouragement and humour help her through difficult weeks. She has also discovered new foods along the way, including aubergine, butternut squash and celeriac – ingredients she would never have considered eating before joining Slimming World.
Perhaps the biggest change, though, has been her mindset. Where she once believed she was a failure, Lara now knows she is capable of making lasting changes. She is also learning to see food as something that nourishes her body, rather than simply a source of emotional comfort and increasingly chooses non-food treats, such as plants, flowers and concert tickets. She is determined not to return to the habits that left her feeling unhappy and uncomfortable in her own body.
Lara has also found strength in the people around her. Her group, her consultant and the wider Slimming World community provide the stability and encouragement she needs, particularly when health problems interrupt her routine. She knows she can return after an absence without feeling guilty about the time away and that a difficult day does not have to become a difficult week. “If one day doesn’t go to plan, I just start again the next day – or even with the next meal” she explains. That attitude has helped her understand that weight loss is not about getting everything right all the time. It is about continuing to make positive choices, learning from setbacks and refusing to let one disappointing result undo weeks of hard work.
The difference in Lara’s outlook is also reflected in the memories she is making. At a friend’s hen do, she and two friends squeezed into a photo booth together and realised that between them, they had lost more than 14 stone. It was a moment that brought home just how much had changed.
Lara believes that the key to her progress this time has been her mindset, her maturity and her willingness to make full use of the support and information available to her. By reading articles, exploring magazine features and listening to the podcast, she has worked to understand the principles behind Food Optimising and why consistency matters. She has also learned to be kinder to herself. A gain after an operation or a week when illness makes things harder does not mean she has failed. Nor does a smaller-than-expected loss erase the effort she has put in.
As Lara puts it, one of the most important lessons she has learned is that difficult experiences can teach us skills and resilience we would never develop if everything were easy. Her journey is still ongoing and she knows there is more she wants to achieve. But six-and-a-half stone lighter, with improved mobility, greater confidence and a renewed belief in herself, she is no longer the woman who thought she could not do it. She is the woman who knows she can.
For anyone who believes that health problems, disability, surgery or a difficult period in life mean weight loss has to be put on hold indefinitely, Lara hopes her experience offers reassurance. There will be weeks when progress is slower. There may be times when health must come first, when routines change or when returning to group takes a little longer than expected. But she believes that finding a sustainable approach, accepting support and starting again when possible can make all the difference.
Her advice is to take things one meal at a time, celebrate every victory – whether it appears on the scales or not – and never underestimate what can be achieved by continuing to try. Lara has a saying she returns to whenever the going gets tough: you cannot make a skilled sailor from calm seas. Her journey has certainly not been plain sailing but she is proving that setbacks do not have to mean the end of the road.
“I used to believe I was a failure but now I know I CAN do it and I WILL get to target” she says. With Slimming World behind her, Lara is continuing to work towards her goals, one day, one meal and one week at a time.