Nurse who loses 5st after feeling “fat at 50” celebrates with a bucket list of achievements – from scuba diving to flying a plane – and now feels “fab at 51”
A nurse who was so horrified to find herself “fat at 50″ that she shed 5st – plummeting from a 14st size 18 to a 9st size 10 – celebrated her new body with a bucket list of achievements ranging from flying a plane to scuba diving.
Suffering from high blood pressure, Sharon Medhurst, 51, felt so frumpy and dumpy when she turned 50 in July 2020 that two months later she joined a diet plan – losing 5st in seven months.
Sharon, who lives in Northfields, Birmingham, with her hospital porter husband Paul, 57, and their student son, Charlie, 17, said: “I felt old, frumpy and unhappy with how I looked.”
She added: “I struggled to walk any distance and the stairs were a nightmare. I realised that if I didn’t make a change, it would only get worse.
“As a nurse, I knew the health implications of being obese.
“I already had high blood pressure and was pre-diabetic. I didn’t want to go out and avoided social events. I had no interest in clothes and wore whatever fitted.”
She added: “It was simple – I loved food, but it was slowly taking my life from me.”
All that changed in September 2020, soon after her 50th birthday on July 15 when, with the pandemic in full-flow, Sharon – a yo-yo dieter, who had tried various slimming programmes before – decided to finally commit herself to a lifestyle overhaul and watched her fat melt away.
At 5ft 4in and weighing 14st, Sharon’s body mass index, used to gauge a healthy weight, was 33.4, compared to the NHS healthy range of between 18.5 and 24.9, making her obese.
Breakfast – McDonalds McMuffin, hash brown and orange juice
Lunch: Sandwich and crisps
Dinner: Take away, curry, rice, naan bread and all the trimmings
Snack: chocolate, between one and four cans of beer a night.
But, after joining the 1:1 Diet by Cambridge Weight Plan in September 2020 and reaching her target weight of 9st in March, her BMI is now a healthy 21.5.
Thanking her Cambridge consultant Liz Jeltsch for her support, Sharon is such a shining example of the plan’s success that she is now working part time as a consultant, alongside her nursing job.
She said: “From day one, Liz and I hit it off. Nothing was off topic and her support was amazing.”
She added: “I stuck to the plan religiously and she offered regular face to face meetings, albeit socially distanced, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“My weight fell off and, after a couple of months, I started to feel like a different person.”
With her confidence boosted by her physical transformation Sharon, who had written a bucket list of things she wanted to achieve for her 50th birthday, found the zest for life she needed to start working through it.
Now she has done everything from riding in a hot air balloon to doing a tandem skydive.
“I have changed my life completely,” she said.
As a nurse, Sharon says temptation to over eat is a constant problem.
She said: “Often patients are so lovely and so grateful for our help, that they buy things like cakes and chocolates to say thank you – so it’s easy when you’re working a difficult shift to keep tucking in.”
With such a demanding job, she also devoted little time to following a healthy diet and would order Indian takeaways and grab McDonalds’ McMuffins to eat on the go, rather than putting thought into a balanced, nutritious meal plan.
Marking her 50th in July 2020 by having a tattoo of flowers inked on to her right foot, as Sharon’s waistline shrank, she started tackling some of the more adventurous entries on her bucket list.
Breakfast: Cambridge milkshake
Mid morn snack: low fat yogurt
Lunch: Prawn salad
Dinner: chicken stir fry or take away curry with cauliflower rice
Drinks: A beer, but with a minimum of two alcohol free nights a week.
She said: “I don’t like flying – so I had a flying lesson at Halfpenny Green Airport, Wolverhampton.
“Then, for Christmas, my husband bought me a tandem skydive which I did at Sibson Airfield, Peterborough.
“I’ve also been scuba diving in Cyprus in October 2020. We fed the fish underwater and saw sea turtles. It was incredible.”
She added: “And in September, I went in a hot air balloon with Wickers World at Trentham in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
“There’s nothing like losing weight to boost your confidence.”
Now she wants to drive a Formula One car at the famous Silverstone racetrack in Northamptonshire and plans to climb a mountain.
She said: “My friends and family all say I look and seem like a different person.
“Losing weight means I am no longer pre-diabetic, my blood pressure is far better and, after weighing 14st for the best part of a decade, I feel better than I have in years.
“The Cambridge plan does what it says on the tin, really.”
She added: “It’s quite regimented, providing nutritious 200 calorie meals, which was good for me, as it took away any choice.
“If you stick to it, you lose weight – it’s that simple.
“But the benefits in my case have been so much more than a shrinking waistline.
“Instead of feeling fat at 50, I feel fab at 51.”
* To find out more about The 1:1 Diet by Cambridge Weight Plan, please visit: www.one2onediet.com.
