Fashion and Beauty: Nicola Ellery’s amazing nine-stone weight loss journey
Sep 30 2010 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Nicola Ellery from New Mill is the West Yorkshire Slimming World Woman of the Year 2010 after losing a staggering nine stones in weight. How did she become half the woman she once was? Hilarie Stelfox found out
IT’S no mean feat to shed a whopping nine stones of surplus weight which is why slimming club leader Lynda Thwaites calls the newly slimline Nicola Ellery “our star and an inspiration to others.”
Nicola, 40, who lives in New Mill, was so overweight when she joined the Slimming World class in Holmfirth 17 months ago that she was experiencing potentially serious health problems.
“I got out of breath going up hills and my asthma was getting worse,” said Nicola. “I got repeated chest infections, aches and pains, dizzy spells and terrible heartburn. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels were both high.”
Although she didn’t know it, Nicola weighed 19 stones 6lbs.
“When I went for the first weigh in I asked them not to tell me what I weighed,’’ she said. “I never weighed myself. I was worried that if I found out it would seem like a long road with no end in sight and that I just wouldn’t be able to do it.’’
All she knew was that she was wearing size 26 clothes and no longer wanted to be an overweight mum.
She set herself the target of shedding four stones before Christmas 2009, two stones before a school reunion in May 2010 and then another two stones in the run-up to her 40th birthday in August.
She met every target and surpassed them by losing another stone. Today she weighs just over 10 stones, the weight she was more than a decade ago.
“I feel wonderful now,’’ said Nicola who has two children, Adam, 16, and Tyler Jane, 10. “All the health problems have gone, my blood pressure is fine and I’m doing everything I can to get my cholesterol back to normal,” said Nicola.
Nicola has been a model slimmer, sticking carefully to the club’s eating plans, attending meetings regularly and encouraging others – but she has also taken the initiative.
After losing the first few stones she discovered, as many do, that the weight loss was slowing down. “I decided that I needed to exercise,” she said. “I’ve got a dog and I used to walk it every day, although the dog would get the exercise while I just stood and threw a ball.
“So I started walking much longer distances, going out seven days a week.”
Then Nicola was joined by three friends – Michelle Tracey, Ruth Graham and Maggie White – who had becoming Slimming World members after witnessing her amazing weight loss.
