When a patient’s husband at the hospital where Claire Crowthers worked as a midwife made a disparaging remark about her weight, she knew it was time to change. The student midwife had ballooned to 196 pounds in weight by comfort eating ice cream and pizza to combat the stress of life between shifts.
“At 5ft 3, I tipped the scales at nearly 14 stone and I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror,” said the 31 year old mother of one. “My long term health was in jeopardy, I was classed as morbidly obese and I was a bad role model for my daughter Molly.”
Claire had even refused to marry her long-term boyfriend, Stephen, because she couldn’t bear the idea of being an overweight bride.
“I couldn’t stand the person looking back at me in the mirror,” she told reporters, “every photo of me was so bad that I deleted them off the camera to avoid having to look at myself.”
But the last straw came when a patient’s husband made a remark about her weight as she was going about a busy shift in the hospital. “I was mortified,” she said, “and although I knew he was right, the fact that a total stranger had passed a comment left me feeling upset, but also determined to change myself.”
So Claire signed up to a local slimming club along with her partner Stephan and, in just ten months, lost an incredible 56 pounds. The results are pretty incredible …
“I was terrified the first time I walked on to the gym floor,” Claire says. “I had no clue what to do or where to start, but my sister was a member and she introduced me to group exercise. Being the kid that always had a sick note for PE and having spent my entire adult life loving life sitting on the sofa, I had always hated the idea of jumping around getting sweaty, but I knew I had to do something.”
Claire persevered, and it wasn’t long before she was hit by the fitness bug. Enrolling in classes such as Bodycombat, Spin, Bodypump and Bodyattack, the weight soon dropped off. “I loved the buzz that I got from completing a workout and soon made new friends,” she said. Soon the gym was an integral part of her life; a place where she could meet up with friends and get the encouragement she needed from them to complete her goal.
Eventually Stephen asked her to marry him and Claire agreed. The two were joined together in October last year, and since then fitness has become a integral part of both their lives.
Since the wedding, the two have focused on becoming even more athletic. “I feel amazing,” Claire says today. “My health is improved and I no longer hate the person staring back at me in the mirror and I have the confidence to go out and live my life to the full.”
It just goes to show what you can do if you set your mind to it! You go, Claire!
