Wedding photo rang bell for weight loss

When nurse Rhia Mason saw a picture of herself at her brother's wedding, she decided that it was time to lose weight.

The photograph was the wake-up call that Rhia needed.

Since January the mother of one has lost five stone. Rhia, who lives in St Matthew's Road, Burntwood, joined a slimming class in Hammerwich with her friend Chris Cooper and both of them have worked hard to lose weight.

Rhia, who works at Samuel Johnson Hospital in Lichfield, said she had piled on the pounds after her daughter Isla was born.

At her heaviest, she reached 16-and-a-half stone. To shed the weight, she swapped her daily diet of chocolate, crisps, cake and chips for fruit, pasta and yoghurt, and also took up dancing.

And she was delighted at her last weigh-in to step on the scales and find she had reached her target weight of 11st 5lb.

Now her Slimming World class have named her their 2012 Miss Slinky.

"At the time I was in a job where I was stressed at work and I had put on weight after having Isla, and so I started to comfort eat," says Rhia, 30.

"My brother Richard had his wedding at the Village Hotel in Walsall and when I saw a photo of myself I realised how big I had become. Now that I've lost the weight, I have noticed my joints feel better and my asthma has also improved."

Rhia, who is 5ft 4.5in, has dropped from a size 22 to a 12 and says her husband Steve loves her new look. "Steve never put me down over my weight but he praises me all the time about how well I've done," she says.

"I used to go into clothes shops and thought that people were looking at me and saying 'she doesn't belong in here'. Now I love going shopping."

After winning the title in her group, Rhia is waiting to hear if she has won the national title, and the £2,000 shopping prize.

Slimming World's annual Miss Slinky competition recognises members who have undergone a huge transformation by becoming slimmer and more confident.

Rhia's consultant at Slimming World, Suzi Rigby, said: "I hope she inspires lots of other people to improve their health by losing weight.