real life
When Sarah Ramsey, 50, couldn’t fit onto a theme park ride, she knew she had to make a drastic change…
As the ride attendant tried to bring the harness down over me, I felt a wave of anxiety. At 18st 1lb, I was too big to fit on the roller coaster Stealth at Thorpe Park. “Sorry love, you’ll have to ride without me,” I said to my ten-year-old son, Cole, who was sat next to me. Luckily, we were with one of his friends and his mum, so he didn’t have to ride it alone. But that didn’t make me feel any better. I got up out of the roller coaster cart and had to walk past everyone in the queue as I made my way to the exit.
That moment in June 2021 was my wake-up call. I knew I had to lose weight. Over the years, I’d battled with my size. I’ve always been a bit bigger than everyone else, and my weight would fluctuate between a size 16 and 18 when I was in my 20s. But at 33, in 2007, I received a medical diagnosis that changed my life. I was told I had endometriosis and an ovarian cyst. It came as total shock to me, and it wasn’t something that ran in my family. The doctor told me I’d need surgery and in order to lessen any risks, he advised me to lose weight. At this point, I weighed 16st and knew I had to get serious about making a change.
I was a fairly active person and joined a gym, but that didn’t help. Then one day, I was chatting to a friend when she showed me a magazine article about LighterLife. “Look how much weight you can lose on this!” she enthusiastically said.
I quickly ordered my meal replacements and cleared the food from my cupboards so I could begin my weight-loss journey. I swapped meals for shakes and bars, and before long the weight came off. In the first week, I lost 4lbs and, by the end of the first month, I’d lost a stone. It took me five months to lose five stone and, by November 2008, I managed to get myself down to a size 10 and weighed 11st. I felt and looked amazing, and was incredibly proud of myself.
Once I’d reached my target weight, I then went onto a six-week management plan, which helped me reintroduce food into my diet. To celebrate, my friend suggested we go on holiday. Later that month, we headed to an all-inclusive resort in Sharm El-Sheikh, where we basked in the sun and enjoyed ourselves. Determined to keep the weight off, I stuck to small portions. While out there, I met and fell in love with a local man. Our whirlwind romance resulted in me going back there two weeks later so I could marry him! A few months after our wedding, I fell pregnant and in January 2010, I gave birth to our son, Cole.
Throwing myself headfirst into motherhood, I dedicated all of my time to Cole and my weight became
