‘Escape from obesity’ as Darryn shapes up
At just 28 years old his blood pressure was soaring, he was having respiratory problems, and his weight was having a terrible effect on his mental health.
However, comfort eating was a tough habit to break, and it wasn’t until his mother Genevieve, a Unislim leader, brought him to one of her classes that he began to turn his life around.
“She asked me to the class to help her carry things, be there to bring stuff in and that. But she had a different idea in mind,” he said.
When he eventually plucked up the courage to stand on those dreaded weighing scales, Darryn said he was “absolutely mortified”.
“I didn’t realise how big I was. So that kind of put the idea in my head that I needed to do this now, and do it for me.”
So he made a commitment to himself, starting to eat healthily and exercising regularly. When he went back to the weight-loss class for the following session, he made a startling discovery.
“The first week after I got weighed in I was down 12lbs. It was amazing. What got me was that I was addicted to Coke. I’d drink between four and six litres every day. So I started substituting diluted orange for Coke. It made a huge difference,” he said.
“I kind of had this misconception in my head that going on a diet I kind of had to starve. That wasn’t the case.”
However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. After losing a lot of weight when he started the programme, last September, Darryn hit a bump in the road. The scales went back up.
“I hit my unofficial three stone mark before Christmas but then I put on another 5lbs and it took me another two and a half months to get those 5lbs down again.
“Mentally you have to be ready to lose the weight and I think I was at that point. There have been weeks I’ve been up, there have been weeks I’ve been down, and weeks I was the same but I still stuck at it. I didn’t give up.”
Last week, Darryn hit a milestone — he’s lost three and a half stone since his self-titled “escape from obesity” began.
Now, he has never felt better but still wants to lose an additional three stone to hit his ideal weight. None of this would have been possible without support from his family and his boyfriend Allan.
“My partner, he’s now looking at his own food and thinking about it. He’s only 10 stone but he’s watching what he’s eating as well. And if he’s not eating crap food then I’m less likely to be eating crap food as well. If that support wasn’t there I think it would be harder for me to stick with it.
“When you’re in the state of mind that comfort food is going to make everything OK, 20 minutes later you’re back to the same thing plus ‘I shouldn’t have eaten that’. It’s a vicious circle that has to be broken.”
When he first started to lose weight, Darryn, a hairdresser in Co Tipperary, said people couldn’t believe the transformation. He started an online blog to post about his progress. The response has been phenomenal.
“A lot of people message me. I get around 20 messages a day from people saying they love the page and it’s so inspiring. But what they don’t realise is when they’re telling me I’m inspiring them, they’re actually inspiring me to keep going,” he said.
“When I get down to my ideal weight I’m going to become a Unislim leader, passing on all my knowledge and all my advice to other people to try and help them go through the same journey that I’ve gone through.”
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