Sketch of ‘fat mum’ was the last straw to kick start Caroline's seven stone weight loss
BREAKING a chair just by sitting on it after years of struggling to keep up with her active young children still wasn’t enough to persuade 19st Caroline Pugh to lose weight.
But when her six-year-old daughter Daisy drew a picture of her as a fat blob, it spurred her into shedding 7st.
Mrs Pugh, 33, who lives with husband Andy, 37, a warehouse manager, plus Daisy, four-year-old Tizzy and Teddy, two, said: “It was so embarrassing when I saw the picture Daisy had drawn.
"I didn’t realise that my children saw me as looking so huge.
"I got so tired running around after them all the time, my weight meant I couldn’t keep up with them properly, which did upset me.
“When I saw that picture I knew I had to do something about losing weight.
“I’d tried to push it to the back of my mind.
It was only a child’s drawing but it meant the world to me
"With three young children to look after, my own appearance wasn’t a priority, but my health was suffering too.
"When I was 12 weeks pregnant with Teddy I actually broke a kitchen chair.
"I’d sat down on it and it completely gave way beneath my weight but this drawing really brought it home to me.
"I didn’t want my children drawing pictures of their fat mummy any more.”
Mrs Pugh joined her local Weight Watchers group in Wolverhampton and instead of eating three sandwiches and crisps for lunch and pizza for dinner, she had low-fat cereal with skimmed milk, homemade soup for lunch and fajitas with beansprouts and peppers for dinner.
She said: “My diet was awful before.
"I’d skip breakfast then have lots of bread and crisps or sausage rolls for lunch.
“We would have takeaways several times a week too and I just snacked on crisps all the time.
"When I started on the diet I still had takeaways for a while but in moderation and I would snack on low-fat crisps, fruit and yoghurt instead.”
The weight started to fall off her and she has managed to drop five dress sizes and now weighs a much slimmer 12 stone.
She can now wear slinky dresses instead of hiding her weight behind baggy T-shirts and leggings but best of all was when Daisy made another drawing of her, this time looking slim.
She said: “When I saw that new picture I felt very proud of what I had achieved.
"There was nothing to be ashamed about now.
"I can’t believe I managed to lose so much weight.
"It was only a child’s drawing but it meant the world to me.”
