A mother was finally able to get a proper hug from her 6-year-old daughter for the first time after she shed a whopping 84 pounds (38 kg).
Carla Ford, 33, ballooned to 224 pounds (101 kg) as she got into a habit of binge eating after becoming a mother while juggling a part-time job and returning to college to get the grades she needed to become a midwife.
She began gorging on Greggs sausage rolls, biscuits, vanilla lattes, chicken pesto pasta, and takeaways for nearly a decade.
“I was always brushing my weight under the carpet,” Carla said. “Truth be told I was so unhappy with how I looked. I would be in tears with how I let myself get.”
“So much so that I used to wash my hair twice a day to make sure it looked nice because that was the only thing I could instantly fix,” she added.
In March 2020, the mom of three, from Edinburgh, Scotland, went for a routine checkup at her GP surgery and was told she was on course to develop Type 2 diabetes. The news of her weight “eventually hit home.”
Devastated by the projected diagnosis, the trainee midwife was subscribed to antidepressants to help her cope with the news of the health scare.
Four months later, Carla decided to shift the pounds with a low-carb diet that sees people cut out the likes of bread and sugar.
“I had no time for me but when it was midway through the lockdown I thought, what with the health scare, if I don’t do something now it'll never change,” Carla said.
She switched to a healthier diet comprising scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and avocado for breakfast; followed by tuna salad with olives/cooked chicken and cheese for lunch; and cottage pie with swede mash and lots of buttered green veg for dinner; along with a deliciously guilt-free salted caramel blondie with whipped cream for dessert.
For snacks, Carla opted for healthier options, such as pork scratchings with alioli and cashew nuts.
“I completely overhauled my diet and the first four or five days were really tough as it’s a shock to your body,” Carla said. “But after a few months I noticed I was losing all the symptoms of my PCOS. The horrendous skin cleared up along with the excess facial hair and the feeling of being constantly hungry had also reduced.”
In addition to a change in diet, Carla began walking a lot more and signed up to go to the gym in November, after having already lost 70 pounds (32 kg).
“I also didn’t want to be doing a job where my weight would bring me down,” Carla said. “I didn’t want to be unfit while doing a 12-hour shift.”
Carla had worked hard for four years as a mature student to earn the grades she needed to get a place in university, juggling taking care of her three children at the same time.
Within six months of changing her diet, Carla reversed her trend toward diabetes, and her polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) symptoms have also reduced.
“I just feel so much better for it all,” Carla said. “I’ve tried so many diets over the years and seen my weight yo-yo but nothing has actually stuck.”
“This has and I’ve never felt better mentally or physically,” Carla added.
Carla mentioned that, recently, there has been a lot of attention given to the keto diet on social media, with some stating that it might be unhealthy and unsustainable, but for Carla, she says, this is not the case.
“It’s genuinely saved my life,” she said.
“I won’t ever go back to eating the way I did before now that I know what works for my body and the vast benefits I’ve had from reducing my carb intake,” she added.
Additionally, Carla has been receiving regular blood tests from her doctor in order to ensure that her body is working as it should with her new lifestyle. She now strongly believes that nutrition can help with so many issues that normally have medication prescribed.
Now weighing 140 pounds (63.5 kg), Carla says her remarkable weight-loss journey finally hit home when her daughter, Florence, hugged her one evening and said her “arms could reach one another.”
“She said ’mummy my arms can touch one another now,'” Carla recalled. “It’s things like that which I never would have realized before but are obviously impacting her.”
On achieving her ideal weight, Carla said weight loss has enabled her to fulfill her dream to be a midwife, which she is currently training for at Edinburgh Napier University.
