'We don't know enough about fat jabs yet' - Local man reveals how he's lost 5 stone by changing his diet

With a start weight of ‘26 and a half stone’, Eddie, after rethinking his diet is now ‘weighing in at around 21 stone’.

‘I am 6ft 2ins tall so I suppose that helps carry the weight,’ said Eddie.

‘I was just under 21 stone before Christmas, but crawled up a little.

‘My goal at the minute is 20 stone.

‘But I will re-evaluate that as time goes on’.

Eddie, 58, who works for Northern Ireland Water and comes from Randalstown, said he never ‘had the inclination or money to use the fat jabs’.

‘I never even considered doing the weight loss jabs because they cost a fortune,’ he said.

‘I can be a bit tight so if I saw another road I would try that.

‘I have always been sporty and healthy, but if the doctor had given them to me on prescription then possibly, but to go on your own without knowing too much about it, then definitely not.

‘And what happens when you come off them?’

Eddie added that as the weight loss medication is ‘pretty new on the market, then no-one knows yet’.

‘I am trying to do it through changing my way of eating.

‘To be honest I don’t know if fat jabs are the way to go. But we will know in 20 or 30 years time’.

Eddie didn’t start off with the intention of losing 5 stone, ‘but the plan came to me as I kept losing weight’.

‘For me I had to get my head right, then needed some encouragement and guidance,’ he added.

So I joined Slimming World in Ballymena ‘and my group leader Kerry Alexander has been brilliant with her ideas and encouragement every week’.

‘I have lost 5 stone over 2 years,’ he added. ‘My goal at the minute is 20 stone, but I will look at that again as I get closer to it I suppose’.

Eddie says he hasn’t ‘changed my food dramatically, but I am eating a lot of low fat meat now and cooking from scratch’.

‘I suppose before that I would have reached for easy food you buy already cooked, but now I do a bit of cooking for myself.

‘Before I would have grabbed something out of the garage like a scone with butter and jam. I still do that now and again, but not as often as I used to.

‘I eat porridge for breakfast now and bulk if out with fruit 5 days a week. Then at the weekend it would be eggs’.

Eddie admits he does ‘feel a lot better, my joints aren’t as sore, I am not out of breath running up the stairs any more and I probably do sleep better’.

‘I also cut out sweet lemonade and drink the diet version now, plus I tried to cut out bread which was a hard one’.

During his successful weight loss journey, Eddie says there ‘has been no defining moment, but after I lost 3 and 4 stone people started to notice and were asking me how I did it which was great to hear’.

Eddie added that he has had ‘highs and lows’ during his weight loss journey.

‘Even if you have a bad week, you get up and try again,’ he said.

‘It is about being accountable to yourself and showing up. In a class you get encouragement from other people and ideas for food and cooking.

‘For anyone trying to lose weight, first and foremost you have to have it in your head that you are determined to do this.

‘You don’t need to go to a class, but you need support and you need to be organised.

‘I know what when I do try it definitely does work. It is not always easy, but you can do it with some extra effort and making some time for yourself.

‘You need to be positive about the thing and be prepared to learn about a new way of cooking.

‘The class has been good for me, I have met so many people and learned tips about cooking.

‘And there is no pressure on anybody. It is simply a lot of people in the same boat’.