Return to slender!
 
Teacher Stephanie celebrates 
a new life  
- as 100  
pounds disappear! 
 
 
 

BEFORE AND AFTER: Right, Stephanie as she was and, left, the new look Stephanie is weighed by class leader Fiona Brindle.  

Photographs: IAIN LYNN
 
School teacher Stephanie Macdonald is celebrating a learning curve which has cost her more than 100 pounds - in weight. 
Stephanie, of Houghton, near Preston, has shed a mammoth eight stones and half a pound after teaching herself a whole new way of eating healthily.  
Before throwing off her colossal 21st 8lbs 43-year-old Stephanie, who teaches in Blackpool, squeezed into size 32 clothes.  
Now, however she is well on the way to her dream size 14 - and the figure she had in her 20s.  
And as an incentive to keep going she is planning a holiday to California in the summer where she will meet up with fellow slimmers she contacted through surfing on the Internet. 
Stephanie, who has battled for years with her weight, joined a new WeightWatchers class near her home in November 1996 weighing in at 21st 8.5lbs.
By VANESSA TAYLOR

She said: "I was a size 32 and all my clothes had to be elasticated. 
"I was the largest size the outsize shop did. 
"I was always afraid to sit down in case the chair couldn't take my weight and when I went to Israel on holiday I had to have an extension to my plane seatbelt. 
"When I got a flyer saying this new class was opening I was determined to do it this time, the time was right for me." 
Stephanie is a keen user of the Internet and has made friends with WeightWatchers in America. 
She added: "In fact they are playing a large part in keeping me going, I feel I can't let them down.  They have been so supportive and I've made some great friends and one who lives in California has invited me over for the summer. 
 

 "I've never been to America before so I'm really looking forward to it, and to meeting her". 
Stephanie was presented with a certificate to mark her 100lb weight loss milestone and celebrated with her class with a meal at the Boar's Head in Houghton. 
Aiming
She added: "I am determined to keep going. I am aiming to get down to 10 stone and into clothes size 14 and I'm going to do it this time, I was that size in my early 20s." 
"I'm so confident it's never going back on that I have thrown out all my big clothes." 
Class leader Fiona Brindle said she was delighted with Stephanie's progress. 
She added: "She joined my class soon after I started it. 
"Stephanie is so motivated and she's so full of live now. She has so much energy, she exercises to Mr Motivator tapes at 5.45am each morning before going to work."		 Stephanie said her main downfall had been chocolate - but not any longer. 
She said: "I am not even tempted by chocolate now, my whole way of eating has changed now and changed for good this time. 
"In 1976/77 I was at WeightWatchers and got to within three pounds of my goal weight then but stopped going. 
"And that's when it all started going wrong again and the weight piled on. I even tried the home programme but I couldn't stick to it so when this class came along I was determined. 
"I can do so much more now. I can breathe easier, I can go swimming now, the cat can sit on my knee and I can even cross my legs when I'm seated. 
Losing weight has given me a new lease of life." 
 
 
 
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