Susie Calder said the turning point for her was when she was out with friends and someone asked if she was pregnant.

The now 30-year-old was unhappy with her weight for around seven years before she sought help because it was severely affecting her mental health .

Some days she did not even want to leave her house.

She said: "There was lots of fat shaming. It's not nice going out and someone making comments about you looking pregnant."

In the end, after trying a multitude of diets, Susie joined Slimming World and said she "never looked back" but that the journey to get there was tough both mentally and physically.

Now, around two years since she went to her first meeting in Uxbridge , Susie has managed to drop from 14 stone to 10 stone and is about to launch her very own Slimming World group in Yiewsley, where she lives.

"There's a lot of exclusion"

Susie admitted she has "struggled with her weight her entire life", but that it started to seriously affect her after she put on weight in a relationship, broke up, and continued to gain weight afterwards.

It wasn't just the physical side of gaining weight for Susie. It was the way it made her feel. She explained she developed severe anxiety and lost all her confidence.

Susie said gaining weight meant she didn't feel like herself anymore

"I've always suffered a bit of anxiety, I think a lot of people do nowadays," she said. "But nothing like what I came across when I gained the weight.

"It was hard because my friends love going out and I would go too because I wanted to be with them but I would have been quite happy having a slumber party. I didn't want any sort of attention."

For Susie there were several situations that were piercingly painful.


"There's a lot of exclusion," she said. "Quite often we'd go out locally, to Windsor or somewhere, and you've got your VIP areas and so they would invite my mates up and they would disappear off and I would be left down there."

Susie also said she was unsuccessful at dating during this period of her life, and if she did date, she said she became "needy" and "scared everyone away".

"I was so depressed and anxious about everything"

One of the most startling parts of Susie's story is the relationship she came to have with herself while she was going through this tough time.

She said: "[Her weight gain] held her back, it changed my personality completely and I didn't even feel like myself anymore."

The impact it had on Susie was not just physical. She developed crippling anxiety which prevented her from wanting to go to work or even leave the house at times.

She went on: "The more you get excluded from things and less compliments you get, it slowly but surely affected how I saw myself and whether or not I wanted to be out with people.

Susie said her weight triggered anxiety and a loss of all confidence

"I never wanted to be the centre of attention and would hide in the background and refuse to draw attention to myself. As time wore on, the more and more withdrawn I became from people.

"I was so depressed and anxious about everything and I'm not saying all of it went back to my weight but the majority did."

While she has come on leaps and bounds since this time, Susie is keen to share this part of her story because it was the realisation that she had lost all of who she used to be that encouraged her to first join Slimming World.

"It makes you look differently at food and you fall in love with it all over again"

"The final straw was the whole pregnancy incident and I decided I needed to do something," Susie explained.

She continued: "Taking those first steps into my Slimming World group was one of the most nerve-wracking things I have ever done, luckily for me I had my sister by my side as I walked through the door."


Susie explained that she has never looked back because Slimming World is so different from the fad diets that are out there.

Having tried things like the shake diet and fasting diet, Susie now dismisses those sorts of techniques because they are pretty much impossible to maintain.

Susie with her current partner

She explained: "As soon as you get to your weight and come off the diet, you put it all back on again. But with Slimming World it's about re-educating you on food and making healthy choices part of your lifestyle.


"The meals I get to cook are amazing, we have curries regularly in my house because we can."


Essentially, Slimming World does not ban any foods, instead categorising them into foods you can have unlimited amounts of, healthy foods you should get into your diet, and 'syns' which Susie describes as the foods "you can't live without".

She summarised: "It's never going without but it's learning the right amount to have so you can lose the weight and maintain it to have a healthier lifestyle in future."

"I want to support people to get where they want to be in life"

Susie has decided to set up her own Slimming World because she wants to help others in the same way she was supported.

"I want to encourage other people to be able to do it because it's changed my life and I want to support people to get where they want to be in life. For a lot of people, I know it holds them back."

The latest government figures show around one in four adults are obese and it is estimated that by 2034, this will rise to one in three.


Currently 62.5% of Hillingdon's population is overweight or obese, so Susie feels more empowered than ever to launch her Slimming World group. Her first session is on Saturday June 29 at 8am at the Walter Pomeroy Hall in Yiewsley.

"I think obesity in the UK is caused by many things," she said. "It doesn't help when you go into shops that the bad food is the cheaper food as I know there is a lot of poverty within our nation."

Now Susie wants to help others by setting up a new Slimming World group

She added that a lot of it is down to not feeling like we have enough time to cook.

"To cook a meal it does take time and there is a lot of prep behind it. But Slimming World have thought of that too. They have a range of meals already made up which are sold in Iceland and you get the recipe on the back of their microwave or oven meals so if you like it you can make it yourself.

"I'm a total grab and go person. I work full time and now I'm running the Slimming World group, so I don't have much time. Those Iceland meals have been a life-saver for me.

"I know a lot of people who have that as a meal every night because they work shifts and don't want to get in at a late hour and then start cooking a meal. These meals are not expensive at all which is the main thing. And there's lots of easy but great recipes."

When asked what advice she would give to someone who is going through what she did, Susie said the biggest thing is taking the first steps.

"I took the first steps by going into that group and I never looked back because I knew there was no other option," she said.

"The thing I would always say to someone is, be brave. You've got to do this for you, don't do it for anyone else.

"Be brave, you have to be."

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