My mum told me I'd DIE if I didn't lose weight': Hairdresser who used to eat two lunches and dinners every day drops 12st

A woman whose weight reached 22 stone by eating two dinners and two lunches every day has shed 12 stone - after being told her weight would kill her.

Stacey Smith, 24, would secretly eat meals while out during the day and then return home for a second home-cooked helping prepared by her mother.

During her school years her mother Marie would prepare her a packed lunch - unaware that Stacey was also receiving free school meals.

Stacey Smith lost 12 stone after her desperate mother told her if she did not lose weight she would die

Stacey, pictured here with her old dress, has lost an incredible 12 stone and now is a size 10, weighing in at just 10st 8lb

And when Stacey got home she would prepare her own evening meal before Marie, 45, returned home from work to lay on a family dinner.

After swelling to a size 28 her mother sat her down and told her that she was terrified her young daughter would die before her.

 

This heartfelt message prompted Stacey to shed the weight - even losing three stone while she was pregnant - and is now a slender size 10, tiping the scales at a healthy 10st 8lbs.

Stacey, of Norwich, said: 'Mum just sat me down one night when I was 19 years old and said to me 'I'm really worried about you and I don't want you to go before me.'

Stacey's weight curtailed the things she was able to do, including going on fairground rides with her friends

By the time she reached 19-years-old, Stacey weighed a crippling 21 stone as a result of years of secret over-eating

'She said 'I don't want to lose you' - she was worried I was going to die.

'If she hadn't said it I probably would have. She saved my life.'

Stacey says she started piling on the pounds when she was just three years old.

Her mother would lovingly prepare home cooked meals unaware that little Stacey was sneaking packets of crisps to eat in her bedroom.

Her secret eating continued throughout school and her weight ballooned to 18 stone when she was just 14 years old.

'I just started getting bigger and bigger,' she said.

'When I was going to school my mum would give me lunch money but I would get dinners at school too because mum was a single working mum,' admitted Stacey.

'She didn't know. I wouldn't really have breakfast but I would go to the shop on the way to school and get crisps and baguettes using my lunch money for that but then I would have lunch at school too.

'I would come home and because mum was out working until the evening I would cook chips in the deep fat frier.

Stacey's new found confidence saw her complete a training course in hairdressing and she can now run around with her daughter Millie-Marie without getting out of breath

'I would cook anything in there - onion rings and drumsticks - but wouldn't tell mum and I would go out with my friends and she would make me a dinner too.'

By the time she reached 19 years old, Stacey weighed a crippling 21 stone.

'I can remember going to the fairground at Yarmouth with my friends and I'm really scared of heights but I built up the confidence to go on the Mega Drop - the one that goes up really high.

'I got up there and couldn't get the buckle over me. I had to just get off in front of everyone. I was really embarrassed, and it just ruined the whole day.

'When I started going out clubbing when I was 18 or 19 all my friends would see blokes coming up behind me and making faces and puffing out their cheeks saying 'fatty' behind my back.
'I would turn around and catch them. It was horrible.'

But it was only when her straight-talking mother told her she might die that she truly realised it was time to ditch the fatty snacks.

It was only when her straight-talking mother Marie, pictured left, told Stacey, left, that she might die that she truly realised it was time to ditch the fatty snacks

She joined Slimming World with her mother Marie and lost an amazing 11 pounds in her first week.

Hooked, she lost six stone in the five months before she fell pregnant with daughter Millie-Marie, now two, in April 2009.

'When I fell pregnant I was 18 and a half stone but by the time I had her I was down to 15 and a half.

'It it strange to lose weight during pregnancy but I was so big you really couldn't even tell till I was about 30 weeks.'

Her new found confidence saw her complete a training course in hairdressing and she can now run around with Millie-Marie without getting out of breath.

'It's brilliant and has changed my life,' she said
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