A WORCESTER woman is celebrating after losing a staggering six stone and one-and-a-half pounds.

Helen Dennis was told she had fallen below her target weight of 11 stone to 10st 13lbs at her weekly Slimming World meeting just a year and three weeks after joining.

The 30-year-old joined the club last year, weighing just over 17 stone, after seeing pictures of her and some friends in fancy dress costume for a friend’s hen weekend.

Miss Dennis, a nanny, said: “We went to a fancy dress party and when I looked at the pictures and saw all the other girls, I just cried.

“The funny thing is now that I’ve lost the weight I’m smaller than them!

“I feel great now I’ve lost the weight. I can now walk into a shop and try things on that I would have avoided before.”

Miss Dennis, of Victoria Place, off London Road, still attends the weekly meeting and now provides help and advice to others hoping to lose weight.

“I really enjoy going to the meetings and helping people out. If I can help, I will,” she said.

Miss Dennis first started putting on weight after being prescribed steroids for a chest infection when she was just 18.

From there she admits it was a downhill spiral and she started eating all the wrong foods and binge drinking every weekend.

“I wasn’t on the steroids for long, but that’s where it started. Once I put the weight on it was hard to lose it,” she said.

“My weight went up and my self-esteem went down. Just before I joined Slimming World I was in a relationship which went pear-shaped and because of that I turned to comfort food and at weekends I was binge drinking and I piled the weight on.

“But at the time it didn’t bother me. Before I went on the steroids I was about nine or ten stone, but once I was on the steroids I started going out and getting a social life.

“I hardly drink at all now, I always drive and drink Diet Coke instead.

“I’ve noticed the difference, but it was hard – I really like my wine!”

Miss Dennis attends Slimming World at Cherry Orchard Community Centre.

Contact Sam Crosswell on 07775757036.