Speaking about his life when he was 25-and-a-half stone, James, who is a teacher and lives in East London said he was living an unhealthy lifestyle and drinking “too much beer”, which would result in him snoring throughout the night, and waking up with a hangover at the weekend.
James said: “My weight ballooned at secondary school. I grew to 5ft 11ins, but went up and outwards at the same time.
“In 2011, aged 26, I weighed 20 stone, so I decided to count calories. I have an obsessive all-or-nothing nature, so it suited me at the time.
“I would log everything on an app, restricting myself to 2,000 calories in the beginning, then down to 1,500 over six months.
“When my weight hit 15 stone, I was happy, so I started eating normally again for about a year to 18 months, and, of course, the weight piled on.
“That was the first big attempt to lose weight. And every attempt since there have been four over the past 10 years, has involved calorie counting, losing a couple of stone, and then putting on all the weight I’d lost and more.
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