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Super slimmer's recipe for health

Brian Lashley
15/ 3/2007

SLIMMER Sarah Sinclair is fully qualified to teach a healthy cooking course while still enjoying the sweet taste of her own success.

Sarah shed four-and-a-half stone after signing up for a cook-and-eat course which teaches the importance of healthy eating.

The 27-year-old mum-of-two from Ashton now wants to pass on the tips she has learned to others and has qualified to run the course herself as from September this year.

Only two years ago Sarah was unhealthy, overweight and unemployed.

She was depressed after separating from her husband and having undergone a gall stone operation, a procedure normally performed on women in their 40s.

Her daily diet of ready meals was washed down with a litre of coke every day.

As a consequence her weight reached 13st, which meant she was technically classed as obese.

To make matters worse, children Hannah, four, and Katie, three, were fussy eaters and dictated what they ate, little of it being at all healthy.

Sarah, who had been overweight since her early teens, only signed up for the cooking course run by Sure Start because it had a creche.

She said: "I began having fresh fruit, wholemeal pasta, rice and veg and replaced the juice I gave to the girls with sparkling water.

"They even started eating things like fish and lentils.

"My daughter's eczema improved, my migraines stopped and I had more energy.

"People were saying to me 'you've lost weight'. and I didn't even notice. I'd lost a stone without realising.

"I've gone from obese to healthy and now we can look forward to a healthy, happy future."

Sure Start is a government programme which aims to help families achieve better outcomes for children, parents and communities.

Lynn Barber, Sure Start programme manager in Ashton, said: "It is quite amazing what Sarah has achieved in a relatively short period of time.

We are trying to provide services that people have never had before and we are very proud of her."