Obese football fan who got stuck in turnstiles loses 17st by walking

SWNS

A man who weighed almost 30 stone and was so fat he got stuck going through football turnstiles has lost a staggering 17 stone - by walking.   Steven Duffield, 45, tipped the scales at 28.1st (178.7kg), and could only wear 5XL American football shirts and massive jogging bottoms.   Single Steven piled on the pounds after a decade gorging on takeaways, snacks and downing between 12 and 14 pints of beer a night.   He decided to take drastic action in 2022 after he took his nephews to a Boxing Day football match but got wedged in the turnstiles.   Steven had also previously been told he was too heavy for the scales at his GP practice and his BMI (Body Mass Index) was a whopping 59.2.   He started walking every day, beginning with a short stroll to the end of the road but steadily built up to cover more than 25 miles a day.   Steven also swapped fatty foods for healthy dishes like chicken and rice with vegetables and tried intermittent fasting.   He also gave up alcohol and explored different eating options including the keto diet which is popular with celebrities.   In just one year Steven lost a 13st (83kg) and has shed a further 4st (25.4kg) to now weigh a trim 11st.   To donate to the fundraiser visit www.justgiving.com/page/saharayomp4acorns

Transcript

00:00So my name is Stephen Duffield and at my heaviest I was 398 pounds and over the

00:10course of a year I'd got down to about 11 and a half stone.

00:15Everything was going my way. I had a great job that I just started, just moved

00:21in with a girlfriend and her family that I loved very much, but in the

00:26background I'd always had kind of depression, kind of anxiety and it just

00:30came to a front with stress and stuff. So I had to move out and I had to move back

00:37to mum and dad's. The stress, the anxiety, the depression all came in floods and

00:42sadly as I say as mum and dad took me under the wing my mental health

00:47deteriorated even more. I was put on more and more medication and I had a mental

00:50breakdown and unfortunately I tried to take my own life.

00:54Suddenly overnight mum was taken to hospital, had a brain aneurysm and within 24

01:02hours she died in my and my sister's arms in hospital bed so that absolutely shocked

01:07me. Dad had started to develop quite aggressive dementia so despite all my

01:13mental health challenges I had to look after him for a couple of years as well.

01:16He was then hospitalised and he died in mine and my sister's arms as well so I got very deep

01:26grief to deal with as well. I was having takeaways, I was lying in bed all day drinking beer after

01:36beer after beer. I had to go to the doctors for a blood test or something along those lines, I forget what it was.

01:42They couldn't fit me on the scales, the scales wouldn't go up to how big they couldn't atone

01:48for my weight. So I had to go to a different hospital to get weighed. And yeah it was, it was then that the GP

01:56said look, off the cuff, the trajectory that you're on now, you're looking at 10-15

02:04years left. And it didn't really register with me at the time because I didn't care.

02:09I, you know, I think eating and drinking was a way of slowly killing myself by suicide that way

02:17on reflection. And it wasn't till that Christmas 2022 that I'd gone to a football match with my

02:27two oldest nephews and my brother-in-law. And I got stuck in the turnstiles and like I say it was

02:36quite a poignant moment, one of those tipping points that you have in life that I'd had enough.

02:43It was quite humiliating. So what did I do? I realised I owe it to myself, I owe it to my mum and dad,

02:51I owe it to my sister who's and my brother-in-law who had taken me under the wing to do something

02:59about it. I'd walked before as I say and it had worked to some degree but I'd gained it all back

03:07and doubled up on that. So I thought if I'm going to do it this time I'm going to do it properly. So

03:13the first month I started to commit to this I only walked six miles in that month. But along with that

03:22I started calorie counting and I think by the second month I was doing two or three miles a day

03:29and then it all adds up. As I slimmed down to maintain that level of weight loss I had to walk

03:35further and further, sometimes with the weight on my backpack. And I used the time that I was walking

03:40to listen to different YouTube channels and podcasts. I used walking to centre myself in being present in

03:50nature and appreciating what I had got not what I hadn't got. On reflection December 2023 I weighed myself

04:00and I was 153 pounds. December 2022 that boxing day I was 398 pounds. What I would say is just get out there

04:13one foot in the front of the other. By walking it actually triggers things in your brains. It triggers

04:20feel-good emotions. Even if you're walking a mile a day that mile soon becomes two miles.

04:30I walked. Those calories I owned from walking would go into my budget. I then started looking at fasting.

04:40I then started looking at keto. But before I did all that I counted calories and I walked.

04:47And I laid it up. That's it.

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