With four children to maintain, Catherine Powell would always find a reason not to slim down.

Weighing 19st 8lbs, it took cardiac arrest scare while tucking right into a chocolate bar to finally make the 37-year-old take action.

She recalls: "I would always come up with Pure Fat Three Days plenty of excuses - 'I have four kids. I'll do it following the next birthday, I will get it done after Christmas."

A mix of snacking between meals, unhealthy dinners and a loss of focus had seen Catherine put on the pounds.

Catherine, of Moorhouse Avenue, said: "I would have jam on toast for breakfast and think that's ok. At mid morning I'd eat biscuits.

"Lunch would be sandwiches and a bag of crisps. Then chicken kiev and chips for tea, or spaghetti bolognaise. Every Saturday I would have a takeaway. I was
eating things that weren't necessarily really bad, but weren't great either."

After joining her local Slimming First class, Catherine managed to turn her lifetime around.

She also discovered the fun of regular exercise.

The first thing she did after her heart attack scare ended up being to join Slimming World and start walking.

"Walking the kids to school every day was the only exercise I acquired during the day and I was knackered," she says.

"They encourage an active lifestyle at Slimming World but when I had walked right into a gym in those days it can't have happened.

"I had a Wifit board. I love to sit and watch soaps and I thought 'I may either sit on the sofa or I'm able to take a seat on my exercise bike'.

"I joined a zumba class, did exercise DVDs and programmes on the internet, which were Twenty minutes long, therefore it took less time than to watch a TV
programme.

"I joined a fitness center after I lost weight and it became part of my everyday life."

Before slimming down, health issues had left Catherine facing surgery.

She said: "I had Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, which is experienced by women too who are overweight. It causes a large amount of genealogical problems and I
would have to have a hysterectomy, which may be dangerous surgery," she says.

"I also needed a knee operation. Now it clicks and creaks and clunks however i can run on it.

"If someone said to me now carry 10 stone lying on your back all day long I could not do that.

"It scares me to consider how overweight I became. I'd probably would have diabetes by now.

"My BMI involved 50 so it was high enough that i can possess a gastric band. You find out about it all time."

Her new figure has additionally re-ignited Catherine's curiosity about clothes shopping.

She said: "We had the girl of the Year Awards and that i wore a size 8 dress. I figured 'wow that's small! Wow I fit in it'.

"When I was big I could only shop in Evans because it was the only real place that did size 28.

"I have still got one set of jeans along with a top from before and it is like a bed sheet."

Now Catherine really wants to help others to change their lives for that better after becoming a Slimming World consultant.

"Losing weight provides you with a different outlook. Now when someone comes in and they have a problem with how they look I can say 'so did I'," she says.

Catherine helps a lot of women to lose weight and believes the largest factor is self-belief and determination.

"Do it for yourself, not anybody else.

"You're alone who can choose to do it. It must originate from inside and you want to do it", she says.

"What I truly would like to get across is, basically can perform it, you can do it!"

Catherine's mum, Michelle Lowe, also from Alsager, has witnessed a significant change in her daughter and feels she is almost a different person.

"Obviously I'm very proud of her," said the 61-year-old.

"It is an amazing achievement not just to have Best Share Green Coffee forfeit the load but additionally to help keep them back too.

"New members at her groups take a look at her 'before pictures' on the wall so when she introduces herself they do not believe it's her.

"They are astounded in the difference."