An obese father who was worried he would die early and not see his child grow up has managed to shed so much weight he now practices MARTIAL ARTS with his son.
Jamie Perryman, 40, suffered from anxiety and was so fat a hospital had to use special scales to weigh him as his weight ballooned to 25 stone.
But the determined father-of-one hit the gym, joined a fat camp and stopped eating his favourite food – chips and mayonnaise.
He managed to shed a total of nine stone – three stone over four years and the remaining six in the past 18 MONTHS.
“I was my heaviest in 2009,” said Jamie, who works as a crime scene investigator.
“I began to realise that I was going to die sooner rather than later.
“I had always been big but after my wife, Philippa, had a miscarriage, it got even more out of control.
“Then my wife got pregnant again and we had our little boy, Hanley.
“As he grew up and started to move around I realised how being so overweight was not only affecting my life but it was impacting Hanley in a huge way too.
“I wasn’t able to play with him on the floor very easily at all. I loved sports as a kid and I was heartbroken that I wouldn’t be able to play football or tennis or even just have little races with him.”
Things also got embarrassing for Jamie, from Worthing, Sussex, when he experienced a numbness in his hands and went to the hospital.
It was there that he was told he had to get on special sit-down scales because he was so large.
The shame made him realise something had to change.
So he took up a new sport – Brazilian jiu-jitsu – which helped him transform.
“It sounds really cheesy but it has changed my life,” he said.
“I find myself smiling for no reason – I have a positive outlook now.”
“From secondary school I was pretty big.
“I put a stone on for every year. My heaviest was 25 stone.
“I’m now 15.
Jamie, who lives with his son, Hanby, six, and wife, Philippa, 37, says his family are loving the difference.
“We do stuff together more often now,” he said.
“They love it.
“I show my son stuff at home – we wrestle and I’m more able to play with him now I’ve lost the weight.”
Philippa added: “It’s absolutely amazing, it’s beyond any of my expectations and I could not imagine him being where he is now.
“We went through a stage in my marriage where he would not come to family events and when we were out in groups he would not express an opinion. People have not said to me he is so fun.
“People are starting to see the side of him only I used to see. He is so gorgeous when he smiles. It’s like the honeymoon period is back in our marriage.”
Jamie now even broke the gym’s record in a six-week challenge and lost 28lbs.
At 15 stone he is determined to lose even more weight.
“I don’t want to just stop there,” he said.
“I want to keep going.”
