A man who lost five stone has told how he was overweight and depressed, eating five packs of biscuits a day.
Stephen Hanley shed the weight and quit his day job to become a personal trainer to help others to regain their confidence.
After his long-term relationship ended in 2018, the dad of two spiralled into depression and the weight started to pile on.
Dubliner Stephen, 30, told the Irish Mirror: “I fell into a depressive rut. At the time I felt like a failure and quite alone, I turned to food to make me happy and that meant I piled on the weight.
“I dealt with my feelings by basically eating myself through them.”
Aged 27, Stephen weighed 12 stone, but through excessive eating, within a year and a half his weight had skyrocketed to 16 stone.
He said: “I would eat anything and everything, but my go-to was these biscuits in my local shop, I’d regularly
eat four to five packets a day.
“I would burn through biscuits, that was about 2,000 calories a day, on top of breakfast, lunch, dinner and takeaways.
“For a long time, food was my only comfort, thankfully I got into a new relationship and I knew something
had to change.
“Up until then I couldn’t cope, ultimately eating junk food made me feel good but my health was suffering.”
Being overweight was wreaking havoc with many elements of Stephen’s life as he said: “I was sharing a single bed with my new girlfriend Tiegan. It came to a point where we couldn’t even share a bed comfortably.
“It was hard for me to move in bed, life was difficult, I found it hard to tie my shoelaces.
“It was in the December I thought, ‘enough is enough, it’s time to make a change and look after myself first’.”
So he bit the bullet and joined a personal training course online.
Stephen said: “I’d never been in a gym at this point.
“It was never about a goal weight, I wanted my self-confidence back, to find something to make me happy other than food.
“I recognised I was going down a dangerous path that would ultimately destroy my health.”
He lost five stone in nine months, training online and becoming aware of his food choices.
Stephen said: “I started to learn what was a protein and a carb.
“I had the support of a trainer and that made me think I’d like to help others.”
After losing the weight and finding himself, he quit his job as an administrator and retrained to become a personal trainer.
He said: “Having gone through the process, I have huge empathy for anyone who’s trying to lose weight.
“My goal is to help empower others and help to give people their self confidence back.”
