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A young mum has shed almost half her body weight after her son begged her to go on a bike ride with him.
Georgina Cook, 29, from Burton, Staffordshire, has lost a staggering 10 STONE through healthy eating and exercise after realising she was just too big to fit on a bicycle seat, and unable to cycle with her eight-year-old son Daniel.
Georgina told Woman's Weekly magazine that prior to this realisation, she had never regarded her weight as a problem - no one had every commented on it, although she did find clothes shopping difficult. It was only when she was physically unable to participate in cycling with her son that her weight really hit home.
Now a trim size 12, down from a whopping 26, Georgina says she thinks she may have had 'body blindness' and simply did not realise how big she was.
Georgina said: "Because I had always been big throughout school, it never embarrassed me. People had always known me as a big girl and I was lucky that I had always been very popular at school where people knew me as the loud one. My mum occasionally said I needed to do something about my weight but it never seemed important to me. I was doing what I wanted to do, I had friends and I was quite happy."
The mum-of-three says that her GP had once told her she 'could do with losing a bit of weight' but she felt that he 'never made it sound too important'. She admits she had a 'few issues' with her blood pressure, but again, had never thought it significant.
"My relationship with my husband had always been great - he found me attractive no matter how big I was - so I didn't have to worry about that," she said, adding "No one ever made a negative comment about my weight and if they did, I never heard them. I had convinced myself that it wasn't a problem."
Georgina's weight went up to 21 stone in 2010 after the birth of her third child. Last January she put a picture of herself at her fattest on her kitchen cupboard to help stop her reaching for the biscuit tin. She banned takeaways, and switched to healthy eating, and now, a year later, tips the scales at 11st 8lbs.
She said that with the support of her friends and family and Slimming World she is still dropping pounds and plans activity weekends away with her husband Richard, 38, and sons Daniel, Lewis, four and Stephen, one.
"I now feel so much better for doing it and it has let me do so much more with my children.
We cycle anything up to 10 miles when we go out and have great fun. It's such a relief to be back in better shape."
What an inspiring story! Well done Georgina!