At 24, Dana has LOST weight for the LAST time.

Name: Dana
Age: 24
Start weight: 177lbs
End/Current weight: 147lbs

1 – Tell me about your previous dieting attempts.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been on some form of diet. I’ve wasted so much time and effort going on diets over the summer then, over the winter, eat rubbish and pile the weight back on.

It got to a stage my family just rolled their eyes when I’d talk about what diet I was doing.

Whether it was Juice+, Slimming World, Tesco slimming shakes back to Slimming World, I tried them all. I remember doing the shakes. I lost a LOT of weight and thought I looked amazing. As soon as I stopped them, what do you think happened? I piled the weight right back on. I’ve always dieted with unrealistic timescales. I was stuck in a cycle of dieting and restricting myself that much that I’d binge out and ruin it.

2 – What was it you hoped The Munro Method would do for you?

I used to always say “I just want to be skinny” when all I really wanted was not to need to care about looking fat in pics or in person or being “the fat one” among my friends. Especially on our holidays etc. I knew for years that I was overweight, but it wasn’t till someone commented on it to me, and that’s when it REALLY hurt as I knew that must be how others saw me too.

3 – How did you hear about us?

A friend from my work told me about it and suggested I join or at the least start calorie counting as she thought I’d benefit, knowing what my diet history looked like.

4 – What was it about us that stood out from other available options?

I started calorie counting off my friend’s advice and noticed a huge difference when “dieting”. It didn’t feel so restrictive as I was now able to eat things I would usually restrict when dieting.

She was loving Munro and tried explaining to me how it all worked, but I didn’t understand it. After having a look at the website, I thought “let’s give it a go!”.

5 – Did anything almost put you off coming to work with us?

No. At such a low cost to work with a qualified Nutritionist, I thought, “What have I got to lose?”. Compared to paying £6 a week to go to Slimming World pretty much to just get weighed by someone with no qualifications and go on my way!

6 – What made you bite the bullet and sign up?

I think a big part of it was the price to begin with!

It seemed relatively cheap to be getting all this professional support and advice for a few pounds more than SW a week.

I did wonder if it was too good to be true! (it wasn’t!)

7 – What did you enjoy most about being a Clan Munro member?

The thing I loved most is the Instagram side of things. I made a new account for one of the 8-week challenges. I followed all the other members from Clan Munro, and it was excellent!

You get to see what others are up to in their daily lives and you really do feel like a part of the Clan! It’s just a community of lovely people all encouraging each other all day, every day!

I would go to Slimming World classes and sit next to people not knowing a thing about them. I would listen to them say they are losing weight for a wedding, holiday etc.

Then you don’t see what happens outside of the group. That’s what I like best about having these guys on Instagram because you get to see the benefits and how it affects people’s lives in different ways. It’s so encouraging to see!

8 – What have you been able to achieve since becoming a member of the Clan?

I have lost over two stone, and I am down two dress sizes. I was a size 16, and I am now a size 12!

I have learnt so much about my body, and how it works, it’s just crazy how simple weight loss is once you get the hang of it from getting feedback on your check-ins and makes me realise HOW wrong I was getting it in the past!

I was one of the brainwashed people at Slimming World where if I saw ‘free food’ I would eat as much of it as I wanted. I’d back it up with “well it’s free so I can have as much as I want”. Now I look back to that and think WOW how could I have ever believed that?

I haven’t tracked for the last couple of months because I’ve had a lot of events on. With the tools and education I now have around nutrition, I have managed to maintain my weight, and I am over the moon with that as I have only had to make a few sacrifices to achieve it.

Had I been at Slimming World I wouldn’t know to do these little things that seem so obvious now, and it’s the little things that could cause you to make you pile the weight back on when on SW because there’s no education. Now I can enjoy going out for meals when I want and not worry about saving enough SYNS.