SOPHIE Winter always enjoyed staying fit with regular visits to the gym. But what started as a passion became an obsession which saw the teenager walking 20 miles a day while eating only mints and iced drinks.
Now, after discovering Zumba Sophie, who at her lowest weighed less than six stones, has turned her life around.
“It’s true. Zumba really has helped save my life,” she smiles.
“I realised that to run a successful business, to get the most out of every day and to realise my dreams, I couldn’t afford to be ill. I had to buck my ideas up and that meant starting to eat again.
“Now I run 12 Zumba classes and have big plans for the future.”
Sophie, who is now 20 and lives in Scarisbrick, says that as a young teenager she regularly helped out at local beauty pageants.
“I never took part but I’d help the photographer and hand out the prizes and I think a lot of my issues stem from that time.
“I was probably a size eight or so but I knew I’d never look like one of those pageant models; they were so glamorous and thin and I just didn’t see myself like that.”
As she grew a little older her weight fluctuated slightly but, she says, it was never a problem and although she wasn’t sporty at school she enjoyed keeping fit at the gym.
“But I was exercising on my own. I’d be in there for ages and wouldn’t see or have to speak to anyone. It wasn’t a very social way to stay fit.”
Having left school at 16 and determined to build up her savings she found herself holding down three jobs.
“I worked in a pub and I also cleaned in a school. Then I got a job in a bistro and ended up running that as well.”
Soon she found herself walking up to 20 miles a day between jobs. Coupled with her exercise regime – she would often cycle for miles – the weight began to drop away.
“Sometimes I’d walk from my home to Southport and back on a Sunday just for the hell of it and I could spend hours on the cross trainer in the gym, too.
“I knew there was a problem but I’d look at myself in the mirror and still see myself as fat.”
She began to suffer kidney problems. Pale skinned anyway she developed dark rings beneath her eyes and her hair started to fall out. Anorexia had her in its grip.
“I lived alone although my parents were nearby and of course they noticed my changed appearance, as did my friends and colleagues. I became known as ‘the girl who spent hours in the gym’.
“But the more people commented on my appearance the more I’d think ‘I don’t care what they think’ and carry on.”
Distraught, her mum tried to force her to eat but to no avail. Her GP also referred to Fazakerley Hospital but Sophie was unwilling to take it further.
“I hated the idea of people touching me and I’d wear baggy clothes all the time to disguise my body shape. I remember weighing myself and I was six stones 1lb but I’m sure I lost more weight after that.
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