Sherri’s battle with her weight dates right back to school when she was cruelly teased for being bigger than her friends.

“I was an easy target for bullies,” she says. “I had a difficult home environment. There was no communication. It’s ­probably why I don’t have children now.

“I’d eat to make myself feel better. I withdrew into myself, becoming anxious, depressed, and suicidal.”

A debilitating three-decade-long binge-eating disorder followed. At her heaviest, she was around 24 stone – and life became ­unbearable.

Walking for more than five minutes left her in pain and breathless and she suffered from high blood pressure, sleep apnoea and pre-diabetes. Simple tasks such as bathing or putting on shoes became almost impossible.

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Sherri, 38, says: “I didn’t have a life. I wouldn’t go out, I stopped talking to friends. I locked myself away. I was lucky if I got 800 steps a day. It was a downward spiral. I’d feel dreadful so would eat treats. I counted my calories once. A bowl of mac and cheese – that one meal was 3,500 calories, it was such a massive portion. That was my norm.”

Sherri tried to lose weight before. In 2012, her GP prescribed weight loss drug Orlistat, but the experience was “horrific”. She says: “The side-effects were awful, crippling stomach cramps.” In 2022, she was referred to an NHS weight-loss programme. But there was little personalised support and she was offered bariatric surgery. Sherri declined. Then, that same year, pneumonia nearly ended her life.

She recalls: “It started as a chest infection. It got worse. I started coughing up blood. It was the lowest point of my life. I left it as I just didn’t want to be around any more. Doctors said it was a miracle I survived. But as they told me I needed a ­ventilator, I felt frightened, and that was an epiphany. I realised I did want to live.”

On recovering, her sister ­encouraged her to try Slimming World in February 2023. And it changed everything. "When I first walked through the doors I hid in the corner,” says Sherri, of ­Plumstead, South East London. While sceptical at first, she embraced Slimming World’s healthy eating plan, called Food Optimising.

Within weeks, she saw results and set a goal of losing 5st for her cousin’s wedding, which she achieved. The supportive ­atmosphere, her consultant Ella’s ­guidance and the joy of rediscovering cooking made all the difference.

Slimming World’s active lifestyle programme rebuilt Sherri’s mobility too. “I now walk over 10,000 steps daily and I’m training for a 10k,” she says. “I’ve reversed looming health ­conditions.

“Today, I’m unrecognisable, inside and out. My journey proves that lasting change doesn’t come from quick fixes, but from healing your relationship with food. I’m a size 8. I used to be a size 34-36. My plantar fasciitis, which has been ­bothering me since I was eight, has gone.

“I’m literally half the woman I used to be having lost over 12st. I don’t know if I’d still be here if it wasn’t for Slimming World. It’s saved my life.”