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Your wedding day is, aside from the day you have kids or the day that the vending machine gives you two cokes for the price of one, one of the most important days of your life. So it makes sense that anyone getting married would want to look their very best — different for every person — as they walk down the aisle.
For Jennifer Ginley from Liverpool, walking down the aisle while obese was an impossible thought. It was so terrible, in fact, that she didn’t even let her boyfriend propose to her while she weighed 270 pounds.
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Ginley, who had been with her boyfriend for 11 years, told People that she put him off every time he started discussing marriage. Not because she didn’t love him, of course, but because she didn’t want to “shop for a size 24 dress.” Things could have remained the same, but in 2015, Ginley went on a vacation to Disney World that changed her life forever.
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“I had to ask for a seatbelt extender on the plane, I spent our time there having to ride on the adjusted seats for larger people, and I was horrified when I saw the photos,” she says. “One picture of me with the Little Mermaid — my favorite Disney character — actually made me gasp. I saw myself in a whole new light — I looked so unhealthy that I cried, wondering how and why I had done that to myself.”
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By the time the tears had dried, Ginley had made a decision: She would lose the weight. So she joined a program called Slimming World (similar to Weight Watchers) and started following the plan. Instead of eating “whatever she could get her hands on,” Ginley began to do something different, namely planning her meals. Instead of eating fast food, she went shopping and still eats foods like spaghetti Bolognese and chicken stir-fry.
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Aside from Ginley’s goals to lose the weight, she also wanted to get back to the things she enjoyed before she’d grown larger. So when she dropped 98 pounds and her body felt ready, she returned to dancing. Now, she weighs 135 pounds less than she used to (that’s half her body weight!). Her secret? Keeping a food diary. She began posting her diary on Instagram as soon as she started Slimming World and used the likes and comments she got as support. The response from her family and friends, she says, has been overwhelming.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMgJzE1hVw5
But what’s even more important is that
“I honestly can’t believe all of the amazing things that have happened to me since I first joined Slimming World,” she says. “I reached my target weight just over a year after joining, and just before Christmas Luke asked me to marry him at Harry Potter Studios in London (I love Harry Potter)! It was such an incredible feeling to be able to say ‘Yes!’ without even a second thought about my weight, and I can’t wait to go dress shopping.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLQL4jWh6yq
One more perk of her new body? Ginley says she now believes in herself more than ever. And even better, she believes she can do all the things that she sets her mind too. Not too bad for a few years’ work!
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