"For the first time ever, I feel alive"

AT the age of 12, Lynn Carter was 12 stone. She was popping diet pills and attending a slimming club when her friends were popping diet coke cans and attending a youth club.

"I have battled with my weight all my life," she said. "I was always the fat kid at school. I got picked on and bullied. It was absolutely miserable.

"That made me very quiet and shy. All I wanted to do was blend into the background. I would do anything not to be noticed. Even on my wedding day."

When she married, she insisted on a small wedding party: herself, husband-to-be Jim and two witnesses.

"I couldn't even face being the centre of attention on what should have been my big day," she said. "Can you imagine that?"

Lynn, who lives at Barlby, near Selby, with Jim and their three children, Sarah, 19, Lee, 17 and 13-year-old Emma, was a classic yo-yo dieter.

She would lose half a stone and put on a stone, her weight creeping up year after year.

"I wasn't someone who gorged on food," she said. "Other women in my slimming group would talk about eating a six-pack of Penguins, but I was never like that.

"I think part of my problem was genetic - my dad's mum and sister were both over 20 stone and died before they were 60 - and the rest was down to dieting. Every time I went on a diet I ended up heavier."

The crunch time came when Lynn hit the scales at 20 stone.

"I couldn't help thinking that I might not live to see my grandchildren grow up," she said. "I was 42 and 20 stone. With my family history, the odds were not in my favour."

She knew an extreme solution was called for, she just didn't know what. Then she talked to a nurse at York Hospital when Jim had a minor operation.

"When she mentioned a gastro bypass commonly known as stomach stapling I was horrified," said Lynn. "It seemed so drastic."

But she was also intrigued enough to research the operation on the internet. She turned out to be the ideal candidate. Her GP referred her to a consultant in York, who gave her the green light. The final decision, however, was hers.

To help her make that momentous decision, she attended a support group at the hospital for gastric bypass patients.

"You could ask them anything," said Lynn. "I had this daft idea that my brain wouldn't know that my stomach was smaller, so I would still want to eat normally. That sounded like torture to me.

"The other members of the group were able to put my mind at rest. The fact is that, once you've had the op, you really don't think about food at all.

"You might have thought about it morning, noon and night before, but afterwards it's just not a priority."

And she should know. Lynn had her stomach stapled in April.

She was cut from her breast bone to below her navel, leaving her with 60 clips and a stomach that could only hold 2oz of food. It might sound like a painful process, but she described it as "at worst, a kick in the ribs".

Then, her new eating regime began.

"For the first six weeks, you can basically eat mush," she said. "To be honest, the only problem I had was remembering to eat.

"I literally had no appetite at all. I would look at the clock and realise it was 7pm and I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast time. That compulsion just wasn't there any more."

Her appetite is not all that has changed. Her sense of taste has altered. She now can't face old favourites such as rice, potato, bread, tea, coffee, milk, yogurt, beef or pork. She can't even stomach chocolate.

"I bought Jim a bar of Turkish Delight, which used to be my favourite," said Lynn. "I decided to have a little nibble. It tasted unbearably sweet and greasy - one nibble was enough."

Her daily menu now runs to melon for breakfast, soup and a piece of fruit at lunchtime and a small portion of chicken and veg in the evening.

Perhaps not surprisingly, she has lost seven and a half stone in seven months, taking her from a size 26/28 to a 14/16.

She has also gained a new job in the Shoe Studio at the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet after years as a full-time cleaner.

"The thought of being out in public was mortifying before," she said. "Now I love going to work. It's a real joy."

Some people argue that stomach stapling is an easy option, a way of avoiding the hard work a diet entails, and a drain on scarce NHS resources.

Lynn does not agree: "Tests showed I would have developed diabetes if I had not lost weight, which would have cost the NHS money. And if anyone thinks this was the coward's way out, they should have seen the number of times I cried through fear before I had the op."

She is now looking forward to a happier, healthier life - a life that doesn't revolve around food.

"I feel so much better about myself," said Lynn. "For the first time ever I can honestly say I'm not just surviving, I feel alive."

Updated: 09:19 Tuesday, November 29, 2005