Leeds call centre worker Claire Healey is looking fabulous after losing more than eight stones – but her decision to lose weight could not have been more dramatic.

Claire made her vow to slim after a car crash left her trapped upside down in her car in the middle of the motorway – and she feared that at more than 20 stones and a size 24 she was too fat to crawl out of the window to safety.

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She said: "Two men helped pull me out but at one point I didn't think I would manage it. All I remember is one of them telling me to watch out for my stomach because it was hanging down onto the broken glass."

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Claire, a team leader at RBS Insurance in Leeds, was travelling to work in her Suzuki car early one morning last July and had reached the M621 when a tyre burst.

The car hit a safety barrier, flipped on to its side and then turned onto its roof, landing between lanes.

Claire was left hanging upside down and realised her only means of escape was through the window.

"I didn't know how injured I was, there was blood dripping from me onto the roof but I wasn't sure where from. I managed to unfasten the safety belt and collapsed onto the roof. The side window had smashed and I knew I had to try to get through it but I was worried I was so fat I would get stuck and have to wait in the middle of the motorway to be cut out.

"By this time other people had stopped and gathered round the car. With the help of two men pulling me I did get out but a couple of times I thought I was stuck.

"Even in the middle of all the trauma I remember feeling embarrassed."
Claire was taken to hospital where it was discovered she had been lucky and had suffered only superficial cuts and bruises and a wrenched shoulder.

She said: "If I had been just a few pounds heavier I would not have been able to squeeze through that window. I decided there and then, as I waited in the hospital for treatment, that this time I would succeed in losing the weight."

Claire approached Alizonne Clinic in Rothwell, Leeds, run by GP Dr Mark Palmer, which offers a medically-supervised weight loss system based on high-protein meal replacements with normal foods being gradually reintroduced, and over the next seven months shed more than eight stones.

The diet is combined with body treatments to both speed up fat loss and tone the body, so that dieters who lose large amounts of weight are not left with sagging skin.

It costs around £200 a week and Claire has spent around £6,000 achieving her new look, which she funded using money her husband George, an exhaust fabricator, had put to one side.

She said; "It was money George received when he was once made redundant. He was originally planning to buy a new Harley Davidson, but he told me to use it instead.

"I have spent thousands on new clothes as well, but it has been worth every penny, and George thinks so too."
Among Claire's new clothes is a set of leathers and a helmet, because she too is a keen biker but her old outfit has become too big for her, even down to the helmet.

She said: "Before I lost the weight I had stopped going on the bike because I was too fat for my leathers and I was too wedged in sitting on the back, but now I have had to buy a smaller size and we are back to biking as much as ever."

Claire's weight problems began after she left school and started work." She said I was big but very athletic at school, always playing sport and captain of the netball team, but when I left I stopped all the sport and began enjoying myself too much. I had a fantastic time eating and drinking whatever I wanted but the weight piled on.

"I could easily drink 12 halves of lager, then finish of with some shorts and then get a takeaway curry on the way home. And the rest of the day would be full of chocolate and crisps and stodge like cornish pasties as well."
Health
By the time Claire, who lives in Brighouse, married George nine years ago, she had to buy a size 24 wedding dress and have it let out to fit.
"I was the size of a house," she said.

And her health was suffering to such an extent that she got through the day on a mixture of steroids and antibiotics.

Claire has a condition which has caused scarring on her lungs and her hugely increasing weight, combined with her drinking and smoking lifestyle, was sending it out of control.

The couple went to Marbella in Spain for a honeymoon but Claire became so ill that she was hospitalised on her return.

She said: "I stopped drinking and smoking on my honeymoon, I felt so ill. I remember sitting there and not being able to breathe and with so much sweat pouring off me I looked like I had been in the shower."

Claire's health was stabilised but the effect of stopping smoking was to make her pile even more weight on. Her bust measurement went up to a 42GG but she stopped measuring the rest of her body, because the tape would not fit round.

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"I was desperate. I started to try every diet going, I joined slimming clubs and lost a bit of weight and I went to my doctor and got slimming tablets, but nothing really worked long term for me – until the accident made me determined to finally sort myself out."

Now, just months after walking through the doors of the clinic weighing 19 stones, Claire is a size 12 – 14 and weighs eleven stones.

She said: " I just hibernated through the winter, and I even managed to lose weight during Christmas week. There is a forum set up by the clinic where all the slimmers can swap recipes and tips and that was really helpful. I have actually been eating some delicious food.

"All the time I was losing weight I bought cheap clothes from supermarkets because they became too big for me so quickly. I remember the day I first tried on a pair of size 16 jeans – and they hung off me. It was great.

"I have bought so many new clothes, before I used to try not to think about my appearance at all but now I am buying things I never imagined I would wear, like skinny jeans."

"My boss calls me the amazing shrinking woman. I can do all kinds of things now – I walk my dogs everywhere, I can run for a bus – and I can bend down to fasten my shoes, which I couldn't do before. My life is just so much better."