Lose weight or you’ll be dead within a year. That was the stark warning the doctor gave Jayne Eglen 12 months ago.

Cambs Times: Jayne Eglen was told lose weight or you’ll be dead within a year. So she enrolled on a healthy lifestyle plan PHOTO: Fenland District CouncilJayne Eglen was told lose weight or you’ll be dead within a year. So she enrolled on a healthy lifestyle plan PHOTO: Fenland District Council (Image: Archant)

Jayne was 22 stone. As well as being diabetic, she had serious heart problems and suffered from asthma and sciatica.

Today things are very different. Jayne has lost around three stone.

Crucially, her dangerously high blood sugar levels have also been cut by nearly two thirds and her breathing is a lot better.

She has managed all that with the help of Jane Feaviour-Clarke, a health trainer with Everyone Health, who works three days a week at the North Brink Practice in Wisbech, offering advice and practical help on lifestyle changes.

She got Jayne on to the 12-week adult weight management course held at the Rosmini Centre and has continued to support her ever since.

Ms Feaviour-Clarke says: “I see about 15 people a week at the surgery here. It’s mainly about weight loss. Also a lot of those who are referred to me are borderline diabetic, usually related to diet. We’ve had quite a bit of success in bringing blood sugar levels down. People don’t realise how dangerous diabetes is.”

Jayne is proof of how much can be achieved by taking a few simple steps. “I’m now just careful about what I eat,” she says. “I used to eat a lot of ready meals; now I’ve mostly cut them out and eat a lot more vegetables.

“I’ve also swapped sugary flavoured water for sugar-free squash and walk about a bit more, especially in the summer when it’s warmer.

“Now I keep a regular eye on my weight and I feel so much better.”

Nagging people about being overweight doesn’t help, she says.

“Friends and family got on at me before and my mother would have hit the roof about how much I’d put on - she was skinny as a rake. But the more people go on about it, the less you want to do anything.”

Ms Feaviour-Clarke says Jayne is a great example.

“The fact that she has done so well when she has so many different health problems is very encouraging for others.

“Often people feel there’s so much wrong with them that there’s nothing they can do about it – it’s all too much. But they can look at Jayne and see what can be achieved.”

• Everyone Health provides free health and wellbeing lifestyle services for Cambridgeshire County Council.

It will be running 12-week child weight management sessions in Wisbech and March, starting in April. For full details on these and all its services, call Fiona Poignand on 07889 305310 or email fionapoignand@everyonehealth.co.uk