A MUM has said that losing nearly 10 stone in just over a year has saved her life.

Louise Hall has been named as Slimming World Oakridge’s “Miss Slinky 2014” after she shed the pounds, and dropped eight dress sizes, between October 2013 and December 2014.

The 35-year-old, who now weighs 10st 12lbs, said that the weight loss literally saved her life after it gave her enough confidence to visit the doctors after she found a lump in December 2013.

A doctor then told her that the lump was Vulval Intraepithelial Neoplasia (VIN) – a condition where there are pre-cancerous cells in the skin of the vulva – and if she had left it to develop she might not have been alive six months later.

The mother-of-three, who lives in Wateridge Road, Oakridge, Basingstoke, told The Gazette: “Six months more and it would have been cancerous, and it probably would have been too late, so it really has saved my life.”

Louise, who weighed 20st 8lbs before her transformation, decided to join the slimming club after one of her sons was subjected to taunts about her weight at school.

The cook, who works at St Bernards Nursery, in Vivian Road, Oakridge, added: “My son came home from school and he was being bullied and it really got to me. I knew for years that I needed to lose the weight so I joined Slimming World the next day.”

Louise then turned her life around and found that she could still eat all the foods that she loved but needed to control her portion sizes, cook meals from scratch and eat plenty of vegetables.

She said: “I went to a group meeting and Lizi Nickless (the Oakridge group consultant) sat me down and talked me through everything I could eat, and I didn’t believe her.

“You can still have wine, crisps and cheese. I lost weight and I was never hungry. I went in the next week and had lost half a stone.”

Louise has now joined the Aquadrome at Basingstoke Leisure Park, and is planning to swim and do toning exercises to help her get rid of excess skin that has been left following the transformation.

She added: “I just feel the person I was on the inside is what is on the outside now and I am happy and healthy.”