After turning 70 and spending year’s yo-yo dieting Jim McGinn set out to live a healthier life and started to monitor his diet, reduce his alcohol intake and take up running.
Despite his efforts, this still wasn’t enough to prevent a pre-diabetic diagnosis and a prescription of Metformin. Jim realised he had a responsibility to his family to take care of himself but that he needed help to do this. And so he got in touch with the Heathy Lifestyle Service and spoke to a Healthy Lifestyle Advisor.
His advisor pointed him in the right direction and gave him the knowledge and advice he needed to reduce his alcohol intake and to eat better.
“I learnt about the dangers excess body weight and fat bring with them, which is important especially now coronavirus has underlined how life-threatening overweight and inactivity can be to me.
The key was making small changes to build healthy habits – I can now balance special occasions where I will enjoy myself by refocusing myself afterwards.”
Jim was also signposted to the X-pert Diabetes Control and Management programme by his advisor which he completed alongside the Healthy Lifestyles support.
By setting targets with his Healthy Lifestyle Advisor Jim was able to lose over a stone and reduced his BMI enough so that he was not longer considered obese.
“I was unaware of services like Healthy Lifestyles and X-pert – I wish I had benefited from them earlier and I am truly grateful for their existence today.
I realised that I was ignorant about and to some degree in denial of my obesity. The Healthy Lifestyles Service and X-pert Diabetes programme helped me understand the dangers that excess body weight and fat bring with them. Covid has underlined how life-threatening overweight and inactivity can be.”
Since completing the Healthy Lifestyles Programme Jim has become a Telford and Wrekin Health Champion and a Climate Change Champion.
“Volunteering makes me feel good about myself and keeps me active in the community.”