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Following a traumatic divorce, nurse Sue Carruther's weight ballooned to 16stone, 12lbs in 2007.

Standing 5ft 5ins tall,  Sue's weight put her in the medically obese category with a BMI of 39. She was so overweight, she was having had difficulty carrying out the most simple actions, such as walking up stairs, bending over to paint her toe-nails or getting out of the bath.

Sue's weight loss in pictures

And having worked as a nurse for 42 years, Sue knew all too well what the health implications from her weight gain could be - and worried that she was a bad advert for the NHS.

She told Sarah: "I had an epiphany on 23 August, 2007. I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror, I thought enough is enough.  I saw somebody that I no longer recognised.

"I decided I wanted to be me, to be back as Susan again, not what I'd become."

Sue before her weightloss (left)

Sue's weight gain had forced her to stop wearing the fitted dresses, knee-length skirts and high heels that she loved and her wardrobe was full of long skirts with elasticated waist bands, loose baggy tops and flip flops.

Her health was also suffering.

Sue said: "I was getting hypertensive. pain in my leg and I had reflux, which is when the abdomen is so big you the gastric contents come up. I was on the road to type two diabetes."

After reading about various methods of weight loss Sue started the controversial Lighter Life diet, which involves restricting food intake to a minimal 500 calories a day, a quarter of the recommended 2,000-calorie intake for women.

Sue following her weight loss

She said: "Lighter Life is a  medically supervised, very low calorific diet created by doctors for the medically obese. The programme I undertook, it's not for everybody.
"You have to go through your GP. The progamme lasts for 12 weeks. You abstain from conventional food and drink, and you eat things such as soups, milkshakes and chocolate or toffee flavoured bars."

In addition to the diet, Sue followed a complimentary programme of cognitive behavioural therapy, transactional analysis and group therapy, which she says changed her attitude to food.

She said: "My weight increased post-divorce. For about 15 months, I saw food as my friend. It was comfort eating.

"It took me a long time time to find that food wasn't my friend it was my worst enemy.

"This programme worked for me because it was underpinned with therapy. I've been to slimming groups in the past and lost weight, but it didn't change what was in my head, why I did what I did."

Sue said that prior to embarking on her diet she would reward herself with food, 'grazing' for a couple of hours a day and snacking on high fat savoury foods such as cheese.

While she was on the Lighter Life diet, Sue had her blood pressure and urine checked regularly so she knew her rapid weight loss did not have a negative impact on her health.

And today, at under 11stone, Sue can wear size 12 clothes again, and slip on the three inch high heels she loves to wear.

She said: "I went into East in Reading and I saw on the model in the window a very nice red dress, fitted. I thought 'I'll never get in that', but I did. Going from being a size 26 or 24 to be able to get into a size 12, you cannot put a price on that."