A FORMER rugby pro who once needed XXXXXL clothing has shed 16st, after being warned he wouldn’t live to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.
Scott Paris, 34, has lost so much weight that there is enough material left over from his kilt to make one each for his two sons.
Mr Paris, fromWest Lothian, ballooned to 30 stone after he gave up semi-professional rugby in 2001 and took up a desk job in customer services.
Doing no exercise and indulging in unhealthy snacks between meals, his weight soared, to the point that he avoided travelling on planes travel and could only buy his XXXXXL clothes from specialist online stores.
Meanwhile, his confidence and health deteriorated as he suffered from fatty liver, back and neck pain and high blood pressure due to his weight gain.
Mr Paris hit rock bottom in January last year when he visited his GP, taking daughter Lucy, now four along with him.
He said about the consultation: “One of the doctors said, ‘Do you want to be around to walk Lucy down the aisle?’ My heart hit the flood. My parents were big, and it wasn’t until that point I thought the end was nigh. “
Shocked by the Doctor’s cryptic comments, Mr Paris drew up his will, and even began secretly recording video diaries for his children to remember him by after he died.
Despite trying several diets, Mr Scott only achieved modest weight loss.
But last may, he found a diet that helped him shed the pounds.
With one-to-one consultations and a box of food every week from the Cambridge Weight Plan, his weight plummeted.
He said: “The big thing was one-to-one support. You get given a box of food for the week and you can’t divert from it, so there’s no temptation.”
Now weighing in at 13-and-a-half stone, he has taken up both playing and coaching rugby again, and has left his old desk job to become a diet counsellor for the firm.
On Saturday, he scooped the 2011 Male Slimmer of the Year award at its annual convention.
It was in the run-up to the awards that he decided to get his kilt adjusted and found out that he had enough material to be turned into kilts for Zach, six, and 18-motnh-old Rory.
Wife Deborah said: “I have my sexy husband back and we now have a future to look forward to.”
