AN overweight health worker was so ashamed of the pictures from her once-in-a-lifetime holiday that she shed four stone.
And Mary-Jane Ferris was so delighted with her new look she travelled back to the same spot in the Caribbean to restage the picture.
Better still, Mary-Jane and her husband finally decided to move from cold, rainy Scotland to live in the Bahamas.
The 58-year-old from Coldingham, Scottish Borders, enjoyed a break with her husband Jeff in the Bahamas in the summer of 2012.
But the pictures of 5ft 4in Mary-Jane – who weighed 15 stone 1lb at the time – did not leave her with happy memories.
So she slimmed down to 10 stone 7lbs, dropping dress sizes from 22 to 12.
Mary-Jane then travelled back to the Bahamas to take another picture in exactly the same spot.
Having now taken early retirement from her job as a health visitor in East Lothian, she and Jeff have retired permanently to the islands.
She said: “I had tried dieting many years ago and had been slimmer.
“But it was not until I saw how I looked in a swimsuit and began to feel breathless climbing stairs that I knew I had to do something.
“As a health visitor, I’d spend my days driving around and then sitting in people’s houses, with no thought of exercise or eating properly.”
After shedding the weight, Mary-Jane decided life near a sub-tropical beach was just the thing and moved permanently to the town of Great Exuma, Bahamas, last November.
She said: “I have so much more energy and we are outside so much gardening I’m growing pineapples, and today I am shovelling sand that has been left on our yard so good for the stomach muscles.”
