'I look back and just forget it was me' - 36 stone man with 60-inch waist loses half his weight to become personal trainer

A man who weighed nearly 37st looks unrecognisable after losing 18st in a drastic change of lifestyle and diet - and he’s now a personal trainer who has helped more than 350 people.

Neil Scurrah, 41, said he has had issues with his weight from the age of eight but when his dad passed away from cancer, he fell into a pit of despair and turned to food for comfort. At the height of his 'six-month eating binge’, Neil weighed 36st 10lb, wore 6XL clothing and had a 60-inch waist.

But as his mental health hit 'rock bottom' and even getting out of bed became a struggle due to his size, Neil said he was jolted into action. He started walking regularly and cut down on his calories to around 2,500 a day to lose 18st in just under four years.

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His waist dropped to 38 inches, and his shirt size dropped to a comfortable XL - and he even lost weight on his feet, dropping from a size 12 to an 11, reports Wales Online.

"I had tried to lose weight so many times, but I had failed every single time and I had just said to myself that this time, I was going to do it different,” he explained. “I didn't need to do a fad diet, which was the route I had gone down before because I had failed every time.

"I said to myself that everyone always thinks weight loss is black and white, like you either eat everything or you eat nothing. I decided to sit in a little grey area, I said I would still have a takeaway but just once a week.

Neil, who started his weight loss journey on Boxing Day in 2013, would gorge on four slices of toast with butter 'as thick as cheese' with a full tin of beans, six scrambled eggs and four rashes of bacon for his lunch. He'd then