'I was so fat I broke my daughter's bed!': Morbidly obese mother shamed into losing EIGHT STONE after bedtime story disaster

An 18-stone mother-of-one was shamed into losing weight after snapping her daughter's bed while reading her a bedtime story.
Cacia Griggs, 26, from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, spent her whole 20s as a morbidly obese size 24, but crushing four-year-old Isabelle's bed was the final straw, and she embarked upon a life-changing diet.
Just one year later she has lost eight stone, dropped to a size 10, and married her fiance Chris in her dream wedding dress.

Cacia said: 'I'd had enough of being overweight. I have a four-year-old daughter called Isabelle and being overweight was having a huge impact on my life'

Cacia with Isabelle before losing the weight, left, and on her wedding day, right

Cacia, who works in marketing, had always struggled with her weight, but when even her size 24 clothes were getting too tight and she realised she desperately wanted to lose weight and wear fashionable clothes like her friends, instead of being forced to shop in plus-sized stores and simply buying anything that fitted.

 

Cacia, whose maiden name was Wilkinson, said: 'I'd tried every diet under the sun but never had the motivation to continue with it. But I'd had enough of being overweight. I have a four-year-old daughter called Isabelle and being overweight was having a huge impact on my life.'

Cacia in her dream wedding dress on her wedding day with her husband Chris Griggs and daughter Isabelle

One night, having asked her 29-year-old fiance to carry Isabelle up to bed because she couldn't fit through the stair gate, Cacia followed them upstairs and lay down on the edge of the bed with her daughter to read her a story.
'I heard a loud snap,' she said. 'I'd literally broken the entire side beam of her bed because I was overweight.  I was devastated.'
Cacia had a similar moment of clarity while on her first family holiday with Chris and Isabelle in Turkey last year when she couldn't fit the aeroplane seatbelt around her.

Cacia before she lost eight stone, playing with her daughter Isabelle in a swimming pool

She said: 'I thought I was going to have to ask for a seat belt extension and the thought of this humiliation made me force the seat belt closed but it was so tight and uncomfortable, I was relieved when the seat belt sign was switched off.

'I had the most wonderful daughter and fiancé and I should have been the happiest girl in the world, but in reality I was desperately unhappy'

'I knew after that I didn't want to go on holiday again at that weight and the ever-familiar guilt of knowing what that would take away from my family made me feel terrible.'
Cacia added: 'I had the most wonderful daughter and fiancé and I should have been the happiest girl in the world, but in reality I was desperately unhappy with my weight controlling every thought that I had and everything that we did or didn't do.'
Cacia was also desperate to set a date for her wedding but again kept putting it off because of her weight, terrified she wouldn't find a dress that fitted her.

Cacia said: 'The thought of subjecting my beautiful little girl to a lifetime of weight-battling misery and ill-health was too much for me to bear. In that moment, I knew I had to make a change and it had to be now'