Echo competition winner aims to lose weight and gain a family

Liz Barton-Jones was one of dozens of entries in our New Year, New You contest to win a bespoke health and fitness package worth £700 with trainer Tim Ford.

Tim was so impressed with Liz’s determination to lose weight, and her reasons why, that she was chosen as the overall winner and this week she began her 12-week journey to changing her life.

Liz, 41, who works at the Foundation of Light, said: “I read the story looking for entrants to the competition on the Echo Facebook page and thought it sounded like a really exciting opportunity.

“I’ve never had a personal trainer but I read the story about last year’s winner and felt really inspired by it. I’m quite a private person but I thought by doing this publicly it will spur me on and maybe help inspire other people.”

The Echo will be following Liz’s progress over the next three months as she takes part in fitness sessions with Tim, as well as gaining unlimited use of the Fitness Bank gym in Ashbrooke.

Liz currently weighs 17st9lbs and is 5ft8in tall and is hoping losing weight will help her and her husband Gareth to conceive and start a family.

“I don’t want to be an overweight mum, it’s tough enough being a mum, without the disadvantage of being overweight on top of the baby weight,” she said.

Liz, who lives in Gateshead, says her job as a curriculum lead for health and wellbeing at SAFC charity, the Foundation of Light, has also spurred her on to address her weight.

She said: “As my title suggests I am in charge of the health programmes for the Foundation. I am a firm believer in practice what you preach and I want to be a healthy role model for the children and families who take part in our programmes.”

Readers had to submit a letter as part of the competition, stating why they would like to make a change and get lean in 2017.

Tim, who runs Live Well Training, said: “I was really impressed with Liz’s letter and her reasons for wanting to lose weight, but she had some really strong competition, it was tough to decide.

“We had a good discussion before our first session to get some background information and do a body composition analysis, as well as taking her blood pressure and doing a fitness test, so we had a good base line to start from. We’ll be having sessions twice a week and I’ll be giving Liz exercises to do outside of that.

“We’ll be doing a mixture of resistance and cardio work but we’ll be utilising her sessions with me for resistance work, it’s no good me just standing there and telling her to run on a treadmill.

“As well as improving her fitness one of her goals is to lose weight and she can expect to start seeing improvements. I think 2lbs a week would be a sustainable amount at which to lose weight. But this won’t just be about how much weight she can lose in 12 weeks, it’s about giving her the tools to make a change to her life.”

•For more information on Live Well Training visit http://www.livewelltraining.co.uk/