She was so overweight she struggled just carrying her young son up a flight of stairs.
But now Amy Baker-Baillie plans to scale Britain’s three highest mountains in 24 hours – after shedding more than a third of her body weight to stay alive for two-year-old Kai and give him “the best mum he deserves”.
At her heaviest, the 30-year-old, from Fochabers, tipped the scales at 18st 4oz and would guzzle two gallons of Coke, 12 take-aways and more than 56 chocolate bars every month.
She turned to food for comfort when her mother fell seriously ill after years of alcohol abuse and ended up in a care home, aged just 49.
But when Kai was born in July 2019, the reality of putting him through similar heartache prompted her to change her ways.
Mrs Baker-Baillie now credits the toddler for saving her life, as she enjoys her sleeker 11st frame, after joining her local Slimming World group in Elgin and shedding seven stone – dropping from a size 22 to a size 12 during the pandemic.
She said: “Ultimately food was my addiction. People say alcohol is dangerous but so is food, if you abuse it.
“I saw what happened to my mum and I didn’t want my son to go through what I went through.
“He makes me so much more mindful about who I want to be.
“Now I have much more energy to be around him. He and Slimming World saved my life.”
Previously, she was so overweight she struggled to even carry her young son without feeling sore and out of breath.
But after ditching fast food and a 140-cans-of-Coke-a-month habit, she successfully holds down three jobs in mental health care, and attends boxing, body combat and spinning classes every week.
Her newfound energy even saw her complete a 10-hour spinning challenge – a feat she would never have thought possible 18 months ago – and raise nearly £2,000 for charity.
Now she is preparing to take on the National Three Peaks Challenge, which will see her scale Ben Nevis, Mount Snowdon and Scafell Pike in 24 hours this summer.
She said: “I do a lot of exercise now – it helps me stay focused.
“If I didn’t do it (change my lifestyle), I probably wouldn’t be with my husband now, because I wasn’t a very nice person to be around.
“I was very irritable and really unhappy. He loved me anyway, but it’s not just about how I look on the outside, it’s about how I feel on the inside, and knowing I’m going to be around for my son.”
Before, Mrs Baker-Baillie shied away from the camera, too “ashamed” to look at photos of her bulky frame.
But she said: “Now I love having pictures taken of me and Kai – and I can hold him without feeling I have to put him down all the time.
“It’s all the little things most people take for granted, playing with him in the park or running after him on the beach – I couldn’t do that before because I always got out of breath.”
She tried various “fad diets” over the years, but would always pile the pounds back on and revert to her old ways.
It was only when she joined her local Slimming World group at the height of the pandemic that she started to turn her life around.
She said: “When mum got ill, it had a big impact on me and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Sometimes you just need comfort and, for me, that was food.
“I’d eat two or three takeaways a week and chocolate by the bucket – I’d have two chocolates bars a day and a big sharing bag of buttons. I was terrible, I’d drink four or five cans of full-fat Coke a day.
“I wasn’t accountable for it. I didn’t know it was wrong until I had Kai. It was only after he was born, I thought, ‘this isn’t right.
“When he was two weeks old I thought, ‘I can’t walk up the stairs with him’. I’d have a sore back and get breathless all the time. I didn’t want to be like that but I didn’t know how to get out of it.”
‘Slimming World saved my life’
Now she no longer craves greasy food and ensures every meal is prepared and home cooked, with lots of fruit and vegetables.
But she said the best part is she has been able to achieve her healthy eating regime while still enjoying old favourites like steak and chips.
“It’s not a diet,” she said. “It’s a lifestyle change. You can eat anything, you just have to adapt it (to be healthier).”
She admitted it wasn’t easy. But she stressed: “If you want to do something, you’ll do it.
“I didn’t think I would lose this amount of weight. It takes a lot of willpower. But nobody can lose the weight for you, you’ve got to do that yourself.
“If I can do it, anyone can.”
