A 26-stone man who scoffed 35 Double Deckers every week until he was so obese he 'couldn't put his socks on' has lost 11 stone in a year in a bid to become a professional boxer.
Tobie Vermeire, 29, from Malvern Hills, Worcester, had always struggled with his weight but began to find himself eating a four-pack of the Cadbury's chocolate bars with lunch and sometimes more in the morning and evening.
Each Double Decker contains 30g of sugar meaning Tobie was consuming a kilo of sugar a week just from the habit alone.
For breakfast every morning, he would eat sausages, eggs and bacon for breakfast, two Domino's pizzas for lunch and a Chinese takeaway for his dinner - along with more snacks.
Wearing XXXL clothes and with a waist that stretched to 46 inches, Tobie - who was an insurance broker at the time - was left ‘shocked and embarrassed to discover his weight was 26 stone.
He began his journey to change his lifestyle in September 2020, binning the daily fast food, chocolate and ice cream diet to focus on boxing.
After just over a year, he has lost more than 11 stone and has set his sights on turning professional as a boxer by the end of the year.
He admitted it was a tough journey and that he would have ‘eaten himself to death’ if he had not made the changes and shaken his addictions to ‘calories, grease, fast food’.
Tobie said: “I've always had a real issue with food. It was a comfort thing for me growing up and it continued through my adult life.
"When I was 18, I was playing rugby at a reasonable level but whenever I got an injury and couldn't play, I was still eating as if I was training. I just got bigger and bigger.
"Around 25 I decided to focus on my career but this meant I let my health get even worse. I ballooned from 18 stone up to 26 stone. I couldn't put my own socks on."
As his weight grew, Tobie decided to dropdown the levels so he didn’t have to train as hard and could focus on his insurance broker job. He began to pay even less attention to his health and his daily diet saw him consuming up to 10,000 calories a day while he continued his desk job.
He said: “I was a food addict. It was the only drive or pleasure in my life outside of working so food was my getaway.
"I was at work one day and they brought the scales out for everyone to check their weight. I thought I was going to be 21 stone and that I was just a few weeks off the weight I had been previously.
"When I stepped on them, I was 26 stone and I was just so embarrassed about how big I had become. I was wearing XXXL clothes and had a 46 inch waist so I was massive.
"I started to get really ill - I was fatigued, couldn't get out of bed, constantly had headaches. I was tested for diabetes and thyroid problems but it turned out to be the physical signs of depression."
In order to kick his addition to unhealthy foods and to lose weight, Tobie set about going cold turkey on his favourite foods.
"I had to treat it like a drug addiction and go teetotal on most of the foods I'd eaten before, so no chocolate, takeaways or crisps.
"I felt awful at first, really ill. I was having withdrawal symptoms for the first few weeks, which was me coming off the copious amounts of processed foods and chocolate I'd been used to.
"I was addicted to calories, grease, fast food, the whole lot. My diet was abysmal so I had to change.
"If I hadn't, I think I'd have eaten myself to death. I'd like to think I've added 10 to 15 years on to my life by reversing the years of destructive eating.”
He said he turned to boxing because rugby wasn’t inspiring him anymore and he knew he had to try a new challenge.
He said: “I've always been a boxing fan and I decided I needed to set myself a goal that kept me on track. I decided to train to become a pro.
“I looked for help from a few people but I realised I had to do it myself. Once I'd lost a little bit of weight and gained confidence, I joined a boxing gym and started working by myself on the heavy bags.
"It has just snowballed from there. I've had a couple of amateur fights since covid restrictions have been loosened and I've been sparring regularly with experienced pros."
Tobie set up an Instagram and TikTok page to keep him accountable. “I've never been happier,” he said.
"The only thing that I feel which is slightly negative is that I didn't do it earlier. I feel bad that I let it get to the worst and didn't change my life sooner.
"It's been a huge year of change. It's helped my mental health massively too. I left my job as an insurance broker to start selling motorbikes as I've always loved them.
"I need to get some more fights under my belt before I can go pro as well as sorting some sponsorship for travel.
”I was meant to be fighting at the end of January but that has been delayed as I have had covid. We're looking to get as many fights in as possible this season."