A man who was overeating to cope with bullying and depression has shared how he successfully lost more than ten stone through an unexpected lifestyle change.

David Smith, hailing from Hinckley, Leicestershire, weighed in at 25 stone at his heaviest and had tried numerous methods to shed weight, but nothing worked.

Prior to 2012, the 49-year-old consistently followed a gym routine, took fat-loss pills, consumed slimming shakes, and even tried extreme diets, yet the weight remained unchanged.

David was feeling hopeless until a friend gave him some unexpected advice – that he should eat more to fuel his body. 

He admitted he was ‘cynical’ when he started upping his calorie intake, recording what he ate in a food diary as well as hitting the gym and walking 10,000 steps a day. 

Much to his surprise, he managed to lose almost 10lbs in the space of a month – a win that motivated David to keep eating right and continue exercising.

David stuck to his new diet and exercise regimen and over two years got down to a slender 14 stone 7lbs – which he has managed to maintain until today. 

He is even starting his own personal training business and hopes to help people like him. 

‘Being overweight is not a problem that can be fixed overnight or be solved with quick fixes. The process is long and slow but trust in that process,’ he told Femail. 

David’s weight woes started when he was in school when he said he ‘stopped eating properly’ for more than 20 years. 

He said was being relentlessly bullied at school and his home town before his mother had to leave her job as a dinner lady because of a rumour started by the family of one of his harassers. 

‘As a result, I started comfort eating and my weight ballooned to 25 stone. 

‘Many of the bullies, as well as numerous doctors, nurses, managers, kept parroting the same old mantra that I needed to move more and eat less,’ David recalled. 

‘When I was 25-stone, complete strangers would come up to me in the street and bully and abuse and harass me simply for being fat. 

‘I would hide away because I was ashamed of myself. 

‘I tried many different methods to lose weight including Slimfast, keeping a food diary on paper and Orlistat – a fat-blocking pill from the doctor. None of these worked.’

In 2005, David started hitting the gym and managed to maintain a fitness routine for seven years but his weight never shifted. 

‘By the end of November 2012, I was seriously depressed and contemplating suicide as I was still massively overweight,’ he said. 

‘One night I was chatting to a friend on Facebook. This friend was going to the gym and Zumba classes and the weight was falling off her. 

‘I asked her what it was that she was doing right that I was doing wrong. She asked if I was eating enough. I replied that I was trying to lose weight and eating less.’

The friend suggested to David that he might be eating too little and recommended adding more calories to his diet as well as keeping a food diary. 

‘I started the diary on the 1st of December 2012 in a very cynical frame of mind. I thought that Slimfast, the previous food diary and Orlistat hadn’t worked and keeping a food diary on the internet was not going to work either,’ he said. 

Reluctantly, David started inputting everything he was eating into MyFitnessPal which suggested he had not been eating enough.  

The information gave David the wake-up call he needed, so he set a new, higher calorie limit that allowed him to eat more with the goal of losing one pound per week. 

‘I also learned to properly calibrate the exercise equipment at the gym I was using so it showed the correct amount of calories I was burning  – I hadn’t done this before so was burning more calories than I thought,’ he added.

Even throughout the festive season, David stuck to his new routine until January 2013 when he first weighed himself. 

‘I was still convinced that the internet food diary was not working. However, when I weighed myself the scales told me that I had lost 10lbs since I’d started the food diary,’ he said. 

‘It was an amazing moment because I’d finally found a method that worked.’

David said he initially found it challenging to up his intake because he had been conditioned into thinking eating as little as possible would result in weighing less. 

‘Once I broke that cycle and started eating a proper diet and stopped listening to bullies who knew nothing about diet and nutrition, that was when I lost weight because my body was no longer in starvation mode – it was using the food as fuel,’ he said. 

Looking back, David said he noticed he would drop a few kilos after special occasions when he would allow himself to indulge.  

‘When I wasn’t eating enough, I would lose weight on holiday such as Christmas or Easter or around my birthday because I would think ‘go on treat yourself’ so I would eat more,’ he said. 

‘Not necessarily healthy food but food nonetheless and my body would start burning the calories rather than storing them. 

‘Once the holiday was over, I would go back to not eating enough because I was guilt-tripping about the food I had eaten and was thinking that I had put weight on when I hadn’t.’

After two years of learning to fuel his body with food combined with a varied exercise routine, David dropped down to 14 stone 7lbs and has been able to maintain his figure and healthy habits ever since. 

He hits the gym five times a week and spends half an hour on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the cross trainer on top of weight training.

Outside the gym, he makes sure to get in 10,000 steps a day. 

On an average day, David would have porridge with protein powder for breakfast and a lunch of cheese on toast.

For dinner, he has chicken or fish with potatoes and salad or mixed vegetables and has no qualms about snacking on cake, biscuits and chocolate occasionally.  

The gym junkie also enjoys treating himself to a meal at the pub and doesn’t let the extra calories worry him. 

‘On a day like that I will do 50 minutes on the treadmill and 50 minutes on cross trainer and weight training,’ he said adding: ‘Enjoy your food and don’t feel guilty about eating it.’ 

For others trying to adopt healthier habits, David recommends putting a good playlist together to make gym sessions more enjoyable.

‘Make sure you calibrate the cardio machines at the gym with your correct weight, that way they’ll correctly show the number of calories you are burning,’ he suggested. 

He is now setting himself up as a freelance personal trainer in Nuneaton under the name David Smith Fitness Training.

David hopes he can help people like him who struggle to lose weight and stay healthy.