{"id":215024,"date":"2025-10-15T14:46:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/215024\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:46:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:46:22","slug":"liverpool-dad-loses-10-stone-after-health-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/215024\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool dad loses 10 stone after health concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angela FergusonNorth West<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Martin Fletcher pictured before and after his 10-stone weight loss<\/p>\n

A dad-of-two who “didn’t want to become another statistic” has said he has managed to lose 10 stone (63.5kg) in just over a year through exercise alone. <\/p>\n

Martin Fletcher, 46, from Liverpool, said he had been severely obese for more than 20 years and was concerned about the toll this was taking on his health.<\/p>\n

His health problems included sleep apnoea, which caused him to stop breathing multiple times each night while he was asleep, and high blood pressure.<\/p>\n

Martin, a musician and music producer, said: “The nicest part of this whole process is when my daughter said ‘dad, I can get my arms around you now!'”<\/p>\n

He said he was now able to stop taking his blood pressure medication and his wife Sarah and daughters Heidi, 11, and Freya, seven, were proud of him.<\/p>\n

He has credited taking up a form of exercise based on yoga with getting him back in shape.<\/p>\n

\"HandoutHandout<\/p>\n

Martin Fletcher said prior to losing the weight he was so unhappy that he would try to avoid being photographed<\/p>\n

Martin said he had struggled with his weight since leaving school, and when he first started doing any form of exercise around 10 years ago he was “so heavy I would hurt myself any time I worked out”. <\/p>\n

He said he previously weighed around 25 stone (158.8kg) and his body mass index was about 46, which was “ridiculously high”.<\/p>\n

Anyone with a BMI of 40 or over is classed as being severely obese. <\/p>\n

Martin was diagnosed with high blood pressure and sleep apnoea at the age of 38 and his doctor warned him he was at risk of becoming diabetic.<\/p>\n

He was offered bariatric surgery or weight loss injections, but said he did not want to go down either of these routes.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t want to be a statistic – another one who died in their 30s, 40s or 50s,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This year I just thought I can’t live my life like this any more – I have had enough.<\/p>\n

“I have got two young kids and I couldn’t do sports day – I couldn’t do anything with them as I was so sore and achy and so unmotivated.”<\/p>\n

‘Something just clicked’<\/p>\n

In October 2016 he first tried DDP Yoga, devised by former WWE wrestler Diamond Dallas Page to help him recover from a back injury and combining yoga with dynamic resistance and strength training and sports rehab therapy.<\/p>\n

“Life got in the way and I would start and stop at least 50 times since then,” he said, adding that he finally decided to commit to doing it every day.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know what clicked but I just wasn’t willing to give up on myself any more,” he said.<\/p>\n

His daily routine, which he does six days a week, includes getting up at 05:30 BST and doing an hour of exercise first thing.<\/p>\n

He said he was also planning to train to become a DDP Yoga instructor to help other people. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angela FergusonNorth West BBC Martin Fletcher pictured before and after his 10-stone weight loss A dad-of-two who “didn’t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-215024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}