'TIS THE SEASON TO SHINE!

At last, Hayley McCrossan, 39, feels fit and healthy

- ASHLEIGH PAGE, MATT BARBOUR

Pouring gravy over a mountain of roast potatoes, stuffing, pigs in blankets and thick slices of turkey, my mouth watered. I didn’t waste much time, tucking straight in and eating every morsel, washing down my Christmas feast with some fizzy orange pop. ‘That was delicious,’ I smiled to my then partner, my stomach bulging, the waistband of my jeans snug.

It was Christmas Day 2011, and I was doing exactly what the rest of the nation was doing – overindulging. The trouble was, it wasn’t just during the festive season that I found myself eating to excess. After suffering nausea and chest pains earlier in the year, I’d been diagnosed with vasculitis, an autoimmune disease causing poor blood flow to organ tissues. It was life-threatening and incurable.

‘You’ll have to take steroids,’ the doctor had told me, explaining that a side effect was increased appetite. But this seemed like the least of my worries, especially because I’d never really been overweight, hovering around 12st and size 14, at 5ft 2in, for most of my adult life. But thanks to my new medicine, a huge hunger had taken hold.

I’d start the day with porridge, have a sandwich for lunch, but by evening I’d be starving. Looking for a quick fix, I’d grab easy snacks – biscuits, chocolate bars and endless bags of crisps. It wasn’t unusual for me to put away 10 packets without pausing for breath, all washed down with cans of fizzy pop.