Colin Corfields incredible 44st weight loss

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'I'm ready for love after my body lift surgery'

Tuesday 18 January 2011

After losing a whopping 44st, Colin Corfield should have been brimming with confidence and finally ready to fall in love.

But one thing held him back – his drastic weight loss had left him with an enormous apron of loose skin hanging from his tummy, plus bingo wings, man boobs and baggy skin around his knees.

The skin made him so paranoid he refused to approach women because he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing him naked.

But after three major operations to cut away an incredible 11⁄2st of excess skin, Colin, 40, is finally happy with his trim 14st frame and is keen to meet the woman of his dreams.

“Girls were never interested in me when I was fat,” he says. “But now women chat me up all the time. I used to hate the way I looked and wanted to hide away, but now the rolls of skin have gone I feel unstoppable.”

Colin’s new-found confidence comes a year after he told Closer how his mum sold her home to pay for a gastric bypass operation that helped him shed 44st.

Just four years ago Colin, who’s 5ft 9, weighed 60st and spent his days gorging on takeaways and guzzling 30 pints of lager.

Barely able to move, he was bed-ridden, kept a bucket by his bed to use as a toilet and had to use an oxygen mask in case his bulk constricted his lungs.

Yet, despite being warned by GPs he needed to shed half his body weight or die, he couldn’t kick his £50-a-day addiction to junk food.

Colin says his bad habits began as a child, when he’d secretly spend his pocket money on chocolate and crisps.

“Bullies called me Tommy 10 Bellies at school and I’d always turn to food for comfort,” he says. “I tried every diet going and once lost 14st, but I’d always pile the weight back on because I had no willpower. I was so depressed but couldn’t stop eating.”

But after watching a TV programme about gastric surgery in autumn 2005, Colin realised it could change his life forever. But he needed to lose some weight before he could have surgery, otherwise he risked dying under the anaesthetic.

He enrolled at Slimming World, swapped takeaways for salads and fruit, and even hired the local pool so he could swim in private. Meanwhile he begged the NHS to pay for a £32,000 gastric surgery op, but was told there was a three-year wait.

“That was too long for me,” he explains. “I knew this was the only way to get slim and stay slim. I didn’t want to die fat.”

So his mum Jean, 71, sold her bungalow and moved into sheltered accommodation to raise the cash. She says: “I was sad to leave my house, but I was desperate to help.”

Colin adds: “When Mum said she’d sell her house, I thought it was pretty drastic but I knew it was the only way I’d survive.”

After a year of dieting, Colin dropped a huge 22st to 38st and was able to have the three-hour op in November 2006. Surgeons cut away most of his stomach, leaving him with just a small pouch the size of an egg, which restricts how much he can eat.

Now, instead of scoffing huge meals, he gets full on just a few mouthfuls.

“I do miss eating doner kebabs,” he admits. “But I’d rather go without than be fat again.” But after reaching 16st,

Colin was left with overstretched skin hanging below his knees.

“It was a nightmare,” he says. “I’d no idea my body wouldn’t bounce back and hated the idea of anyone seeing all that disgusting extra skin. I’d try to disguise it by tucking it in my trousers, but I’d end up with a bulge and I couldn’t wear tight tops because I had man boobs.

“I’d get sores because the skin was hard to keep clean,” he says. “I’d lost the weight, but having all that skin was still ruining my life. I asked the NHS for an op to get rid of it, but they refused on financial grounds.”

But when doctors at the McIndoe Surgical Centre in London heard about Colin’s plight, they offered to help and agreed to carry out three operations free of charge.

“I was ecstatic,” says Colin. “I could never have afforded the work myself.”

Surgeons first tackled the saggy apron around his stomach in June. Then in October they worked on his arms, chest, thighs and knees. Seven weeks ago, doctors cut away excess skin from his torso and stitched it back together to make the skin tight.

“When I woke up the skin had gone. It was mind-blowing,” says Colin. “I’d dreamed about that for so long.”
After a week recovering in hospital, Colin returned to his flat in Runcorn, Cheshire, and his life is already changing for the better.

He says: “It was painful while I recovered, but I’m thrilled with the results. I can even wear jeans and tight T-shirts.”

Colin’s scars are still healing but he’s already making plans for the future. He says: “I know there’s scarring, but that doesn’t bother me. I’d much rather have a few bad scars than all that horrible droopy skin.

“And it’s so much better than being a fat person stuck in bed and just wanting to die.”

Now Colin’s joined a gym so he can build up his muscles, and he wants to go travelling and take up extreme sports like sky diving. He’s having more luck with the ladies as well.

“I’m a party animal now,” says pipeline engineer Colin. “Before I’d stand on my own in clubs while my mates went off to dance, but now they have to drag me off the stage.

“Women stop me and tell me I’m good-looking – my life’s transformed.

“When I was bed-bound, all I could dream about was being skinny and now I’m there. “I can’t wait to strip off for a woman and show off my new body.”

By Suzanne Finney

Colin appears in Extreme Slimmers, Tuesday 13 January, 9pm, ITV1