Woman loses half her body fat to make her dying husband happy

There are a number of things that can inspire someone to lose weight.

An upcoming wedding, perhaps, or catching an unflattering glimpse of yourself in the mirror on an otherwise-average day.

But for one 24-year-old, it was when her husband was given just 15 months to live.

Taylor Murphy from Seattle in the US was devastated when her partner Ricky Carrington, 29, was diagnosed with an incurable glioblastoma – a kind of brain tumour.

As well as heartbreak, however, the news also brought a wake up call to Murphy who decided that she needed to be in better physical shape to make the most of their remaining time together.

So 20 stone Murphy decided to have a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, ditched her favourite foods – Starbucks mochas, takeaways and chocolate – and took up an exercise regime.

Losing ten stone in the process.

“When my husband was diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer, I used food as an emotional crutch,” she told Mail Online.

“It’s been absolutely devastating for us, I wasted a lot of my life eating, sleeping and not being with him, but now we’ve both got to keep fighting now.

“For the first couple of months it was really numbing but I got a reality check and decided to make the best experiences I can in however much time we have left.”

She says that as a result of the weight loss, she now has “much more energy” which has “made our marriage all the stronger”:

“I feel like my weight and mood was breaking him down before,” she explained.

“Recently on the beach I was wearing a two-piece and didn’t care about what anybody thought, before I never thought I would ever be able to do that.”

She added: “Unfortunately with the cancer we know there will be a point where I will need to take care of him, at that time I couldn’t even take care of myself mentally or physically.

“I knew I couldn’t eat my emotions away anymore, food was not going to help and so I made the decision to change my life.”

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