This Time Next Year: Bride’s incredible 60 kilo wedding day weight loss
After being given as little as five years to live by doctors, Joanna Colefax vowed she’d be a “beautiful bride” on her wedding day — with stunning results.
Joanna Colefax always dreamt of being a beautiful bride.
The registered nurse from NSW’s Hunter Valley was preparing to marry fiance Glenn when she decided to take drastic action about her weight.
After being told by doctors she had as little as five years left to live, Joanna vowed to lose half her body weight of 155 kilos in just 12 months.
Making her pledge on Channel 9’s This Time Next Year, Joanna told host Karl Stefanovic: “This time next year I’ll be a beautiful bride.”
“I’m having a gastric sleeve done, which will reduce my eating and help me lose weight … I want a better life,” she explained, adding that she wanted to spend more time with her 12-year-old son Jesse.
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Joanna said a stressful job and her eating habits had seen her put weight on.
“I’ve probably emotionally ate in the past, I’m a registered nurse and I’ve been through some pretty tough times.”
She now planned to have her size 28 wedding dress altered to a size 14 by the time she walked down the aisle with Glenn.
“It’s strapless, it’s beautiful and I want to go I’m beautiful, I want to look in the mirror and say I’m beautiful,” she said.
Supporting her on her weight loss journey was Glenn who said his wife-to-be was beautiful “no matter what size she was”.
“(But) I can see the pain she goes through everyday,” he said.
“If you keep going on, the path you’re on, what happens?” Stefanovic asked Joanna.
“I will die,” she replied. “I will die, my organs will shut down, my heart won’t be able to handle the weight.”
Returning to the show 12 months later, a radiant Joanna revealed she had lost a whopping 60 kilos in “the biggest challenge of my life” and now weighed 95 kilos.
“I feel amazing … I was a beautiful bride,” she told Stefanovic. “It was everything I dreamt of, it was lovely to look beautiful on my wedding day.”
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She also wasn’t wearing the gown she wore on her wedding day; and for good reason.
“My wedding dress on my wedding day is too big and falls down,” Joanna explained, wearing a sleek white long-sleeved gown instead.
While she was thrilled to have been the beautiful bride she had dreamt of, Joanna was most proud of how her weight loss journey had “not only changed my life, it’s given me a life”.
“My doctor told me last year that if I didn’t do something about my weight loss I had five to 10 years to live,” she said.
“Now I’m living to be 90.”
This Time Next Year airs 8.40pm Monday on Channel 9