Kerry Linden, 60, got stuck on the floor while tying her four-year-old grandson’s shoelaces and had to lean on him to get up – the moment made her realise her life had to change
A grandmother shed 5st on Mounjaro after becoming trapped on the floor whilst fastening her grandson’s shoelaces. Kerry Linden, 60, required assistance from the four year old to get back up and felt so mortified that she knew her life needed to transform.
She had struggled with her weight for years and attempted every diet going, including Weight Watchers, Slimming World and Lighter Life – but nothing had been successful. The mother of three and grandmother of two had even approached her GP for support. However, she was brushed off with suggestions like “Have you tried Weight Watchers?” or “Have you tried going to the gym?”.
Kerry departed the surgery and wept in her car. “I didn’t feel that I would ever be able to lose the weight,” she says.
“I had tried so many different diets that had all ultimately failed so what was the point in trying? One day, I knelt down to do up the shoelaces of my young grandson and realised I couldn’t get up again. I looked around for something to lean on and there was nothing, just him.
“I remember the look in his eyes as I leaned on his shoulder to try and get myself up from the ground. I never want to see that look again. I felt so ashamed that I had allowed myself to get to this size.”
That pivotal moment in May 2024 marked a watershed. Kerry tipped the scales at 18st 1lb and wore a size 22.
She endured painful hips, knees and ankles, with just one flight of stairs to her flat leaving her gasping for breath. After stumbling upon an online advert, Kerry reached out to Juniper, a medical weight loss programme that blends medication with coaching.
“I had an initial consultation and felt supported from my very first contact with them,” shares Kerry. “While I went in with a positive mindset believing this would work for me, in the back of my mind was this niggle of ‘here we go again’.”
Kerry was prescribed Mounjaro and repeatedly watched the support videos before finally administering her first dose.
The former headteacher from Brightlingsea, North Essex, noticed an immediate change, particularly in terms of her relationship with food.
“The first thing I noticed was that I stopped thinking about food all the time,” Kerry reveals. “I realised that my head had always been full of food noise. I would wake up thinking about food and while eating would be thinking about what I would eat next.
“People who haven’t experienced food noise find it very difficult to understand this concept. I cannot express how liberating it has been for me to have the food noise banished.”
Over the subsequent 10 months, Kerry shed five stone (70lbs). Now, 16 months into her journey, she’s lost a total of 5st 10lbs, going from a starting weight of 18st 1lb to her current weight of 12st 4lbs.
Her BMI has dropped from 45 to 30, her waist size has decreased by 10.5 inches, and she’s gone from a size 22 to a size 14 in clothing.
She’s also managed to reverse her pre-diabetes, and her resting heart rate has improved from 81 to 61. But Kerry’s journey isn’t over yet, as she plans to shed another two stone to reach a healthy BMI range.
“I’ve always loved life, but it’s now about what I can do in that life,” she shares. “I have so much more energy and the pain I had in my hip, knees and ankles has disappeared.
“I want to do so much more now. Even at 60, I feel I have boundless energy. In the last 18 months I have travelled to every continent experiencing adventures I would never have dared to do before because of my weight and immobility, like swimming with sharks in the South Pacific, descending into a lava tube to swim, climbing a mountain in Albania just to get a view of a lake, a polar dip in the Antarctic, and even an indoor skydive!”.
Kerry incorporates a vast amount of exercise into her routine, including walking over 20,000 steps daily, rowing, swimming, ballet and strength training.
“I would never have managed this before, I genuinely don’t recognise myself and I’m not even at my goal yet,” she admits.
“I have learned that my enjoyment of life does not have to be dependent on what I eat and drink. Holidays are now about experiences and adventures and not about getting my money’s worth from the all-inclusive buffets!”.
“And I can easily get down onto the ground to play with my grandchildren without worrying about how I’m going to get up again. I am super excited about choosing a mother of the bride outfit for my beautiful daughter’s upcoming wedding.”
Kerry had been underweight growing up and was quite fussy with food, but began gaining weight rapidly after becoming a mum. “I had my first child at 23, my second at 26 and my third at 30, and with each pregnancy, I put on more and more weight,” she says.
“This tied in with an unhappy marriage, going back to university to qualify as a teacher while still working nights and managing the family and my mother being struck down with a cerebral aneurysm at 56. I tried to overcompensate by my big personality and also dressing to disguise how big I had actually got.”
She’s now devoted to inspiring other women to understand their bodies and explore what solutions might suit them.
“For a woman to pluck up the courage to say, ‘Please help me, I’m really struggling here,’ it’s not because we don’t know about diets or exercise, it’s a real cry for help,” she says.
The shame surrounding weight loss drugs also meant Kerry hesitated before revealing to others that she was using Mounjaro.
“I needed to understand it myself before I was willing to share it with other people,” she explains. “I needed to stop feeling embarrassed that I had needed medication to help me. After all I wouldn’t be embarrassed if I was taking medication for anything else!”.
“There was a mix of reactions as expected, but I felt overwhelmingly supported by everybody in my life – my partner, my children, my friends. I’m incredibly fortunate. While everybody says to me, ‘you look fantastic’, for me it really isn’t about how I look,” she adds.
“It’s about how I feel, what I’m able to do, my health and my energy.”
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