14 DAY TRIAL // Because the best success stories are those that feature a regular Joe or Jane as protagonist, the case of Jonny Laidler from Leeds should do the trick. Once overweight, Jonny is now a male model.
He recently signed with Catwalk Model Management, after winning the Next Top Model Leeds competition, and is a legit male model.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, Jonny says he would have never imagined himself to become a model, even though he'd always be thinking about ways to lose the extra weight and get in better shape.
He didn't take that step though until he was dumped by his girlfriend; incidentally, she left him for a slimmer guy.
“My girlfriend and I broke up because she was cheating on me and the guy was really skinny. When you are 20 stone (280 pounds / 127 kg), all you want to do is get rid of it. I started running seven miles a day and lost loads of weight really quickly,” Jonny recalls.
He's been keeping active ever since, literally managing to turn his life around.
“I also started playing rugby and team sports and I’m currently one of the fittest in the Oulton Raiders team, but I do get stick from the rugby guys for modeling,” he further says.
As expected, not even in his wildest dreams did Jonny think he would ever walk the catwalk.
“Inever thought I would be doing this. It’s amazing that I won and it’s a great accolade to have. I will always be this big, jolly, fat person inside. I just look better on the outside now,” he says.
“I don’t think of myself as a good looking person but I have got lots more attention since I lost the weight. I used to play computer games a lot rather than doing anything else and spiraled into this really bad habit of not going out,” he says of his past fat days.
The Mail has more details on Jonny, as well as before shots of him.