GRAN Pat Hawthorn struggled for five years to lose weight on special diets as she fought illness.

Now, thanks to a slimming club, she's shed three stone, trains in a gym and runs for charity!

"I feel absolutely wonderful," said Pat, of Brookvale, Runcorn, who has two grown-up children. "I've taken up running and have done lots of fundraising."

Ecstatic Pat has shrunk from a size 18 to a trim size 10.

"I've bought a completely new wardrobe," she said. "It's given me my confidence back."

She says she was amazed to eat so much, under her Slimming World diet.

"You could eat and eat and eat," recalled Pat. "You can even have 'sins' like chocolate, cakes and alcohol.

"There's nothing you can't eat."

Weetabix, muesli summer fruits, a chopped banana, skimmed milk, grapes, two slices of toast and a glass of diluted orange juice makes up her generous breakfast.

Chicken salad with three slices of wholemeal bread, two bananas, grapes, two tangerines, a pear, yoghurt and juice is a typical lunch.

A cottage pie, topped with celeriac and swede mash, rounds up her day.

"You fill your plate and eat it," said Pat, who has two grandchildren.

"The more you eat of certain speed foods like celeriac, mushy peas and pears, the more weight you lose."

Intrepid Pat is now training for two charity events - a marathon in Sefton Park and 'Santa dash' with 4,000 festive runners.

"Losing weight has given me the confidence to go out and run and give other people back what I had," said Pat, crowned her club's Slimming World Woman of the Year for 2004 and 2005.