THE subject of a garden makeover shed six stones in weight - after seeing herself in the Wharfedale.

Yvette Wilks and her husband Jim were featured in The Wharfedale Observer a year ago when their Otley garden was done over by Garden Invaders.

The BBC daytime television crew transformed their riverside garden in Bridge Street with pots, flowerbeds and a winding gravel path.

But when Yvette, 41, saw herself in the paper

(picture inset right) and on the television she was impressed with the garden, but horrified by her size.

"I saw myself in the paper and on the television and thought I must do something about it.

"I'd been going to the doctors for years and been told I was depressed and that if I was treated for my depression the weight would come off, but I kept saying the weight was the cause of my depression," she said.

In May Yvette joined a slimming group in Otley and within a month had already lost a stone."I

couldn't believe how easy it was. I looked at the books and I thought there is no way that is going to work."

But in the next ten months 5ft 2ins Yvette went from more than 16 stones and a size 26 in clothes to nine and a half stones and a size 14.

Yvette has had plenty of encouragement from

husband, Jim, who has bought her a porcelain doll for her collection for every stone she has lost.

He has also replaced her wardrobe and has yet to decide what to get her when she reaches her goal weight of nine and a half stone.

Yvette said: "The classic thing was the other day I got a top out of the dryer to iron and I thought whose is this, I still can't get used to the idea that these clothes are mine, they look so small."

She feels a lot fitter and healthier and shortly intends to join a gym - to tone herself up.

"I definitely feel healthier. I used to be very depressed and very angry with everybody, I had been clinically obese all my life.

"I would get out of breath just walking upstairs and it used to take me ten to 15 minutes to walk into Otley from Bridge Street."

Now, she is enjoying buying herself fashionable clothes and her favourite item in her wardrobe is a pair of boot-leg jeans.

She was also delighted when two weeks ago she got an appointment to have her stomach stabled - in a bid to lose weight. "I don't know whether it would have worked or not, but when you're desperate you'll try anything. It gave me great pleasure to say I wouldn't need it now."

Yvette's success has prompted many of her friends to join Slimming World.

Anne Sharmer, who runs the group in Otley and another one in Yeadon, says Yvette was determined to lose weight.

Slimming World follows a programme of sensible eating with nothing excluded.Anne said: "People just don't believe how easy it is. Yvette has done really well, she's lost weight every week. She's been really determined and had the will to succeed."

Slimmers World meets at All Saints Junior School Annexe, Bridge Street at 5pm and 7pm on Thursdays and at the Constitutional Club, Yeadon at 7pm on Tuesdays. (10-028-AH)