Woman who says weight loss programme changed her life, urges islanders to sign up

By Press Release Oct 6, 2022

Isle of Wight residents have just days left to claim funded places on gloji, a 12-week digital weight loss program that gives users access to personalised coaching through specially trained health mentors, who are on hand to support by phone as needed.

Access to the program is being made available free by the Isle of Wight Council as part of the government’s adult weight management services grant until October 8, (Saturday).

According to the Council statistics, 62.3 per cent of adults on the Island are either overweight or obese, 68 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women. To date, gloji has helped over 5,000 residents around the UK lose a total of 4,495kg (over 700 stone) between them, with another 939 people either on the programme or about to start.

One person who has completed the program and is urging others to sign up is 51-year-old grandmother Rachael Brown from Lincoln. For Rachael, who needs a liver transplant, being referred to the gloji program by her GP has not only led to her losing almost three stone in weight, but has enabled her to reduce the amount of insulin she needs to manage her diabetes from 60 units per meal to just 16, putting her in a more positive position for the transplant she needs. Now, in addition to her reduced daytime insulin, she has also been able to reduce her night-time slow-release insulin from 160 units to just 60.

Rachael Brown from Lincoln.

“I’ve been overweight all my adult life. I’ve tried free sessions at Weight Watchers and Slimming World. You name it, I’ve tried it, and nothing worked for me. I’d lose a couple of pounds and that would be it. I had got to the end of my tether. I didn’t even want my partner to know how much I weighed because I was so ashamed. But in the first week on gloji I lost 12 pounds and across the whole of the program, it’s now two stone and 12 pounds in total.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am. It really has changed my life.”

Rachel said the key for her was that gloji is not a diet. “Diet for me is simply ‘die’ with a ‘t’ on the end. I don’t like being told what I can’t have. If you tell me I can’t have something, then I want it. It turns from a want to a craving to the point where I could tear somebody’s head off to get it.

“With gloji, I found there is nothing you can’t eat in moderation and as long as it’s part of a balanced healthy diet. Seeing different recipes on gloji and different ways of cooking things was brilliant. My partner’s a chef and even his eyes were opened. And even though I’ve completed the program, I’m still following the gloji ‘way’.”

Rachel describes gloji as “a different way of losing weight without losing all the nice things”:

“Of course it’s about healthy eating but it’s also importantly about changing the way you think about your food. You don’t have to look at a plate of food and think, I can’t eat that.”

Rachel’s experience proves the effectiveness of a digital approach to healthy living and weight loss, said Jack Bennett, operations lead at gloji. “Rachel is living proof that digital content can work just as effectively as others and that the content available through gloji is powerful and flexible enough to fit around your busy schedule. It also shows that this is not purely about dieting or weight loss necessarily, but these come as a by-product of improving our healthy lifestyle habits.”

For more information and to sign up before the October 8 deadline, visit gloji.co.uk.