A GAMESHOW contestant has lost five stone after vowing to turn her weight around when she saw herself on television.

The turning point for Louise McDonald came as she watched herself on Tipping Point - the ITV gameshow hosted by Ben Shephard, which involves players answering questions to use counters on a giant coin-pusher arcade machine.

The 28-year-old was determined to tip the scales in the right direction and set about losing weight through a Weight Watchers online diet programme.

She said: “When you catch a glimpse of yourself every so often you can ignore it, but it’s different when you watch yourself on TV for 45 minutes.

“It made me think about it because I had tried to lose weight before and made a few false starts, but this time it stuck.”

The project manager, from Sherburn in Elmet, started dieting in January 2014 and went from 14 stone 8lbs to 9 stone 8lbs in 10 and half months.

However, she began to see an improvement in two weeks and was given the encouragement to keep going when family and friends noticed a difference.

“I made the biggest change at the start and could see it working straight away,” she added.

“That motivated me to keep going but it wasn’t very long until people said they noticed a difference in me and that encouraged me to keep going.”

After reaching her goal weight she decided to put her new found determination to a different use and started a Couch to 5km running plan.

No more than a year later she has completed three 10km races and is reaping the benefits of the Weight Watchers system.

She said: “I missed having something to aim for so I started running.

“I love the structure of the Weight Watchers points system, I find that it is easy to follow and I can stick to it.

“It really helps that no food is off limits, I can have something I fancy and won’t feel guilty as I will make sure it fits in with my points allowance.”