I was so fat the seatbelt didn’t fit – I felt like a ‘zoo attraction’ and kids yelled ‘beef burger’ at me

A MAN has recalled how he was relentlessly bullied about his weight as a child, leaving him to feel like a ‘zoo attraction’.

Nicolas Garratt weighed 28 stone and was warned by doctors he could suffer a heart attack at just 15.

The now 20-year-old from Cardiff, Wales was called “beef burger” by his classmates and followed around the playground as they shouted “fat” at him.

He has since undergone a “full body transformation” – losing 16 stone after massively changing his diet and lifestyle.

The supermarket worker from Pontypridd said he is now finally ready to start dating after years isolating himself because of his weight.

He said: “When I was bigger, I would walk into a supermarket and everyone would stare at me.

“It was like I was an attraction at the zoo.”

Nicolas has struggled with his weight his whole life and even left school at the age of 10 after the bullying got too much.

He said: “I was significantly overweight. I was always the biggest at my school and was bullied quite badly for that.

“Each time I went into a classroom, people would just shout ‘beef burger’ and that became my nickname at school.

“Even the school prefects would bully me, following me around the playground calling me ‘fat’. I ended up just sitting in the classroom on my own because I couldn’t stand the bullying.

“My mother tried to get me to lose weight but nobody in my family understood how dieting or calorie deficits worked.

“I was never taught about counting calories and never had any success with weight loss. I was eating whatever I could get my hands in.”

But Nicolas’s poor eating habits and lack of exercise only worsened at home, leading Nicolas’s mum to seek professional advice.

Over the next 12 months, Nicolas began skipping meals for weeks at a time in a bid to shed the pounds fast.

He lost a whopping 10-stone over a year, but slowly began gaining the weight back after reintroducing food.

“I just stopped eating entirely. I went weeks without eating anything. I lost 10 stone but it wasn’t sustainable,” he said.

When the weight started to pile back on he started to realise how much he was suffering because of it.

His friend convinced him to go to the gym with him and that’s when he “learned how to lose weight healthily.”

He said: “I started educating myself on training and fitness and that’s where I learned about calorie deficits.”

Nicolas began training in the gym every day and restricted his eating to 1,500 calories a day – losing a further six stone.

Overall, he’s lost 14 stone since his teenage years and now has plans on becoming a fitness influencer.

He said: “I feel like a totally new person. I’ve broken a lot of old patterns. I’ve learned about not giving into temptations and resisting things.

“At 15, I believed weight loss was impossible for me. I always felt like an outsider.

“People treat me so differently now.”

Now Nicolas feels more confident to get onto the dating scene.

He said: “I’ve never had a relationship because of my weight. I was pretty much isolated until I was 15. And on the weight loss journey, I was so focused on trying to lose weight, I didn’t really socialise.

“I never felt like I was good enough for a relationship. I felt like I was a burden.

“With my loose skin, it’s definitely affected that too because I’m not very confident in myself. It’s definitely got in the way of me pursuing relationships.”

But he has a message of hope for others, adding: “I would say to other people trying to lose weight, get a really clear picture of what you’re trying to achieve and continue to remind yourself of all the benefits you’re going to see.”