A couple who gorged on junk food and were warned their dire health would kill them have told how they collectively lost more than 40st – completely transforming their lives, and their son’s.
Dawid Lombard and his wife Rose-Mari once weighed a combined 440kg – or just under 70st – and were suffering from a range of health issues, including high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.
Once more than twice his wife’s body weight, Dawid, 39, who was warned by doctors he “wouldn’t see 40”, had limited mobility due to his weight – and even had to leave his job as a result.
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The couple were struggling and knew they had to do something – fast.
“We were living on 12L of coke and two loaves of white bread every day, plus junk food,” Dawid told Need To Know.
“Lots and lots of junk food.
“On our way to McDonald’s, we’d stop off at KFC for a snack for the road, and when we felt like something sweet in the evening, we’d tuck into chocolates – a whole bag of Quality Street each.”
Dawid weighed just under 300kg, or about 47st.
He had high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, inflammation and sleep apnoea.
He sighed: “The list goes on. I thought every night might be my last.”
Rose-Mari weighed 140kg – or just over 22st – and had many of the same health issues as her husband.
Given his difficulty with movement, Dawid was also dependent on his family for everything – admitting his young son, Divan, 10, “half-avoided” him as a result.
The dad no longer went into shops, or even left the house in Winnie Mandela (formerly Brandfort) in the Free State, South Africa.
The family struggled emotionally, too, given that Divan was often bullied at school due to his parents’ weight.
Rose-Mari recalled: “There are so many people who gossiped about us, but to our faces they were friendly.”
Now Divan has also reaped the benefits of his parents’ healthier lifestyle – having lost 10kg, or just over a stone, now that sugar and junk food aren’t a constant in the family home.
Dawid said: “My son has to wear under-16 rugby jerseys at 10 years old.
“I say this with shame – I saw my child in the same place I was at his age and I wanted a better life for him.”
Dawid and Rose-Mari, who work as sales agents for farm machinery, hit breaking point in September 2024, deciding enough was enough.
Rose-Mari wrote a letter begging for help from Dr Smook & Partners, a Bloemfontein-based medical practice that helps people achieve their ideal weight loss.
With the help of the medical team there, Dawid and Rose Mari kissed goodbye to the weight that was threatening to kill them.
Recalling his feelings at the time, Dawid said: “I was angry when I first started on my weight loss journey.
“Angry at the dozens of diets he tried and failed, at my friends and family who had long insisted I lose weight, at doctors who told me I was killing myself, even at sugar itself!”
A biokineticist recommended Dawid simply start walking – just 100m a day – and do some arm exercises with weights.
One morning in September 2024, he put on his compression socks and emerged from the front door – rare at the time – with a walking stick in his hand.
With Rose-Mari and Divan alongside him, he initially took two steps at a time before needing to rest, but kept at the daily walking with determination.
Those 100m per day have now become at least 5km a day.
Within the first month of his regime, Dawid shed 20kg, or 3st 2lb – enough to fit behind the wheel of his brand new Ford Ranger bakkie.
“The day we went to collect the bakkie, they’d put a red ribbon on it,” Rose-Mari recalled.
“But when Dawid tried to climb in, he couldn’t fit behind the truck’s steering wheel.
“He flattened the seat to make more space.
“But we still drove the 60km from Bloemfontein back home with a constant honking, as his stomach pressed against the hooter of the steering wheel.”
With those kind of episodes far behind him, Dawid is less than half the man he used to be.
He’s lost 183kg (29st), with his waist size dropping from 190cm to 80cm, and his pants size down from a 62 to a size 36.
Rose-Mari has meanwhile lost an impressive 81kg (nearly 13st), her waist size now 50cm, down from 140cm.
That means together they have shed an astonishing 264kg, or around 40st.
After six months of getting fitter, the couple joined a gym, though they were “too shy” at first to join the general public and arranged for a personal trainer to come in an hour earlier so they could work out alone.
Today, they exercise daily – in front of other people.
Dawid and Rose-Mari’s treatment includes a dietitian-compiled eating plan and injections with a hormone that regulates glucose and blood sugar levels, as well as controlling appetite.
Rose-Mari added: “We still eat well.
“It’s about harmony and balance.
“Our meals consist of protein, vegetables and healthy starches such as brown rice and rye bread.
“We treat ourselves to the occasional soft drink, but only the sugar-free kind.
“But mostly we live on water.”
Dawid said: “When I look at myself now, I see the real me – the Dawid who was always inside that big body,
“I never realised who and what I could really be.”
Today, Dawid’s anger and reclusiveness have vanished and been replaced with gratitude.
He added: “My health problems have evaporated like mist burned off by the sun.
“I never thought I’d be where I am now.
“Doctors told me I wouldn’t see 40 – but then I met people who truly believed in me for the first time, who were willing to walk a path with me.”
Rose-Mari says their life has changed in small but mighty ways too, with Dawid’s confidence improving by the day.
She said: “He used to look at me while talking to people. It shows how much he’s changed.”
She hasn’t had injections for five months now and maintains her weight with good eating habits and exercise.
Her health problems have disappeared, and she hopes she and Dawid, who is still on injections, will conceive a child again soon.
Dawid is also at his target weight but wants to have his loose skin, which weighs an estimated 20kg, removed.
However, Rose-Mari says she wears hers with pride.
She added: “And anyone who wants to laugh about it or point it out, I just want to tell them, ‘Do you know what I had to do to get these skin folds?’”
The couple now want to get new wedding rings and hold a rededication ceremony – and make new promises in their new bodies.
