Daily doses of hamburgers, french fries and countless bags of chips took their toll on Marylee Watson.

But after receiving the wake-up call of all wake-up calls being told she has diabetes Mrs. Watson has turned her life around by shedding 70 pounds in just a few months through strict dieting and exercising.

Weighing in at 350 pounds last October, the 44-year-old from Devonshire was given an ultimatum to change her ways or see her health deteriorate even further.

And change her ways she did. The health plan Mrs. Watson embarked on has been such a success so far, dieticians hold her up as an example to other overweight people across the Island hoping to get slim.

She told The Royal Gazette how good she feels about herself and encouraged others to lose weight too, and help make the Department of Health's Healthy Weight Action Plan produce the right results.

"I would eat anything," said Mrs. Watson, a former Bank of Bermuda employee. "Fried chicken, hamburgers, french fries. All the things that taste good but are bad for you.

"I used to sit in the office eating chips from the vending machine. There was a 24-hour gas station just across the street and it sells all kinds of stuff, so it sort of got me. I got no exercise at all. It just became a habit for life.

"Then I was being made redundant and I went to the doctor to get a physical. That's when I was told I had diabetes.

"It wasn't a big shock because I come from a really big family and the majority of my aunties and my mother are overweight. I have never been a small person at all.

"But he told me I really needed to lose weight over a period of time. It was a wake-up call for me."

Experts recommend a woman of Mrs. Watson's height, five-feet one-inch, should weigh between 101 and 132 pounds. She was about treble that figure.

Setting the wheels in motion immediately, Mrs. Watson joined a diabetes class at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital. She was urged to change her diet by cutting out the junk food and fatty snacks in favour of healthier items like fruit, vegetables and fish. She ditched her four cans of soda a day and began drinking water instead.

After so many years of inactivity, exercise was difficult at first, but Mrs. Watson has been able to increase her fitness programme bit by bit. What started off as a ten-minute walk has now become a regular running session up and down the steps at the National Stadium, a task many athletes would find enduring.

The benefits have been physical and mental. "The weight just started to come off," she said.

"A lot of people were seeing it in my face and my neck; my clothes started to get loose. My husband thinks it's wonderful he goes to classes with me sometimes as he could do with losing a bit of weight.

"My doctor's really excited for me. Over the years, he kept telling me I needed to lose weight, but you don't listen until it's a wake-up call like I had.

"It's not an easy road for anybody. But the most important thing is you want it. If you don't want it, it's not going to happen."

Jessica Wade, a dietician at KEMH, urged people to draw inspiration from Mrs. Watson, whom she described as one of her star pupils.

Asked how she felt about growing obesity rates, Mrs. Wade said: "I find it heartbreaking. You know that things are going to be more difficult. When I started working many years ago, you saw people in their fifties who were overweight. Now you see people in their fifties who have 20 or 30 years history of being overweight. It makes everything more difficult to handle.

"We need to go back to the drawing board. It's the whole way our lifestyle is. I can't emphasise enough the need for exercise."

Mrs. Wade suggested people save money by preparing their own lunches instead of buying takeaways thereby freeing up cash which can be spent on not-so-cheap healthier foods from supermarkets.

Health Minister Michael Scott launched the health action plan yesterday in response to figures showing 63 percent of adults in Bermuda are obese, up from 57 percent in 1999. In the past eight years, the proportion of adults with high blood pressure has increased from seven percent to 25 percent; and high cholesterol from eight percent to 34 percent. About 13 percent of Bermuda's population have been diagnosed with diabetes, many as a result of being overweight, and around double the rate of the US. Heart disease, the Island's number one killer, is linked to both conditions.

Among the recommendations on the plan are calls for tax cuts on healthy foods and tax rises on junk food, a nutrition policy in schools and a campaign encouraging people to use the stairs rather than the elevator.

Royal Gazette readers gave their backing to the scheme yesterday.

"This is amazing news!" said Jessica Flores, of Smith's. "I think attempting to make healthy food options more attractive by making them more affordable is a key component of any action toward battling obesity in the country."

Ann Wilkings, of Devonshire, eats her way through $30 worth of healthy food a day, including watermelon, blueberries, corn and broccoli.

She said: "I think this is a fantastic idea! I always try to eat well. The amount of money I spend on vegetables and fruit is crazy. If I was a family of four, I don't know how I could manage eating well.

"People need to be educated on how to eat well, what foods are bad and what are good for them. A tax cut on these healthy foods would be a great incentive to help people change their eating habits."

For more information about KEMH's diabetes centre education classes, telephone 239-2027.