The Stevens family’s bid to slim down and shape up has faced a bit of a set-back this week.

Amanda, 42, husband Craig, 35 and children Zach, 15 and Morgan, 13, are checking in with us once a month to update readers of their attempts to lose weight with Slimming World.

The family, from Canford Heath, have been following a healthy eating diet plan, with Amanda aiming to lose at least ten stone, Craig wanting to shed five stone and the boys looking to ditch the junk food and stick to a more nutritious diet.

But they’ve all suffered the effects of the flu, followed by a sickness bug, so Amanda admits the dieting has been relaxed a little over the last week.

“We’ve all been ill this month, but we are back on course now,” she said.

“We didn’t put any weight on, but we haven’t lost weight, because everybody has been ill. But the boys would normally put on a bit of weight when they’ve been ill and they haven’t.”

Amanda said normally the family would turn to comfort food when feeling under the weather, but their new Slimming World regime meant they thought twice about their old habits.

“We haven’t done that this time,” she said.

“We’ve been more careful. It wasn’t totally on plan, you do relax things a little when you’re not feeling well, but we didn’t do too badly.”

Now fully recovered, the family are back to their new healthy eating routine, and planning a holiday. But Slimming World will never be far from their thoughts.

“We’re going away for a week in Devon,” said Amanda.

“We’re staying in a chalet and we’ve already planned we are going to take the wok with us. Normally I would put on 10lb just on the journey down there, but we are going to cook rather than have takeaways this time, which is a big change for us.

“It’s becoming a way of life, so it is getting easier, because you don’t have to think about it as much.

“Now that summer is coming that’s another incentive to lose more weight as well.

“Hopefully we will have another really good month next month.”