Jenny Clark, from Bournemouth, Dorset, ballooned to a size 18 when she was pregnant with her son Mason and once he was born, decided to join a gym to lose the weight.

When a gym instructor told Jenny, 36, that she looked very symmetrical and should consider bodybuilding, she tried pumping iron as a way to shift the baby-weight and found she was a natural at it.

In just 18 months, the new mother lost five stone in fat and built up her impressive muscles with gruelling weight and cardio sessions.

Although she came last in the first weight-lifting competition she entered, Jenny didn't give up and after a few more disappointments she started winning.

She qualified her for the International Bodybuilding and Fitness Association (IBFA) British Championships last year which she won and has now gone on to win the World Championships.

Now Jenny weighs 10st 9lb and her body fat is down to just nine per cent.

And her son Mason, now aged four, has become her biggest fan and loves going to 'mummy's muscle shows'.

Jenny spends three hours a day training in the gym and is aiming to compete in the Miss Universe competition in Italy this summer.

The mother-of-one said: 'I ate for three the whole time I was pregnant and I put on a lot of weight.

'I really struggled to lose the weight afterwards for about three years and I was really unhappy.

'Through exercise and diet I'd managed to lose a bit of weight. I was doing a gym class and I was the only one who turned up.

'My gym instructor must have been watching me more closely because it was just me and she said I was really symmetrical and had I ever tried bodybuilding.'

(dailymail.co.uk)