Anna Windass (Debbie Rush)

[faceless]

I piled on 2 stone at Corrie's butty wagon ..I cried when I saw how fat I'd got
Sue Crawford
10/10/2010
mirror.co.uk

She wowed everyone in a hot pink dress at a recent soap awards bash. But for Debbie Rush, her triumphant entrance was a hard-won moment. Two months before, the Coronation Street actress had been three dress sizes bigger at Size 16 after the pressures of life on set led her to take comfort in chip butties and puddings. It was almost as if success came too quickly for Debbie. She had made her TV debut only two years before at the age of 40 - and before that she was an ordinary mum working behind the cheese counter at Asda and struggling to bring up three children.

She says: "I came into Coronation Street at a normal weight but very quickly, with the pressure of the job and the temptation of a butty wagon on set, I didn't realise how much I was eating. It was the fear of it really, I took comfort in food." She says that playing dowdy Anna Windass didn't help. "My weight kind of got out of control without me even noticing. Obviously, if Anna was more glamorous I wouldn't have been able to put the weight on! But as it was I was able to hide my shape under my work clothes. But this summer I realised I wasn't happy and wanted to do something about it."

She certainly has. In the space of three months Debbie has gone from nearly 11 stone to under nine - and dropped three dress sizes to a Size 10. And she doesn't want to stop there, aiming to fit into a Size 8 outfit for Corrie's 50th anniversary in December. The Manchester-born actress was inspired to embark on the weight loss after seeing pictures of herself at her biggest.

"I was in tears," she says. "But now I have a personal trainer who comes to my house three times a week. And I've also started a healthier diet. I used to have a massive lunch at the Corrie canteen, like chips with curry sauce and a dessert - and something similar for dinner. Now I make my own lunch and snack on vegetables."

Debbie, 44, had dreamed of acting since she was a young girl but, with no idea of how to go about it, she got married, started a family, and did a string of jobs as she and husband Andrew struggled to make ends meet. "It was all I ever wanted to do but when I left school it just wasn't on offer for me. We were a typical working-class family and I thought acting was a secret world." Debbie married at 22 and found a job in telesales. She then had three children before getting a job on the cheese counter at Bury's branch of Asda. "I've done loads of jobs," she explains. "Like lots of families we had it hard and struggled to pay the bills, so I'd do anything to bring in the money."

It was the sad deaths of her dad Neil and stepdad Tom within six months of each other that prompted her to change her life. "They were only in their 50s. I was nearly 30 and it made me think that life was too short and I had to follow my dream," says Debbie. Aged 35, she took the plunge and started in local amateur dramatics. It was then a fellow actor suggested she train to be a professional. She went to Manchester School of Acting, while still bringing up three young children. "I did it in the evenings and it took five years. I still had to work in the day."

After appearing in a couple of plays, Debbie landed her first TV role in 2006, in Hollyoaks In The City. She appeared in The Street, then Shameless before auditioning for Corrie. As warm-hearted Anna, the wife of hapless taxi driver Eddie, Debbie has proved a hit with viewers. "I get young lads in the street and women at the gates to Coronation Street shouting out to me: 'Oh, Anna, I wish you were my mum,'" Debbie says with a modest smile. "I think people respect Anna. Although there's always something going wrong in her life, she just gets on with it."

As for Debbie's own struggles she is proud to have ended up on the show she dreamed of joining as a girl. "I've had a hard time getting here, but I really feel I've earned my place," she says. "And I feel so sexy now. I feel I'm getting the real me back."

[SpursFan1902]

Inspirational, indeed!

[Twirley]

She looks so good! How are they going to explain her new look in the show...with a fat suit or something??? Way to go Ms Rush!! Wish I had the willpower.