Two butchers have joined Slimming World in a competition to see who can lose the most weight.

Brothers Shaun and Steve O’Meara joined the club together in an effort to improve their health and have so far lost more than four stone between them.

Shaun is 42 and when he joined the club weighed 23st 10lb and 40-year-old Steve weighed 17st 10lb when he joined.

Seven weeks later Shaun has lost a stone and a half and Steve has lost exactly three stone.

The brothers, who run the butchers in The Broadway in Minster, insist they have lost the weight through eating just meat and fruit.

So being butchers helps as they can take fresh meat home, although Steve insists it is not the Atkins diet, as they don’t have to cut out carbs at all.

Shaun, of Appleford Drive, Minster, said: “I had been to Slimming World before years ago and lost weight then and this time we both decided it would do our health good to lose a bit of weight.

“We are both pretty competitive people and pitting one against the other was inspiration for us and it works because you go there to be weighed – so the competitive edge makes sure we both lose the weight.”

Both the brothers have a target weight to reach – Shaun’s is 19 stone and Steve’s is 14 stone.

Steve, of St Georges Avenue, Eastchurch, said: “Weight loss is like anything else, you have to want to do it.

“I personally have found it quite easy but I admit I was a man that was eating chips five nights a week, washed down with several cans of lager.”