A PAIR of gardening buddies have trimmed back their waistlines after joining a slimming club.

Pals Andy Strathie and Bob Russell not only have a leaner look, they have also collected an award for a special Slimming World Garden that they designed.

Bob, 46, a trained horticulturist, runs Blooming Inverkip and was sprucing the area outside the village hub when he bumped into old friend Lisa McNellis, a consultant for Slimming World.

The gardening group wanted to put in an entry into the Gardening Scotland show at Ingliston in Edinburgh but they needed a theme - and Lisa provided them with a great idea.

Bob, of Inverkip, said: "Lisa described people coming to Slimming World as their first big step, they went in like a caterpillar and left like a butterfly.

"It was the idea of transformation."

Bob, who works as a fraud adviser, designed the garden to attract caterpillars and butterflies and when the garden was assessed by Chelsea Show judges it won a silver gilt award.

The dynamic duo then brought the idea back to use at the community hub.

Bob said: "We received a lot support for the garden project but we felt as if we were frauds, using Slimming World as a theme without being members of the group.

"So we decided to join up."

Bob, who weighed in at over 13 stones, has lost two and a half stones.

He said: "I feel great now.

"I had an unhealthy eating pattern, I used to to get up and not eat anything until 1 or 2pm.

"Then I would come home from work starving and snack on crisps before I had my dinner."

He said never in a million years did he imagine designing a garden would lead to joining a slimming group.

Bob said: "It was crazy but I feel it was meant to be."

Andy, 46, from Greenock, who is a lorry driver, said: "I've always been overweight.

"I was around 18 stones but now I am down to 15 and a half stones.

"I feel loads better and far fitter than I was.

"I can go out for a walk and not feel bad afterwards."

Andy says he has ditched 'rubbish' and tries to avoid crisps and bread.

He said: "I eat healthy foods and I batch cook at weekends.

"I try to keep healthy snacks such as fruit and carrot sticks to hand.

"Slimming World is about eating plenty of the good stuff."

The friends are already planning their next gardening project - a people's border where people can plant their own plants in a border round the hub building.