CORONATION Street star Colson Smith has revealed how he wore a disguise to go jogging before his HUGE 10st weight loss.
The actor, who plays Craig Tinker in the ITV soap, admitted he donned a balaclava to run as he was embarrassed about his size.
Colson, 22, kick started his weight loss and fitness journey in January last year, and has since shed an incredible ten stone in weight.
Initially, the star went out running to try and shed the pounds, but was so embarrassed he only went out after dark, and in disguise.
Sharing a video of his first ever run, Colson revealed how he tied a scarf round his face, wore a hat and used a balaclava to hide his identity.
“Earlier I posted my morning run, and after I posted it I thought about how far I’d come in my running and my general life,” he captioned the clip.
“If I’d have seen that post on my feed back then I’d have hated it, it would have seemed impossible and a million miles away.”
In order to “keep it real” with his following, Colson shared the video from January 10, 2020, when he “laced up for the first time”.
“I was embarrassed to be seen so I went out at witching hour in disguise,” he joked of his efforts to stay hidden and not be spotted by fans.
“Everyone HAS to start somewhere. Try it, you really do deserve it,” he encouraged his following, urging them to try out running.
The video, which showed Colson out of breath and wrapped up, also detailed how it took him 21 minutes to run just under two miles.
It comes at a contrast to the soap actor’s latest running feat with “a new PB”, as he celebrated running three miles in 18 minutes.
He wrote to his fans on Monday morning: “First time I’ve maxed out on a training run for a few weeks, keep on hitting those goals.
Colson first detailed his fat and weight loss journey in an online documentary, Bored Of Being The Fat Kid, in March.
Shortly after its release, the actor told HOAR how he was faced with abuse for his weight by soap fans at just 11.
He said: “At 11 years old I had a Twitter account. You log in, you search your name, you search ‘Craig Corrie’ and you’re looking to see what people are saying about your character or your acting, and all they’re saying is about your weight and the way you look.
“I was being branded as just the fat kid from day one. Even at school I was always the fat kid, I was always the odd one out.”
And when he moved out of home at 17 to move to Manchester full-time, his weight spiralled.
Colson explains: “I left my parents at 17 to live in Manchester, which was away from home and when everyone else was at uni, and they were having uni food, I’m sat on Deliveroo every night.
“I got myself into a really unhealthy position. Food was a self harm to me like that, it was my comfort, and I didn’t realise how much damage I was doing to myself with it.”
It’s the first time Colson has opened up about losing the weight – after previously joking that he got food poisoning on holiday and lost ten stone.
“It’s just my way of telling my truth because for months and people have been asking me if I really ate dodgy prawns in Thailand and I lost weight from food poisoning,” he said.
“Obviously I didn’t but I didn’t want to be the person who preached about losing weight by eating less.
“It’s about changing in life which is why it’s taken me a year and a half kind of to decide to talk about it.”
He also revealed that running was the key to losing the weight, saying: “I fell in love with running, and that made everything else easier,” he admits.
“So, the running kind of motivated me that running helped me get my days in order and just went, a day at a time so often and now like the only thing I want to do is run.”
