I spent 20 years yo-yo dieting but at 43, I’ve finally managed to lose 6 stone… by leaving my husband. These are the seven changes that transformed my life – and body…

A few years ago, I found myself looking in the mirror and barely recognising the woman staring back at me.

I’d always been relatively slim. At 5ft 7in, I weighed around 65kg when I got married and never really worried too much about my weight. But after having my two daughters, things changed. I had my first child at 29 and my second at 32, and after that second pregnancy I struggled to lose the weight I’d gained. 

Like so many women, I spent years trying to get back to where I was before. I yo-yo dieted constantly. Before holidays, weddings or special occasions, I’d throw myself into whatever fad diet was popular at the time. Sometimes I’d lose weight, but it always came back.

The older I got, the harder it became.

By my late thirties and early forties, I wasn’t just carrying extra weight – I was carrying emotional baggage too. I was in an unhappy marriage, surrounded by relationships that weren’t healthy for me, and I’d become someone who constantly put other people’s needs before my own.

I didn’t feel like myself any more.

Physically, I felt sluggish and uncomfortable. I was getting ill more often than I was used to, suffering from recurring infections and feeling generally run down. Emotionally, I felt trapped. It was as though I was living inside a body that didn’t belong to me.

When I left my husband after 17 years together, I thought I was simply starting a new chapter. What I didn’t realise was that it would also become the catalyst for losing 5.5st (35kg), rebuilding my confidence and completely changing my relationship with food, fitness and myself.

Looking back now at the age of 43, the weight loss was only part of the story.

Here are the seven biggest changes that transformed my life.

1. I’d spent nearly 20 years trying every diet imaginable

I’ve honestly lost count of the number of diets I’ve tried.

I started dieting in my early twenties and spent almost two decades believing the next plan would finally be the one that worked.

I’ve done Atkins. At university, I practically survived on tuna and slices of cheese because I’d convinced myself carbohydrates were the enemy. I’ve tried fasting, juice cleanses, detoxes, herbal weight-loss teas and even Chinese herbal remedies that mostly just left me running to the bathroom.

Whenever there was a holiday, wedding or important event approaching, I’d slash calories and become obsessed with losing weight quickly.

The problem was that none of it was sustainable. I’d lose a few pounds, feel deprived, then gradually return to my normal habits and put the weight back on again.

For years, I thought my problem was a lack of discipline and blamed myself for failing. What I eventually realised was that I wasn’t failing the diets – the diets were failing me.

They were all focused on controlling food rather than understanding why I was turning to food in the first place. Once I understood that, everything started to change.

2. Leaving my marriage helped me stop emotional eating

If I’m honest, food had become a comfort blanket.

I wasn’t just eating because I was hungry. I was eating because I was unhappy.

For years, I had been in relationships that left me emotionally drained. That wasn’t just my marriage; there were friendships and even family relationships that weren’t healthy either.

I’ve always been a people pleaser. I’m generous with my time, my energy and often my money. I was constantly looking after everyone else and leaving very little for myself. When you live like that for long enough, you lose sight of who you are.

Food became a way of filling the gap.

Chocolate, ice cream and comfort foods weren’t really about hunger. They were about soothing feelings I didn’t know how to deal with.

Leaving my marriage forced me to ask difficult questions about my life. Who was I outside of that relationship? What did I actually want? What made me happy?

As I started removing toxic relationships from my life and setting healthier boundaries, I noticed something surprising. I wasn’t reaching for food in the same way any more. The emotional need behind a lot of my overeating had started to disappear.

I often say now that I didn’t just lose weight – I shed a lot of emotional baggage too. And honestly, that made a bigger difference than any diet ever had.

3. I discovered strength training and lost my first 3st

I’ve never enjoyed running.

People always talk about getting a runner’s high, but I’ve never experienced it. I hate feeling hot, sweaty and exhausted, and I knew if I forced myself to do exercise I hated, I’d eventually quit.

Everything changed when I joined a local gym and met a personal trainer.

I started training three times a week, with each session lasting around an hour. We focused on full-body strength training rather than endless cardio.

Typically, we’d do around eight different exercises per session, with three sets of each exercise and around ten to 12 repetitions per set. Because I’d had two pregnancies and two C-sections, a lot of the focus was on rebuilding my core strength. We also worked heavily on glutes, legs, shoulders and arms.

What surprised me most was how much I enjoyed it. The sessions became almost therapeutic. I’d spend an hour chatting with my trainer while exercising, and I actually looked forward to showing up.

That consistency made all the difference.

 Over the course of the first year, I lost around 3st (19kg). But even more importantly, I felt stronger.

I wasn’t just becoming smaller. I was becoming more capable.

For the first time, exercise felt empowering rather than punishing.

4. I stopped trying to be perfect with food

One of the biggest misconceptions about my weight loss is that I followed a strict diet.

I didn’t.

Of course, I became more mindful about what I was eating. I reduced portion sizes and made an effort to include more fruit and vegetables in my meals.

I also became interested in the idea of eating foods in a particular order. I’d often start with vegetables, then eat protein, then leave carbohydrates until last.

But I never banned foods.

A typical lunch might be a chicken salad, or a smoked salmon sandwich. Dinner would usually be something simple like chicken or fish with rice and vegetables.

And yes, I still ate chocolate.

In fact, anyone who knows me will tell you I’m obsessed with Toblerone.

One of the reasons previous diets failed was because they demanded perfection. The moment I ate something ‘bad’, I’d feel guilty and give up altogether.

This time, I stopped chasing perfection.

If I wanted chocolate, I had some chocolate. The difference was that I was eating it because I enjoyed it, not because I was using it to cope emotionally.

That shift was huge.

5. Mounjaro helped me lose the final 2.5st

After about a year of strength training, my weight loss stalled.

I’d lost around 3st, but no matter what I did, the scales stopped moving.

I pushed harder in the gym. I paid more attention to what I was eating. Nothing seemed to make a difference.

That’s when I started researching weight-loss injections.

A friend had been using Mounjaro and had seen good results, so I decided to give it a try.

I only ever used the lowest starting dose, 2.5mg, and I stayed on it for around ten weeks.

The results were dramatic, and I lost the final 2.5st (16kg) incredibly quickly. What struck me most wasn’t the weight loss itself but how completely it changed my appetite.

For the first time in my life, food stopped dominating my thoughts.

Previously, I’d finish lunch and immediately start thinking about dinner. On Mounjaro, I sometimes had to remind myself to eat because I simply wasn’t thinking about food at all.

In fact, the appetite suppression became so strong that I decided to stop taking it. The weight loss was happening too quickly and I didn’t want to lose any more.

I also noticed other changes that surprised me.

My skin improved. I felt less puffy. My energy levels increased. I have ulcerative colitis, and during the time I was taking it, many of my symptoms improved dramatically.

Obviously that’s just my personal experience, but it was one of the reasons I found the medication so fascinating.

6. Losing weight changed some of my friendships too

One thing nobody talks about is how weight loss can affect the people around you.

When I reached my goal weight, I decided to have surgery to repair the damage caused by pregnancy and weight fluctuations.

I underwent an abdominoplasty with muscle repair to correct diastasis recti, alongside a tummy tuck to remove excess skin.

For me, it wasn’t purely cosmetic. I wanted to repair my abdominal muscles and feel physically comfortable again.

What shocked me was the reaction from some people around me.

Two close friends became incredibly judgemental about my decision. They accused me of being obsessed with appearance and suggested the surgery was vanity-driven.

It was deeply upsetting.

But it also reinforced something I’d already started to learn: true friends support your decisions, even if they wouldn’t make the same choices themselves.

Those friendships eventually ended.

At the time, it felt heartbreaking. Now, I see it differently. I’ve lost some relationships, but I’ve strengthened many others.

My circle is smaller than it used to be, but it’s filled with people who genuinely support me.

7. What I feed my mind matters more than what I feed my body

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from this entire journey, it’s that weight loss starts in the mind.

After leaving my marriage, I spent a huge amount of time working on myself emotionally.

I read books. I listened to podcasts. I learned about attachment styles, emotional eating and self-worth.

Books like Attached helped me understand relationship patterns I’d never recognised before. Others taught me about emotional resilience, boundaries and learning to trust myself again.

I didn’t find therapy particularly helpful because I’m naturally quite self-aware and open about my feelings, but I consumed as much information as I could from people who had been through similar experiences.

The more work I did on myself internally, the easier the physical changes became.

That’s why I believe so strongly that what we consume mentally is just as important as what we consume physically.

People spend years focusing on calories, carbs and exercise plans. But if you’re constantly surrounded by negativity, criticism and relationships that drain your energy, that’s going to affect your health too.

Today, I weigh around 50-55kg and have maintained my weight loss for more than 18 months since stopping Mounjaro.

I still enjoy chocolate. I still enjoy a glass of wine. I don’t spend my life dieting any more.

The biggest transformation wasn’t losing 5.5st.

It was finally learning who I am.

Once I did that, everything else fell into place.

New episodes of Health Applied, hosted by Kelly Allison, are released every Tuesday at 7.30pm on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.