It’s a cliche straight out of a movie script. A heartbroken 20-something sitting on the sofa looking forlorn and surrounded by pizza boxes.
For Kirsty Simmons it was more real than she cares to remember. After going through a break-up at 22, she was that girl every night.
‘I turned to food for comfort,’ she admits to New Idea. ‘The more I ate, the more I craved.’
The once-healthy childcare worker went from 60kg to 117kg.
‘I kept trying to diet, but nothing worked,’ she says. ‘I was borderline diabetic and a specialist told me I should consider surgery.’
Initially it seemed too drastic, but after another diet failed, Kirsty couldn’t face wasting more of her life battling her size.
‘I hardly went out, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror and my confidence was shattered,’ she says.
‘In February 2015, I went for gastric bypass surgery and it was a great decision.’
Coupled with rigorous exercise, Kirsty lost 60kg in just 12 months. But despite dropping from a size 24 to a size 10, she still couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror.
‘I had all this loose skin around my tummy,’ she says. ‘It was so depressing that my body didn’t match up to the work I’d put in.’
It saw Kirsty, now 30, looking into skin removal surgery, and then a friend suggested she enter a competition by company CosMediTour to win the body she’d dreamt of having.
A shocked Kirsty won, and she travelled to Thailand for a $25,000 breast augmentation and extended tummy tuck.
‘They removed over a kilo of skin,’ she says. ‘Looking down and not seeing that roll was amazing.’
Back home in Sydney, Kirsty is at last feeling positive.
‘My confidence has grown and I’m ready to find love again,’ she adds enthusiastically.
For the full story see this weeks issue of New Idea – out now!
