Salford mum Kelly Caffery went from a shy young woman to feisty, fit and fabulous after a six stone weight loss that sparked a "life-changing" reinvention. Kelly, now 44, lost the weight 20 years ago and has maintained her slim figure ever since by ditching fad diets.
When lockdown saw Kelly made redundant from her office job, she decided to share her own diet and fitness journey online with other women. It swiftly became such a hit that she now runs her own online fitness forum passing on her own experiences to over 550 women about making lasting, healthy lifestyle changes and helping "bring their sexy back".
Kelly, a married mum-of-two from Swinton, is known for her super-glam appearance in her Instagram workout videos and selfies and straight-talking tips to success. After years refusing to have her photo taken at her heaviest weight, she now proudly shows off her incredible figure having slimming down from a size 22 to a sculpted size 10.
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And she is passionate about passing on her weight loss tips to others - as she believes it's achievable for ANY woman with the right mindset to lose the weight and to keep it off for life without faddy diet plans. She leads a group of 550 women who have signed up not just from Greater Manchester but from across the world for her coaching - many of whom have also lost huge amounts of weight following her plan.
Through her years of maintaining her weight loss she's come to realise it's "all about balance and moderation" and "losing bad diet mindsets". She says: "Losing weight is the easy bit but you've got to set down better habits if you want to keep it off forever.
"We only see the end game, the result - but it's the journey that matters the most. Before and after pictures don't tell you about the journey, the mindset changes, the routine, the consistency, the education, but I can assure you that's the most important part."
As for Kelly's own journey, she says she had "terrible self-esteem issues" growing up in Salford and piled on the pounds after leaving school. Looking back now she can see how she started an unhealthy relationship with food.
She says: "From an early age food was classed as a treat, at my grandparents' house they'd serve us man-size portions and then praise us when we finished it all - and then handed us the biscuit barrel!
"We'd have huge bags of sweet, bottles of pop. Food was a reward - it made you feel good, and it made you feel you WERE good.
"Through school it wasn't an easy ride, I got a bit of bullying and that saw a bit of a dip with my mental health. After school everything changed, my mental health got worse, my anxiety got worse, and I turned to food for comfort, but it just made me sad.
"By the time I was 18, the weight had really started to come on and at the age of 19 I was a size 20. My mum was really active and exercised a lot and she was a size 8.
"It got to the stage where my work pants didn't fit me and I said "mum I need more work pants" we went to Matalan as that was the only place things would fit - but I was crying in the changing rooms at Matalan where even the size 20 wouldn't fit.
"My mum said 'you've got to sort yourself out'. And that was the moment, I thought I couldn't carry on like this.
"I was literally hiding away, I would never have my photo taken. I'd never had a girls' holiday, I didn't do everyday things, because the weight gain had affected me that much."
From that moment on, Kelly started to make the simple changes that would change her life. She says: "I literally started watching what I was eating more, and at night would walk round and round our estate in Walkden to get some exercise.
"I lost five stone in nine months. So I'd lost the weight, but to me that's not the hard bit. I still had a lot of those diet traits in my mindset, and that doesn't work forever."
Kelly had her first son, Alfie (now 20), when she was aged 25 and was able to quickly lose the baby weight. But when at the age of 32 her second child, daughter Ruby (now 12), came along she suffered badly from post-natal depression.
She was still able to lose the two stone she had gained from pregnancy, but still felt she had "diet mindset traits". It's then that Kelly started running for fitness and began to experience the positives for her mental health.
She said: "I found I wasn't worrying while I was running. It then gave me the confidence to start training at a local gym, it was at that point my drive was less what I looked like and how exercise was positive for my mental health."
Having maintained her six stone weight loss to this point, dropping from her heaviest at 15 stone to her lightest of nine stone, Kelly began to focus on strength and felt she had "gone too thin" at a size 8. She now maintains a weight of 9stone 13lbs which she feels happiest at with her size 10, 5' 6" frame.
Kelly says: "Because I had such terrible self-esteem and confidence issues growing up, I can now see what I did "fixed me"- it changed my life. It changed my relationships, my decisions, my tolerance to what I would allow in my life, it changed everything in my life."
Kelly, 44, first met her husband Les, now 45, when she was 17 and he was 18 and they've been together ever since. She says he loves her new-found fitness fame.
She continued her glamorous transformation by going blonde from her original brunette, and at the age of 27 she decided to have breast implant surgery after dropping from a D cup to an A cup through her weight loss. She said: "Getting my boobs done and going blonde I felt my transformation was complete".
Kelly credits losing weight and gaining confidence with improving her relationship too. She says: "It has changed my sex life absolutely - there's no sex in the dark now, my god, I was so self conscious before, but now there's none of that!
"I do think it's part of being a woman, who doesn't want to feel sexy and adored who doesn't in their relationship? When you're looking after yourself, and you're at the top of your game your mental health and your fitness it makes you feel good you've got loads of energy."
She felt so good she wanted to help others understand the secrets to lifelong weight maintenance. Kelly says: "Losing weight is not about what you eat- it's about how much you eat and it's different for everybody. It's how many calories for the energy that you use.
"There's no good and bad foods, there's no "diet foods". It's learning balance and so now 80 per cent of what I eat is what's good for me and 20 per cent is what I fancy. If you follow a restrictive diet or are told you can't eat certain sort of things, your body will crave it- that's the mindset you will get into."
Kelly's typical day now will see her eat eggs on sourdough toast for breakfast, chicken with rice or a chicken wrap for lunch, and dinner will be meat with vegetables and potatoes. She still enjoys a drink - but has swapped calorific pints of cider for gin and slimline tonic instead.
Kelly had spent 12 years working in criminal law, but after the birth of daughter Ruby took an admin job at her husband's car garage to give better flexibility for childcare. But in her spare time she worked to gain a nutrition qualification and undertook a Personal Trainer course "to understand how to be lean, to look firm and tight".
She says: "I really wanted to help others. I don't think I had one friend who didn't worry about their weight at some point.
"So I did a nutrition course to get educated - I knew that food was the main thing that you need to understand to lose weight. In 2017 I got my qualifications in nutrition and weight management.
"But there was nothing in that about the psychological side, I feel you can't get that from a qualification, but I knew I had a lot to pass on to people of my own experiences."
Having worked out at a gym with only male trainers, she also wanted to understand better how to train the female body for fitness.
She said: "I decided I was coming up to 40 and wanted to get the tools for looking lean and toned. Chloe Madeley was one of my idols, so I found out from her who she trained with and then went and did my courses at Virgin Active IQ."
She qualified in 2019, but at that point it was still just for herself and her own learning. But then a friend suggested she should start doing fitness classes and training people.
"It still wasn't going to be a job, but my friend who I trained with said you should start doing classes and training people so that's what I did - I started having some of my own clients at my own home gym. But I felt when I wasn't with them I couldn't quite connect with them all through the week."
Then in March 2020 when the UK was placed into lockdown, it became a pivotal moment for Kelly.
She says: "We went into lockdown, and at the same time I was made redundant from my job. I was also devastated that I couldn't train the people I had started to help in person with fitness classes.
"I sat there and thought what can I do? And a friend said "you need to go online", so I set up a Facebook Group, added the girls who came to my circuit classes, it's only when I set the group up that I thought 'this is my platform, this is how I can get my story across to women'.
"And it literally snowballed from there. Within a week more and more women joined, I felt like I was really making progress. I felt like people were nailing their nutrition for the first time."
Women subscribe for £20 a month and have access to the support network on the Facebook group, as well as full personalised plan and consultation with Kelly and weekly check-ins.
She says: "Women who come to me have all the diet traits - they've done them all, all the slimming groups and fads - they've been starving or they've been sick, I felt like I could show them you could eat proper food, and be active with your steps and still lose weight but it's about progression - it's not all about numbers on a scale."
The Facebook group is a forum for members to discuss their weight-loss, and no-holds barred discussions. Kelly says: "It could be mental helath, moods, husbands, poo, it's such a safe space. And then there's the laughs from 500-odd women in there and they're just supporting each other."
The transformations have been what is most fulfilling to Kelly - including members who have lost six or seven stone and kept it off for a year or more already like Laynie Nesbitt (pictured below).
Kelly says: "What I've found is I've got mums, daughters, sisters, cousins I endup with families, friends because they bring their friends and tell their family about it.
"When I look back I'm very honest in there, they know when I'm on my period, when I'm having a good or bad day, they love it because it's real talk. There are so many women out there who are struggling.
"My life has been a learning curve and I recognise those struggles in other women, so helping them reminds me of who I was. I want them to change their life like I changed mine. Once you start to love yourself every aspect of your life improves."
The forum has been such a success it's now Kelly's full time job with membership growing from across the world as people discover her online.
She says: "It doesn't feel like work, it feels like I've just got loads of mates and I'm helping them and it's very very rewarding.
"I say to the girls, even now, I'll catch a glimpse of myself every now and again in a mirror and feel emotional and proud. It's not just about how you look, obviously that's a bonus, but it reminds me of the inside journey I've had.
"I just want to help as many women as I can. I cannot tell you the satisfaction I have watching the pennies drop, watching them lose the weight but to change their journey, after they've been going round in circles all their lives."
Kelly publishes new workouts five days a week but understands that for most of her members it's not the workout but more nailing the nutrition that is key. She's a believer in getting more active in any way you can - and for everyone to aim for doing 10,000 steps a day.
Kelly says: "My plan is you've got to show up for yourself, make good choices and do the best you can, and check in with me once a week.
"I'd say about five per cent of the girls do the workout, and then I do this thing called the stomp queen. I just stomp and talk to them, I know this sounds ridiculous, it's a walking workout, but it's just enough that i'm waffling. I'll tell them what I've been doing all week, I literally talk to them for 30 minutes and after that we've all done 5,000 steps."
The online group has become such a success that Kelly has now taken on a staff member, Luci Lu, who joined the group to achieve her own goal and has become such an expert that Kelly laughs: "I poached her to work for me!"
Kelly also adds: "I'm definitely not perfect, I love to have a drink, I love socialising, love eating out, I have a takeaway once a week, I go out with the girls - but I look after myself.
"That's what my clients find quite refresing, that there's no rules and that I keep it real. As soon as you stop the diet - it's far better to show someone you can still have fun and find that moderation in your life.
"Before losing weight, my chosen drink was cider - but now it's gin and slimline tonic- the difference between calories is incredible - it's always about what you choose. If you don't tackle your mindset, you're just going to pile it all back on - it's a lifestyle - not something you do for six weeks, lose weight then sod off back to what you were doing before.
"You need to learn you can have a piece of cake if you want it - that's 2 per cent of your week. You have to just be mindful of what you're putting in your mouth and make good choices where you can."
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