A woman who shed 7st in a year has shared how she managed to lose weight while avoiding the scales and fad diets.
Make-up artist and nail technician Siobhan McDonald, 36, has spent her life helping other women look glamorous - but admits that she had secretly hated how she looked herself the whole time.
The mum-of-two from Cheshire would constantly worry what others thought about her weight, and at her heaviest came in at 18 stone (18kg).
But this all changed after a health scare in hospital forced to confront her unhealthy relationship with food for the very first time.
Siobhan caught Covid in early 2021, and became so unwell she ended up in hospital with pneumonia.
Looking back on her health at the time, she told Manchester Evening News: "My health in general at that point was just at rock bottom, I was overweight, I was miserable and my health just reflected that.
"I 100 per cent believe I was so ill with it because of my mindset, because I was overweight and I was unhealthy. I just did everything you're not supposed to do to nourish your body and I paid for it."
Her turnaround began when she received a voice note from friend Rachel while she was in hospital about 'mind over matter' - a phrase that stuck with her as her health kick began.
As soon as she left the hospital she started working with Rachel, one of her make-up and nail clients who had recently trained as a eight loss coach, on her 12-week programme.
She helped her realise that she needed to eat for the health and nourishment of her body, rather than simply for the goal of losing weight, and soon afterwards she ditched her scales once and for all.
After years doing weekly weigh-ins at slimming clubs or trying the latest fad diets she took a fresh approach based on healthy choices.
Instead of calorie counting, she was advised to count chemicals - choosing natural foods wherever possible in her daily diet and ditching processed foods.
Incredibly, Siobhan went on to lose over 7 stone in weight over the course of the following year.
Just four months in, Siobhan could feel that her clothes were getting looser- and by Christmas she had to start buying new clothes as she suddenly found she was fitting into size 10s and 12s.
Recalling how she started to see a change in herself, she said: "I didn't want to keep weighing myself because I had spent my whole life obsessed with the scales and I didn't want to do that anymore,"
"But after four months I felt like I had more energy, I started to notice my clothes were a little bit looser, I was more interested in going out for a night out with my friends because I didn't hate as much what I saw in the mirror.
"By eight to nine months after we started, I started to notice that I don't hate my photos. I remember it was Christmas 2021, I'd obviously lost a significant amount of weight by then, I don't know how much I weighed, but I had a tight black dress on and had gone out for a drink with my sister and I said "take a picture of me".
I'd never have said that before, I always hated having my photo taken."
"She says that while she remembers buying size 22 jeans that wouldn't fasten, she is now a 10-12 - even though she admits it "still feels very weird" buying clothes at this size after many years of being overweight.
Siobhan can now see that she had a problem with binge eating in the past, commenting: "I'm very all or nothing, in the past I'd lose half a stone but then reward myself with a takeaway and naughty food, I don't know why I was rewarding myself with something that isn't nourishing me.
"Now I reward myself by thinking I can wear that dress now and I feel good in it, I feel nice. But before I was rewarding myself with something that was actually a punishment."
Her coach Rachel, from Henbury, Macclesfield, has had her own incredible weight loss journey after years of yo-yo dieting, and now uses her experiences to help other people.
She said: "No one ever weighs, I never tell people to have a certain amount of calories, it's a whole journey of discovering people's best health.
"I feel like I equip people with a rucksack of tools, so that when they're no longer working with me they have that rucksack on their back and they know just what to do."
For Siobhan, her transformation has been life-changing. She says: "Before, I felt judged all the time. I spent my life making everyone else look and feel gorgeous but didn't really care about myself.
"I was always conscious meeting a new client, worrying they'd think 'she's not going to be very good at it' because they'd judge me for the way I looked. Now I walk into any room with my head held high."
