A mum-of-one has spent £32,500 on excess skin removal after she lost 11 stone following cruel comments about her size from men she had dated.
Kate Richmond, 46, who was 26 stone at her heaviest and now weighs 15 stone, underwent a remarkable transformation after embracing a fitness programme and taking up weightlifting.
But the ex-dentist, who now owns a medical aesthetics company, felt she needed to 'treat herself' with surgery to remove half a stone of skin - after shedding over a third of her body weight.
"The surgery was expensive, I can't deny it," Kate, of Heanor, Derbyshire, said.
"But I don't smoke, I don't drink, and I don't want to go out, and I don't have fast cars or a home that's massive.
"I'd found it really, really hard to get this weight off, and I still wasn't happy with how I looked.
"So as long as my family is not going without, I thought: 'Why not treat myself a bit'."
The single mum said she'd reached her heaviest before her pregnancy and just before her husband left her, and later began binge eating after work when she'd put her son, Rocco, now 16, to bed.
She said: "When I was working in dentistry, I wasn’t sitting in an office. I couldn't eat in the surgery. And I was so busy, seeing 30 to 40 patients every day.
"I quite deliberately wouldn't have lunch, and I would never have breakfast as I had to get Rocco ready for school, so I would only eat in the evening, and would wait and wait.
"At which point I felt, 'Well, I've hardly eaten anything all day, so I'll eat what I want'.
"It was comfort eating. It wasn't eating because I was hungry, and that was one of the hardest things to deal with. On reflection, I was absolutely eating my emotions."
Kate, who runs KR Aesthetics, faced cruel comments from men she dated, with one comparing her to Gwyneth Paltrow's character Rosemary in the film Shallow Hal, who hypnotises her thinner boyfriend.
She said: "I had my first venture with internet dating. I met the guy and got on alright with him. He rang me up the following day and said I was much bigger than I looked in the pictures.
"He said I was a really nice person but he kind of likened it to Shallow Hal, like it was a shame that I was so unattractive.
"You always remember the bad things rather than the good things. They just cement themselves into your brain and you become really down on yourself."
Kate turned a corner in 2019 when she joined a 12-week online exercise programme after seeing a friend, who was bigger than her, shed a lot of weight.
She built up her daily step count, first reaching 8,000 a day before hitting 12,000, and then joined a gym where she took up weightlifting - and she can now hip thrust 120kg.
Kate also took control of her eating patterns, particularly managing to cut down on the amounts of calories she was consuming.
But when Kate's weight plateaued, she still wasn’t happy with the way she looked and realised it was because of her excess skin.
She said: "It wasn't coming off any more and I got to the stage where I thought I couldn't lose any more and thought I would be happy – but I wasn't.
"I had this overhang on my stomach, and I couldn't wear skirts or fitted dresses or you would see it. Then a friend said they were having a tummy tuck.
"I spoke to a surgeon, who said I was an ideal candidate.
"He said I could lose as much weight as I wanted, but it was going to make a difference as it wasn’t fat, it was skin."
Kate has so far spent £32,500 on three operations to remove excess skin from her body, including one on her stomach and breasts that lasted nine hours.
And she now feels content with the way she looks, saying the surgery, though expensive, has massively improved her confidence.
She said: "I think I look okay. And for someone who has had cripplingly low self-esteem for 44 years, that's okay.
"I can look at myself in the mirror now and not hate what I see.
"It's hard to say, 'You have had to spend this much money; you have to look a certain way before you’re happy with yourself.' But for me, I feel happier. It’s helped me."
Feeling more confident than ever, she's taken part in a boudoir shoot, adding that several years ago she couldn't have 'dreamed' she would look the way she does today.
Speaking about the shoot at For Your Eyes Only Portraits studio, Kate said: "It was amazing. I burst into tears when I arrived, I was so scared.
"But it was brilliant. I still look at the photos and think, 'Is that me?' It can't be, I don't look like that.
"I 100% didn't dream I’d look like this. But I still see myself as a working progress."
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