The EastEnders star Lorraine Stanley says she “regrets” how she lost half her body weight – a whopping seven stone – and I can really understand her dilemma.
While my weight loss wasn’t quite as dramatic as Stanley’s, it was significant enough for me to struggle with it psychologically. I had piled on the pounds after two pregnancies and then started stress eating as a single, working mum, who was also caring for my elderly dad. When my GP told me my cholesterol levels were dangerously high, I got a private prescription of Wegovy in 2024 and then, in a matter of a few months, I was nearly three stone lighter.
The actor took a more drastic route to tackle her weight and resorted to a gastric sleeve operation to remove 75 to 80 per cent of her stomach – after claiming she became “immune” to weight loss drugs. She said she got “really big” while starring in the BBC soap because she had “too much money”, and that although she loves her new thinner body, she laments she didn’t lose weight with diet and exercise.
“I think, in hindsight, I wish I had just done it with diet and exercise, because ultimately, any time I’m not in a happy place, I could just start eating and I could put it back on,” she told The Sun. “So I’ve had to change my whole mindset.”
A recent study has shown that patients put on weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may start regaining weight within weeks of discontinuing them. The research review, published in August in the journal BMC Medicine, assessed data from 11 previous clinical trials, involving nearly 2,500 people, and found many patients regaining lost weight after their medication courses concluded.
GLP-1 medications, like Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro, are dubbed “the miracle jab”, and with a new pill on the horizon, thousands will be considering this route as part of their new year, new me reinventions. But losing a lot of weight comes with its own set of problems and insecurities - and this is what Stanley is vocalising what many other feel too. Losing weight isn’t always the answer you want it to be.
As I learnt, being thin is not a magic wand that makes everything fabulous. Others just see the new slimmed-down you – and either pile you with praise or start whispering behind your back about how “ill” you look. Few external observers of your dramatic shape shift will have any real clue about what else might be at play.
I transitioned from a size 14 to a size eight or six (depending where you shop) in nine months – which might sound like a result, but it affected me in ways that I couldn’t have predicted. Far from being a hallelujah moment, I started to really struggle with a new identity. Feelings of loss, confusion, and a weird disconnection from your former self, even when the weight loss is desired, is very common.
I know the feeling of the big shrink and it’s so much more complex than many people realise. One minute, I felt robust and then the next, like I’d lost a protective layer.
I looked great. Like Stanley, I slipped into a bikini last summer for the first time in years – and waltzed around Croatia and Greece feeling like Ursula Andress in Dr No. But I also felt an underswell of deep-rooted, complex feelings, which only grew as my frame shrank.
I felt alone – and at times, I felt like a stranger in my own skin. I was also deeply uncomfortable with all the newfound attention I was getting. At the school gates, mums who didn’t know me pre-pregnancy, whispered about me and wondered if I was OK. Other friends wouldn’t stop telling me how great I looked, which made me wonder what on earth their view of me had been before. During my teens and twenties, it had been a hard struggle to get to a place where I was able to value myself beyond my appearance and could get to a place of real self-acceptance; I worried that I could go back to that dark place where only looks really mattered.
When I was a bit overweight, nobody commented on it, but as I became thinner, my weight was all anybody mentioned. I felt thin-shamed, and resented by others who also wanted to lose weight. I couldn’t win. I was thin and not any happier.
But there were physical things too. Losing a lot of weight also causes loose skin. I had remained on low doses and microdosed, so the weight loss was not as rapid as it can be for others who got dreaded “Ozempic face”, but it didn’t stop me from living in fear that I’d end up with muscle wastage. I developed a sensitivity to the cold, I started to get hooked on highly processed protein drinks and developed what is dubbed “Ozempic tongue”, a rather strange side effect of GLP-1 weight-loss medications where people report a metallic taste in their mouths.
I also started to look at food as an enemy, not as something to enjoy. Not only was I adjusting to my new body, but I was having to fork out on a whole new wardrobe of clothes too.
I felt small and insignificant and needed to put on half a stone to feel anything like my true self. At the point where I realised I was losing too much weight and really needed to stop the jabs, I became terrified of “Ozempic rebound”, which further added to the confusion.
“Is everything OK?” was a widely used comment when people spotted me. Sometimes I’d admit I’d taken Wegovy, and people’s faces would light up in relief – or turn to judgment. “Oh, really? Have you stopped it now?” It was a lot to deal with.
While, like Stanley, I haven’t regretted losing the weight itself, I regret all the other complications that came with it. I wondered what all the fuss was about; does it really matter? Was I just a slave to a patriarchal society and celebrity culture that tells us we have to be thin to win?
It’s too easy to fall for the lie that weight loss will solve all problems and bring happiness or a “perfect” life. When this doesn’t happen, disappointment and regret can set in fast. Luckily, I didn’t fall into this trap, as I’d done so much therapy previously and was not under the pretence that something outside of myself would fix me.
But still, I couldn’t escape the shame that I had taken weight loss drugs in the first place and hadn’t had the willpower to lose weight with diet and exercise. They had helped me break a cycle of overeating, but since I had stopped comfort eating, I was left with all kinds of feelings. Food is often used as a primary way to manage emotions or stress – and it was my modus operandi.
I know the feeling of the big shrink – it’s so much more complex than many people realise. One minute, I felt robust, and then the next, like I’d lost a protective layer
I started lying too. I told everyone I’d stopped the weight loss drugs when I’d secretly done another jab, hiding my Wegovy behind the carrots on the bottom shelf of the fridge; terrified somebody would judge me for still using it when the food noise got a bit louder.
Weaning myself off the drugs was an inner battle that nobody saw. I worried that I would be a prisoner to them for life, at a cost of more than £169 a month – I couldn’t afford that and I still worried that nobody really understands what the long-term health effects could be.
Stanley explained that before she had surgery, she lost two stone on the jabs, but she put the weight “straight back on” as soon as she stopped. Despite taking drastic measures with a gastric sleeve, she says that she is still living in fear that her stomach will stretch and she will regain the weight. This is the problem. Losing weight is never as simple as a gastric sleeve – or the pen. Unless you fix what is going on on the inside, good results will be short-lived. But nobody really talks about this, and when you experience the confusion around weight loss and being a different person to the one you thought you were, it can be like free-falling into an abyss.
Like Stanley, I know the value of diet and exercise – it helps with the head as well as the heart. I also don’t think anyone should underestimate the benefit of having a strong body, either – and by that I mean having a strong mind too. I have had to do a lot of inner work to deal with the leftovers of using weight loss drugs, and only now do I truly understand what it really means to have a healthy relationship with my weight
This is what happens to your body when you come off weight-loss jabs
How the new Wegovy tablet is about to change the weight loss market forever
One food that could help you prevent weight regain
Why I’ve stopped tracking my kids with an AirTag
My husband of six months blindsided me with a divorce - here are the signs I missed
Don’t blame mothers for performative parenting – blame the internet
