BAD REFLECTION

I hate my saggy size 12 mum bod after losing 7st so I’m getting lipo in Turkey once lockdown’s lifted

EVERY time stay-at-home mum Donna Leighton looks in the mirror, she cringes and picks faults with her reflection.

Even though she wears a size 12 - and once shed a huge seven stone - she hates what she sees.

Speaking exclusively to Fabulous, she said: “I pick apart my looks all the time – it can take over my thoughts.

"All I ever see are the negatives. I’m convinced I am much bigger than I am. Even though I recognise how strange that sounds.”

Donna, 32, added: “A friend recently told me 'I wish you could see what everyone else sees.'

"All I see is my awful mum bod: my chubby thighs, lots of cellulite, a wobbly tummy and a saggy bum."

Things have got so bad, Donna is now adamant surgery is the only answer.

Even though lockdown isn’t officially over, Donna hopes to travel to Istanbul, Turkey, with her family for ten days at the end of August.

She's been discussing the work she wants done with surgeons for a year now.

Donna said: “I’m getting a lower body lift, liposuction and muscle repair.

“I’d be more comfortable living with my mum bod if it was as a result of having my children but it wasn’t – it was as a result of me being lazy and glutinous as a kid and in my teens.

“I know there have been some negative reports about patients dying on the operating table - but I’m sensible.

“I’ve done my research about the surgeon and the hospital too. I’ll be recovering in a hotel for a week afterwards.

“Friends think I’m bizarre. Fortunately my partner is very supportive of helping me feel better about myself, but doesn’t think it’s necessary.

“I have accepted I won’t be skinny naturally. But I can’t accept I won’t be small. "

The mum-of-two, who lives in Herts, reckons hating her figure stems back to childhood.

She said: “I was big as a child and had an unhealthy lifestyle. I never bothered exercising and it didn’t occur to me to avoid fast food either.

“By the time I was 23, I weighed 18 stone. I hadn’t even had my kids and, while I was never under any pressure from family or friends to lose weight, I knew I needed to do something.

"When I finally got down to 14 stone, someone called me fat. That word really hit a nerve and I was devastated.

"After that I got OTT about going to the gym."

Unfortunately for Donna, spending time at the gym, watching what she ate and dealing with her anxiety pushed her over the edge - and she developed an eating disorder.

She said: “While I tried to be sensible, I did become bulimic. I’d binge, over-exercise and starve myself. It was like that on a loop.

“I was spending way too much time at the gym. I’d get obsessed with the high that working out gave me.

"It helped me to stop feeling rubbish too. I’d get a massive boost watching the pounds fall off me.

“I got down to 10st 13lbs, which even I could see wasn’t a good look for me - I’m 5ft 8in and big boned.

“My family and friends have always been supportive.

“I went to see a hypnotherapist, because even though I’d lost all this weight I still saw myself as 18st. Unfortunately it didn’t help.”

Donna's body issues weren't helped by signing up to be an egg donor - something she did aged 26, 28 and 30.

She said: “When you inject yourself with the hormones - to boost your reproductive system to produce lots more than the one egg women produce each month - one of the side effects can be bloating.

“My weight ballooned every time I did it and I’d spend a month looking pregnant.

"One time my weight went up to 13st 7lbs, meaning I’d put on over a stone and a half.

“To try and combat it, I’d up my exercise routine. I’d spent an hour every night on the exercise bike, as well as going to the gym every morning."

Donna's first two cycles of egg donation produced boys; she doesn't know the gender of her most recent one.

After becoming a mum herself, to a five-year-old son and four-year-old daughter, Donna reckons her family is now complete.

All I see is my awful mum bod: my chubby thighs, lots of cellulite, a wobbly tummy and a saggy bumDonna Leighton32

This meant that when she finally got down to her goal weight loss of 11st 12lbs in July 2017, she treated herself to a breast augmentation.

Donna said: “Even when I was bigger I never had anything on top.

"So when I had the increase in bust size, I thought it would change my view of what I saw in the mirror.

"But it still didn't make me feel better about myself.”

Before lockdown, Donna went to the gym almost every day.

She said: “Otherwise I’d feel down and demotivated, and those are triggers for me to binge and comfort eat.

“I do two hours a day, six times a week, that’s weights and cardio at the gym and at home.

"Nowadays I am 12st 1lb. I eat healthy meals, but do like my treats.

“I also spend hours looking on Instagram for fitness and inspo ideas."

Donna has also been having Botox for the last nine years, to help her feel better about herself.

Yet even today, she's still critical about her body. And now she thinks there is only one option – surgery.

She said: “My list is long! I look in the mirror and hate what I see.”

"I don’t eat rubbish, I work out and I want to feel good about what see in the mirror.

“But I’ll never lose my excess skin by working out. It’s why I’m going to undergo surgery.

“I'm being positive and thinking of the future after lockdown when I can get the dream body I long for.”