A beauty therapist lost nine stone after borrowing £10,000 from her father for a gastric sleeve operation.
Despite attempts at weight loss Karla Torley, 25, ballooned to 18 stone, requiring her to wear 22 clothing.
After eight years of steady weight gain, Karla, of Edinburgh, decided the best option was to have bariatric surgery.
After being told she was ineligible for NHS funding she decided to pay for the operation to be done privately with money loaned to her from her supportive father.
Miss Torley said: “My weight had got to the point where I was constantly feeling as if I didn’t have any energy, and I was always unwell. I had taken to staying in, afraid of getting out and being active.
“One night I broke down and told my dad how depressed I was getting, and how I was thinking about surgery. He believed in me, and said I could lose weight purely through dieting. But when he saw I was serious about it, he did some reading into it and decided to come with me to a consultation.”
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Miss Torley saw her weight pile on as she fell into a cycle of comfort food and convenience eating.
She said: “I began gaining weight after the age of 16. I led a fairly hectic social life when I started going to college, and often it was easier to routinely grab time-saving food like pizza and takeaways.
“As my weight increased I became less energetic, and hid myself away, which led to comfort eating, so my weight just became more and more of an issue.”
By 2012, Miss Torley was at her heaviest weight of 18 stone.
She said: “I was very upset about it. I didn’t want to give in to the idea that I would be overweight forever, but despite dieting I just couldn’t seem to do anything about it. One night everything came to a head and I told my dad about it.
“A week later he came back to say he had been doing some research and suggested we go to a consultation together to see what options we had.”
Miss Torley was told she would not be eligible for NHS funding, but discovered that a gastric sleeve procedure could be arranged privately. Her father Colin Torley, 53, eventually put the money up for the operation.
She said: “I didn’t know whether it was going to happen or not, because £10,000 seemed like an awful lot of money, but dad said he would help.”
Following the operation on January 10th 2013, Miss Torley lost three stone in six weeks.
She said: “I was so nervous before the operation because I had never done anything like it. I was in loads of pain after I woke up.
“It was great to see the results at the six-week checkup because I wasn’t sure how effective the operation was going to be. As it turned out the effect it had was amazing.”
The operation required Miss Torley to completely overhaul her daily diet.
Before the operation, she typically ate nothing for breakfast, followed by a packet of prawn cocktail crisps mid-morning, then a portion of cheese and chips or a burger for lunch, with a cheese and onion pizza or Chinese takeaway for evening meal. She would snack on crisps or Galaxy chocolate during the day.
Today, she eats Special K cereal with yogurt for breakfast, followed by soup with a small chunk of bread for lunch, and chicken stir fry for evening meal. She rarely snacks, but when she does she enjoys a small portion of soft cheese.
Miss Torley is now a healthy nine stone and can fit into size 10 clothing.
She said: “I’ve regained my confidence, and I love going shopping now. In my old life, I couldn’t afford to buy clothes because I was spending so much on takeaways.
“It’s taken some getting used to, and it hasn’t been easy at times. I need to be careful to keep my protein levels up. I have no regrets whatsoever.
“Dad’s really pleased with the progress I’ve made.”