Chanelle Hayes has revealed that she had a secret gastric sleeve operation to help control her weight.
The 33-year-old former Big Brother star has had a battle with her weight and wellbeing since leaving the infamous TV house as a 19 year old but she now believes that the battle could be won.
The former reality star has said that she has lost seven stone in weight since having key-hole surgery to have a large part of her stomach removed, which has limited her food intake.
This has led to her dropping from a size 18 to a size 10 and she now feels she has moved on from the "addiction" which dominated her life and led to her not leaving the house for a year as she worried her weight gain might 'kill her'.
Speaking to The Sun, Chanelle admitted that she "didn't want to see or speak to anyone" due to her "addiction" to binge-eating.
She added that "it was horrendous" as she "didn’t even have a life" and was "like a hermit in my home."
Chanelle said that she was so upset about her body that she was turning down work but this "massively impacted me financially."
With lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic happening, Chanelle said that she continued eating, which only exasperated her self-worth.
Chanelle said that the stress of moving home and her second pregnancy were the catalyst for her weight gain and she has not been able to control it since.
She admitted: “No matter how many hours I did at the gym, I was relentlessly eating and eating out of control, like some sort of weird addiction to food or something. I just kept getting bigger and bigger."
Depression and anxiety followed and Chanelle said she had "zero desire to do anything" and she would "stuff food in my mouth so I could suffocate my feelings."
Her blood pressure and heart rate both soaring led to her to take stock and face her addiction as she wanted to be a "role model" for her children.
Chanelle said that doctors had delivered a damning assessment, stating that her "heart needs to work harder" to keep her alive and that her "body couldn’t take the extra stress needed on it to just live day to day."
She admitted that her weight gain had led to "slipped discs, herniated and sciatic issues" which meant that she was in and out of hospital.
After finding walking upstairs was leaving her "out of breath", Chanelle decided to speak to a psychologist and a nutritionist about her relationship with food and they suggested a 'gastric sleeve'.
The former BB star said the operation took about "80 per cent" of her stomach and that if it was "potentially a large bag of sugar" in size before the op, is now "the size of a sausage."
It has left her feeling a lot happy about her body and wellbeing and she said: "I wish I had done it years ago."
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