Victoria Bowen was over the moon when she fell pregnant with her first child.
But while she was carrying her first child, Victoria began to eat for two - and didn't stop after she gave birth.
By the time she'd had her second baby, the mum-of-two was dangerously overweight and too afraid to get on the scales.
Victoria was trapped in the cycle of over-eating but was now so self-conscious about how she looked that she stopped leaving her house.
She admits she fell into the mentality of eating for two as soon as she found out she was pregnant.
Victoria, from Red Cliffs, Australia, said: "There were days that I ate a block of chocolate after dinner, every day or every second day or however often I wanted it.
“If I wanted it, I had it. And then I think those eating habits, which were never my habits before they kind of crossed over into after having the baby after having my first and then they just continue then I just continue to balloon and balloon.”
Physically Victoria was in pain because of the extra weight she carried and this meant she was forced to miss out on fun family activities.
She said: "I never left the house at my biggest. It was kind of stay home, don't let anyone see you. I was ashamed, embarrassed. I didn't want to go on dates with my husband."
But a heartbreaking moment at a family picnic forced the 28-year-old to step on the scales.
Victoria said: "There was this day, where my husband and my kids were at the park having a picnic.
"And my husband was running around at the park playing with the kids, going down the slide and just enjoying being a parent.
"I was sitting on the picnic rug, and I went to get up to go and play with them and I couldn't physically get up off the ground - it hurt.
"My knees were hurting, everything it was just physically impossible for me to go and do what my husband was doing with the kids.
"And I was missing out and it just wasn't fair. Not just on me but also my husband and my kids."
Victoria was horrified by how much she weighed - 18stone 8lbs - and knew she needed to take action, and fast.
She said: "The first time I got on the scales, I was 120 kilos [264lbs] overweight. That was obviously quite shocking to see.
"I definitely didn't ever want to see that number ever again, but I also didn't think that I was that big.
“I just remember getting off the scales and crying. I went and laid in my bed and I just cried. It was a really awful moment, but I think it was a real turning point to actually see that number on the scales."
Victoria ditched her unhealthy diet in favour of whole foods, vegetables and lean meats and swapped soft drinks for water.
She said: "I completely overhauled my lifestyle 100 percent."
Victoria has now lost more than 10 stone and is now a slim 8stone 6lbs.
She said: "I never thought that I could lose the amount of weight that I had. I obviously wanted to lose weight but I never in my wildest dreams that I think that I would lose like a whole person.”
In spite of her incredible weight loss, Victoria was left with excess skin on her stomach, it wasn’t as she said, “the body that I thought I would have at the end.”
The final missing piece in Victoria's weight loss jigsaw puzzle was skin removal surgery.
She said: "I remember I was so out of it. But I remember just running my hands down my stomach and it was just flat and that was the most amazing feeling."
With her newfound confidence Victoria has even started competing in bikini fitness shows but for her the biggest win is knowing what she could achieve through will power and determination alone.
She said: "My confidence level has gone up so much.
"I’m really proud that I have achieved what I have because I had that mental barrier of something in me saying that that was too much to achieve.
"That makes me feel really proud like I have achieved more than what I thought I would achieve at the start."
