Christina Togher had lost count of the amount of fad diets she had tried only to see the number on the scale slowly creep back up until she weighted a mammoth 22 stone. 

The chef, 31, from County Mayo, Ireland, was bullied as a child, which triggered a cycle of emotional eating which led to her piling on the pounds throughout her teenage years. 

But, as with most emotional eating cycles, the feeling of comfort offered by gorging on comfort food like takeaways and chocolate biscuits, was short lived and Ms Togher soon found herself grappling with feelings of guilt.

Ms Togher, who tipped the scales at 22st (308 lbs/140kg), and wore a size XXL at her heaviest, realised she had to make some serious lifestyle changes as her thirtieth birthday loomed closer, if she wanted to show up for her loved ones. 

When she left home to got to university, where she studied accounting and finance, Ms Togher quickly lost a lot of her teenage weight after she fell in love with exercise and eating a healthily. 

But, when she took a job as a chef after graduating, all her bad habits started to creep back, and she quickly piled on more than 7st, reaching a mammoth 18st 12lbs (252 lbs/114kg) in March 2024. 

Thankfully, after deciding that she had no choice but to loose the weight, her now personal trainer walked into her restaurant, and changed her views on her abilities for good. 

She said: ‘I suffer from anxiety and I was severely bullied as a kid because of my weight, as I tended to eat my feelings. It made me feel so self-conscious, but I didn’t deal with it.

 Christina Togher has revealed how she shed more than half her body weight without using fat jabs

At her heaviest, Ms Togher weighed a mammoth 22 stone, but slimmed down over 15 months 

‘At university, when I started dieting and exercising, I fell in love with walking and running and I weight around 11 stone.’ 

But, she described taking her job as a chef as a real wake-up call, as she soon piled on all the weight she had worked hard to loose, and more, until she weighted 22stone.  

‘The old habits came back hard. I stopped wearing nice outfits and I was hiding in baggy clothes. I was in a really bad place mentally, and I went back to eating my emotions instead of dealing with them in a health way.

‘I was tired all the time and everything hurt—even a basic, everyday task, like walking up a flight up stairs was such a struggle. 

‘I knew I didn’t want to hit my 30s, I didn’t want to hit that new decade feeling this bad.’  

But the new plan that her personal trainer, Nicky Kearney, was totally different from the fad diets and short-lived workout plans she had tried before. 

She said: ‘Nicky went through it all with me—my lifestyle, my diet, my exercise routine—and made me realise that it wasn’t such a big thing, that I’d made a mountain out of a molehill.’ 

She added that her PT completely changed her mindset, showing her that everyone is on their own journey and that nobody in the gym was looking at her—which she said was ‘brilliant’ for her confidence. 

After being severely bullied as a child, Ms Togher entered into a cycle of emotional eating

‘I walked into the gym and I saw all these muscly people that were toned, skinny and in my head I thought I looked so bad beside these people. But Nicky got me to see that everybody was in there for themselves.’ 

From March 2024, Ms Togher started training hard in the gym, determined to stay disciplined and nurture her body from the inside out, consistently losing 3lbs a week which ‘spurred her to keep going’ until she reached a slim 8st 7lbs. 

She said: ‘It’s crazy when you start putting numbers on it, it’s actually crazy to think that I’ve lost the weight of a full-grown man. 

‘If something’s bothering me, I now take it out in the gym instead of eating my feelings and I feel so much happier, I have more energy and I don’t hurt as much as I did. 

‘It’s all about consistency and showing up – keep showing up for you, your kids, your loved ones and know that change is possible,’ she added. 

Things couldn’t be more different now than before, with Ms Togher loving life—looking forward to her training sessions and feeling lighter. 

 She said: ‘I do weight training five days a wee with two rest days and a minimum of 30 minutes on the stair master as my cardio. 

‘I even look forward to the days where I can go to the gym and be in a world of my own, it’s just me time.’ 

But as her 30th birthday loomed closer, she knew something had to change 

Determined to drop the weight for good, Ms Togher enlisted the help of personal trainer Nicky Kearny who devised an exercise and diet plan to help her feel lighter – both physically and mentally 

Ms Togher also aims to clock up 10,000 to 12,000 steps a day and has cut back on caffeine, booze and takeaways—and now only has an alcoholic drink once or twice a year. 

She has also overhauled her diet, and eats a protein-packed breakfast, followed by a falafel wrap—which is high in fibre—and a protein bowel for dinner. 

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Having ‘repaired’ her relationship with food and learnt how to maintain this lifestyle in a healthy way, she is now fundraising to pay for a skin removal surgery after her mammoth weight loss left her with excess skin around her stomach and arms. 

Also known as a tummy tuck or abdominoplasty, the cosmetic surgery involves removing excess loose skin, fat and stretch marks and tightening the abdominal muscles. 

According to the NHS, the aim is to removed excess skin around the stomach that cannot be removed through exercise—for example, caused by excessive weight loss. 

But because abdominoplasty is regarded as cosmetic surgery, it is not usually available on the NHS or public health system in Ireland.

But Ms Togher feels that it would be the missing puzzle piece in her weight loss journey. 

‘It would mean so much to get the surgery because it’s the last thing that makes me self-conscious. It would make me feel beautiful again.’