Mum-of-one unrecognisable after losing 9 stone – she made one change,
A mother-of-one who once weighed over 18 stone has revealed how she lost half her bodyweight—without turning to weight loss injections.
Kyra Dawson, 31, from Essex, shed an incredible nine stone after admitting her drinking had ‘spiralled out of control’.
The former self-described ‘party girl’ says she spent most of her twenties out on the town ‘nearly every night’, knocking back bottles of wine and vodka.
‘At my worst, I was ordering five takeaways a day while hungover,’ she said. ‘I would eat all day and then start drinking in the evening — and repeat the cycle.’
A blow-out would involve a greasy full English breakfast, followed by fried chicken for lunch and a takeaway pizza for dinner. In between meals she snacked on sausage rolls—all washed down with wine.
She began drinking regularly at 15 but says it wasn’t until she hit ‘rock bottom’ that she realised something had to change.
‘At first, I didn’t think I had a problem,’ she said. ‘I just thought I liked going out and partying. But while my friends were drinking alcopops, I was on vodka.’
Giving up alcohol, she says, was the turning point—both physically and mentally.
‘As soon as I stopped drinking, the weight fell off,’ she said. ‘I stopped craving greasy food all the time and the obsession with overeating while hungover disappeared.’
‘There’s so much sugar in alcohol––as soon as I stopped drinking I lost about four stone.’
Ms Dawson puts her weight and heavy drinking down to her difficult upbringing and losing her adoptive mother, Marie, to cancer-related sepsis in 2018.
She was adopted by her at age 10, after spending her childhood growing up in foster homes.
She said: ‘I lost her the day after my birthday, very suddenly, she died in my arms.
‘It was so painful and made things worse. I partied more, and when I wasn’t drinking, I was ordering takeaways and eating junk food. Anything to help me cope with the loss.’
She added that admitting that she had a problem was the hardest part of the journey.
Ms Dawson began to turn things around when she met her ex-partner in August 2020 and made the decision to give up alcohol and junk food in pursuit of a healthier lifestyle.
But the real turning point came when she found out she was pregnant with her son, Reo, now three, just five months after she gave up drinking. ‘My little boy arriving save my life,’ she said.
‘I wanted to do better for him—make sure he didn’t have the childhood I did. He gave me something to live for and I promised I would be everything he needed.’
Ms Dawson swapped fry ups for yoghurt and fruit, followed by a salad for lunch and protein like chicken or fish paired with rice and vegetables for dinner.
She then began going on long walks and dancing, aiming for the recommended 10,000 steps a day and signed up for a gym membership to help keep the weight off.
She added that the mental transformation she experienced had a profound impact on her life, enabling her to reach out for help and reconnect with family and friends.
‘Dancing is like therapy,’ she said. ‘It got me through some dark situations and is a great way to move my body and lose weight. It really helped my mental health too.’
By 2024, Ms Dawson had dropped a colossal nine stone and now weighs 9st 10lbs.
She is now urging anyone who is struggling with destructive habits such as binge drinking and eating to get help.
She said: ‘Hopefully anyone reading my story will take something positive away from it.
‘With recovery, it’s so important to get into AA. It’s very hard to quit by yourself and I’ve had huge support from that.
‘You can always turn things around with the right support,’ she added.
