NEW BODIES
SAMANTHA LEITH ‘I LOST 50KG’ THE ALL TOGETHER NOW JUDGES OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEYS
At her heaviest the All Together Now judge and singer Samantha Leith weighed in at 134kg. But when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see it. “I think I suffered body dysmorphia,” she tells New Idea. “I saw someone glamorous and fantastic. I had no idea you could barely see my eyes because my face was so fat.”
It wasn’t until tragedy struck that she realised she needed to lose weight. “My mother had a massive stroke and came to live with me,” she reveals. “All her problems – like type 2 diabetes, her blood pressure and cholesterol – were all weight related. It hit me, if I didn’t do something now, I would do the same thing to my daughter.”
It was then that Samantha decided to get gastric sleeve surgery to shed the kilos. The surgical weight-loss procedure involves removing a large portion of the stomach to permanently reduce its size.
“I lost around 18 kilos within eight weeks of getting the surgery,” she reveals. Despite putting on a few kilos after her mother’s death, Samantha has continued to lose weight, dropping a huge 50kg. But she isn’t done yet. “My happy weight would be the high 70s, which I’m not too far off,” she admits.
As a result of the rapid weight loss, Samantha has been left with loose skin which she plans to have removed. “I’m permanently in Spanx,” she laughs. “But, I’ll have surgery for it next year.”
While Samantha feels more confident than ever, she acknowledges that it hasn’t always been an easy journey.
“People think [surgery] is a quick fix,” she says. “I would say to anybody considering it, it’s not! I will have to be careful about what I do for the rest of my life, but I am no longer a ticking time bomb.”
Meanwhile, Samantha is having the time of her life as a judge on All Together Now. “It [involved] a lot of stairs,” she laughs. “But, it was so much fun, and the fun that we felt on set came across on the TV.”
“I SAW SOMEONE GLAMOROUS ... I HAD NO IDEA YOU COULD BARELY SEE MY EYES”