Super slimmer: “My husband said I didn’t look great naked – so I spent £60k on a new body!”
After losing 10st and dropping six dress sizes, Charlotte BruceAlexander went under the knife to get her dream figure…
Following an impressive 10st weight-loss and dropping six dress sizes, Charlotte Bruce-Alexander should have felt incredible – but she was left with saggy skin that made her miserable.
Charlotte, 38, who lives in Dubai with her husband, Mark, 38 and their two children, Scarlett, eight, and Quinn, five, had always struggled with her weight and, before she began her healthy eating plan, was a size 22 at her biggest.
She says, “I worked so hard to lose weight with a strict diet and exercise regime. But despite achieving amazing results, all I could see when I looked in the mirror was loose, saggy skin flapping around.
“I hoped it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, so I asked the one person I knew would give me an honest answer – my husband, Mark. I put him in a terrible situation, but I had to know.
HONESTY
“He looked awkward but said, ‘You look amazing in clothes, but not so good without them.’
“Obviously it wasn’t great to hear that he didn’t like me naked – but I was so glad of his honesty and I knew I wanted to cut off my saggy skin.”
Charlotte’s weight problems started just before puberty and by the time she was 13 she weighed 15st and was a size 14-16. She says, “I loved crisps and chocolate and I’d have burgers with chips and hash browns every day.”
Charlotte admits she’d love to binge and would think nothing of buying six bars of chocolate and eating them all in one go.
ISOLATED
By 2004, when she was 21, Charlotte, who is 5ft 7, weighed 19st and was a size 20. It was then that she married her first husband. Their marriage lasted for six years, but towards the end she was deeply unhappy and would comfort eat.
She says, “We’d moved away from the village where I grew up and I felt very isolated. The only thing that made me feel better was food.”
The couple split in 2010 and, a few months later, she was contacted on Facebook by Mark, with whom she’d had a brief fling when she was 17. He was living in Dubai and, by coincidence, Charlotte had planned a holiday there, so they arranged to meet up.
Charlotte says, “We got on like a house on fire – it was incredible. Six weeks later, I moved out there and we got married within a year. By then I was 20st and a size 22. All the other women out there seemed to be tiny and beautiful, but I didn’t care. We were in love and so happy.”
Within months Charlotte found out she was pregnant – and it was only then that it hit home how overweight she was.
She explains, “The doctors were concerned about my pregnancy as I was obese.
And two of my friends were pregnant at the same time.
They looked gorgeous with their neat, little bumps. I just looked huge.
“I started being a bit more careful with what I ate at the time and, amazingly, I didn’t put on any weight during my pregnancy. But it was when Scarlett was born that I had my ‘lightbulb’ moment. She was only a few days old, and I remember looking down at my stomach and boobs and hating what I saw.
“It wasn’t just a vanity thing, as I didn’t want to put too much pressure on myself as I had just given birth, but it was also about my health. I was a mum and needed to be healthy and well for my little girl.
“At the time Mark was the operations manager for a gym and loved working, so I asked for his help. He’d never once tried to suggest I needed to lose weight but, once I asked, he was amazingly supportive.”
Charlotte adopted a Macronutrient diet, an eating plan that counts your protein, carbohydrates and fat. Fifteen months later she’d lost an incredible 6st 7lbs and was a size 14. But she still wasn’t happy.
She says, “I had this image that I’d lose all the weight and end up looking like actress Jessica Alba. But I didn’t. I started going to the gym and exercising loads in the hope that would help me to tone up, but that didn’t work either.
“I was more self-conscious than ever. I didn’t like wearing a bikini or tight-fitting clothes. Having skin flapping around was horrible, it was unhealthy, too – I got sores where it rubbed and I almost felt more self
conscious than I had when I had been overweight.
“I lived in cardigans to cover up my arms, despite the sweltering heat of Dubai. I was desperately unhappy.
SAGGY SKIN
“So I asked Mark what he thought – and after his honest comments, in 2013, I decided to turn to surgery and had a breast lift and implants and an arm lift.”
Shortly afterwards,
Charlotte fell pregnant again and had Quinn in June 2015. She put on 4st throughout the pregnancy, but lost it again by eating sensibly and exercise.
She says, “I was a size 10 – but I still had the issue with saggy skin, so I went under the knife again. Like any operation, it came with risks and before being put to sleep, I would always worry I may not wake up for my kids. But I wasn’t living, I was just existing, and I knew having the surgery would make me a better mum so it was worth the risk.
“Over the next few years,
I had a tummy tuck, my thighs lifted, an arm lift revision and a breast lift. Then, in January 2020, I had a revision on my thighs and in June that year, a 360 body lift – which is designed to remove loose skin and fat from around the midsection. It was painful, but I knew it would be worth it.
“Overall I had spent £60,000 on surgery, but when I looked at myself naked in the mirror, it was all worth it. I finally felt – and looked – amazing.
“I was lucky that I had savings and a good job as an events planner, so we didn’t get into debt. I’m a much happier person and can be the mum that I’ve always wanted to be.
GRATEFUL
“And Mark is happy that I’m happy. He fell in love with me when I was big and loves me the way I am now, too.
“I’m so grateful to Mark. It’s not nice to hear that you don’t look good naked, but it was the push I needed and now I finally look and feel great.”