Hoda: I’m half my size!
The Masterchef hopeful has been given a second chance at life after losing 55kg
“I’d given birth to my second child and I was thinking about my future and my kids growing up. I wanted to teach them from a very young age about a healthy lifestyle – I just didn’t feel comfortable being the weight I was,” says Masterchef’s Hoda, who weighed 110kg before undergoing bariatric surgery in December 2015. Hoda, 32, had struggled with her weight since she was seven or eight, something she puts down to a combination of factors – her lifestyle, genes and growing up in a food-centric Lebanese family. “Our lives revolve around food! By nature, my parents and my aunties are feeders, so it was this constant ‘eat, eat, eat’ mentality,” she says. To shift the kilos, she tried every diet under the sun, like the ketogenic and “busy woman’s” diets, shake replacements and eliminating carbs and fat. Failing to keep the weight off, the mother-of-two turned to surgery, but that presented other issues. “I lost the weight very quickly – 55kg in seven months – and I lost a lot of the nutritional aspects of my body,” says Hoda, who was so concerned she admitted herself to hospital. “Luckily, a surgeon and dietitian helped me get back on track.” Now, her weight has stabilised and Hoda feels much healthier and more energetic. “I enjoy going out now,” she says. MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA Monday-thursday, 7.30pm, Ten