"I Overcame My £420-a-Week Takeaway Addiction and Transformed into a Size 8 After My Health Took a Scary Turn"

BLINKING her eyes open, Tammy Jones throws back the covers eager to tuck into the breakfast she has been looking forward to since last night.

However, it isn’t eggs and bacon on the menu but ribs, chow mein, chicken balls and chips leftover from the night before.

Tammy Jones ballooned to 23st 10lbs thanks to her £60-a-day takeaway habitCredit: Jam Press But after having a gastric sleeve fitted she has lost over 12stCredit: Jam Press

It was part of a £420-a-week takeaway habit that was decimating Tammy’s bank balance as well as her health.

“I spent £60 a day on takeaways because I was having them for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Tammy, from Wolverhampton, says.

“I’d order £40 of Chinese food with salt and pepper ribs, chow mein, chicken balls and chips then I’d eat the leftovers the next morning.

“I was also drinking double the amount of recommended calories just in coke.”

But after a terrifying health scare, Tammy used the money she once splashed on high-fat foods to fly to Turkey for a life-saving gastric sleeve which saw her shed over 12 stone.

At her heaviest the mum-of-two weighed 23st 10lbs, wore a size 32, and needed a walking stick to get around.

The 35-year-old was a self confessed “food addict” and says she was constantly thinking about her next meal.

A typical day would include two double sausage and egg McMuffins, four hash browns and a hot chocolate for breakfast, followed by four Greggs pasties and two sausage rolls for lunch.

Dinner was a Chinese takeaway with all the trimmings, washed down with 10 litres of coke.

The unhealthy lifestyle was taking a serious toll not only on Tammy’s physical health but her mental health too.

“I was self-employed as a bingo caller and worked from home because I had no confidence to go out and I was walking with a stick at 31,” she says.

Tammy was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and developed pneumonia in 2021, a terrifying health scare that left her close to death due to her weight pressing down on her lungs.

“When I got pneumonia, my lungs were being crushed by my weight. I could have died and it was petrifying.”

Tammy had previously tried to lose weight with Slimming World, the Keto diet and the Cambridge Diet Plan but with no luck.

She adds: “It all failed because I was always having a treat day and it would knock me off track.

“A week day treat would turn into a full week treat. Food is an addiction just like alcohol or drugs but isn;t spoken about as much.”

So in September 2022 Tammy flew to Turkey with her ex-partner and paid £3,500 for a gastric sleeve, using the money she used to spend on takeaways.

“My brother and ex husband helped me to pay for the surgery, on top of the money I used on takeaways, because they thought they were going to lose me,” Tammy says.

“The recovery wasn’t easy. Food is an addiction like alcohol and drugs, it was mentally exhausting.

Tammy says her confidence was so low she would only work from homeCredit: Jam Press Tammy (pictured just before her surgery) spent £3,500 on her gastric sleeveCredit: Jam Press Tammy took Mounjaro to lose the final four stoneCredit: Jam Press

“I had no choice but to get past that because my stomach was 20% smaller than before.”

The only side effect she experienced was acid reflux which she managed with medication.

After eight stone with the gastric sleeve Tammy started using Mounjaro in August 2024 to lose an extra four stone, setting her back £150 a month for 12 months.

The stay-at-home mum now weighs 11st 4lbs and wears a size eight.

And, thrilled with her new figure, she splashed out a further £7,500 on a breast lift and tummy tuck in September this year using the money she would have spent on junk food.

Tammy says: “Life is so different. I can take my kids to the theme park. When I was bigger, I wouldn’t have even risked going on a ride.

I can wear a bikini and not cover up and I’m so excited

Tammy Jones

“Now, I can be confident to queue up for a ride at a theme park and know that I can get on it.

“My confidence is through the roof. I don’t have to lock myself away and I was pinching myself when I first bought a size eight top.”

Tammy says she started struggling with her weight when she had her first child at 17.

She explains: “I’ve always been a yo-yo dieter and I’ve always been a big girl.

“When I had my first daughter, I couldn’t lose the weight.

“I tried every diet you can think of, Slimming World, Weight Watchers and Cambridge. I’d lose a stone then decide to treat myself.

“Now, I’ll buy a treat bag of chocolate buttons, put them in a freezer bag and if I get a craving for something sweet, I have six.

“I’ve swapped bagels for bagel thins and I weigh everything including condiments.

“And I only eat light mayo because I love mayo.”

Tammy says the weight loss has transformed her life.

She’s reversed her diabetes diagnosis and is going on holiday to Tunisia in June where she’ll wear a bikini for the first time in years.

She says: “Before the weight loss, I wouldn’t have even booked a holiday to Tunisia.

“But I can wear a bikini and not cover up and I’m so excited.

“I used to dread summer and I used to cancel on my own family parties. I can look forward to them now.”

So dramatic is her transformation that Tammy says that lifelong friends have struggled to recognise her.

“People don’t recognise me,” she says. I was in the supermarket the other day and I bumped into a woman I grew up with.

“Her daughter was saying ‘mum, it’s Tammy’ and she said ‘oh my God, I didn’t recognise you at all’. It feels so good.”

She couldn’t believe her eyes when she fit into a size 8Credit: Jam Press Tammy says that childhood friends struggled to recognise herCredit: Jam Press