I looked like a grandma at 40 thanks to obesity, alcoholism & tanning beds – now I’m reverse-aging & revealing my secret

A WOMAN whose battle with psoriasis, obesity, and alcohol left her looking like a grandma has revealed how she turned back the clock.

At her heaviest, Christie Martin, 58, weighed 202 pounds, but her weight loss was not the only challenge the jewelry store owner faced.

"I have battled weight and psoriasis for most of my life, but my health took a significant turn after my partner died, leaving me a single parent," Christie said.

"I was dating a surfer and skater named Baby Paul Cullen and got pregnant during a surf trip to Santa Barbara in 2006."

At age 41, she gave birth to her daughter, Brianne.

Just two years later, her partner tragically overdosed, leaving her to navigate the challenges of raising a child on her own.

She was also an older parent, with several friends who'd already started their families.

"At first, that wasn't much of an issue, but I remember once when she was in preschool and I was volunteering in the class, one of the other little kids looked up at me and sweetly said, 'You look like a grandma'," she said.

"I almost started to cry! What I had been through, however, in the year prior probably aged me ten years.

"All the years of tanning couldn't hold a candle to one year of devastating loss when her father overdosed when she was just two years old," she said.

In the late 2000s, she moved from Los Angeles back home to Northern California to rely on more support from friends.

"It didn't quite work out the way I hoped," she said.

"I found myself running my jewelry design business — which at one time was wildly popular with celebrities and magazines — running a household, and caring for a toddler completely on my own.

"This was in 2009 when our Great Recession happened, and all the stores I sold jewelry to were closing and my business suffered."