Size 20 takeaway addict loses 7st and drops 8 dress sizes – by eating brunch

A CHINESE takeaway-addicted mum has managed to shed eight dress sizes in a year since by ditching the egg fired rice.

At her heaviest, Ayesha Murray-Higgins weighed 15st 9lbs and spent £1,560 a year on her three-times-a-week habit.

The 23-year-old from Northwich, Cheshire, ballooned from a size 12 to a 20 during her pregnancy with daughter Olivia.

But after nearly losing her baby to weight-induced pre-eclampsia, the social media analyst became determined to fight the flab.

She's now a size 6-8 and weighs just 8st 12lbs.

Ayesha said: "During the first 16 weeks of pregnancy, I actually lost quite a bit of weight as I was suffering from really bad morning sickness.

“From then on, I just let myself go with food because I was in the mindset I was going to gain weight anyway.

“I used to eat anything - I’d eat my favourite Chinese takeaways all the time and as soon as I heard a colleague rustling a crisp packet while I was at work, I'd jump up to get a snack.

“Everybody in work always said to me ‘you’re always eating'."

After Olivia was born, Ayesha suffered from low self-esteem and says that she couldn't even look in the mirror - let alone any photos of herself be taken.

As well as the preeclampsia which led to having to have an emergency C-section, Ayesha's weight also let her suffering from postnatal depression.

As a new mum, she found it hard to drop the pounds after her daughter's birth.

She siad: "After Olivia was born, we didn’t see one another for two days because we were both in intensive care.

“The doctor said my weight may have caused pre-eclampsia because you’re more at risk when you’re overweight."

Ayesha decided enough was enough a year after Olivia was born and joined Slimming World with a work college, using a calorie tracker to record whatever she ate.

She also tried intermittent fasting - delaying breakfast and eating brunch instead, so that her body could burn fat for 16 hours at a time.

After 12 months of eating healthily and exercising regularly, Ayesha had shed more than seven stone and could fit in clothes smaller than she had worn pre-pregnancy.

She said: “Before, I was too embarrassed to think about taking Olivia to the park or ball pit.

“But I wanted to be a mum who could play with their child at the park or in the ball pool."

Her method was simple: make easy, lighter food swaps to save calories.

“I started by swapping normal things like using oil for spray, semi-skimmed milk for skimmed and chocolate for healthier snacks.

“I read that if you skip a meal, your body decides to burn body fat instead of food, so I’d go 16 hours without a meal and in turn, I enjoyed the food a lot more.

“I lost one stone in just a month and I was made up with that.

“Once other people started noticing and complimenting me – I knew I had the power to continue the journey.";

But she hasn't ditched the takeaways altogether.

“I still eat takeaways now, maybe once a month as a treat – but I know how much I can eat to maintain a healthy diet.

“People always ask what I eat and it’s just the same as before – I just know my limitations now.”

And of course, having a little of what you fancy is often the thing that keeps you on track.

Just look at super-dieter Matthew Hughes, who puts his staggering 16st weight loss down to treating himself to a Kit Kat a day.

We revealed earlier this month the best and worst takeaway options for dieters - and what top nutritionists would order on

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