How much would you pay for a good body?

Carole Wild, 53, lives in Ewshot, Surrey, with her husband, Barry, 56, who owns a building company. She has two daughters, Nikki, 33 and Hazel, 32.

‘Nobody plans to end up a size 32. The weight creeps on slowly while you’re worrying about other things. I’m 5ft 7in and, by age 50, I weighed 25st 7lb. I tried diets, but always caved in. And although I still took care of myself – I always wore nice clothes, did my hair and had manicures – I was unhappy. Then, tragically, my parents died within three weeks of each other. The shock was terrible – and frightening. Mum hadn’t been overweight and she’d died at just 69. What chance did I have? I couldn’t say “I’ll diet tomorrow” any more. So I took £5,000 I’d inherited and got a loan of £6,000 to cover the £11,000 I needed foe a gastric bypass. Even though there was a one in 100 chance I might not pull through, I was determined to do it.

I went to the clinic in November 2007, where surgeons reduced my stomach to the size of an egg. All I could eat were tiny amounts. Within a year I weighed 12st 7lb. I felt much better, except that I hated the sagging skin left on my body. After much soul-searching, we remortgaged the house to pay £11,500 to remove it. Surgeons removed folds of skin from around my middle and underarms – I lost a stone just like that. But I still wasn’t happy, so last year I paid another £6,500, using money from our mortgage again, to have the skin taken away from my upper and inner thighs, and to have a bust uplift. This time they removed around 6lb of skin. I’m a size 12 now and weigh 10st 12lb. My life is so different – I’m confident and I have the energy to enjoy life to the full. You can’t put a price on that!’