By Michelle Norris
Six years ago, if someone had told Hayley Black that she would be posing in Cosmopolitan Magazine in nothing but a bikini, she would have – in her own words – had you ‘sectioned’ for being insane.
But now, eight stone lighter and with confidence soaring through the clouds, Hayley has done just that and revealed all in Cosmopolitan’s Body Confidence issue this month – and she’s never felt better about herself and her new beach body!
However, it wasn’t always like this for Hayley. Just six years ago, she weighed 17-stone and was a size 26.
“I can eat so much food,” says Hayley, who lives in Canvey. “I’m a pig and I’m the first to admit it! And whenever it came to exercising, I always thought that if I tried, I’d just be drawing attention to myself.”
Desperate for a child, Hayley and her husband Martin had a lot of difficulty in conceiving, resulting in four ectopic pregnancies and failed IVF attempts, leaving Hayley to comfort eat.
“I’m quite a positive person, but I like to treat myself,” 36-year-old Hayley tells me from her home in Castle View Road. “I’d tell myself that I deserved a treat for everything I was going through and even when my clothes didn’t fit, I convinced myself that the shops were making them smaller. I was in denial!”
But it wasn’t until she gave birth to her son Kai that things started to change.
“I remember trying to run across the car park to pay for the parking meter, I couldn’t do it!” she says. “That was a real wake-up call for me and I knew that I had to lose weight to be there for my son.”
Shortly after, Hayley joined Slimming World and successfully managed to reach her target weight of just under nine stone within one year – and she’s been on target ever since.
“Even though I lost all of the weight and I’m on target, I still go along to the meetings to keep me on the straight and narrow,” she laughs.
“I still can’t believe that I did the photo shoot, but the photographer really put me at ease and it was a lot of fun!”
And after losing eight stone, Hayley is proud to say that her stomach is now the favourite part of her body and even has a tip for getting a toned stomach for summer!
“Go cycling,” she enthuses. “Seriously, when you cycle you naturally pull your stomach in! It’s great!”
To read more about Hayley’s story, pick up a copy of Cosmopolitan’s ‘Body Confidence’ issue out now.