'I lost six stone in a year to be a good role model'

Anneka Wilkins weighed 20 stone, was signed off work and couldn't get out of bed. Now, losing 84lb in 365 days, she's ditched antidepressants and runs her own successful business

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Anneka Wilkins is a busy woman - at a trim size 16, if she’s not spending time with her sons or two grandchildren, she’s working on her newly launched business or exercising at the gym.

However, just a year ago things were very different. In November 2024, mum-of-three Anneka tipped the scales at 20 stone and was signed off from her corporate job as a talent acquisition manager with severe depression and anxiety.

She describes it as her “rock bottom’ after daily life had turned into a blur of emotional eating, from a breakfast of four slices of white toast slathered in butter, a fry-up or sugary pastries, to lunch which was “enough pasta to feed four”.

After an afternoon of grazing on crisps, biscuits and sweets, she’d have a takeaway or fast food for dinner, washed down with a bottle of wine.

Anneka, from rural Wiltshire, was refused weight-loss surgery, but instead her doctor suggested that she try GLP-1 injections, recommending the NHS-backed programme Second Nature.

In January, she started the Mounjaro-assisted programme, and just 10 months later, and having lost six stone, she looks almost unrecognisable.

“I've always had weight issues” Anneka says. “After hitting my teens, I stopped competitive swimming, I had my first son at 22, and really noticed the weight creeping up.

“And then I had my younger two boys - who are 13 and 14 - with only nine months apart, and I was 38. I did every diet known to mankind but the weight just came back on again.

“I was 19 stone 10lb, and a size 26. My weight affected everything. The more I got depressed, the more I would eat and drink, and that got out of hand. I'd been a competitive swimmer, but I wouldn't even put a swimming costume on as an adult.”