CHEWING miserably on a Cheestrings, Whitney Ainscough looks down at her concave stomach and sighs.
The single mum-of-three, who earns up to £70,000 a month as a ‘benefits influencer’ and has shed more than 100lb in three years should be feeling on top of the world.
But Whitney, who recently bought her first house despite living in a Housing Association property with subsidised rent in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, isn’t happy.
Her £4,000 gastric sleeve, which she underwent at a private clinic in Alexandria, Egypt in December 2023, has reduced her stomach size by 90 percent, leaving her barely able to eat.
Frail and hollow-eyed, she has plummeted from 15st and a size 18 to a tiny 7st 12lb, wearing a size 6.
Her BMI, of around 17, means she is officially classified as underweight.
She is now almost HALF her former size, having lost an astonishing 7st 3lb in three years.
She is smaller than her teenage daughter and even buys clothes for 13-year-old girls from JD Sports.
Eating a cookie once left her in tears because she felt so ill.
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck,” she told her 1m social media followers in an emotional Facebook video in December. “I can’t even eat custard.”
It’s a far cry from December 2024 when, a year after the sleeve operation where surgeons removed about 80 per cent of the stomach, leaving a narrow, banana-shaped “sleeve” to restrict food intake, Whitney weighed around 9st and was happy with her figure.
The mum to Cora, 13, Addison, eight, and Adley, four says: “What I couldn’t have anticipated was that the dial on the scale would keep on going down and down. I’m a cautionary tale not to take a ‘quick fix’ if offered.
“I’ll happily admit I was fat and lazy beforehand. I couldn’t be bothered to exercise. I gorged on junk and treated my body like s***.
“But now I’ve been left fatigued, and with little muscle mass. I’m exhausted and I’m still dropping weight. I thought I wanted to be skinny, but I didn’t want to be this skinny. I regret getting my sleeve.
“My boobs now sag down to my knees, they’re like sandbags. When I go out I stuff my bra with socks or loo roll.
‘Gone from big to tiny’
“I feel like a schoolgirl, not a mum-of-three. Imagine going home with a bloke and him pulling socks and tissues out of my bra?”
Whitney opted for the surgery in a bid to stop her bingeing on McDonalds, KFC, Chinese and Indian takeaways, but she is now full of regret.
“I should have waited for fat jabs, but they weren’t well known then and I couldn’t get them on the NHS,” she says. “I’ve gone from too big to tiny – and it’s dangerous.”
I should have waited for fat jabs, but they weren’t well known then and I couldn’t get them on the NHS
Whitney Ainscough
While she once gorged on fast food, the mum now mainly nibbles on Cheestrings, occasionally sucking sweets.
“Often, I will have just one Cheestrings for breakfast,” she says. “I know that’s not healthy, but I feel sick if I eat more. Perhaps some of it is psychological, as food has made me ill.
“I do feel weak sometimes so I eat sweets and it’ll perk me back up for a bit – a sugar rush. It’s not impacted my sex drive though… if anything I get a lot of men and I’m looking for more.
“I ate a proper meal the other day – bread, beans and a bit of scrambled egg – and I was really pleased. But Christmas was a disaster as I couldn’t enjoy a turkey dinner. Even custard was making me vomit.”
Whitney’s ordeal comes as new NHS England statistics from an Obesity Audit show bariatric procedures like gastric sleeves are decreasing across the UK.
NHS figures show that while more than 7,000 patients had weight loss surgery in 2018-19, provisional data from last year suggests fewer than 5,000 operations took place – a drop of around a fifth.
It is believed this is due to strict NHS criteria to get weight loss surgery – patients typically need a BMI of 40 and over, and a serious health condition like type 2 diabetes – the rise of cheap ‘surgery tourism’ and the massive surge in fat jabs.
No long-term care
At least 1.6m Brits have used weight loss jabs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro in the past year, according to new figures.
“I think the jabs might’ve been a better option,” says Whitney regretfully. “You can stop taking them if you have horrible side effects. That’s not an option with an operation.
“Now, my collarbones jut out, my cheekbones are hollow and my arms are so slim.
“Sometimes my [social media] content is just me, slumped on the floor crying. It’s brutal, but it’s the reality of my life.
“People are worried about me, which is kind. My family has said that I’m too slim and that I need to see a GP, which I’m considering.
What is the difference between a gastric band, bypass and sleeve?
The three most widely used types of weight loss surgery are:
- Gastric band: where a band is used to reduce the stomach’s size, meaning you will feel full after eating a reduced amount of food
- Gastric bypass: where your digestive system is re-routed past stomach, so you digest less food and it takes less to make you feel full
- Sleeve gastrectomy: where some of the stomach is removed, to reduce the amount of food required to make you feel full
When coupled with exercise and a healthy diet, weight loss surgery has been found to be effective in dramatically reducing a patient’s excess body fat.
Recent research in the United States found that people with gastric bands lose around half of their excess body weight.
Meanwhile gastric bypasses reduce this excess body weight by two thirds post-op.
However, it’s not always successful – and patients still need to take responsibility for eating well and working out.
“Some of my followers have recommended things like protein shakes to gain weight and even recommended medical help.”
However, for every kind comment about Whitney’s appearance, there are plenty of vicious ones.
“I’ve been told I look like a skeleton, a corpse and a drug-user,” she says.
“I’m thick-skinned, so I don’t care, but I do care about people who have genuine eating disorders and I don’t want to trivialise that. I’m desperate to eat, but since the surgery I find it virtually physically impossible to stomach anything.”
She’s speaking out to warn others that while gastric surgery might seem like an easy option, it can backfire.
I’ve been told I look like a skeleton, a corpse and a drug-user
Whitney Ainscough
“I read all the scare stories about people dying in surgery, so I deliberately went to a clinic I knew mates had gone to,” she says.
“I didn’t just randomly Google a place that was cheap.
“So I’m not criticising the clinic or the surgery. The operation, which lasted about an hour, was fine. Within a day I was sipping apple juice and shortly after I was walking. Within two days I was out of hospital.”
What she’s concerned about – and what researchers writing in the British Medical Journal have also flagged – is the lack of aftercare and the long-term impact of surgery abroad.
On the NHS and privately in the UK, where bariatric surgery costs between £10,000 and £15,000, patients typically get long-term care.
But if they travel overseas for operations, where surgery usually costs between £2,500 and £4,500, that is far less likely.
The BMJ paper, Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery Medical Tourism: the Compelling Need for Regulation Through Transnational Collaboration, says: “[One] risk is the lack of preoperative and long-term nutritional, psychological and other medical follow-up.
“Multidisciplinary care is an integral part of appropriate case selection and is often lacking.”
Whitney adds: “I didn’t get long-term care and that was a problem. I regret it and it’s why I’ve ended up so thin and nutritionally deficient.”
She has even ended up paying for private £29-a-month B12 injections which are often used by patients who are malnourished as they replenish energy by enabling the body to efficiently convert food into usable energy.
I’m desperate to eat, but since the surgery I find it virtually physically impossible to stomach anything
Whitney Ainscough
“This isn’t what I expected,” she confesses. “I wasn’t happy with my body before. I felt like a lazy slob. I wanted the body I had, back when I was younger. I wanted to de-age myself.
“I didn’t have the energy to run around after the kids. If anyone suggested exercise, I just looked at them in utter horror. I didn’t walk anywhere – not even to the local chippie – and barely managed to get off the sofa.
“So a gastric bypass seemed like a cheap fix and I was initially pleased with the weight loss.
“But surgery really should be the last resort. I was fat and lazy and now I regret it – that’s why people call me a walking corpse.
“I wish I could turn back the clock and get fat jabs – the people who are on them now don’t know they’re born.”
FYI
GP Dr Hussain Al Zubaidi, whose Instagram handle is, irondoctorhaz, says: “People travelling abroad for weight-loss surgery highlights serious gaps in how obesity care is delivered in the UK.
Long NHS waits and high private costs are pushing patients overseas, often to clinics with limited regulation, poor follow-up and unclear safety standards.
These are major operations that require lifelong care, and when things go wrong the NHS often has to pick up the pieces.
We urgently need international standards and better access to safe, supported obesity treatment at home, this is about patient safety, fairness and protecting overstretched health services.”
