Grandmother feels like ‘different woman’ after £20,000 cosmetic surgery to remove ‘rolls of skin’ since 6st weight loss

A grandmother who had more than £20,000 worth of cosmetic surgery to remove excess skin after losing 6st said she feels “like a different woman” after her transformation.

Deby Allison-Thomas, 60, an interior designer living in Cheshire, said her weight has been “very up and down” over the last two decades, having tried weight loss programmes like Weight Watchers and Slimming World and diets like Atkins and keto.

Standing 5ft 4in tall, Deby said she began to really notice her weight “pile on” in her 40s after she met her now-husband Gary Thomas, 65, and their “sociable” lifestyle started to show on the scales.

By her mid-50s, Deby said she had gone from 10st and wearing a size 10 to 16st and wearing a size 20 at her heaviest.

After an “upsetting” conversation with a doctor at 57 that “changed (her) life”, Deby said she transformed her diet and lost 2st, before she started on GLP-1 weight loss injection Mounjaro in September 2025, losing a further 4st.

When she reached 10st again, Deby noticed loose skin across her body so she decided to have cosmetic surgery on June 24 this year, including an arm lift, thigh lift, tummy tuck, breast uplift and abdominal contouring with liposuction.

It is a tailored programme the Reflect Clinic in Manchester calls a Mounjaro Makeover.

Three months after the six-hour surgery, Deby said it was “very liberating” to do a nude photoshoot to celebrate her body after its transformation.

Deby, who lives in Hale, told PA Real Life: “To get nude at 60… I wouldn’t have even done that at 20.

“I’m a 60-year-old grandma with three boys and now it feels like I can take on the world.”

Deby said she was naturally slim through her teens until her 30s – weighing around 9st – and although she reached 14st when she had her three sons, she said she always lost the weight afterwards.

She was 40 years old when she met Gary at a nightclub in Hale and she said the relationship progressed “quite quickly”, moving in together within six months.

This is when she really started to notice her weight gain.

“We were having the time of our lives,” Deby said.

“We loved going out, eating, drinking wine and socialising. Then, the next day I’d want a cheese and onion pasty and a cake!

“Looking back, I hid behind my big personality and fun-loving attitude, but deep inside I was really miserable about my weight and worried about how it was impacting my health.”

Ever since then, Deby said she tried “absolutely bloody everything” to lose weight, including “fad” weight loss programmes and diets, even living on up to four litres of Diet Coke a day.

“They all work temporarily, but they don’t make you feel the best in the world,” Deby said.

She also had a gastric balloon fitted twice – a non-surgical weight-loss device placed inside the stomach to help you feel full faster – but she said she would “lose some weight” and it would just “go back on again” once it was removed.

At 57, Deby said she was feeling “quite a lot of pain” in her gut due to her diverticular disease – an inflammatory colon condition – so she had a consultation with a doctor that made her “determined” to change her diet and improve her gut bacteria.

With the help of a holistic dietitian, she stopped drinking alcohol and implemented a plant-based diet, helping her to lose 2st.

But it was starting Mounjaro under clinical supervision of a local pharmacist in September 2025 that Deby said she noticed the weight “drop off”, and she has since lost a further 4st, making it a total of 6st.

Despite experiencing side effects like nausea and tiredness, Deby said she can “probably manage a third” of what she would have eaten before.

An average day of food for her now consists of berries, yoghurt and nuts in the late morning, a salad sandwich with spelt bread for lunch and bulk-cooked plant-based curry or bolognese for dinner.

After turning 60 in January this year, Deby said she noticed her weight loss impacted the way her body looks.

“I’d lost all this weight and felt absolutely fantastic, but suddenly there were all these rolls of skin,” Deby said.

“My upper arms and thighs felt like empty sacks.

“I thought I looked great when I had my clothes on, but we’re always on holiday so I spend a lot of time in a bikini and I didn’t want to have to cover up.”

Having previously had a facelift in 2019 with consultant plastic surgeon Gerard Lambe at Reflect Clinic, Deby got discounts as a returning patient and by having multiple procedures at once.

What would have cost upwards of £40,000 ended up totalling £22,000 with a bespoke bill.

Deby said she was “so excited” to have all of her surgeries “in one go” during a six-hour procedure on June 24 this year, but her recovery was “difficult”.

“I’m a workaholic and I had to take four weeks off work… because you can’t do anything physical really,” she said.

“I spent a lot of time lying down watching TV… and I kept my compression garments on a lot longer than I should have done because I wanted to keep everything tight.”

Three months after her surgery, Deby took part in a naked photoshoot organised by Reflect Clinic, including photography by Aga Mortlock, make-up by Armand Beasley, hair by Marc Knott and accessories by Voisson.

When she saw the pictures for the first time, she burst into tears.

“I couldn’t believe it was me,” she said.

“I look at those photographs and think, wow, I’m a new woman and looking better at 60 than I ever hoped.”

Deby said she feels like a “completely different woman” now when she looks at herself in the mirror.

“This was never about wanting to be perfect,” she said.

“I’d already done the really important bit – I’d changed my lifestyle (and) I’d lost the weight.

“But I wanted my body to reflect the way I felt inside.”

Deby has no intention of regaining the weight she lost, and said she regularly walks her dogs and is gradually moving to lower doses of Mounjaro as part of a maintenance programme.

She said: “I’m 60, but I feel 20 years younger and after this transformation, I know I can achieve anything.

“This is just the beginning.”

For more information about a Mounjaro Makeover, visit the Reflect Clinic website: reflectclinic.co.uk/