Mum loses 10st after ‘cutting one thing’ from diet for six months

Eirini Tsepouni hit 21st 12lbs before making changes

A mum who binged on sweets during movie marathons shed 10st by cutting sugar and only eating during set hours. Eirini Tsepouni, 31, reached 21st 12lbs after she was furloughed from her waitressing job during the Covid-19 pandemic and would sit at home “eating and watching movies”.

The mum-of-one started struggling to sit and play with her daughter, Leila, one, due to intense knee pain, and didn’t want her to “lose her childhood with her mum”. Eirini ditched takeaway sandwiches and cans of fizzy drinks for tuna salads and snack plates of meat and vegetables for dinner.

She cut sugar from her diet for six months and ate only between the hours of 12pm and 7pm. Now, she has slimmed down to 11st 13lbs and has bought white jeans in a size 12 for the “first time”.

Eirini, a stay-at-home mum, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, said: “At some point I realised I’d gained weight because I saw stretch marks on my belly. The weird thing is I couldn’t understand the situation and it took me years to realise what was wrong.

“I was seeing a different person in the mirror than other people could see in real life. I was seeing a person who was not overweight.

“When my daughter started growing up a bit, she started sitting up and when she was sitting I wanted to sit with her on the floor and I realised my knees were hurting a lot. They were hurting to the stage I couldn’t keep them crossed together and I had to keep them straight.

“The second thing that’s horrible as well is the fact I had to think twice for a plan of how I’m going to get up from the floor. I didn’t want her to lose her childhood with her mum and all those memories just because of my weight and because I couldn’t keep myself from eating crappy foods.”

Eirini overhauled her lifestyle in December 2024, cutting out “rubbish food” from her weekly shops like crisps and cakes in place of eggs, meat, salad and fruit – as well as cutting sugar completely.

“What I realised was I was feeling more energetic without sugar,” she told Sell Us Your Story. “My skin was glowing and I did lose weight faster.

“I was a walking a lot – even more than 10,000 steps a day. I was taking Leila to the park, I’d have a coffee as she’s playing around and then I’d put her in her stroller and just go walking around the city centre.

“Every month was different and what I learned through the journey is the scale is sometimes lying. You might not see it on the scale, but in your measurements. The big difference was after a year I started dropping in size and I could wear jeans and jeggings – I started feeling more confident”.

Now, Eirini starts her days with a morning coffee and might opt for some scrambled eggs if she fancies it – although she admitted she doesn’t like eating in the morning. Lunch might be a tuna salad, followed a few hours later by some fruit, and dinner would be “finger foods” like a snack plate of cucumber, cheese, turkey, croutons and olives.

“I would stop eating at either 6pm or 7pm,” she said. “And I was eating the next day around 12pm or 1pm depending on the routine with my daughter.

“I don’t want to see it as a diet I want to see it as a life-changing habit. At the end of the day your body is a car, would you put crappy fuel in a car?

“I don’t want my daughter to grow up seeing me with snacks in my hand all the time. I don’t want her to go through what I went through being fat, only wearing black leggings and not knowing what jeans were or trying to find chair wherever I’d go without arms either side so I could sit in them comfortably.

“Being overweight I needed a plan to live. I needed a plan to go to the theatre, to the cinema because I didn’t know if I’d fit in the chair.

“There are so many embarrassing moments, but they didn’t shake me up. Having my daughter woke me up.

“Honestly I feel more beautiful than ever and stronger than ever. I don’t feel pain anymore.

“I won’t think twice about standing up to do something. I feel like life has started now.”