Summary
A mum says she can’t feel sexy despite halving her body weight, dropping from 26stone, as she’s been left with so much loose skin she says she ‘looks like a mole rat in the bedroom’. Rebecca Deicu says she’s struggled with her weight since she was 10 and would regularly eat meals with a portion size that could feed three people.
Details
The 37-year-old, who ballooned to 26st and was a dress size 26 at her heaviest, says she was unable to fit on rollercoasters and feared she would break garden chairs. After years of yo-yo dieting and unsuccessfully keeping the weight off, Rebecca took the plunge and requested to be added to the NHS waitlist for a gastric sleeve in 2020.
Rebecca had the stomach-shrinking sleeve fitted in March 2025, after spending five years on the waiting list. The 5ft 6in teaching assistant has since shed 12 stone, slimming down from 26st to 14st and is now a dress size 14. But Rebecca says she now feels less confident than ever before – due to the large amount of loose skin she’s been left with on her stomach, arms and legs.
The mum-of-one says she could ‘slap herself in the face’ with the loose skin on her arms and still hides under the same baggy tops she wore when she was a size 26. Rebecca says she now feels less confident in the bedroom – as the loose skin has left her looking like a ‘mole rat’.
Now, Rebecca has set up a fundraiser to help cover the cost of surgery to remove the loose skin, after she claims she was told it wasn’t available on the NHS. Rebecca, from Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, said: “Having the gastric sleeve is the best thing I’ve ever done but because of that I’ve now got a huge amount of loose skin. “It’s very uncomfortable.
I have to wear very tight clothing on my bottom half to hold everything in, which is frustrating. “I could probably slap myself in the face with my own loose skin on my arms. I can’t feel sexy.
My husband is the most supportive, wonderful man. He loved me at 26 stone and he loves me at 14 stone and he has never changed how much he loves me. “I feel like it [the loose skin] has impacted my relationship in some ways, especially in the bedroom.
I’m way less confident now than I was before. It [the loose skin] makes me want to keep my clothes on and turn the light off. “[If] you put me upside down I’m going to look like a mole rat.” Rebecca says she feels like her new, slimmer frame, which she’s worked so hard for, is hidden underneath the shell of her old body.
Report source: Gloucestershire Live
