Tina Malone: I had three and a half kilos of excess skin removed from my body

During an appearance on This Morning with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, the actress talked frankly about the after effects of losing nearly 12 stone following a gastric band operation.

“My surgeon, I hand-picked him, he took off three and a half kilos of skin, that’s how enormous I was,” she said.

“I’m not lecturing everybody who’s slightly overweight, but if you are clinically, morbidly obese, and I was, and you lose the weight, you are left with this skin.”

The 52-year-old actress has documented her dramatic body makeover, including the operations to remove the excess skin from her arms and stomach, on new TLC show Tina Malone: My New Body. She has had five major surgical procedures in six months.

The Liverpudlian is constantly congratulated for her weight loss by peers and fans. “People keep going to me ‘oh, you’re really brave’ but brave is throwing yourself in the boat with a couple of kids leaving a despot or tyranny or a war zone to come to a country in Europe that doesn’t necessarily want you – that’s bravery,” she insisted.

“What I did was elective surgery to finish off a job that I had completed. Let’s face it: 20 years of being a fat bird nobody put the food in my mouth, I did it myself. The gastric band was a tool that enabled me to get rid of 11 and a half stone, to grow up and accept that a lot of my problems were mine due to issues.”

Holly and Phil commended Tina for being so open about the stretchy skin she regarded as an eye-sore.

“I was left with this skin, and the reason I got it out on your show last time was that every day ordinary people say to me, women and men, I’m left with skin and the NHS obviously can’t serve that,” she said.

“I had to get the skin done, gone from my body for my head. It wasn’t for anybody else, it was for me to feel complete. Don’t get me wrong, I still have issues – don’t we all?”

Tina told the This Morning duo that her post-weight loss appearance had been getting her down. “What goes on in your head can very often affect what you look on the outside,” she stated. “You can be Cheryl Cole, you can be Holly Willoughby, you’re going to have a day when you wake up and go ‘I look like garbage, I don’t feel good today’.”

Holly asked the mum of two if she felt any trepidation about going under the knife for a condition that wasn’t life threatening. Did she worry about youngest daughter Flame, who is nearly two, and the rest of her loved ones?

“Of course those things come into play. I talked to my mum and my husband about making a will, about giving them my insurance, you have to do certain procedures. But you know what, Holly? Everything you do in life is a risk, I could walk out of here and go under a bus!”

She continued: “These surgeons are experts in their field, I did my research. Everything, from my blood pressure to my lungs, was taken into consideration.”

When she was questioned about her current state of mind post-skin removal, Tina said: “I’ll never be fully happy. Happiness is momentary. Do we all deserve to be happy all the time? Am I happy with this? Incredibly. I’m nearly 53 and now I can start to exercise.”

Tina Malone: My New Body airs on TLC on Thursday October 1 at 10pm.