A Weight Has Lifted I Shed 65kg & My Demons!

Lisa’s dropped kilos and beaten her depression.

- Amy Prebble

The Big Ward star Lisa Hardy isn’t convinced she will be able to fit into any of the outfits our stylist has picked out for the Woman’s Day photo shoot. She’s astonished when she slips into the clothes with ease.

“I still have fat brain,” she concedes. “My body has changed so much, but my brain hasn’t caught up yet.”

The Hamilton store manager and mental health advocate has shed an amazing 65kg since having bariatric surgery – also known as gastric bypass – in March last year. Lisa, 49, says, “After surgery, every week, except one, I’ve lost weight. The kilos have just fallen off me.”

Since the operation, the mother-of-two’s been able to return to full-time work, which she hadn’t been able to do for years because of her depression and anxiety.

“Before surgery, I was on a six-week cycle of, ‘I’m OK, then I’m down,’” she explains. “And the downs were so bad that I was getting psychosis. I would be hearing voices – that’s how low I got. There was self-harm and things like that. I was on psychosis medication.”