When Brenda Langford looks back on her life, it’s not just the weight she remembers — it’s the shame.
The bullying. The deep sadness that came with never feeling like she belonged.
She still vividly remembers the day her classmates mocked her with elephant noises.
It wasn’t a joke to her — it was a moment that stayed etched in her memory.
“I felt so ashamed of my body,” she says. “I felt like I didn’t fit in this world.”
Food Became Her Comfort in a Cruel World
From a young age, Brenda was relentlessly bullied — not just for her size but also for having a lazy eye and thick glasses.
Food became her escape. Not vegetables or anything fresh, but sugar-laden cereals, Pop Tarts, and heaps of mac and cheese.
“Food became my drug,” she says. “I lived on food that wasn’t food.”
As her teenage years rolled into adulthood, Brenda’s health and weight spiraled.
At 21, while her peers were off living their college dreams, Brenda became a young mum — and the weight piled on even more.
By the time her first son, Brandon, was born, she weighed 140kg (309 lbs).
A Cycle of Weight, Pain, and Shame
Life didn’t slow down. Two years later, she welcomed her second child, Kyle, got married to chef Matt, and fell deeper into a routine of eating takeout and fatty foods.
By her 30s, migraines plagued her life and doctors dismissed her pain with prescriptions.
“I was in so much pain, but they didn’t take me seriously,” Brenda recalls.
She had only one pair of orthopedic shoes from the pharmacist — the only ones that could fit her swollen feet.
Rock Bottom at 222 Kilograms
By 40, Brenda’s weight hit 222kg (490 lbs). Her mobility was gone. Her back constantly gave out.
She couldn’t walk down her own hallway without yelling for her kids to bring her a chair. Grocery shopping? Impossible.
Watching her kids play sport? Only from a heavy-duty chair her husband had to help her out of.
And then there were the public humiliations — like the time a woman yelled, “Get the fat one off!” when a lift door jammed.
Or when a child shouted “Holy f***, you’re fat!” outside a Woolworths while two grown men laughed.
“I stopped going out. I stopped living,” Brenda says quietly.
A Doctor’s Warning That Changed Everything
In 2012, Brenda’s world was rocked. First, she lost her mother to cancer.
Then her father to liver cirrhosis. And then came the gut-punch from her own doctor: her liver was severely infiltrated with fat.
“You won’t live another five years,” the doctor told her.
That was more than ten years ago.
A Life-Altering Surgery and a New Beginning
In 2018, Brenda took control. She underwent gastric sleeve surgery, a procedure where part of the stomach is removed.
It wasn’t easy — the surgery took three hours instead of the usual 45 minutes because her liver was so enlarged.
But it worked. In the first month, she dropped 12kg (26.5 lbs).
Within a year, she had lost 80kg (176 lbs).
“My feet shrank, I had energy, and I was doing aqua aerobics with 80-year-olds — and loving it,” she laughs. “For the first time in my life, I felt hopeful.”
The Hard Work Didn’t Stop There
But losing the weight wasn’t the end — it was just the beginning.
After the initial “honeymoon phase,” Brenda had to stay focused. “I started to get hungry again,” she admits.
So she signed up for TAFE, got certified as a community support worker, and started helping others battling obesity.
“I saw the same sadness in their eyes that I once had.
When someone says they’re happy being obese — I just don’t believe it. You can’t live a normal life in that body.”
Surgery After Surgery to Remove Her “Melted Candle” Skin
Even with the weight gone, Brenda faced a difficult reminder: the excess skin.
“I felt like a melted candle,” she says.
She underwent four major reconstructive surgeries with plastic surgeon Dr Matthew Peters — procedures that cost her more than AU$70,000.
These included a full lower body lift, upper body lift, arm surgery, and thigh reconstruction.
One of the surgeries lasted nine hours and involved over 800 sutures.
“My skin was so badly damaged, I needed three abdominoplasties and ended up with two new belly buttons,” she adds.
Brenda Found Her Strength — and Her Style
Now 49 and weighing 92kg (203 lbs), Brenda is living proof of what determination can achieve.
She hits the gym six days a week, goes grocery shopping with ease, and is proud to say goodbye to orthopedic sandals — now she owns 25 pairs of shoes and counting.
Brenda even became an ambassador for activewear brand Exotic Athletica and is writing a book called Massive Weight Loss Saved My Life.
She’s Not Holding Back on the Past
Despite everything, Brenda says there’s one thing she can’t do: forgive the bullies.
“One of them tried to add me on Facebook recently,” she says. “I deleted the request.”
“To them, it was just a funny moment. But those words stick.
They can follow someone for a lifetime. Do better.”