I'm a size 16 and I get backhanded compliments from people in the street – but I won't diet & think being chubby is cute | The Sun

THERE’S nothing worse than feeling judged for your appearance – and unfortunately one woman has experienced that all too many times.

Elisabeth Carley-Leonard, 31, from Leicester, was a model in her teens and was all too used to people telling her that she needed to be slimmer, even though she was a size 8.

Now, a size 16, the social media star has learnt to embrace her curves and love her body, and won’t let the haters get her down. 

Elisabeth opened up about her self-love journey and shared that while she longed for years to look like a Victoria’s Secret model, those days are definitely over. 

She told Fabulous: “I did modelling competitions and was in beauty pageants and started out in the modelling world when I was 13-years-old. I was leading my district for a while and was in the finals of Miss Universe Great Britain. 

“But it was super toxic. I was obsessed with being thin. I was a size 8 and they were telling me to be slimmer. 

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“I went to a couple of modelling agencies and they basically said ‘you’re never going to make it unless you slim right down’.

“I tried so many diets. The Atkins diet was a big deal. My mum was on it, so I was on it. It was tough. 

“I lived by ‘if it fit in the palm of your hand, it was ok to eat’, so I would never eat anything bigger than the palm of my hand. I also ate off a blue plate to trick my mind into thinking I was full.

“I really wanted to be a Victoria’s Secret angel – that was the dream, that was the goal. I saw these beautiful women in these magazines and I wanted that to be my life.

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“I think I got my self-worth very wrapped up in my dress size. I started to form this really awful belief system that the thinner you are, the prettier you are and the more pretty you are, the more worthy you are.

“For a very long time, that’s where my happiness was attached to but actually there wasn’t any happiness or any joy.” 

Elisabeth explained that one day, when she was 19, she had had enough.

She continued: “I got signed to an agency and did well in the pageants but not well enough. I think it got to a point where I was so beaten down by it all that I just quit. 

“I just thought I would never succeed, I would never be slim or pretty enough so I just gave up.

“I used to go to the gym for one to two hours every day to lose weight and I was barely eating anything. My friends knew something was up. 

“My friend would sit with me and make me eat but then I would run off and make myself sick. I got skinnier and skinnier and skinnier and worse and worse. 

I was obsessed with being thin. I was a size 8 and they were telling me to be slimmer. 

“I quit modelling when I was 19-years-old. I remember the day because I got to the finals of a Miss Universe pageant and wanted to quit and so I went out for a beer and a pizza for the first time in years and thought ‘this is what happiness tastes like.’ I called them up and I quit.” 

After quitting pageants, Elisabeth went into the music industry and made a conscious effort to stop pressuring herself to look a certain way.

She added: “Then I got into the music industry and I stopped being the ‘pretty girl’ and was gaslighting myself to become ‘less attractive’ so I would be taken more seriously in the industry, instead of just being some pretty ‘model girl.’

“I went out of my way to stop being pretty and sexy and I dressed differently.”

Elisabeth explained that she had put on weight and at this point was a size 16 and was told by doctors that she was morbidly obese.

She noted: “When I was 25, I started learning about personal development.

“What wasn’t helpful at that time was that doctors were saying I was morbidly obese on the BMI scale.

“I was put on weight-loss tablets. I was on and off of those in 2020. 

“It was towards the end of 2020 and I was like ‘What makes me happy? Why am I yo-yoing?’

“I had a shift that exercising isn’t just to look good, it’s to make you feel good too. That’s when that stopped being toxic. 

“By the back end of 2021, I then started to form into the person that I am now. I’ve come out the other side now. It’s been a journey, but now I want to empower others.”

After spending years of restrictive eating, Elisabeth now has a much more positive attitude with food.

She explained: “I don’t count calories anymore. I try to listen to my body more than anything, with intuitive eating so I eat when I’m hungry. This is a new thing for me. 

“I’m healing now. I eat things that are nourishing. 

You can have three cheeseburgers in a row if you want to.

“With things like WeightWatchers and Slimming World, they get you in this incubator but once you leave it, everything goes back to how it was before and you pile all the weight back on.

“Nowadays if I want to exercise I do it to feel good and to be healthy, not as a reflection of my dress size or the number on the scale. 

“I think gyms can be amazing places for people when the proper guidance, education and support is in place, however it’s very easy for things to get toxic 

“Education is more important than going on a diet. I know that I can eat a cheeseburger now and it’s fine.

“You can have three cheeseburgers in a row if you want to.”

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After learning to love her body, Elisabeth has now begun sharing mid-size, body acceptance content on social media.

She shared: “There is a dangerous tipping point where people think body positivity and curve influencing is promoting obesity and unhealthy habits, and that’s not the case at all. 

“There are some people out there who have become overweight because they are surviving on a diet of fast food and I don’t condone that, that’ll send you to an early grave.”

Luckily for Elisabeth, she revealed that the online response has been extremely positive, but she claimed in person it’s often a different story.

She said: “The online response has been so nice, surprisingly nice.

“But every time I get a notification from TikTok and it’s an anonymous person leaving a comment, I do get a feeling that it’s going to be a bad one.

“But people have been negative towards me before. People would say really nasty things to me.

“When I did start to fill out, people would give me disapproving looks. They would look me up and down and say ‘you look well…’.

“People say to me ‘I wish I had your confidence’ and random people come up to me and say ‘you’re pretty for a big girl.’ They think it’s a compliment.

“In the last few years, a family member who I hadn’t seen for a few months said I was ‘so fat’ and ‘disgusting.’

“I’m very fortunate that I don’t get the negative trolling that lots of other creators face, but what I do get are back-handed compliments.”

I think being ‘chubby’ is cute. I love that people are reclaiming words like ‘fat’ and ‘chubby.'

Regardless of the back-handed compliments, Elisabeth revealed that she now feels very body confident.

She explained: “I’m so happy and so confident in my own body now.

“There were moments before where you wouldn’t have caught me dead in a crop top. If I had a bit of tummy fat or skin out I would feel that people would look at me and think ‘she’s too big to be wearing that’.

“I stopped wearing denim shorts for so long because of my cellulite. But I have been so wrapped up in a bubble of self joy recently. I’ve had such a shift in myself.

“I think being ‘chubby’ is cute. I love that people are reclaiming words like ‘fat’ and ‘chubby’ and I definitely want to be a part of that and part of that story.

“There’s a lot more body positivity going on and I think it’s great that we are stopping using the word ‘fat’ as an insult. 

“Every now and again men will drop into my DMs and say that I’m their dream girl. 

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“I would definitely say that I am hugely confident in my body now.”

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