Lucy Spraggan opens up about her dramatic weight loss journey

Lucy Spraggan has said she was eating 500 calories a day when she started on her weight loss journey.

The former X Factor contestant, 29, has recently undergone a dramatic body transformation by losing three-and-a-half stone through a combination of weightlifting and running.

After initially struggling to eat enough, Spraggan adapted her diet and later begun training as a personal trainer before launching a fitness brand called Fully Rewired.

Spraggan, from Buxton in Derbyshire, told the PA news agency she hoped to stop other people encountering the same pitfalls.

The singer-songwriter said: “All I really want to do is guide people on the same journey I have been on, that I am still on, but without all the mistakes.

“At the beginning I was eating 500 calories a day, which is not enough for an adult human being.

“And I just wanted to be able to put my message out there but with a qualified personal trainer and a nutritionist who know what they are talking about, to assist people to do the same.

“I have actually just finished my personal training qualification with Future Fit Training. I am now a qualified personal trainer doing nutrition course and mental health and wellbeing course.

“When Covid is a thing of the past I want to open up a community, not for profit gym for people to attend not only for physical health but for mental health too.”

In December, Spraggan underwent surgery on her breasts, having both a mastopexy, known as an uplift, and an augmentation, after losing weight left her unhappy with their sagging appearance.

She said she wanted to be “totally transparent” about what happens when you lose a substantial amount of body weight.

“The thing about losing loads of weight is that loads of people in the public eye lose loads of weight and they just look ace in a bikini,” she said.

“I did it and I realised that something that happens a lot is that your boobs become empty bags of skin because you have lost the body fat.

“I wanted to be totally transparent that that is what happens – you get loose skin.

“I have got loose skin on my belly, I have got loose skin on my arms. The one thing you can’t actually changed without surgery is loose skin.

“No one can sell you anything else apart from surgery. It was the only part of my body I couldn’t change myself so I wanted to get that fixed.”

Spraggan rose to fame at the age of 19 when she took part in the X Factor in 2012.

She was one of the favourites to win before she was forced to pull out of live shows due to illness, but has since gone on to have a successful music career.

In November 2019, Spraggan, who came out as lesbian aged 14, announced she had split with Georgina Gordon, her wife of three years.

Lucy Spraggan is releasing her sixth album, Choices, on February 26.