Queensland nurse loses 50kg after feeling ashamed for giving patients health advice

A former obese nurse who once advised patients on their health felt so ashamed and hypocritical that she made a huge change to her own life.

A former obese nurse who felt like a ‘hypocrite’ when giving healthy lifestyle advice has lost 50kg after paying $12,000 for surgery.

Kira Morrison, 31, from the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, reached 127kg during her lifelong battle with obesity until she realised she needed to change, opting for gastric bypass surgery.

Ms Morrison, a former trauma nurse, says she spent her previous career helping people get healthy and saw a multitude of overweight patients and told them they needed to lose weight but always felt like a hypocrite because of being obese herself.

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Ms Morrison, who spent $12,000 on her surgery, said she now feels in more control of her life from what she eats to exercising.

“When I was a trauma nurse I was always telling people to lose weight which when you’re 127kg looks very hypocritical,” she said.

“I always hated the fact that I was a health professional that couldn’t look after myself in the same way I would advise people to at work.

“Being overweight has always been a massive struggle for me, it started when I was a teenager and just got progressively worse every year.”

Ms Morrison, who is now a cosmetic injector nurse, said the worst part of being overweight was “being the fat person in every group”.

“It alienates you to feel like an outsider and always being judged as a binge eater.

“Barely any clothes used to fit me, I had to wear what fit me rather than the things I actually liked because the sizing restrictions are awful.”

Queensland mum Kira Morrison felt like a hypocrite when giving healthy lifestyle advice to patients when she was obese. Picture: CatersNews

She took her own advice and made a change with the help of gastric bypass surgery. Picture: CatersNews

‘WHY DON’T I TAKE MY OWN ADVICE’

The Queensland mum said with a history of diabetes in her family, it made her weight very risky.

“I have children too so the last thing I wanted was to fall ill and not be able to look after them,” she explained.

“Sometimes I would be sitting at work talking to someone who was overweight and telling them the risks of remaining the weight they are and I just knew they would be wondering why I don’t take my own advice.

“There are so many advantages to dropping weight, I don’t feel like I stand out in crowds anymore and I’m dressed in clothes I feel confident in.

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“I can keep up with my two crazy kids, they’re a real handful but now I can run after them when the little animals get loose.

“I packed up my role as a trauma nurse and now I work in beauty and understand my clients so much better when they talk about being insecure.”

Ms Morrison said she doesn’t worry about being “pretty enough anymore”.

“But my brain is still trying to understand how my body looks now.

“Sometimes when I look in the mirror I still see 20-stone (127kg) Kira, which is taking a while to forget after living with her for the majority of my life.”

The 31-year-old weighed 127kg before opting for the $12,000 surgery. Picture: CatersNews

She went on to lose 50kg after spending 10 months going to the gym and eating a low-carb diet. Picture: CatersNews

Kira said her problem wasn’t what she was eating, but how much of it she was eating. Picture: CatersNews

PORTION SIZE PROBLEMS

Ms Morrison struggled with her weight until she was 27 — she was active and didn’t live off takeaways but admits her portion sizes were too big.

“My problem wasn’t what I was eating, it was how much of it I was eating,” she said.

“I would have bigger portions than what I would call a ‘normal’ size and that just became habitual.”

After deciding that she was sick of being the “fat one in the group”, she made the decision to have a gastric bypass.

“It was quite a scary thing to do because no matter how safe something is an operation is always a worry, but I knew I had to do it,” Ms Morrison said.

“Luckily I have a supportive husband who has been with me at my heaviest and lightest, we dug into our savings and got it done.”

She then spent 10 months at the gym and ate a low-carb diet which enabled her to lose 50kgs in less than a year.

“It was hard work, but worth every single moment,” she said.

“Since my weight loss I have changed not just my lifestyle and diet, but my career too, I used to be a nurse and now I work in beauty.

“If someone told me four years ago I would end up working in the beauty industry I would have laughed at them, but here I am, and it feels amazing.”

She now feels more confident than ever asking changing making changes to her lifestyle. Picture: CatersNews