Once her children were dropped at school, Danielle Tanner began her daily ritual: gorging on fistfuls of chocolate bars until the moment she went to bed.
The sugar addict, 41, from Wirrall, Merseyside, tipped the scales at 16st 6lb at her heaviest, her size 20 frame the result of eating at least 15 chocolate bars a day.
She said: ‘After the school run, I’d eat eight Orange Clubs and two Twix bars.
‘After lunch, four Toffee Crisps, another chocolate bar after dinner and a box of Maltesers in bed.
‘If I was working, I’d walk home eating four more chocolate bars.’
Ms Tanner decided to address her weight after she was was warned by her doctor that she was morbidly obese – and it kickstarted a year-long journey that saw her kick her chocolate habit and shed seven stone.
But rather than send her on her way with minimal support and a lot of weight to lose, in January 2025 she was enrolled on a clinical trial using Mounjaro.
Ms Tanner noticed results from the weight loss medication almost immediately.
Danielle Tanner weighed 16 stone 6lb at her heaviest
After a clinical trial using Mounjaro, she lost seven stone
‘The first day, my head was quiet. I had a salad, trying to be healthy and I just couldn’t finish it,’ she said.
‘I hardly snacked; the desire just left my body. I didn’t change my diet, just shrunk my portion sizes – that’s why it worked so well.’
Fifteen months later, she weighs just 9st 10lb and has ditched her tent-like clothes for slinky size 10 numbers. She also claims that she looks – and feels – years younger.
She said: ‘Since losing weight, people tell me I look 10 years younger. I actually feel it too – I’m 41, but I feel 31.’
By September 2025, she had lost six stone, weighing 10st 6lb – lighter than on her wedding day.
When the programme ended in January 2026, she had shed a total of 6st 10lb, dropped 56 inches from her body, gone from a size 20 to 10, and reduced her BMI from 42.1 to 24.9.
As the weight fell off, her life transformed. She took up walking, cycling, swimming, indoor climbing, and even completed a Ninja Warrior course.
She later switched to Wegovy after a price rise and has now been jab-free for three weeks. Follow-up tests show her cholesterol levels are normal and her health is much improved.
The medication helped Ms Tanner practice moderation – and it’s something that has now become second nature.
‘If I want chocolate, I have one bar. Pizza? A couple of slices, not the whole thing,’ she said.
Mounjaro is a type of drug known as a GLP-1 – glucagon-like peptide-1 – which mimics the hormone that helps control blood sugar and appetite after eating.
Danielle is pictured before her weight loss journey when she would eat multiple chocolate bars a day (left) and after (right)
But users have found that it doesn’t just help them make better choices at mealtimes, because it affects the brain’s reward centre, it has been cited as a reason for them turning their backs on their previous vices such as wine and chocolate.
Understandably, ‘relapse’ fears surround eventually coming off the jabs, which can cost between £200 and £300 a month for a private prescription, depending on the dose.
Ms Tanner added: ‘People worry you’ll put the weight back on when you stop the injections. You won’t – as long as you don’t go back to old habits.
‘Using medication to help obese people shouldn’t have a stigma. Is it cheating? Absolutely not.’
Ms Tanner’s struggle with food began at 18, after giving birth to her first child, Angel, now 23.
Financial pressures and independence led to binge eating. After her son Dexter, now nine, food became comfort.
‘I’d match my husband Ben’s portions and bring treats home from work – five chocolate bars for £1 or five bags of crisps for £1. I had zero motivation,’ she said.
She tried Slimming World, losing a couple of stone, but struggled with cooking and often relied on beans and jacket potatoes.
When her local group shut down, her motivation vanished.
She describes her need for chocolate as being like an addiction.
‘I was like an alcoholic, but my “alcohol” was chocolate,’ she said.
‘It was a dopamine rush, and I just couldn’t stop. I needed that little monster in my head to shut up.
‘It hasn’t just been a physical change, it’s also a mental one.’
To celebrate her weight loss, Ms Tanner and her husband recreated their wedding photos.
She said: ‘My dress fit perfectly and laced up tighter than the first time around.
‘My husband is happy, not because of how I look but because I’m happier. My motivation is back, my laziness gone. I make sure I get my 10,000 steps every day. It’s like hitting a reset button.’
Under official guidelines, only patients who have a body mass index (BMI) of over 40 and weight-related health problems like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obstructive sleep apnoea, should be prescribed Mounjaro on the NHS.
But tens of thousands are believed to be using them privately.
In 2024, health chiefs announced millions of obese patients would receive Mounjaro – which helps slimmers shed up to a fifth of their bodyweight – on the health service over a phased 12 year rollout.
Weight-related illness costs the economy £74billion a year, with people who are overweight at increased risk of heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes.
Two in three Britons are classed as overweight or obese and NHS figures show people now weigh about a stone more than 30 years ago.