Celebs who use Ozempic are too thin, says Shaughna Phillips as she reveals secret to 6st weight loss

SHOWING off her incredible body transformation, Love Island star Shaughna Phillips insists she would never resort to “quick fix” weight-loss drugs to ditch the pounds.

Over the past year, the mum of one has shed almost 6st and dropped six dress sizes after following a dedicated nutrition and fitness plan.

She insists hard graft is the only healthy way to lose weight and keep it off.

Her efforts have taken her from 15st 5lb to a trim 9st 10lb — and seen her shrink to a size eight.

Shaughna has now told of her concerns over what she considers to be a worrying trend of celebrities using “fat jabs” such as Ozempic, and often becoming dangerously thin as a result.

Weight-loss jabs take your appetite away. That might make you skinny, but it won’t make you strong, fit and healthy

Shaughna

Speaking exclusively to Fab Daily, she says: “I don’t want to pin blame on individuals, especially women, because they’ve probably been ridiculed about how they look. That’s the reason they have taken such drastic measures.

“However, there are some people, like Christina Aguilera, who have become very skinny recently. Sharon Osbourne, who is openly on Ozempic, looks terribly thin.

“I didn’t want to get thin. I wanted to get fit for myself and for my daughter.

“Weight-loss jabs take your appetite away. That might make you skinny, but it won’t make you strong, fit and healthy. And a quick fix wasn’t going to solve the issues I had with food.”

So does Shaughna think using Ozempic is the easy way out?

“I don’t necessarily think it’s cheating — people can police their own bodies,” she says.

“But there may be health implications we don’t know yet.

‘Trolled for being fat’

“Ozempic itself is new, but appetite suppressants are a tale as old as time. Drugs, tablets, shakes, slimming teas — you name it, they’ve been around for ever. If you’ve nothing in your body to fuel yourself, how can you exercise?”

Shaughna — who has just launched her online Shred-It Plan, which details how she shed the pounds — hit back at cruel trolls who accuse her on social media of taking Ozempic.

“Some of them just post the word ‘Ozempic’ and nothing else,” she says.

“And I’m like, ‘What, is this a spelling test or something? Are you OK?!’.

“People say my weight loss has happened overnight, but it’s only because they’ve just noticed it. I was still getting trolled for being fat back in May, when I’d actually already lost 3st.

“If Ozempic was banned tomorrow, that would do me the world of good because then people would know that I’ve done this all by myself.

“I’d do a little dance and a big ‘eff you’ on Instagram. It’s frustrating, but it doesn’t change facts.

“They can say what they want, but I know the work I’ve put in to get this far.

“I have so much going on in my life — building a house, raising a child — that what random people on the internet think about me doesn’t really matter. It’s just noise and I know they would never dare say it to my face.”

Shaughna, 30, has fought body insecurity and a dysfunctional relationship with food her whole life.

She has spoken in the past of how she felt like “the fat girl in the villa” during her time on Love Island in early 2020, despite being a size eight at the time.

However, it was after coming off the show that her weight started to creep up, first during the Covid lockdown and then later with pregnancy.

After giving birth to daughter Lucia in April 2023, Shaughna continued to eat to ease her anxiety, and by the summer of that year she was the heaviest she had ever been at more than 15st and was classed as clinically obese.

She says: “After I had Lucia, my coping mechanism was to eat. That was my happiness. I was breastfeeding at first, so I would tell myself I needed the energy.

“But it really wasn’t that. It was just to make myself happy for a couple of minutes while consuming the food, then I would feel like s*** again straight after.

“When I saw what the scales said, I found myself thinking, ‘What on earth has gone wrong? How have I got here and how do I get back to where I was?’

“I felt so ashamed about how I looked.”

The real turning point came when Shaughna had a job filming with Love Island castmate Demi Jones, and was so crippled with self-consciousness that she knew she had to take action.

When I lost 9lb in that first week, I thought my scales were broken. Jo is like a magician

Shaughna

She says: “We were in a park and it was so hot and I felt sweaty and ­miserable. We were both wearing black dresses – mine was more of a tent – and Demi was in this lovely, figure-hugging number, looking stunning.

“We looked like a before and after shot.

“I had to act my way through this job, pretending to be happy and ­confident, when really I just wanted to get in my car where I could hide.

“I look at Demi like ­family and knew that if I couldn’t be comfortable with her, then something was seriously wrong.”

Desperate to change, Shaughna turned to TV dietitian Jo Travers, who helped to unpick her difficult ­relationship with food and lose the unhealthy eating habits.

Jo also advised ­stopping exercise for a short period to allow Shaughna’s ­metabolism to reset.

The reality star said: “I thought she was mad when she told me that.

‘It takes hard work bit it’s so worth it’

“But I needed to kind of shock my metabolism into working again, because I had so much weight to lose, and it wasn’t going to be an overnight thing.

“When I lost 9lb in that first week, I thought my scales were broken. Jo is like a magician.”

After that, the losses settled at around 2lb a week and Shaughna began working with ­personal trainer Justin Thomas- Verweij on a new fitness trend known as “exercise snacking”.

That means doing daily bite-sized, 12-minute workouts rather than longer sessions over the week.

Her new figure has boosted Shaughna’s self-esteem, although she admits her struggles with body image will always be a work in progress.

Nevertheless, she is determined that things will be different for her daughter.

“To be honest, I think it’s always going to be there for me,” she reveals.

“At the moment, it’s like a scab that’s healed, but it can always be picked again, ­especially being in the public eye.

“But Lucia has given me more strength because, in my eyes, every hair on her head is perfection.

“And the thought of her ever pulling ­herself apart like I’ve done to myself is unbearable.”

Keen to set an example to 21-month-old Lucia, who she shares with on/off boyfriend Billy Webb, Shaughna resolved last year to stop using picture filters and body-tuning apps on social media.

She also reckons that having undergone a boob job and liposuction in the past, she is unlikely to have any more cosmetic ­surgery.

“There’s probably nothing left to get surgery on! Just joking!”, she says.

“I have a lot of saggy skin on my belly, but there isn’t one part of me that I would ever consider having a tuck on now.

“The amount of money I’ve spent on cosmetic surgery in the past is mad, and I wish I’d not done it because – shock – I didn’t feel prettier ­afterwards. It didn’t fix anything.”

Having said that, Shaughna does not regret having liposuction on her legs in 2020, which helped alleviate her ­lipoedema, a chronic condition which causes fat to build up under the skin.

“That was the best thing I’ve ever done because lipoedema was ruining my life,” she says.

“And it’s a progressive illness, which would have continued until I was ­potentially in a wheelchair. So I don’t class that as ­cosmetic.”

While Shaughna says she is still ­getting used to buying size eight clothes, she has vowed never to pile on the weight again.

The star – whose weight loss equates to around 80lb – says: “Thinking about how much I’ve lost is insane – my daughter weighs about 24lb and she’s heavy!

“It’s hard to fathom the additional weight I was ­carrying.

“But it’s so worth it and I finally feel like myself again.”

•  Shaughna’s Shred-it plan is available now, priced £49. See shreditplan.com.