Big Brother update: Wow, look at Vesna!

The reality star tells how she transformed her body…and found true love and happiness along the way.

Vesna Tosev was an overnight sensation on season five of Big Brother. Her outrageous personality, killer curves and say-anything attitude made her a crowd favourite. However, beneath the confident facade, Vesna admits she was anything but happy with herself. “I didn’t really love my body,” she says. “I was forced to love it. I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t fit… I was forced to be OK with it.”

Seven years on, it’s hard to believe the trim, toned 35-year-old posing for our exclusive shoot is the same woman. Bouncing along to music, Vesna is happier than she’s ever been – and 15kg lighter too. “I do feel comfortable in a bikini these days,” she says, grinning. “I’m not perfect, but I do feel fabulous.” After exiting the Big Brother house, where she piled on the kilos, the voluptuous hairdresser found herself branded the pin-up star for plus-size women – whether she liked it or not. The fact is, she didn’t.

“I stacked on the weight in the house,” Vesna recalls. “I thought I was that curvy girl before I even entered the house, but when I put on all the weight, that label was thrust on me. I didn’t like it at all. “I just had to accept it, even though it did make me feel very uncomfortable. I felt I had to put a smile on my face and get on with it, but it caused me a lot of pain. “With time, I came to realise that wasn’t who I wanted to be forever,” she continues.

“I still wanted to be curvy – and I always will be – but I didn’t want to be large. I realised that I really wasn’t happy. Everyone else seemed to like me that way, but I didn’t.” Having tried almost every diet imaginable – “pills, potions, lotions, everything” – and with her weight fluctuating wildly, Vesna settled on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet combined with gym workouts four times a week. “I have six small meals a day during the week, with my carbs only coming from vegies,” she reveals. “I don’t eat bread, pasta, rice or potatoes, but I will have those on the weekend.”