Davinia Taylor shed three stone after turning to food following mum's death

Davinia Taylor has revealed she shed three stone after getting to the point where she was “borderline obese".

The former Hollyoaks star, 43, said she piled on the pounds when she turned to food after the death of her mum.

Speaking on This Morning, Taylor said doctors warned her that she was close to obesity and needed to start “moderating”.

Read more: Davinia Taylor: Alcoholism was like being taken over by a parasite

She said: “Me, as a recovering alcoholic, said, ‘Oh moderation. Yeah, that will work with me. Thanks so much for that advice.’ I can’t moderate, I can’t have one Pringle, I’ll have the packet.”

However, the star went on to lose the weight, going from being a size 16 to a size 8.

She told hosts Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary: “First of all you don’t count calories, you’ve got to count chemicals.

"What I’ve done over the years… I eat on depression. When I’m upset or stressed, I reach for carbohydrates and that’s sort of a form of bio hacking.

“Basically you’re trying to hack into your hormones to boost your mood, and I was doing that after my mum died, constantly, because I gave up drinking 13 years ago so I knew I couldn’t go to that.

"So I turned to carbohydrates and sugars and pizza and everything.

"I couldn’t stop.”

Taylor said she came to realise that some of the ingredients in the food she was eating – such as sugar and certain oils - were “triggering me to be even more depressed”.

“When I cut that out, all of a sudden, my body started functioning better, and I could metabolise the food I was storing and get rid of it, and then improve my mood and then start exercising,” said the star, who played Jude Cunningham in the Channel 4 soap.

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Taylor has opened up about her weight loss journey in her book, It’s Not A Diet.

Watch: Dermot O'Leary has heated debate with Beverley Turner