An Adele superfan who struggled with ‘yoyo dieting' and his eating habits was so inspired by the star's weight loss journey that he travelled to Turkey for weight loss surgery.

Tariq Wright, 35, had ballooned to a weight of 20 stone (127 kg) back in 2023 when his doctor told him he needed to take medication to control his blood pressure.

Obese Tariq had been skipping breakfast and lunch each day so he could binge eat £40 worth of McDonald's, including multiple Big Macs and side orders of chicken nuggets, as well as packets of biscuits for dinner.

Now, the Sheffield native has lost 9.5 stone (60 kg), or almost half his original body weight, as he credits Adele for providing the inspiration to keep to his goal.

Tariq, who has seen the British pop star 10 times, including in Las Vegas and Munich, said: "She's a massive inspiration to me."

"Not only from her music, her lyrics just speak to my soul, but also from seeing her incredible weight loss transformation she inspired me to want to be a better version of myself."

Now, thanks to life-changing surgery Tariq is a weight loss social media influencer who earns up to £40k a month from his TikTok videos.

He said: "It's gone from me being severely obese and covering my whole body to being offered collaborations with underwear brands."

"It's just beyond belief for me – going from someone who's incredibly unconfident to being someone wearing skimpy underwear, it's not something you expect to happen."

Tariq made the decision to have the drastic surgery quickly following a doctor's warning back in late 2022.

He turned TikTok and Instagram for options and found out about clinics in Turkey which could give him a gastric sleeve – reducing the size of his stomach so he would feel fuller with less food.

Just four months after his doctor's appointment, in March 2023, he jetted off to the country's Gozde Kusadasi Hospital for the life-changing major surgery, at a cost of £3,500.

Tariq said: "I just went there for surgery and flew home after a week – I went on a Sunday and flew home the following Sunday, I was in hospital the whole time, I didn't do anything."

"It's quite major surgery, so you're not in a position to do very much after."

There, in about an hour, doctors removed about 80% of his stomach, leaving behind a tubular sleeve, about the size and shape of a banana.

After he got back to the UK, Tariq noticed every day life become much easier.

He said: "When I was overweight I used to sweat so much, I would literally do the smallest walk and be covered in sweat. I'd be sat in an office in winter with a desktop fan on."

"Colleagues would be like ‘why have you got a fan on, it's snowing outside?' and I'd be like ‘I'm hot', I was literally sweating."

"Now, I don't get that – I can go walking, I can sit in an office without a fan on, because my body temperature can regulate itself. "

"That was major for me, that was probably one of my biggest insecurities, because I would sweat so much."

Since returning home, Tariq has kept to a stricter high protein, low carb diet.

Far from £40 worth of Big Macs in the evening, an average day will now see him eat a protein yoghurt for breakfast, a chicken salad for lunch, and a chicken curry with rice for dinner.

Tariq went back Turkey in March of this year to have half a stone's worth of excess skin removed from his body in an eight-hour long surgery.

Having chosen to steer clear from weight loss drugs like Mounjaro or Ozempic, Tariq says he now faces the challenge of keeping the weight off.

He added: "Now I'm two and a half years post-op from my gastric sleeve, now is probably the most challenging time."

"Thinking about food and the binge eating tendencies I had are still there, a gastric sleeve doesn't cure that."

"Combatting those feelings of wanting to binge eat is really difficult. That's where having a gastric sleeve gets really handy – I can't fit that volume of food in because I've only got a really small stomach."

"It takes that ability to be able to do it away, but it doesn't take the noise of it in your head away, so that's a real big struggle that a lot of people including myself face after."