Coronation Street star Sue Cleaver insists her body ‘doesn’t define her’ as she learns to battle ‘negative thoughts’ about her appearance following three stone weight loss

Sue Cleaver has insisted that her ‘body doesn’t define her’ as she opened up about her incredible three stone weight loss.

The Coronation Street star, 61, also admitted she was stilling learning to battle ‘negative thoughts’ about her appearance after embracing a healthier lifestyle and regular work outs.

She told Bella: ‘My body is now who I am. My body will change, my size will go up and down and I don’t define myself or get involved in any of those conversations around it’.

‘What’s more important is to do the work on the inside. I’m changing how I live, doing things differently, thats that I thought I didn’t like, and changing myself’.

Sue, who plays Eileen Grimshaw in the ITV soap, continued: ‘The trouble is when you’ve got negative thoughts you hang onto them. So it’s learning not to take those thoughts so seriously.

In March, Sue discussed her weight loss after participating in Dry January the year before (no alcohol for the month).

She said: ‘I lost 18lb [in 2022’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here]. I’d already lost a stone and a half that year, because I gave up booze. I did Dry January and then I decided to carry on.

‘I know it sounds ridiculous at my age, but I never really thought about how many calories I was consuming when I was having a glass of red wine while cooking dinner and then a couple more while eating it.

‘If you’re doing that four or five nights a week, that’s a lot of calories.’

Fans have been left astonished by Sue’s stunning transformation and gasped they ‘hardly recognised her!’ during a recent appearance on ITV’s Lorraine.

She was on the show to talk her about her new newly released autobiography A Work In Progress, however fans were distracted by her appearance.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, viewers wrote: ‘Sue Cleaver looking amazing.. #lorraine’; ‘What the hell has happened to Sue Cleaver? You’d hardly recognise her!: ‘Wow so slim – good for you’.

Last week Sue revealed that since entering her 60s she feels that the world is now her ‘oyster after years of alcohol dependency.

Telling Prima: ‘There are so many people my age who I speak to that are depressed about reaching 60. You feel like this is the end of the line, that everything goes down from here. And I absolutely don’t feel that way.

‘I just feel like the world really is my oyster now, and there’s so much available out there. There’s so much that you can do.’

She also revealed in the candid interview how her reliance on alcohol has lessened as she gets older, explaining: ‘I don’t have any fear around alcohol any more, and that is really freeing.’

‘I never imagined getting to that state. I thought I had a dependency. I thought I couldn’t get by without having a glass of wine at night.’

‘I thought life wouldn’t be great without a glass of wine. It would be absolutely great without wine. I just thought it wouldn’t. It’s the thinking around it that is the problem.’

Sue, who has played Eileen since 2000, revealed what she loves the most about her role, saying that she ‘represents every woman.’

‘Everybody knows an Eileen. You look on the majority of streets up and down the UK and you’ll find an Eileen or someone who’s kind of like an Eileen,’ she said.

‘She may not have as many waifs and strays as the TV Eileen, and she may not be fitting as many people into her very small little terraced house, but I think she’s recognisable as a woman who’s faced a lot – a single mother, dealing with what life throws at her, and not only managing, but thriving in a way.’