Great British Bake Off’s Laura Adlington proudly displays her curves in a black swimsuit as she shares empowering body positivity message

Great British Bake Off star Laura Adlington proudly showed off her curves as she shared an important message on Instagram on Wednesday.

The 36-year-old shared a series of snaps, including herself in a black swimsuit, to empower her followers to not fixate on the saturation of transformation posts on social media. 

Laura wrote: ‘Lots of people are posting transformation pictures right now (and good for them). But can I just say… It’s ok if your body stayed the same this year…

‘You are not failing if you didn’t ‘transform’… your weight is not equal to your worth and you are enough exactly who you are’. 

Followers really appreciated the message and told Laura: ‘I needed to see this and remind myself to stop comparing myself to others. Happy New Year to you and your beautiful baby’;

‘You are such an inspiration. It is so hard to work through body changes after having a baby too’.  

Back in October, Laura and her husband Matt welcomed their miracle IVF baby after nine years of infertility and being told to lose 14st before she could get pregnant.

The couple, who tied the knot five years ago, took to Instagram to announce the happy news that they are now a family of three.

To share the new arrival the married couple posted a series of snaps from the birth, alongside the caption: ‘After 9 years of wishing and 9 months of growing and waiting – our little miracle is finally here, safe in our arms.

‘Everyone, meet George. George, meet this community of amazing women who have championed you long before you arrived.

‘We’re all doing really well and are happily disappearing into the newborn bubble for a bit.

‘But I just wanted to let you know that he’s here and say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all the love and support. I’ve felt it every step of the way.’

Laura first shared she was pregnant in an Instagram post in April after ‘quietly deciding to give IVF a try’ over a year ago.

The size 26 body positivity model previously gave up her hopes up of having a baby after she was told by doctors that her only chance to get pregnant was to try IVF and she would have to lose weight first to qualify.

Sharing her happy news, she wrote: ‘After 9 years of infertility, we are very excited (and still a bit in shock) to be expecting our little IVF miracle in October ✨

‘I know announcements like this can be really painful, especially if you’re in the thick of waiting or grieving, so please feel free to mute or unfollow if you need to and know I’m sending so much love your way.

‘It’s been such a really long, and to be honest lonely road to get here – something many of you will know if you’ve followed me for a while or listened to the podcast.

‘We’d honestly made peace with the idea that having children might not happen for us. But about a year and a half ago, we quietly decided to give IVF a try.

‘We kept it to ourselves and decided not to share online (or even with family) just so we didn’t put more pressure on ourselves.

‘We had an unsuccessful round and a cancelled round, and then found out a couple of months ago that I was finally pregnant.

‘I’ll be sharing a bit more over the coming weeks about our journey to get here but for now we’re just really excited to share our news with you all. We honestly can’t believe our luck.’

In 2022, Laura detailed it was always a dream of hers to become a mother after admitting she decided against starting a family.

Speaking to Fabulous magazine, she said: ‘Unless you’ve gone through infertility and that heartache of really wanting it and it not happening . . . it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.’

The star, who appeared on the 2020 series of the Channel 4 show, told how she had always wanted to be a mother and thought, ‘what’s the point?’ if she couldn’t have a child.

She said: ‘I’ve never thought, “I want to take my own life”, but I definitely have had thoughts that I didn’t want to be here any more. And I have phoned Samaritans on a few occasions and really benefitted from it.’

Laura said she tried to lose weight after speaking to her doctors and even considered bariatric surgery before deciding it wasn’t for her.

The star, who has struggled with her weight since she was eight, found it difficult to lose so much to have the IVF.

She said: ‘It was such a lot to lose — about 14st and I just struggled to do that. I wonder if that will always play on my mind, particularly as I get older.’