Khloe Kardashian's 40lb weight loss due to 5am starts – and LOTS of snacks! Really ?

Khloe Kardashian has revealed how she lost almost three stone in a year in a bid to bury her sadness about her marriage breakdown.

The 32-year-old reality star went on a health kick back in 2015 after her relationship with Lamar Odom began to fall apart, and she's since written a book – Strong Looks Better Naked – about her transformation.

Now she's come top of heat magazine's 2016 Fit List, beating Scarlett Moffatt, Adriana Lima and Charlotte Crosby to the number one spot after shedding 40lbs with daily workouts and a disciplined diet.

"Mine was a really slow process. But I didn't seek to lose 20lbs in 20 days. That wasn't my goal. It was more that, emotionally, I just wanted to feel strong," Khloe said of her weight loss back in June 2016.

Having been pegged as the curvy one in a family full of slim Kardashian children, Khloe initially found it difficult to motivate herself.

"I was always like, 'Oh I'm big boned'. But once I started losing weight naturally, I was like, wow, OK, now I'm going to get a trainer. Then six months later, I was like, I'm going to get a nutritionist."

While her gruelling workouts and strict diets – including getting up at 5am every day and not eating until 8am, after her first gym session – have paid off for Khloe, the TV personality said it didn't come easily to start with.

"The first 45 days you're like, 'F*** this'," she revealed in 2015.

"But it's just as much for all my critics who called me 'the fat one' for my entire existence."

Just last year, Khloe sparked concern from fans when she confessed she drank up to six litres of water a day in order to lose weight.