Why fat women like me only have ourselves to blame



At five stone overweight, my belly overtakes me wherever I go and I struggle to squeeze into a size 18. How did I reach this state? The answer most people give is that I’m a lazy pig. I eat too much and I don’t do enough exercise.

Fair enough, but why would I choose that? I’m an intelligent, middle-class woman.

I know about the dangers of obesity and have even written for the NHS about the benefits of getting fit. Yet I have grown fat.



Dedication: Ursula Hirschkorn is now committed to a weight loss plan

Weight isn’t a simple issue. Yes, people get fat because they eat chips, but slim people do that too; they just know when to stop. But where a normal-sized person gives themselves occasional treats, the obese are gluttonous.

I can trace my own weight gain to greasy takeaways when I needed cheering up, slabs of chocolate gulped down to relieve the boredom of taking care of small children and crisps eaten without even noticing as they went down.

But what I don’t understand is why my size-10 friends seem to know that one indulgent evening of ice cream is enough, yet I am not satisfied unless I repeat this gluttonous pattern night after night.

I used to feel jealous of friends whom I thought could eat whatever they liked. They would tuck into a bowl of chips and I would believe they were simply luckier than me.



What I realise now is that these girls had the self-control to eat a salad for lunch most days, so when they did indulge themselves it didn’t do any real harm. But my day wasn’t complete without a big breakfast, a hearty lunch and all those extra treats.

I think this kind of delusion about what you and others are eating plays a big part in putting on weight. Even if the food you eat is healthy, you still can’t eat mountains of it.

But what really puzzles me is what drives someone to overeat? Once you have satiated your hunger, continuing to feed yourself isn’t fun. I would find myself cramming down that last mouthful when my stomach was so groaning with food that I really didn’t want it.

I think it’s because I was brought up to use food as a comfort. I come from a long line of larger ladies, all of whom thought the ills of the world could be dissolved away by munching down a bar or two of chocolate.

To them, food was not something to be eaten in moderation; a dish was only delicious when full to overflowing and food only sustaining when laden with calories. When I fell over as a child, the answer was a sweetie, if life was tough as a teen I was taken out for pizza.

Svelte: Ursula on holiday in Cuba

I soon associated feeling full with being nurtured. To indulge my appetite was to salve my soul and I simply couldn’t split the two apart. Eating was about a whole host of powerful emotions; love, comfort, consolation and reassurance.

When I was young and active, this didn’t do too much harm. But over the past decade I have been cooped up at home caring for my four small boys. The treats began to mount up and I became dangerously obese.

I was bored. I had given up the cut and thrust of a magazine office and I found looking after young children demanding and lonely. I compensated with big, filling meals and takeaways to cheer me up when my only adult companion, my husband, came home from work.

I missed my old freedom. If I couldn’t go out to the cinema or for a drink with my friends, I would make up for it with a big meal and a bottle of wine in front of the TV.

Of course, my friends and family noticed. But most of them were too polite to mention my weight gain. My mother, who has struggled with her weight all her life, would occasionally nag me to eat less or go to the gym, but I had grown deaf to her words, as I had heard them all my life whatever my size.

My husband never said a word, but I began to notice that he took less interest in me physically. He had always been great at critiquing my outfits, but now he just glanced at me and said I looked fine.

As usual, I turned to food. I got so fat that when I was weighed last year I was as heavy as I had been when I was pregnant with my twins — and they are two now.

Even though I knew I was big, I was horrified to discover just how heavy I had become. I was angry with myself for failing to halt the rising numbers on the scales.

I can’t plead ignorance, as I’m well aware that the key to keeping control of your weight is simple. For all the diet programmes pedalled by so-called experts, there is no one who doesn’t know the formula — eat less and do more.

But that knowledge isn’t enough to break a dependence on food that has gripped you since childhood.



I got so fat that when I was weighed last year I was as heavy as I had been when I was pregnant with my twins

My day was centred on what I ate, and there was never a time when I wasn’t thinking about what I would eat next. Food was filling a vacuum in my life; it was my support, what I lived for.

So yes, I suppose that everyone who looked at me and thought: ‘What a greedy pig,’ was right.

But what they couldn’t see was that losing weight isn’t as simple as it looks. It’s about forgetting habits ingrained since infancy and reaching for something else to take its place.

This is the only way in which anyone will ever manage to shift the pounds and keep them off.

When the doctor told me my weight — 15st 8lbs — I felt sick. I was killing myself with food.

I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, meaning my blood sugar levels were so high that if I didn’t lose weight soon I would develop full-blown diabetes.

It was the warning I needed to allow myself to see clearly the role that food was playing in my life — one of destruction. Being fat was ruining my health and wrecking my self-esteem.

I understood that if I didn’t tackle my issues with food, I might not be around to see my sons grow up.

Two weeks before Christmas I began to eat healthily and joined a gym — I managed to lose half a stone as everyone else tucked into mince pies, pudding and cake. But I never wavered and have now lost more than two stone.

There are still many more to go. Every day is a struggle. I get by on a egg for breakfast, soup or salad for lunch and a stir fry or grilled fish with vegetables for supper. Snacks are a small handful of nuts or a piece of fruit.

But the toughest part has been facing up to why I got fat. I understand that instead of using food to nourish me, I was using it to make my life less boring, to cheer me up.

I have had to learn to turn reading, swimming or getting a cuddle into my daily treat, rather than a chocolate bar.

It is early days, but I think this is the first weight loss plan that started with retraining my brain rather than restraining my appetite, which means it is the first with a chance of success.

