Demi
Mon, Feb-26-07, 02:53
The Mail
London, UK
Published: 22 February, 2007
Why you can never be fat and happy
by ANNE DIAMOND
A year has passed since I walked out of ITV's Celebrity Fit Club - shocked by the vindictiveness of my fellow contestants and the so-called experts when they found I'd had a gastric band fitted.
During eight years of being overweight and a public battle with the bulge, I had grown used to society's patronising attitude to fat.
But that experience 12 months ago compounded everything I had feared about what it's like to be fat in a fattist society, and the abuse an overweight person attracts.
Since then, I have lost four stone and dropped five dress sizes, but more importantly I have regained my self-esteem.
Just how much was brought home to me this week when I read of another miserable former fatty's experience. Writer India Knight, who has shed five stone and just written a book about it, recalled my memories of how gaining - and losing - weight can transform your personality.
Her descriptions of the way fat people, although occupying a great deal of physical space, actually become 'invisible' - to the shop assistants who stare through them to the men who pretend you don't exist - made me realise that the best thing I ever did to lose weight and keep it off was to stop beating myself up about it.
Being overweight affected every single day of my life. It isn't easy starting the day with a smile when all you can pull on is a pair of size 22 stretch black trousers and a T-shirt that could shelter a dozen earthquake victims.
You feel wretched. When you displace all the water in the bath and no towel will wrap around you, you feel utterly exposed.
That's when a little bit of you dies. A friend, who's a company chief executive, told me that for her the worst was when she was preparing the boardroom for a meeting and a new young secretary came in and told her to empty the bins - she assumed my friend was the cleaning lady because she was fat.
It shouldn't - but fat demeans you, even in your own eyes.
As I got larger, I stopped going out as much. I would still take my children swimming, but I'd watch them from the poolside instead of getting in and splashing around with them. I would book beach holidays in places where I hoped no one would know me.
Being snapped in my 'magic' swimming costume (which was so elasticated that it took 20 minutes to pull on and was impossible to peel off when wet) and seeing my picture in the papers terrified me.
I was already divorced, but it is at this stage that many people turn away from their partner, and turn instead to the fridge. Outside my family, the closest relationship I had was with a packet of Hobnobs.
When you're fat, you dread getting dressed in the mornings because you hate all your fat clothes, and you dread going to bed at night feeling a failure because you've eaten a Malteser.
But I never thought of myself as depressed - I was certainly never outwardly so. I know many fatties with outgoing, positive personalities who are high-achievers.
But looking back, I wonder if maybe I wasn't a bit depressed. I call it 'fat depression': being experts are patronising.
No wonder we end up hating ourselves. No wonder we conclude we're stupid, lazy slobs. Because those words go together, don't they?
Fat, lazy and stupid. I thought I must be stupid for having a weight problem after ten years of yo-yo dieting.
One obesity specialist I spoke to in Australia (where 47 per cent of women and 63 per cent of men are seriously overweight or obese) says that, by the time they see him in his clinic, people are so damaged by society that they are almost impossible to help.
They say: -Doctor, I feel ashamed to be here. I can't lose weight — I am fat, lazy and stupid."
Another weight-loss doctor in the U.S. (where 58 million are overweight, 40 million obese and three million morbidly obese) won't accept people for treatment inwardly miserable about myself, which made me even fatter.
It's hardly surprising that we hate ourselves when we put on weight. It's the last permitted prejudice. Newspaper headlines and TV shows still laugh at fat, in a manner that would break the law if it were about Aids sufferers or alcoholics, gamblers or drug addicts.
So-called diet and fitness unless they have a support system: friends and family who will help them.
A surgeon from Brazil (where obesity and malnutrition are huge problems) told me he dealt with seriously overweight children who believe - and have done since they were toddlers - that they are lazy and stupid because they are fat.
Yet, he said, after gastric bypass operations, these same children lost weight and discovered they loved running around like other kids. They were ordinary after all.
In Britain (where one in four women and one in five men are seriously overweight or obese), we live in a culture that's almost toxic to a healthy lifestyle. We're peddled, through advertising, stuff that's bad for us, and then we're harangued for eating and drinking it.
Nearly every country in the world is experiencing malnutrition and obesity epidemics.
Given that governments are not going to tackle the problems with effective policies, perhaps we have to learn to put ourselves - our bodies - first. And to do this we have to like our own bodies.
After all, it affects everything we do: the way we look, the way we live our lives and particularly the way we feel. If it suffers, so do we.
For someone who used to be called "the elfin queen of breakfast TV" in the Eighties, it was torture to spend nearly ten years of my life trying to camouflage my weight.
I had always loved clothes, wearing tiny jackets, fitted waistcoats and hip-hugging jeans. Those delights morphed gradually - yet with sinister ease — into elasticated waistbands and stretch fabrics that I kidded myself looked 'slimming'. In fact, all of those fabrics looked ghastly.
It got to the point where I wouldn't even pop to the local shop without a 'magic' girdle on - built of tough Lycra designed to push you in, from bust to bum.
But, miraculous though they seem, where does all your fat go? Inwards, where your organs are meant to be. You realise this as soon as you try to breathe.
You can deny the truth for only so long - at some point, you have to face up to it and that's when many fatties start to hate themselves.
I used to look in the bathroom mirror and despair. Never mind shaving or waxing my bikini line - I couldn't even see it.
Try painting your toenails when you have three folds of stomach in the way. It's not funny when you live this way.
I'd lost the same four stone four times. I'd spent most of my 40s yo-yo dieting. At 15 stone 10lb, I thought I'd never beat it and would become a fat old lady.
I was beginning to have aches and pains generally suffered by the overweight: niggling backaches, swollen ankles at night, breathlessness and high blood pressure.
Was I going to develop diabetes? Was I increasing my risk of cancer? Would I keel over from a heart attack or stroke? Was I going to die before my time?
That's when I realised how important your body is; it's your life. You can't be a mother, wife or career woman if your body is compromised.
I stopped beating myself up about my weight and resolved to take action.
It's a question of priorities, isn't it? I went through a time where so many other factors took precedence - surviving two devastating bereavements (my son and father), a divorce, becoming a single mum of four and balancing my life and career - and my body, my self, was no longer a priority.
I realised I would be no good to anybody if I were dead. That's why I opted for surgery. It's not for everyone, but it was for me. Apart from an unfortunate incident in Belgium where the gastric band operation went wrong (it had to be remedied in Britain), I have not looked back.
Even the BMA has recognised that telling people to 'just eat less and exercise more' is ineffective, which is why, in a few months' time, I will be speaking at a conference of GPs about my experiences.
Recently, I also took a health and weight-loss show on tour - to pass on my message to thousands of men and women who are concerned about their weight. I've become patron of The Obesity Awareness And Solutions Trust (TOAST) to help find solutions for them.
One member of my weight loss website, www.FatHappens.com, has lost 15 stone in two years. She has also lost her husband and a great many old friends.
She admits it has changed her in ways she is still struggling to understand. Her husband felt threatened by her new, confident, outgoing personality, and at 40, she wanted to live the raucous 20s she'd never had.
India Knight says she was shocked to be vilified by other writers as 'vain and stupid' for being an intelligent woman so desperate to lose weight. I hope she understands that the stupidity was with her critics.
Like me, the misery of being fat impacted on everything and everyone around her. She says she felt the need to be a 'jolly' fat person with a nifty line in self-deprecating jokes. We all deserve better than that.
I understand how devastating it is to be seriously overweight, and how liberating it is to shed the problem and feel healthy again. It is like getting your life back.
There is a risk, though: you may discover you have a personality that's been repressed for years.
It's amazing how quickly my personality bounced back. I started accepting invitations. Restaurants became a delight again, instead of a dread about falling off the diet wagon. Buying clothes became a pleasure, rather than a nightmare.
Just walking - not only did I feel sprightlier, but I held up my head again and felt proud facing the world. I redecorated the house, bought a new car. I started to live again.
Weight weighs you down in so many more ways than just gravity. It ages you - mentally and physically. A year on, people say I look younger. One woman asked me where I'd had my face-lift. I haven't had one, by the way. But if I need to, I just might.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=437775&in_page_id=1879
London, UK
Published: 22 February, 2007
Why you can never be fat and happy
by ANNE DIAMOND
A year has passed since I walked out of ITV's Celebrity Fit Club - shocked by the vindictiveness of my fellow contestants and the so-called experts when they found I'd had a gastric band fitted.
During eight years of being overweight and a public battle with the bulge, I had grown used to society's patronising attitude to fat.
But that experience 12 months ago compounded everything I had feared about what it's like to be fat in a fattist society, and the abuse an overweight person attracts.
Since then, I have lost four stone and dropped five dress sizes, but more importantly I have regained my self-esteem.
Just how much was brought home to me this week when I read of another miserable former fatty's experience. Writer India Knight, who has shed five stone and just written a book about it, recalled my memories of how gaining - and losing - weight can transform your personality.
Her descriptions of the way fat people, although occupying a great deal of physical space, actually become 'invisible' - to the shop assistants who stare through them to the men who pretend you don't exist - made me realise that the best thing I ever did to lose weight and keep it off was to stop beating myself up about it.
Being overweight affected every single day of my life. It isn't easy starting the day with a smile when all you can pull on is a pair of size 22 stretch black trousers and a T-shirt that could shelter a dozen earthquake victims.
You feel wretched. When you displace all the water in the bath and no towel will wrap around you, you feel utterly exposed.
That's when a little bit of you dies. A friend, who's a company chief executive, told me that for her the worst was when she was preparing the boardroom for a meeting and a new young secretary came in and told her to empty the bins - she assumed my friend was the cleaning lady because she was fat.
It shouldn't - but fat demeans you, even in your own eyes.
As I got larger, I stopped going out as much. I would still take my children swimming, but I'd watch them from the poolside instead of getting in and splashing around with them. I would book beach holidays in places where I hoped no one would know me.
Being snapped in my 'magic' swimming costume (which was so elasticated that it took 20 minutes to pull on and was impossible to peel off when wet) and seeing my picture in the papers terrified me.
I was already divorced, but it is at this stage that many people turn away from their partner, and turn instead to the fridge. Outside my family, the closest relationship I had was with a packet of Hobnobs.
When you're fat, you dread getting dressed in the mornings because you hate all your fat clothes, and you dread going to bed at night feeling a failure because you've eaten a Malteser.
But I never thought of myself as depressed - I was certainly never outwardly so. I know many fatties with outgoing, positive personalities who are high-achievers.
But looking back, I wonder if maybe I wasn't a bit depressed. I call it 'fat depression': being experts are patronising.
No wonder we end up hating ourselves. No wonder we conclude we're stupid, lazy slobs. Because those words go together, don't they?
Fat, lazy and stupid. I thought I must be stupid for having a weight problem after ten years of yo-yo dieting.
One obesity specialist I spoke to in Australia (where 47 per cent of women and 63 per cent of men are seriously overweight or obese) says that, by the time they see him in his clinic, people are so damaged by society that they are almost impossible to help.
They say: -Doctor, I feel ashamed to be here. I can't lose weight — I am fat, lazy and stupid."
Another weight-loss doctor in the U.S. (where 58 million are overweight, 40 million obese and three million morbidly obese) won't accept people for treatment inwardly miserable about myself, which made me even fatter.
It's hardly surprising that we hate ourselves when we put on weight. It's the last permitted prejudice. Newspaper headlines and TV shows still laugh at fat, in a manner that would break the law if it were about Aids sufferers or alcoholics, gamblers or drug addicts.
So-called diet and fitness unless they have a support system: friends and family who will help them.
A surgeon from Brazil (where obesity and malnutrition are huge problems) told me he dealt with seriously overweight children who believe - and have done since they were toddlers - that they are lazy and stupid because they are fat.
Yet, he said, after gastric bypass operations, these same children lost weight and discovered they loved running around like other kids. They were ordinary after all.
In Britain (where one in four women and one in five men are seriously overweight or obese), we live in a culture that's almost toxic to a healthy lifestyle. We're peddled, through advertising, stuff that's bad for us, and then we're harangued for eating and drinking it.
Nearly every country in the world is experiencing malnutrition and obesity epidemics.
Given that governments are not going to tackle the problems with effective policies, perhaps we have to learn to put ourselves - our bodies - first. And to do this we have to like our own bodies.
After all, it affects everything we do: the way we look, the way we live our lives and particularly the way we feel. If it suffers, so do we.
For someone who used to be called "the elfin queen of breakfast TV" in the Eighties, it was torture to spend nearly ten years of my life trying to camouflage my weight.
I had always loved clothes, wearing tiny jackets, fitted waistcoats and hip-hugging jeans. Those delights morphed gradually - yet with sinister ease — into elasticated waistbands and stretch fabrics that I kidded myself looked 'slimming'. In fact, all of those fabrics looked ghastly.
It got to the point where I wouldn't even pop to the local shop without a 'magic' girdle on - built of tough Lycra designed to push you in, from bust to bum.
But, miraculous though they seem, where does all your fat go? Inwards, where your organs are meant to be. You realise this as soon as you try to breathe.
You can deny the truth for only so long - at some point, you have to face up to it and that's when many fatties start to hate themselves.
I used to look in the bathroom mirror and despair. Never mind shaving or waxing my bikini line - I couldn't even see it.
Try painting your toenails when you have three folds of stomach in the way. It's not funny when you live this way.
I'd lost the same four stone four times. I'd spent most of my 40s yo-yo dieting. At 15 stone 10lb, I thought I'd never beat it and would become a fat old lady.
I was beginning to have aches and pains generally suffered by the overweight: niggling backaches, swollen ankles at night, breathlessness and high blood pressure.
Was I going to develop diabetes? Was I increasing my risk of cancer? Would I keel over from a heart attack or stroke? Was I going to die before my time?
That's when I realised how important your body is; it's your life. You can't be a mother, wife or career woman if your body is compromised.
I stopped beating myself up about my weight and resolved to take action.
It's a question of priorities, isn't it? I went through a time where so many other factors took precedence - surviving two devastating bereavements (my son and father), a divorce, becoming a single mum of four and balancing my life and career - and my body, my self, was no longer a priority.
I realised I would be no good to anybody if I were dead. That's why I opted for surgery. It's not for everyone, but it was for me. Apart from an unfortunate incident in Belgium where the gastric band operation went wrong (it had to be remedied in Britain), I have not looked back.
Even the BMA has recognised that telling people to 'just eat less and exercise more' is ineffective, which is why, in a few months' time, I will be speaking at a conference of GPs about my experiences.
Recently, I also took a health and weight-loss show on tour - to pass on my message to thousands of men and women who are concerned about their weight. I've become patron of The Obesity Awareness And Solutions Trust (TOAST) to help find solutions for them.
One member of my weight loss website, www.FatHappens.com, has lost 15 stone in two years. She has also lost her husband and a great many old friends.
She admits it has changed her in ways she is still struggling to understand. Her husband felt threatened by her new, confident, outgoing personality, and at 40, she wanted to live the raucous 20s she'd never had.
India Knight says she was shocked to be vilified by other writers as 'vain and stupid' for being an intelligent woman so desperate to lose weight. I hope she understands that the stupidity was with her critics.
Like me, the misery of being fat impacted on everything and everyone around her. She says she felt the need to be a 'jolly' fat person with a nifty line in self-deprecating jokes. We all deserve better than that.
I understand how devastating it is to be seriously overweight, and how liberating it is to shed the problem and feel healthy again. It is like getting your life back.
There is a risk, though: you may discover you have a personality that's been repressed for years.
It's amazing how quickly my personality bounced back. I started accepting invitations. Restaurants became a delight again, instead of a dread about falling off the diet wagon. Buying clothes became a pleasure, rather than a nightmare.
Just walking - not only did I feel sprightlier, but I held up my head again and felt proud facing the world. I redecorated the house, bought a new car. I started to live again.
Weight weighs you down in so many more ways than just gravity. It ages you - mentally and physically. A year on, people say I look younger. One woman asked me where I'd had my face-lift. I haven't had one, by the way. But if I need to, I just might.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=437775&in_page_id=1879