I WONDER ....

... if hiccuping is my body’s way of telling me not to chew, or at least swallow.

For normal people, whose lives aren’t dictated by the eating/not eating conundrum, I’m sure they just think it’s an inconvenience.

They’d wait until the involuntary spasm of their diaphragm stopped, and then move on with what they were doing before.

Chances are it wouldn’t have been, like in my case, walking past Greggs and wondering if two cheese-and-onion pasties would be breaking the dieting law, even considering that I’d had nothing to eat that day and it was 3.27pm.

But as I approached the window of joy, I felt a sudden rush of air into my lungs which caused my epiglottis to close – yes, I started hiccuping.

The trouble with hiccuping when you’re as big as I am (no letters from smaller sympathisers please) is that you look like you’re doing a belly laugh. Only it’s no joke.

When big girls really chortle and let rip, it’s a beautiful sight. Normally it’s unfettered, throaty and uncensored.

But something also happens to that one bit of ourselves we can’t stand to be associated with but which follows us around like a gutsy lunatic.

Our bellies convulse, shake, rattle and roll about, jabbing their way further forward – if possible – into the world.

They thrust the unthrustable onwards, which means our big bums are left playing catch-up, our big behinds trailing behind.

We hiccup, and the world holds its breath, and if you’ve got that cough-wee association going on like I do, Pampers makes a mint.

I read, though, that one possible beneficial effect of hiccups is to dislodge foreign pieces of food.

I don’t know about you, but I know exactly what goes in my mouth, and none of it’s a stranger. And I’m fully conversant in the language of Carbs.

Anyway, the boffins say, “When a piece of food is swallowed that is too large for the natural peristalsis of the oesophagus to move the food quickly into the stomach, it applies pressure on the phrenic nerve, invoking the hiccup reflex.

“This causes the diaphragm to contract, creating a vacuum in the thoracic cavity, which creates a region of low pressure on the side of the lump of food nearest the stomach, and a region of high pressure on the side of the lump of food nearest the mouth.

“This lungs differential across the food creates a force, which assists peristalsis.

“In humans, gravity partially assists peristalsis, but in quadrupeds and many marine vertebrates, their oesophagi run roughly perpendicular to the force of gravity, so gravity provides little assistance.

“The hiccup mechanism likely evolved as an aid to peristalsis in our ancestors.”

Or, if you take me as an example, it’s what happens when you forget to chew a custard slice and appear to swallow it whole. Yes, vipers have nothing on me.

People are always banging on to me about why I should listen to my body.

Then, they say, I’ll only eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full.

I must be deaf then. I know I’m blind to the notion of my allure, and it seems I’m also devoid of another sense, in the “common” sense of the term.

I spent about a month listening to a Paul McKenna CD, one which would help me gain control of my diet.

All I got at the end of the four weeks was a dislike for an Essex accent.

For all my gesticulating, though, I don’t often eat cakes or pasties or really, really bad things.

But I do binge and fall into a vat of self-negation as I mentally step over a sea of empty wrappers and mountain of breadcrumbs from a fresh cob stuffed down my gob, actions which cruelly make me binge all the more.

And I was bingeing while musing on pasties and the fact I told my Significant (thin) Other I was going to go back to Fat Club (again...) next week.

I realise now that at the same time – I think I must have been semi-unconscious or in a flaky pastry daze – I was attempting to swallow the custard slice. Width ways.

It was then that the hiccups started.

I didn’t go back to the office to ask someone to startle me, drink water through a cloth or hold my breath.

But there is something to be said for eating a spoonful of sugar/honey/peanut butter while waiting for nature to take its course.

Me at Baglan library ...

... where I "entertained bookworms in a funny, frank and hilarious fashion" (apparently!)

I doubt that anyone ...

... would say on their deathbed, “You know, I wish I’d spent more time on the internet.”

They may, however, say, while facing down the gates of heaven which are more chewing gum white after a lifetime of bad living than pearly, “If only I’d had more ice-cream.”

Someone sent me an email asking me to think about that the other day. It came from a VERY fancy author, one of the biggest selling in the UK let alone Wales.

She was blathering on about how much she enjoyed my book but – there’s always a big BUT isn’t there, especially when us big girls turn around and catch sight of the trailer trash that is our derriere – she couldn’t understand the way I treat myself in its pages.

It’s the same old story, moans about why I spilled my ample guts in such a way, and why I beat myself up about my perceived limitations and weaknesses, especially around homemade lasagne and chips.

“But you’re lovely just the way you are,” she threw at me from the safety of her size 14 zone.

“A friend of mine spent a lifetime dieting and never seemed to be satisfied with the way she was, even though everyone said she was lovely. And do you know what she said to me before she died? ‘If only I’d had more ice-cream.’ You want to think about that.”

And think about that I did, for a few minutes at least.

I thought, yep, she’s right – why am I ruled by my weight? Why do I allow myself to weigh out my self-esteem by how many pieces of bread I have a day?

So I did what any self- respecting professional dieter would do after an epiphany – I ate my lunch at 27 minutes past nine. In the morning, you understand.

I got up off my now beautiful arse and walked towards the tiny fridge in work which seemed to be filled by two of my rolls, grabbed the one, took it to my desk and started to unwrap the foil which was hiding away my hope and fears in one tiny bundle of egg and cress in a Tiger Roll comforter.

And I ate, I chewed, I bit down on more eggy cressness while the years of weight watching confusion suddenly cleared.

And then… and then… and then… I broke a tooth. While I’m digesting this new twist in my sobriety, the sheer force of my hunger to right my lifetime of wrongs – and, okay, eat for Wales before anyone noticed I was having my lunch for breakfast WITH my breakfast – my greed backfires big style.

Agony is NOT the word; but I still managed to chew the other one on the right hand side while my left canine was split in half and digging into the root of my mouth. I’m nothing if not resourceful.

The next day, having spent the night celebrating my return to toothy form with a quart of Green & Blacks ice-cream, my new sense of equilibrium was tested in the most cruel of ways.

No, I didn’t have to have a medical, wear Lycra, run a mile, go braless, go sleeveless and straighten my hair – I had to go and interview singer Katherine Jenkins.

She’s lovely, is Kath, really down to earth and chopsy.

She’s also as big as my wrist and just about comes up to my belly (and you know how a girl hates drawing attention to that… she’s so small she could hide under it to avoid a tan).

The diminutive diva opened the door to me, threw her arms around me and said – yes, without a smirk on her flawless face – “Han, you look so glam! You look amazing.”

Honest to God, that’s what she said – Size Dwt, perfectly formed, not a hair out of place Jenkins.

And what did I say? “Shut up Kath… I came on the bus, my legs are chaffing, I’ve had two fags and been spraying Samsara like there’s no tomorrow all over me to disguise it, my knickers are too tight, you’ve got a hairdresser and make-up artist doing the magic on you this morning so forgive me if I start to involuntarily twang during our interview, and I put fake tan on this morning instead of foundation cream.”

She asked about my book (“What’s it about?” Me being fat. “You’re not fat.” Shut up Kath, I think you must have one eye in Brynmawr, the other in Tonteg. “You’re so funny.” And you’re so tiny.)

If there’s anyone in the world who can silently remind you that having too much ice-cream could be a bad thing, it’s her.

But that didn’t stop me from trying out the nerve endings on my newly-repaired gnashers with a 99 and two Flakes on the bus back to reality.

I didn't buy her video,

... but that’s only because it wasn’t in Tesco when the need to be educated inch by inch by Jade Goody came over me.

It didn’t last long, like many of my good intentions.

But this one day, thinking that I’d try yet another scam to get myself fit and feeling fabulous again, I thought I’d give the girl a try.

But Jade’s Shape Challenge and me wasn’t meant to be.

I got Gaynor Faye’s fitness DVD instead, but gave up on that as a bad lot when housemate Hiya Love had an asthma attack watching me do fake skating on the bathroom mat and star jumps in the kitchen. Not a pretty sight.

Besides, I was thankful it wasn’t on the shelves because I can’t stand her voice, the same voice that once declared the Mona Lisa was painted by someone called Pistachio, Rio de Janeiro was a “person”, Mother Theresa “is from Germany”, Portugal was “in Spain”, “East Angular is abroad”, “Saddam Hussein was a boxer” and “I may not be the sharpest tool in the sandwich box.”

Anyway, guess what I learned today?

Miss Goody has been a bit of a baddie because she’s about to appear on Tonight with Sir Trevor McDonald (as an aside, how dull is that man?) and reveal that when she dropped two dress sizes, it wasn’t really down to her evangelical jumping about.

Nope, mouth almighty was actually addicted to slimming pills.

Jade will spill the salt-free, low-fat beans to Sir Trevor about her desperation to shed the pounds after becoming famous on Big Brother back in 2002.

As you may recall, Jade was originally nicknamed Miss Piggy after her stint in the BB house, but after leaving the show she slimmed down and, of course, made the fitness video.

An insider from Camp Goody is quick to insist that although Jade’s weight has increased rapidly since her controversial appearance on Celebrity BB, she has not resorted to slimming pills again.

This in turn prompted one online women’s magazine to gloat, “We feel so cheated, here we were tirelessly working out to our ‘Let’s get fit, and get dancing’ vid, and all along she was just popping pills. Bloomin’ cheek!”

Is that what you think? Are you of the opinion that she in some way cheated her audience?

Well, okay, so you may have a point. But – and here’s the big question – would you take slimming pills if you could get your pudgy little hands on them?

I would. And I have. And they didn’t work.

I’ve tried them a few times – from appetite suppressants to those blue babies which make you “expel” fat in not the most pleasant of ways.

Nothing worked on me. Mam Jones says it’s because I’ve got the constitution of a horse. (Sadly, my arse is the size of one too.)

I can’t berate Jade for doing what she thought she needed to do for the press to take her seriously. They don’t take pictures of fat birds, do they?

She may have fallen out of favour since her last and disastrous BB outing, but there’s no denying that since she first left the house as a gobby blonde in a tight pink dress, she’s not done too bad for herself.

It doesn’t matter how she did it, but she is still a lot slimmer. She’s a glossier brunette, with an on/off 19-year-old boyfriend, two sons aged three and two from a previous relationship, her own perfume, two fitness videos, a property portfolio, and a fortune in the bank from interviews and photoshoots with magazines and highly lucrative appearances in other reality TV shows such as What Jade Did Next and Celebrity Driving School.

She even ousted Victoria Beckham from the cover of celebrity-obsessed Heat magazine, struck up an unlikely friendship with Kate Moss (Jade, according to showbiz sources, has been invited to several parties at the supermodel’s home), and was recognised by Samuel L Jackson when the two found themselves on the same plane.

And why? It’s not her brain power is it. Nope, it’s because she lost weight and glammed up a bit.

And everybody loves a good diet story. Right?

The same goes for another Big Brother contestant, this time Welsh wonder Laura “Wangers” Williams.

She’s also decided to try to slim down because she’s been told she won’t get any big deals – or those prerequisite bikini shots in lads’ mags which really bring in the big bucks – because she’s not thin enough, a typical object of desire.

Laura says she’s determined to lose weight, tone up and get the kind of work “slimmer” BB exes bag.

“I’m trying to lose weight to get more work,” is how she put it to me when we met recently, gym gear at her side, in a Cardiff restaurant where we enjoyed a dieter’s dream lunch of cheese-loaded potato skins, cheesy garlic bread, full fat pop, onion rings and coleslaw.

“I’ve been told by loads of people that it will get me more work, see. Think about it – people like Chanelle (the Victoria Beckham wannabe from this year’s show) and others like her have had bikini shots in the magazines. Has anyone asked me? You’ve got to be joking. And I’m not all that big!” she points out.

“I’ve just got big boobs. To be honest, I don’t really care about what I look like,” an innocent’s grasp of irony seeping into her conversation once again.

“My agent – I got one for going on the show – tells me people like looking at nice-looking people. I don’t think I need to lose weight to look nice, but there you are. I’ve lost about a stone so far I think and want to get to under 10 stone. Anyway, perhaps I won’t like the thin Laura. Perhaps she’ll be boring and I’ll hate the skinny me. I’m living on fresh air and water these days.

“The press were cruel though. This woman in The Sun was talking about me and Shabnam in the shower, wondering how she managed to fit in there with me in there too, cheeky cow.

“Well I may be fatter than that writer, but she’ll always be ugly.”

I don’t think La Wangers has resorted to the pills in order spill the flab. Yet.

But I know what desperation tastes like. And sadly it always comes super sized.