There is nothing “gentle” ...

... about telling someone that they need to lose weight. Put the goodie two shoes medical stuff aside for a minute, please, and hearing the words “slim down or ship out” has got to hurt. And that doesn’t matter who you are in life’s colourful tapestry. Nobody should confuse having thick ankles with being thick skinned.

We appear to be living in a society where the worst five words in the world seem to be “S***, you’ve put on weight”, where everyone actually dreams of hearing “Wow…. What diet are YOU on“ or “You look so fabulous, you really MUST give me the name of your bariatric surgeon”.

What you don’t expect is someone like Oprah Winfrey who, unlike Fern Briton, has showed the world every single one of her emotional and physical stretchmarks, to kowtow to those who think they know better.

But that, apparently, is exactly what the queen of unconventional did when US Vogue editor Anna Wintour told the talk show host to drop 20 pounds to be on the cover of the fashion magazine back in 1998.

The severly fringed and obviously viper tongued one revealed that is what she said during an unaired segment from her 60 Minutes interview recently shown in the States.

"It was a very gentle suggestion," she said, laughing (the cheek!). "I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight."

Oh, an IDEA. Right…. as if one on this every subject hadn’t popped into Oprah’s mind before!

She added: "I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!"

Oprah, 55, must have listened to the fashion legend, who deals with style and trades on women’s insecurities by offering up images of dreams we can’t even aspire to let alone achieve. Perfection costs, and you can’t pay for it in the currency of carbs sadly.

Anyway, Oprah was featured on the cover from more than 10 years ago with the tagline: "Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover” in order to sell her film, Beloved.

“She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet," Wintour said. "And it was one of our most successful covers ever."

It’s amazing to me that Winfrey has pockets so deep could purchase Vogue if she wanted to, yet to get on the cover, she had to make a deal with the devil, even if she was wearing Prada and offering to dress you in designer gear from head to toe.

I’m not sure what is more surprising here, Oprah losing the weight for Wintour or Wintour suggesting to someone of her stature that she didn’t quite measure up in the beauty stakes, which in effect precluded her from beatific greatness as defined by her.

Note I didn’t say smart enough, famous enough, rich enough. She simply was too big.

A decade on, and I’d like to think that Oprah has learned her lesson and wouldn’t slim for anyone, but herself. And she’d tell Wintour to rearrange the words “stick”, “skinny“ “Vogue”. “a***” and advise her to make sure she makes a meal out of the asterisks.

I love Sophie Dahl.

Maybe it’s because she shares a first name with my mother, or something to do with the fact her cheeks look like two apples. Then again, I’m also partial to lentils in a curry.

She was also fat and famed for her “curves”, so you’ve got to applaud her for that I guess.

I think you forget that she wasn’t massive though, a real, proper fat girl. The way the Press banged on about her, as being a plus size model, a cheerleader for the Rubens-esque among us, you’d think she was a right lumper.

She was, in fact, about a size 16 at her biggest, but it’s more likely she was a 14. Standing at an enviable 5ft 10in and with boobs up to her Granny Smiths, she was certainly formidable, someone who looked like she happily indulged in whatever she wanted.

Then she got thin. Thin as in curveless, ramrod, lanky, bloody lucky. And the world seemed to turn on her wondering where it all went wrong, or at least where her belly went.

On the one side you had the pear-shaped gals wondering why our queen stopped celebrating her ample backside, all of us biting down on our disappointment that one of the sisterhood had gone over to the light side; then there were those who just wanted to know what was in the Dahl Diet so they could follow it to the letter and be just like Soph.

So how then did she do it? And why?

It turns out, our girl has always had a complicated relationship with food. But unlike the mere mortals among us who don’t quite work out the kinks by cutting out the carbohydrates, she managed to figure it all out for herself.

And, just like magic, or like the time she went away and stuffed herself stupid only to find that her jeans were looser, her stomach flatter and half her bottom was still languishing at a five star retreat in Mexico, she became “normal”. No longer did she need to crack jokes about declaring her arse as excess baggage.

In her new cookery book, which is also part slimming confessional, she puts it like this: “I have always had a passionate relationship with food: passionate in that I loved it blindly or saw it as its own entity, rife with problems. Back in the old days food was either a faithful friend or a sin, rarely anything in between... I was the big model. I was meant to eat, a lot. It gave other people hope and cheered them as they enjoyed their chocolate. It was a clumsy way of thinking.”

To cut a long story short, in Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights, there’s no big reveal about how she lost weight but a series of what she calls “mini epiphanies”: love splits, moving house, losing work, finding work, loss, illness and the general mash-up of living.

Dahl writes: “To everything there is a season; from 17 to 21 mine was the season of chocolate cake. I didn’t know how to eat within the boundaries of reason; instead I learned loudly through trial and error. My unsure baby fat, for that’s what it was really, slunk slowly away one year. Its departure

left me to my adult self and the slow joy I get from food and cooking is something I cannot imagine being without.”

Hers is a lovely book, due in no small part to the way she weaves her thoughts about herself and her charmed life into a sticky, beautiful jumble that’s straight out of the Malory Towers of her mind.

Yet for all her humanity about eating well, body image and the delight she takes in feeding her friends, Sophie’s world reads like an unfamiliar glossy smorgasbord of things whole and hearty, sweet and dainty.

Her BFG namesake ate snozzcumber, but Soph has a more refined palate.

Her childhood wasn’t filled with tomato sauce sandwiches and frozen Arctic Roll, or chicken and chips in a basket like mine. You’d expect nothing less than one where every one of her relatives was born knowing how to make Victoria sponge and vanilla custard; her adult culinary life is more about throwing together scrumpdiddleumptious chargrilled scallops on pea puree or chicken and fennel au gratin than only having the energy to warm up a couple of cheese and onion pasties after work and then hate yourself for it. If Ms Dahl was writing this, I’m sure she would sum up her ethos by reminding us of her book’s subtle: The Art Of Eating A Little Of What You Fancy (HarperCollins, £18.99).

So does she have a weakness that brings her down from her posh perch and back into the land of the indigent indulgent?

White bread slathered with butter and Marmite, followed by salt and vinegar crisps.

Nice to see Dahlicious is human after all.

"I just wanted to tell you that I’ve lost 10 stone ...”

... said the woman on the train last Wednesday morning.

“It’s taken me three years mind you and I’ve still got three stone to go. If I can do it, you can do it too. By the way, nice documentary. I laughed all the way through it, and cried a bit. Is your mother taking orders for her Sunday dinners of meat and 17 veg?”

I had to stop myself from asking if I could lick her, just so I could taste what dietary success tastes like. Instead I just smiled, extended my sincere congratulations – mixed with a genuine side of awe – and felt humbled that someone – anyone – had tuned in to watch me cry, sigh and giggle lots over my inability to say no to dips on the graveyard slot.

Later I found out that almost two million actually watched me without make-up on, getting sad and mad in equal measures on BBC One last Tuesday night. Can you imagine what that feels like?

Here are some words which may do the enormity of such madness justice – Mad. Odd. Weird. Wonderful. Insane. Anti-climactic.

Since the documentary Fix My Fat Head aired, hundreds of people have written to me to share their opinions on their lives in the fat lane, thoughts on yours truly or to offer me free “treatment” in something or other.

And when I say hundreds, last time I filed them all together to at least start to thank people for their kindness, even if they were kicking me in the teeth, it totalled 765. That’s 765. And again, 765!

The responses have thrilled me, tickled me, and some brought tears to my eyes; others were annoying, way too personal, rude and left me wondering if I’d actually been fronting a Panorama special on paranoia instead of a light-hearted film on what it’s like to feel judged by your size and not any other aspect of your self (sic).

I’ve had comments about my “fabulous/rubbish” boobs, my “great/80s” big hair, how I look “awful” without make-up on but “don’t worry, everyone does… thanks for showing it like it is, Han”, to how “gorgeous” I am but “how much more attractive” I could become if I cut out salt (eh?!).

Some have offered to help me find God and then She, doubtless a 25st power walker from Abertillery, would in turn help me relearn the rules of the Atkins diet. I’ve had hypnotherapists wanting me to give it another shot with them, a LighterLife magazine through the door, flowers delivered (but no Greggs cheese and onion pasties, funnily enough), cards posted, an offer to have my portrait painted, and reviews written in the Press by people who’ve, by and large, been kind, gracious and totally “got” what I was doing.

I’ve even been on the radio, in the papers, done photoshoots, and people are actually taking bets on me getting Fern Briton’s job on This Morning. I gave a quote about it saying something flippant like “Go on the sofa with Phil? Well, sitting down is my favourite pastime... sure, why the hell not” with my tongue firmly in my cheek.

While all this has been going on, life has happened. Know what I mean?

And the battle between choosing fruit over a muffin for breakfast is still every bit as real... only people in Marksies are watching.

To misquote Heidi Klum on Project Catwalk, one minute you’re in, the next you’re back to being a blot on the landscape of your own life.

One day you’re on telly, the next you’re back in the day job answering the phone, deleting spam email, wondering where the next compliment or snide aside will come from.

The good stuff feels like it’s all happening to my slimmer, wittier, prettier, more showbiz twin sister… rather than to ME, the REAL Han, who lives in the land of the living and the bill paying and the train catching and the deadline meeting and the navel gazing and the calorie counting.

But it’s liberating to know I can now bump into anyone I was in school with and don’t have to pretend they’re not going to bang on about how fat I’ve become behind my back. At least now I can walk with my low-lying belly held high.

FAT. Now there's a word ...

... that strikes fear into anyone who doesn't know the meaning of chaffing.

Speaking as someone who hasn't seen their feet since 1971, and who judges herself by her waist size, not the glory of her IQ or how obviously utterly fabulous she is, I looked upon making TV documentary Fix My Fat Head as my chance to sort out, once and for all, why I do what I do.

And that, simply put, is sometimes overeat for comfort and pleasure – though not all the time, so let's be clear about that from the start. Don't for a minute think that, as a big bird, I sit in the house stuffing chocolate, fried bread and beef burgers for breakfast. I don't. But I know, deep down, I have the capacity for turning my brand of indulgence up a notch.

I also have a wonky view of myself, my allure, my attractiveness and self worth. And I think that's all to do with the fact that I seem to have spent my life on countless diets, regardless of my personal achievements – and let's not forget that I'm a journalist, newspaper columnist, a published author, and all round (sic) nice guy. I self-medicate with Fruit 'n' Nut, and I've spent years wondering if I'd ever get to grips with myself, that authentic (thank you, Oprah) part of me that wakes up EVERY morning – and not just 1 in 77 – and screams, bugger it, you're great just the way you are. And that doesn't matter if you're a size eight or a 28.

Like every other woman I know, I've followed the dietary Holy Trinity in a bid to lose weight – calorie counting, Atkins and abject misery – but nothing has ever worked long term for me.

"Eat less, move more" is society's helpful mantra. But why can't people like me do it? As we all know, advice isn't like T-shirts – one size certainly doesn't fit all. So I came to the conclusion that the problem was surely all in my head. The bigger question, of course, was would I find something during filming which would help me move on and out of my big fat way?

The journey was certainly an interesting one, as I tried out an overeaters' support group, an extreme dieting class, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy sessions and a few goes on the chair with a hypnotist to the stars.

The latter was perhaps the most telling as she asked me if I'd ever been called Dumbo growing up. Dumbo! At first I thought she was referring to someone calling me "thick"; when the penny finally dropped on camera, I hope the disappointment on my face says it all. For the record, the film wasn't made by someone who needed to drop ONE dress size or tone up A BIT. When I started filming I was at least seven stones overweight and a size 24.

The difference between me and most women, though, is that I have never harboured ambitions to be a size 12.

I'm just a normal someone who'd like to fit into a size 18-20 dress and think, finally, that what I feel on the outside is doing what I'm capable of on the inside justice.

I was just fed up of feeling fat, of, in internet terms at least, being more niche market than marketable as a sexy, sassy, sorted, strong woman, of pretending to do up the laces on my zip-up shoes after a single flight of stairs.

My relationship with food and myself has always been complex, like the best kind of carbs. So this film was a chance to look at why that is, why I'm such a harsh critic, and why I reach for crusty bread and strawberry jam sandwiches at times of difficulty and joy.

I also wanted it to be funny and light-hearted, because that's how I am. At the same time, it needed to reflect my confusion, disappointment and sadness about this one area of my life that I can't seem to get a handle on. Sure I laugh during it… but my "issues" also bring me crashing to my knees.

So here I am then, literally waiting for a film of my life to start, and some very meaty questions still remain: Have I lost weight? Do I look in the mirror and feel satisfied? Did I learn enough to move on with a more healthy and balanced view of myself?

I'll leave you to be the judge of that tonight. (I'm far too busy thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner to possibly comment.)

There's not much I can do ...

... about my wedding next year apart from pick out bunting.

I’ve seen some with cupcakes on which I think will fit into the general theme of cake and more cake and maybe some pizza slices and fruit on skewers, something which my mother thinks will appease my “posh friends from London”.

I think free drink would do it, but you can’t argue with a woman who’s already bought two marquees and two canteens of cutlery ready for the second half of my nuptials.

I’m getting married next May, as in May 2010, not next month.

There’s lots to do in the run up, like make the invites, choose the songs, pick the venue and win the argument about the male guests not wearing suits and ties and buttonholes.

But all this pales into insignificance when you have to consider The Dress.

Anyway, before we go there, let’s put the whole thing into some kind of perspective first.

It is going to be a quietly unconventional wedding, split over two days.

My Significant (thin) Other has walked down the aisle more times than Joan Collins; both either have a wedding cake fetish or are in cahoots to disprove the theory that diamonds are forever.

And me being me, I’m as fussed on traditional as I am on counting calories. So between us, we’ve come up with a plan which will hopefully please us and appease my family.

To that end, we’re having a small “do” on the one day, a late register office wedding where all the guests – including me, freeing both me and my shy father from doing the grand entrance thing – will pile onto a 1940s bus and be transported from Ebbw Vale to Abergavenny for the I dos.

Then about 20 of us will have a pub meal, where I can have lasagne if I want, my father gammon and fried egg and the fruit on skewers lot duck or goose or goujons of whatever.

By my reckoning I’ll be back in the house by 7pm, as I’m sure to have had enough by then.

The next afternoon, it’s marquees en masse at my mother’s.

It’s my favourite place, where I feel most comfortable, and on my wedding day(s) that’s exactly how I want to be.

I’d rather be there than in a posh hotel eating canapes where I have to pick out some of the filling any day of the week – and pay over the odds for pop and orange.

Sorting all this out feels like a leisurely walk in the park compared to the hell I’m having thinking about The Dress.

Type “plus size bride” or variations thereof into Google and you enter a minefield of internet sites promising “curvy” ladies the meringue of their dreams, usually called Venus or Desire or Darleen.

“Hey, if size 8s can wear it, you can too!” they proclaim next to pictures of big girls in dresses which would look ridiculous on anyone over a size 12.

I call this the Me Too syndrome, where women shaped like me want exactly what women not shaped like me can get away with. Big bustle on the back? No problem! Full-on fairy princess skirt? Order now!

Strapless/backless/senseless silk affair? Click away!

Red pre-Raphelite party frock complete with veil and matching sporran for the man of your dreams?

It can be with you, made to measure from China, within two weeks.

Simple cream tunic with big pompom roses on the hem and matching wide legged trousers? You’re having a laugh.

Or floor length velvet evening coat and A-line silk dress? Dream on.

Frustrating is not the word.

So in order to look a semblance of fabulous on my wedding day(s) and to avoid chaffing on the vintage bus, a friend is going to make me something.

And there won’t be a bustle, pleat, crystal bodice or detachable cap sleeve in sight.

There will, however, be an elasticated waist – well, you’ve got to make sure there’s enough room for all those fruits on skewers...

I live my life by two basic rules ...

... always wear deodorant and never run for anything.

The fact that I’d forgotten to do the former should have put me off doing the latter the other day. That, and a general dislike of fitness and desire to get anywhere quickly. Seriously, I should know better at my age.

I generally take life at a more leisurely pace.

Namely, I only turn over on soft furnishings to avoid bedsores and try out different cushions.

I don’t live my life in the fast lane, which maybe is one of the reasons I’m built like an elephant and not a gazelle.

Anyway, I broke the habit of a lifetime the other morning and I’ve been upset about it ever since. And that’s because as soon as I broke into a sprint – well, I say sprint, but it was more like comedy fast walking with the (very) odd hop, skip and a jump thrown in to catch the train which had just pulled in – a kid started singing to me.

Now before you imagine some angelic Faryl Smith-type sound, wafting around me in an ethereal melodic dance, let me tell you that what I heard was enough to unsettle me. Big style.

So picture the scene: I’m running – reluctantly – my boobs appear to have doubled in size and are crying out to break free. I’m sweating. Heavily.

I’m thinking, you stupid cow. Then congratulating myself for the impromptu exercise session.

I’m imagining I look like Bo Derek on her way to meet Arthur for a nanosecond. I laugh inwardly as I know it’s nonsense (I mean, I wouldn’t be caught dead with cornrows)

And then it happens. The Kid and The Song.

Mid boing comes the strain of – wait for it – Hey Fatty Boom Boom. He repeats it over and over and over again, but without the pay off line about me being anything like a sugar angel dumpling.
I managed to multi-task during the song by keeping up my trot, getting on the train and not changing my route to run over and punch someone. Or cry.

But, bloody hell, it upset me at the time. Speaking as someone who’s never really suffered at the hands of bullies, it simply floored me. And that’s because, me being me, I failed to process it as just kids being kids.

All I heard was honesty in booming crotchets and quavers and giggles en masse as the ground quivered under my concrete feet.

The chorus and second test of the elasticity of my skin came when I got to work and opened up my email account.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” one started, “but could this be one for you?” It came from someone who thought I could be a case study for a magazine. Want to read the brief which she thought I fulfilled? Here goes.

“This month we’re writing about fattism in the workplace. We wanted to know why so many smart, plus-sized women are unfairly missing out on jobs and being paid less than their slimmer colleagues.”

I nearly choked. I didn’t get any further than this at first as I couldn’t get past the fact that I was sent it in the first place.

Secondly, what the hell is fattism in the workplace?

I don’t know of any plus-sized women who don’t get top jobs because they’re, well, plus sized.

They get them because they’re good, or they don’t because they’re rubbish. Not because they’re stuffing their faces with Peters Pies during the interview.

Anyway, there’s more.

This fancy, London-based and fashion forward magazine was apparently looking for women who are, for want of a better term, successfully fat.

Like Dawn French with a briefcase, I imagine.

The email went on: “We’ve found evidence to support this fact but we now want to see if there are any women out there who break this stereotype.

“Are you or any of your female colleagues in your 20s or early 30s and at the top of your career tree, in a managerial role, or running your own successful business despite being size 20 or over?

“If you or anyone you know has always refused to let your size hold you back and you’re now enjoying career success, we want to hear your inspirational story.”

Did you see that word creep in there? It’s that pesky little blighter “despite”.

Like, hello, my name is Hannah Jones, and I work in the media DESPITE being fat.

Or I WILL run for trains DESPITE not wearing deodorant, theme tunes be damned.

Amanda Platell? Why don’t you just bog off ...?

I am so mad, so incensed by her insensitivity, that if I could be really bothered I’d write her a stinking letter, include a couple of pictures and my medical notes.

Oh, and a pack of pork pies.

Every day, to feed my insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip, I trawl the internet looking for titbits to chew over with my morning cup of coffee and KitKat (if I’m feeling bad) or 12 boiled eggs (if I’m on the Atkins Diet to make up for the KitKat the day before).

Last week two Daily Mail headlines assaulted my senses and piqued my interest in short shrift.
The first was Amanda Platell’s article headed, “Sorry, why should the NHS treat people for being fat?”

She writes: “Why, then, should the NHS pay for gastric bands, stomach-stapling, or expensive medication, simply because the ‘victims’ can’t be bothered to lose weight the correct way?

“I’ll wager that, if the NHS stopped offering these treatments, it would shock a huge number of the overweight into taking responsibility for their own condition, instead of seeking a miracle cure at our expense.

“Ah, say the fatties, but you can’t deny us medical treatment, any more than you can refuse to treat an alcoholic who needs liver surgery, or a smoker who develops lung cancer.

“I agree that these, too, are the result of individuals choosing an unhealthy lifestyle.

“But the crucial difference is that you cannot cure cancer by stopping smoking, nor replace a liver by becoming teetotal.

“The vast majority of the chronically overweight, by contrast, could ‘cure’ themselves simply by following a healthier lifestyle.

“Quite simply, with a cash-strapped NHS that can’t even afford to treat the dying, we must stop indulging the self-indulgent.”

Love, we’re not all big because we sit at home stuffing full English breakfasts for tea, chips as dips and fizzy drinks to wash our coffee down with.

At least I don’t.

Like the best kind of carbohydrates, it’s far more complex a situation than that.

I’m not a glutton but I know I self-medicate with food when I’m down – or elated.

It’s celebratory, it’s comforting, also a necessary evil at times when all I want to do is magic myself out of this body of mine.

Sadly, I don’t view it as something I just use to fuel my body with, and I’m sure that, for many people who have weight issues, this is also the case.

I also have a massively underactive thyroid problem which is getting worse as I get older, and I struggle to lose weight on 600 calories a day.

Trust me, I’ve tried and I’m sure many women out there have too.

I also went to the NHS to ask if I could have a gastric bypass a few years ago. They refused me, said sent me home with a fridge magnet the size of a tea plate to take home to use as a guide to portion control.

Yeah, like I don’t know that!

So I tried, I failed, I moved on, but I’m still struggling.

They don’t hand out the promise of bariatric procedures like Smarties you know.

Then came the cherry on top of the cake, the curious, “What happened when we sent a ‘fattie’ to London Fashion Week?” headline.

I instantly dipped into this as I wanted to see if the reporter’s “fatsuit” looked anything like my body (it’s waaaaaaaay better to be honest) and see what all the fuss was about.

I mean, why can’t a big bird be part of the beautiful crowd?

By the very nature of this “experiment” some bright spark somewhere, who’s never had chaffing legs obviously, thought we can’t. Charming.

It seems we’re more fatwalk and less catwalk.

As Kate Faithfull, reporting from the thick of a faithless fashion world, said in her piece: “I try willing myself to feel attractive (I’m a firm believer in confidence being the first thing anyone notices about you), but my bravado shrinks in anticipation of judgment from the fashion pack.

“These women scrutinise what others wear as seriously as Gordon Brown examines the economy.

“There is nothing to do but brazen it out.

“As I wait in the busy queue for the show, surrounded by hundreds of air kisses that aren’t aimed at me, I feel everyone’s eyes upon me. But when I try to make eye contact and smile back, the wall of pupils fixed on me roll away. I am the elephant in the room.”

Do they think that fat is catching?

They must do. I find it hard to believe that someone, somewhere, wanted to test out this theory.
Can you imagine if the test involved someone in a wheelchair? There would be uproar.

But us fatties are expected to sit back and take it on our double chins, as if our skin is as thick as our ankles.

Luckily Faithful, who turned from a size 12 to a 22 with the help of a fatsuit, was woman enough to realise this and, as a part-time big bird, had a taste of the non sugarcoated vitriol that others with a less lucky gene pool (depending on your view of course) dish out.

“Front line of fashion is not the place for me. I feel like a circus freak. I truly can’t face going to the other shows – so I run. With tears in my eyes, I bolt out into the street like a bride sprinting away from a wedding she knows will never make her happy.

“For the first time today, I feel like I can breathe again.

“I think to myself that I hope I horrified and repulsed all those snotty skinnies at the shows.

“They live in a rarefied world, and they should be forced to confront reality.”

Well said, but who cares anyway?

We all know that big girls aren’t catered for in the same way that slimsters are, but do we really need a thinnie to play fat to highlight the issue?

They could have sent me – I’m sure I would have been the only person in the backstage buffet area, which would have been payment enough.

Amanda could have been my plus one. I’m sure we’d have plenty to chat about over the celery sticks...