It’s that time of year when we unwrap our bodies from the comfortable cocoon of winter clothes and begin to think about how they will look on the beach this summer.
Inevitably, this leads our thoughts to how to shed a few pounds (or even a few stone) to look our best in skimpy summer outfits.
I know this feeling all too well. Over the course of my 54 years, I have weighed everything from 7st 8lb to 16st. I am only 5ft 4in, so at my heaviest I fell into the morbidly obese category.
This had a huge negative impact on my physical health, leaving me battling high blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol.
But what might surprise you is that being large has never made me unhappy. Quite the reverse: my mental health has always been good while I’m big and taken a hit when I’m slim.
Like many of us, I always thought that as soon as I reached my perfect weight, all my problems would melt away. I would look how I want to look, be treated the way I want to be treated and life would smile on me, if only the scales would go my way.
But when I look at the three biggest weight losses I’ve achieved in my life, each one has been accompanied by huge emotional trauma.
Being slim, it turns out, never solved all my problems in the way I imagined it would.
The first time I lost weight was in my 20s. At 23, after putting on rather more than the ‘freshers’ 15lb’ during my three years at Exeter University, I weighed in at 14st. All those pints of Scrumpy and late-night bags of chips had taken their toll.
It wasn’t until I moved to London and got engaged to my childhood sweetheart that I decided to lose weight ahead of our wedding in 1996. By 24, I’d managed to lose around 4st and to squeeze into my cream taffeta dress from Harrods.
When I look at my gym-honed body, writes Ursula Hirschkorn, what stands out to me is the flabby apron belly that’s left over after four children and the obese years, the bingo wings and crepey skin under my chin
After a regular health check in January 2025, the nurse told Ursula that her blood sugar, pressure and cholesterol were all dangerously high. She says, at 15st, her weight was quite literally killing her
Sadly, there are no photos of this achievement as the marriage swiftly turned sour and the photos were all thrown away.
Just 18 months after walking down the aisle we separated and what had begun as a pre-wedding slim down turned into a dangerous divorce diet. I lost another 2 st by subsisting on Diet Coke, vodka, Special K and cigarettes.
At that point I was living in a grotty flat share in Clapham, south-west London, owned by a wild restaurateur who kept the most bizarre schedule, often crashing into my room in the early hours as he ‘got lost’ on the way to his bedroom. I was sleep deprived, drinking too much and eating virtually nothing. This was when I hit my 7st 8lb all-time low.
I was slimmer and more miserable than I’d ever been. Clothes looked amazing on me. I recall trying on a size 6 black mini skirt in French Connection and it hanging loose around my waist. And I got so much attention from men.
As a lovelorn larger girl, no one had given me a second glance. As a slim, single 20-something, the predatory men came out in force.
I had several ill-fated ‘romances’ that left me emotionally bruised and broken-hearted.
Indeed, I was quickly disabused of the idea that men and women of that age can have platonic relationships. One by one every male friend I had made a pass at me.
The film When Harry Met Sally was depressingly prescient, but none of it felt funny to me. On the contrary, I was shocked and sad. After a year of enduring unwanted and manipulative male behaviour, I missed being fat and invisible. I felt exhausted, too, probably because I was literally starving.
At a GP appointment, I was told I was underweight and needed to take better care of myself.
Shortly after that, in 1999, I met the man who was to become my second husband, Mike, who’s now 50. My life settled down as he fed me up on Dolmio pasta meals and gradually calmed my frazzled nerves with his pure adoration.
Fast forward ten years and we were married with four children, Jacob, now 22, Max, 20, and twins Zach and Jonah, 17. After three pregnancies, lots of takeaways in front of the telly and cosy family meals, I’d ballooned to my heaviest weight ever: a massive 16st.
Despite being huge, I wasn’t unhappy. I had a loving husband, four beautiful children and a busy life running my family.
Another visit to the doctor revealed that my blood sugar was dangerously high, however, and if I didn’t lose weight, I was at serious risk of developing diabetes. This was January 2011 and I decided that by my 40th birthday that September, I would have shed the pounds to wear a fabulous dress at my party.
This time around I did things properly. I cut out carbs, reduced my portion sizes, stopped snacking from the kids’ plates, cooked healthy meals from scratch and took up running. In nine months I lost more than 6st.
On holiday in the Turks and Caicos Islands in 1997, a year after losing weight in order to squeeze into a cream taffeta dress from Harrods for her first wedding
Married with four children, by 2010, Ursula had ballooned to her heaviest ever: a massive 16st. But despite being huge, she wasn’t unhappy
At my party I weighed just under 10st and I looked spectacular in a skintight sparkly dress. But once again being slender didn’t bring me happiness.
Just before my party my parents separated after almost 50 years together. It was a turbulent and difficult time for the whole family. We all got sucked into their acrimonious on-again, off-again relationship. It was hugely damaging and, eventually, led to an estrangement from my parents.
I have hardly seen them since my mother failed to turn up to a prearranged day out with me and my twins. Instead, she texted me from the airport to say she was off on a romantic break to patch things up with my father and didn’t want me in her life any more.
Getting that message broke me. I tried to soldier on without them, but the grief was unbearable.
I worked hard to try to keep the weight off even through this pain. I ran the London Marathon in 2012, but not having my mum to cheer me on as I passed the finish line meant the achievement was bittersweet.
Eventually, everything came to a head in 2013. It had been two years without my parents and I decided to text my mum to suggest we meet up. She refused in no uncertain terms.
I spiralled into a full-blown nervous breakdown. I had raging insomnia and felt like I wanted to end it all. Only my love for my boys and my husband’s strength kept me alive through this.
I went to a psychiatrist who immediately put me on anti-depressants. As he handed over the prescription, he warned me that their one major side-effect was rapid weight gain.
I didn’t care. At the time my size was irrelevant. I could be a size 8, but it meant nothing in the face of the despair I felt.
Ursula in 2011 at her 40th birthday party with husband, Mike, and their eldest sons, Jacob and Max. By this point she had lost over 6st and could fit into a skintight sparkly dress
In 2012, Ursula was working hard to keep the weight off, and was able to complete the London Marathon
Once again being slim had not brought me happiness and it was starting to feel like a pattern. I would lose weight and my life would blow up. In a strange way, being large felt safer.
Over the next few months, all that weight I’d fought so hard to lose went back on. If I’m honest, I didn’t really notice, I was simply trying to recover from my mental breakdown.
After that, it took years to build myself back up again. To start sleeping and stop experiencing regular anxiety attacks. Losing weight just wasn’t an option as I knew how much emotional energy that took and I simply didn’t have it.
That’s how I found myself sitting across from the nurse after a health check in January 2025 being told that my blood sugar, pressure and cholesterol were all dangerously high. My weight, at 15st, was literally killing me.
She suggested that, if I could afford it, I try the weight-loss drug, Mounjaro. This was before the NHS could prescribe it, so I dug deep and paid for it through a private pharmacy.
Like a good proportion of Brits, I went on the jabs – and while the weight didn’t magically melt off, the medication kept my hunger under control so I could focus on eating well and getting fit.
It worked. I now weigh 10st 8lb (I’ve still got just more than a stone to go to hit my target) and the machine at my gym tells me I am 64 per cent muscle and have the body composition of a 47-year-old.
Am I happier being slim this time around? Well yes and no. I am glad my health has improved and that everything is back to normal. But once again losing weight has been accompanied by a crisis in another area of my life.
Weight discrimination at work is real and research shows that obese people are less likely to be hired than their slim counterparts. As I lost weight, it seemed logical that my career would benefit – but I hadn’t factored in the impact of AI on the freelance production of digital content.
Rather than experiencing a career renaissance now that I am smaller, I have been out of work for the past six months. It is the longest stretch I have ever been unemployed since starting work 30 years ago.
My self-confidence, which should be soaring thanks to my weight loss, is at rock bottom.
After years of career success, it’s soul-destroying to be frantically networking on LinkedIn, only to be met with hundreds of polite nos. To apply for jobs only to be ghosted or rejected.
It feels like once again my body might be thriving, but my mind is suffering.
In tough times like this, I desperately miss the soothing power of food. I would never have put on weight in the first place if I didn’t emotionally eat my feelings and now I am denied that consolation. Weight-loss jabs take away the physical hunger, but they don’t resolve the psychological dependence.
Ironically, one of the things I find most distressing is all the compliments. It sounds crazy, but every time someone tells me how great I look, I just wonder what that means they thought of me before. Was I less worthy when I was more weighty as a person?
Equally, I don’t see what they see. I look at my gym-honed body and what stands out to me is the flabby apron belly that’s left over after four children and the obese years. The bingo wings and crepey skin under my chin.
I don’t enjoy my slim body, I hate its flaws. It doesn’t make me happy, it makes me feel frustrated that, despite exercising five days a week and religiously sticking to a healthy diet, it will never be perfect.
I am stalked by a terror of slipping up.
After a lifetime of yo-yoing weight, I know what happens when I take my eye off the ball.
Mounjaro has made this worse. Everyone thinks I cheated to lose the weight this time. What if they are right and the moment I stop taking the jabs it all rolls back on again? What if a year of deprivation and intense gym session was all for nothing… again?
While I would never advocate staying obese, I would say be careful what you wish for. Or at least be realistic in your expectations. Losing weight is not the silver bullet to a happy life, it’s just a lower number on the scales.
