Bestselling novelist Amanda Prowse opens up about the destructive impact of her emotional eating

As I approached my 50s I was working hard, head down, riding life’s bumpy rollercoaster. So preoccupied was I dealing with day-to-day life that my eating, my size and my weight were relegated on my worry list. 

Don’t get me wrong. They were still a worry. But they lurked somewhere between dealing with my son Josh’s serious depression, writing like a crazy thing to meet my self-imposed deadlines, mourning my beloved grandparents, trying to unpick my loss following a series of miscarriages, and generally keeping the plates spinning. 

Among the chaos of my thoughts I was getting fatter. Food filled the hollow sadness inside me. A lack of self-esteem I’d felt all my life encouraged each morsel I shoved in my mouth. It’s hard for me to write, hard for me to think about. In more than 30 novels I have told the stories of countless others. Telling my own is way, way harder. 

But this is about ripping off the Band-Aid, unmuting the difficult words and talking without the veil of deceit that often prevents such discussion. I think it’s vital, in fact, for a woman like me. Women like us. 

I’d always had a complex relationship with food, but when I hit the menopause I lost the plot completely. My head exploded. My body went berserk, my hormones haywire. My mum had told me her menopause was ‘a picnic’, but mine was about as far from that as it’s possible to be. Unless it’s a picnic where the host hoovers up every available biscuit, pie, slice of bread and square of chocolate.

I gained weight. And then I gained more weight. The fat on my body sprang up in new pockets, clinging to my stomach, whereas before it used to sit on my hips, bum and boobs. My arms got fat. My face was bloated. I sprouted hair on my face. And I was at a loss as to what I could do about it. 

By the time my 50th birthday came round my weight had hit a staggering 21 stone. This is the first time I have admitted this, ever. 

I was sinking fast, despite living in a beautiful West Country farmhouse with the people I adored: my Army officer husband Simeon and our wonderful sons Ben and Josh. I said no to dinner, drinks, the cinema, parties, theatre shows, concerts, holidays, boat trips, you name it, all because I couldn’t stand the idea of slipping into a black sack while everyone else was in something pretty. 

I put off having smear tests, mammograms and other check-ups that save millions of lives because of my size. And I refused to visit my GP in case I was weighed. 

When it was time for bed I would climb into leggings or pyjamas with a long nightdress over the top. God forbid an inch of flesh might be revealed. In the winter I would add bed socks. My husband said I was the only person he knew who could be woken in the night and be ready to go skiing. We laughed, but it was far from funny. And it affected our relationship. I recoiled in horror if he so much as tried to hold my hand. Swinging from the chandelier was out of the question. 

I used to think that if anyone were to delve into my wardrobe, they would have wondered how many people shared it with me. I had size 10 clothes that once fitted and that I thought I’d one day be able to get into again. And there were clothes sized 14 to 26. The irony is that I didn’t like any of them. 

My food intake and obsession was wildly out of control. I planned my day, my week, my life around eating. Sometimes it wasn’t even things I liked. I didn’t want it most of the time, but I couldn’t stop. Vast food orders were placed online. Grocery delivery was perfect for someone like me. I didn’t have to face the person on the checkout, nor have to see other shoppers glance into my trolley. 

A typical day might go something like this: 

6am: wake up and sit on the edge of the bed. Walk slowly across the room and hope the floorboards don’t give way. Write for an hour, escaping into whichever world I’m creating, a world where I don’t have to think about my size. 

7.30am: breakfast. Three thickly cut slices of toast with butter and peanut butter or marmalade. Write till mid-morning. 

10.30am: black coffee with four or five shortbread biscuits. The sugar hits my bloodstream and I feel content. 

12 noon: early lunch of cheese on toast or soup with another three slices of thickly buttered toast. I try to eat alone while Simeon is at work and the kids are elsewhere. 

3pm: a cup of tea and more biscuits or toast or anything lurking in the fridge: a cheese and onion pasty, cold roast potatoes, chocolate, leftover pasta. I’m afraid that once everyone gathers in the kitchen I won’t be able to eat what I like. Back to writing. 

4pm: a nap. Then another coffee and write until dinner. 

7pm: dinner. Spicy fried rice with sticky teriyaki salmon, perhaps, or fish and chips. I make out I haven’t eaten since lunch. Lying to my family, lying to myself. 

11pm: if no one else is around, a snack of cheese and crackers, a couple of packets of crisps or handfuls of peanuts. 

Horrible to read, isn’t it? And trust me, it was worse to live. Writing it down and putting it out there makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. But I hope that by coming clean, I might encourage the conversation among others. 

Then, one evening when I was 52, Simeon was online looking at holidays. My heart raced at the prospect. A holiday was my worst nightmare. Why would I want to hit a beach or go somewhere hot when I would be in jeans and a big top, sweating and uncomfortable? 

‘How do you fancy a week here?’ said Simeon, looking at some beaches. ‘You could write? We could swim…’ 

I pointed out how busy I was, how the boys needed me at home, how I didn’t want to cancel the milk. A million excuses. 

Simeon’s face dropped. ‘You can’t keep hiding, Mandy,’ he said. I stood up to escape, but he pulled me back down. Simeon confided that each time he saw me shuffle off to stick my head in the fridge it left him feeling defeated, scared and powerless, unable to voice his fears. This was the first time he had talked openly with me about my weight. ‘My biggest worry, Mand, is that you might not make 55,’ he said. ‘I think we could lose you.’ 

It was staggering to hear, and I wasn’t expecting it. That conversation two years ago was the start of the change in my life. Since then I have lost more than six stone. Here’s how I cracked it. I knew it didn’t work for me to go ‘cold turkey’ and jump from mega-portions to tiny ones. I cut down my portion sizes, but no food was off limits. 

I had one slice of toast instead of three, one packet of crisps instead of four and one bowl of sugary cereal instead of two; you get the idea. Weeks three and four I swapped butter for sunflower spread and whole milk for sugar-free almond milk. Weeks five and six, I changed what I ate for my main meals. I made hearty vegetable soups with pearl barley and followed them up with a square of chocolate, not a bar. And after six weeks of gentle phasing in, my palate had changed, my stomach had shrunk, I was a stone lighter and I was motivated. 

I’m not skinny, never will be. I’m big, but no longer morbidly obese. And I’m winning the battle in my head, too. It has taken me until my mid-50s to feel any semblance of confidence – yes, now! When physically I have more saggy bits, stretched bits and bits that don’t work. Who knew? 

Oh, and we’re getting the bedroom redecorated. I’m thinking of going for a sturdy chandelier – one that is firmly anchored to the ceiling.

• Adapted from Women Like Us: A Memoir by Amanda Prowse, to be published by Amazon on 6 September, price £8.99*