Vanessa reveals gastric band effect

Vanessa has revealed to the other housemates this afternoon what made her decide to have a gastric band fitted 11 weeks ago.

Sitting on the sofa before the afternoon task, she described how she was glad with her decision despite initial worries about the medical procedure.

"I'm not advertising it, I don’t care if everyone has it or no-one has it, but it got desperate," she began.

"If you haven't got a weight problem, you see somebody eating too much and you think, 'Just stop eating less'. However, anybody who's got it knows it's incredibly difficult to do."

Describing her previous weight loss attempts, she added: "As soon as I snapped back into my normal routine it got back. Every time I made a colossal effort to lose it, it got harder and harder."

The others were amazed to learn that she had lost two and a half stone since the band was placed, but were also surprised on hearing that it is tightened every two weeks.

"I thought, 'I don’t want an operation, and isn’t it vain anyway to do something about my appearance?'" Vanessa continued.

"I asked my uncle... who cares about my welfare and he said, 'Do it, I don’t know why you didn't do it years ago'."

"Well, I think you look amazing and I didn’t... well, obviously I recognised you [on your entry], but I thought you looked great," replied Nikki.

Vanessa admitted that she has a greater love of "shopping" and "fashion" since the procedure.

"I wish I'd learned to do it by myself. I feel it's so feeble that everybody else can learn to control it by themselves, it’s a shame really," she added.