We have nothing for you. Like ‘Pretty Woman’ on her first day of shopping on Rodeo Drive, Vicky Martín Berrocal heard these words in a boutique in Seville. She was 14 years old and a size 44. “I was with my mother – she remembers – and when she left the store she squeezed her hand with such force that I felt covered, loved and protected.” That has been more than 30 years. But Vicky doesn’t forget. “She did not traumatize me, because I have always been strong, but she did make me understand that as long as it was in my hand that could not happen to any other woman.” Today, at 48 years old, turned into a bridal and party fashion designer, Berrocal boasts of covering all kinds of sizes. And there is more … She has lost twenty kilos in one year and now she is the brand new godmother of the ‘Bigger Than Me’ movement.
Created by Novo Nordisk and the Spanish Society for the Study of Obesity (Seedo), ‘Más Grande Que Yo’ aims to change the narrative and social perception of obesity. Vicky Martín Berrocal, passionate by nature, has made it one hundred percent her own. «I know what they are talking about because it is my truth. I have been on a diet for 35 years, gaining and losing weight, suffering the ‘yo-yo’ effect, doing real crazy things … I have lost 15 kilos in three months or 12 kilos in two. Obesity is a disease, but instead of going to the specialist, you go on the diet that your cousin recommends. And it cannot be. You have to take this seriously.
“Since my father died on December 29, Christmas in my family is no longer so important”
His turning point came in the fall of last year in Punta Cana, when he found that it took an extraordinary effort to get up from the hammock … «Then I did an analysis and it was a circus, so I decided to get up to speed. She was obese. And that is a health problem, not an aesthetic one. That’s why you have to go to the doctor ”, insists Berrocal.
Now he does sports five days a week: walk, run, box, pedal, train with a personal trainer … And he has stopped eating pasta every day. “But I still eat legumes and dessert, this does not consist of chicken breasts and lettuce,” she points out.
Last weekend Vicky went to Saudi Arabia to attend the Formula 1 championship, and she swears she has tried everything … “But with a head.” She accompanied the one who has been her boyfriend for three years, the Portuguese Joao Viegas Soares, communication businessman and former vice president of Sporting de Lisboa. She moved to Estoril for him a year and a half ago, which forces her to travel to Seville every week to attend to her fashion business and record ‘El Show de Bertín’, a program that she shares with Osborne for Canal Sur and Telemadrid.
After nine years without a partner, Vicky, divorced from the bullfighter Manuel Díaz El Cordobés, with whom she has a daughter, Alba, 21, assures that in all that time she did not look for love. “Life surprised me and I found for the first time a healthy and whole relationship, where there is no insecurity, there are no fears.”
Insecurity in love
And it is that despite being a very self-confident woman, Berrocal confesses to having felt a lot of insecurity in love. «I have very little faith in man, I do not believe in his fidelity – sentence – of him. I have seen a lot of disloyalty around me and, outside of Joao, I still think that it is very difficult to find a partner in whom you feel safe, comfortable, who adds, who shakes your hand and feels protected, that you know that he loves you really, that you are his priority. I have found a man very to my measure. And that is what I have here and now.
“At 14 I was a size 44 and in a boutique they told me that there was nothing for me. No woman should go through that. ”
That ‘here and now’, which Vicky has tattooed on one hand, is very important to her, “because I no longer make long-term plans, I live in the moment. I hope my relationship with Joao lasts a lifetime. But in love you never know. The designer is convinced that her way of being, resounding and forward, has scared more than one man. “They are attracted to strong women but then they do not like to be overshadowed. You have to find someone who will let you be you and who, being you, looks at you with admiration and who is also not afraid, and who does not take away his position… It is a difficult balance ».
Vicky will spend the Christmas holidays in Estoril with her boyfriend. And they will be joined by her daughter, her mother, and her sister. The former contestant of ‘MasterChef Celebrity 4’ does not plan to approach the stove, she prefers that it be her mother who cooks. But simple dishes. We are a small and somewhat unusual family. And since my father died on December 29, Christmas for us is no longer so important “, confesses the daughter of bullfighting businessman José Luis Martín Berrocal.
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