Boy, you're going to carry that weight. For a long time.

 

(Image from 'My Book of Bible Stories', Watchtower Press, 1978)

Oh, I can be such a glutton at times. I routinely finish other people's leftovers. I eat quickly in order to trick my stomach. I am a greedy-guts.There, I have said it. It feels quite transgressive for me to say that in these lean times. It also goes against everything I was raised to believe. But I have to come clean.

My catch-cry lately is 'But I am an emotional eater!' which, taken to its logical conclusion, would suggest that I eat 24 hours a day (a feat I have not yet managed to achieve, although not for want of trying). Even in sleep, of course, I am prey to emotional ravages, as Dear Patient M would attest (he has the dubious pleasure of having every dream of mine relayed to him in explicit, blow by blow technicolour detail. I am starting to wonder, because every time I ask him if he had his own dream, he responds (groggily), 'Yeah. Had one. Can't remember it..' Surely, surely, he would not be trying to change the subject?).

With boring predictability, I have been growing girthier of late. All those years of being told I had hollow legs have backfired. Horribly. As fun as it is to sit here playing with my rubbery folds of furry flesh, I must say that I would be willing to forgo that particular pleasure for the opportunity to leave a lighter, less gigantic footprint on this earth.

I sometimes try to put myself in the shoes of super-fit gym-junkie celebrities. How very good they must feel, I think. How very pleased with themselves. How very like a machine. How it must clear one's head to think about the Important Things (like adopting unsuspecting orphans, preparing winningly self-deprecating Oscar speeches, punching out the papz and such. I mean, just look at the staggering success of Gwynnie and her GOOP! He said snidely). It annoys me that I spend so much time having internal conversations about food and drink. Especially as my vocabulary is mostly limited to "Shall I?",  "Hmm..." and good old "Yes." I have a very efficient way of dealing with temptation. I yield.

There have, of course, been times when I have shown that I am capable of remarkable restraint. One year, I did not touch alcohol at all for six months. I even hosted a party during that time. People SAID they had a good time. Another year, I embraced the CSIRO diet with great gusto, eating nothing but lean meat every day. For the last year or so, I have been a strict vegetarian. Consistency, I feel, is vastly overrated. I have also undertaken all manner of controlled experiments involving my over-sensitive stomach. Sigh, the ex-Office Wit never lets me forget the fact that one week I was convinced that it was oranges that were causing me woe, only to decide that it was ricotta that was sending me into murderous rages the following week. It is as if I cannot simply accept the fact that sometimes I am just a moody shit, but, instead, have to blame it all on "something I ate". For someone ideologically opposed to the infamous 'Twinkie' defence, it is probably time that I asked my neighbour to check my eye for any stray logs.

In short, when it comes to food and drink, I am quite barking. Saner folk than I have patiently pointed out that there could be something to be gained by being tested for allergies. But what fun would that be? And have they yet found a cure for hypochondria? We hypochondriacs are ever so wily! We mutate!

All of that said, I am going to try to start another new health regime tomorrow. I  think I am probably telling myself that as a pretext for feasting like a fiend tonight. It has been a day involving inexplicable pieces of toast. This was meant to be the year that, for the first time ever, I was going to join a gym. Did I just say "was"? Eek. I have moved the "Join Gym" reminder in my electronic calendar at work about five times. It keeps getting eclipsed by other priorities such as purchasing crates of champagne. I actually do not believe it is going to happen and perhaps should just drop this pathetic charade.

The only thing keeping me going is remembering how good I felt at those times of healthy living. How clear-headed, how positive, how 'can-do' I was! My clear shiny eyes would practically be bobbing on stalks. My teeth seemed whiter, my hair shinier. It was as close as I will ever get to attaining the Colgate Ring of Confidence.  But it also seems like an aberration - not the real me. My poor old father spent a life time rationing like it was still World War Two, and drumming into his recalcitrant offspring the benefits of moderation. Needless to say, he was crying in the wilderness. He also created a monster. A cookie monster.

I think I have come to accept that it will always be feast or famine, boom or bust, hope then strife with me. That is the rhythm of my life. It seems to be the rhythm of the world of late. And, finally, those fleeting glimpses of whippet-thin, moderate me, in all my bug-eyed evangelical zeal? Well, they bore the (elasticated) pants off me.  There. I have said it.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

As we say in the (American) South, you're preaching to the choir, honey! My mother put me on diets starting around age ten. And I was only mildly, awkward-stage chubby. In high school I'd have a Tab and a brownie for breakfast. I've been vegetarian, all-protein-diet-ataritan, went two whole years without eating any sugar. Now it's all about exercise: got to get back to yoga! got to start walking FIRST thing in the morning! etc, etc.

But i also think that finding love (not to mention the approach of middle age) has a lot to do with the development of those love handles. So blame it all on Dear Patient M!

[a thousand shades of twilight]

Ha! I think that you are right - that's why they call them love handles! I must admit that I always used to say that the moment I found someone, I'd let myself go and start wearing loafers and muu-muus!

I actually would like to just stop thinking about it all and see what happens..

[Orange County Yoga]

I actually would like to just quit considering it all and see what happens..