feel the burn

Weight loss, exercise and I are fickle friends.

I go through periods (usually annually for the last three years) of feeling hugely fed up with heaviness around the arse and belly and drag myself off to a diet/fitness club (Rosemary Conley for the last three years) to lose around half a stone-ish and then lazily allow it to re-attach itself to my arse and belly over the next twelve months. 

This year is a bit different.  I haven't put on as much weight as I have done over the last year, although it is creeping up that way.  Normally by now, I have made my appearance at RC and am coughing up twenty quid a month to be weighed once a week by a complete stranger then bounce around with a bunch of like minded tubbies and oldies for forty minutes.  This serves its purpose, and off we go again.

Whether it's because I haven't put on as much weight as normal, or whether it's because I don't feel that concerned about being a little chubbier,  or whether I am just wearing bigger clothes, I don't know, but I haven't felt the annual urge to diet yet.  It may even have something to do with the fact that eating 'healthily' does not happily sit alongside the kind of food Oliver needs to be eating, crackers though it sounds.  For example, last night I bought a lovely piece of salmon to go with some asparagus.  Lovely, lovely healthy summery eating you would think.  But - no.  This, on its own, as Oliver would like to eat it, is no good for him without some carbohydrates.  So he had to be coerced into having potatoes too.  Bloody diabetes.  Some days pisses me off more than others.  Anyhoo, I can't always get my head around thinking of a meal, adapting it for Oliver, taking out the fat for me and the wheat and dairy for Mark.  Really, some of the instantaneous pleasure in cooking has been dimmed somewhat!

Meanwhile, back with the plot, I saw an internet offer recently for a 12 week weight loss and fitness programme for £19.  Bargain at £1.60ish per week I thought to myself.  So I signed up and went along last night to some little outbuilding in some lane on the edge of town to sit with 9 other likeminded individuals to receive our induction and be weighed.  I have to say that, contrary to the normal enthusiasm and 'new hobby feeling' which usually accompanies such an event, I feel very cross, un-enthused and downright rebellious.  The room was filled with torture devices like medicine balls and free weights.  The 'programme' is led by 3 blokes who are clearly fitness freaks, one of whom is a nutritionist who advises the Exeter Chiefs on diet and nutrition.  I started to feel a little out of my depth after about 5 minutes, and after fitness freak 2 started his diatribe on how he expected us to put in the effort because he was putting in the effort working out the programme for us (yeah, you are getting paid for your trouble mate) I could feel my lips beginning to purse in irritation.  Making us write down a 4 week goal and a 12 week goal was annoying beyond belief.  It felt like I was back in the days of office seminars and SMART goal setting which I despised.  Next week we have to turn up in exercise clothes ready for our first session which is apparently going to involve 'own body weight work - aka press ups.  News Flash guys: girls don't do press ups.  I don't care if that's sexist (actually - I can do press ups, but only because I have a weird teen-year athletic thing in my past going on)  Normal girls, who have led a normal life, can't do press ups.  Why the fuck would anyone want to.  See, now I'm getting all hot under the collar.  Fitness freak 2, btw, is newly qualified at fitness training, and ex-marines.  Imagine my surprise.

Nuff said.  If it wasn't for the fact I cannot bear to imagine Mark's reaction when I tell him I'm too cross and it's not for me, I would chuck it in and send them a caustic email right after finishing this blog post.  It is also a little pathetic, even by my standards, not to give it one session, so I feel I am duty-bound to go at least once more.  I even went into town today to purchase some vaguely acceptably sporty bottoms, but after thrashing my way into 4 different pairs and sizes, I had to admit they made me look more like a lightbulb than a sports devotee, and I have had to admit defeat in that department.  I don't even want to think about how snotty and cross I am going to feel by the time next Thursday comes along. 

All the above taken into account, I think I am, actually, quite OK with my own body image.  How I imagine I look (willowy and graceful) and how I really do look (stumpy with thighs like a rugby player) are two very different things, and although I know it - I don't feel it when I am out and about, and for that, I feel very fortunate.  It reminds me of this from Benidorm:

One chubby middle-aged man to another talking about self-image:

Chub 1: 'When I look in the mirror, I don't see a fat person.'

Chub 2: (in amazement) 'really?'

pause.

'Where do you buy these mirrors?'

Ha ha.