The slothful, inactive waste of precious days.

Morning all, from the heart of a wet, drizzly England. What a grey day. It's matching my mood.


I drove my son to work early this morning then headed into town to do some shopping, or rather to mooch around. Since I have retired I have to count the pennies, so sitting down to have a coffee (and the slice of cake that goes with it) is a luxury I can no longer afford. I did buy myself a T shirt as I'll be going to Spain in May with my man.
Interestingly, I bought an XL size, knowing for now that comfort is more important than vanity. Me - an XL size. How ghastly. Food for thought.



This XL (extra large, hell, not even plain old 'large') awareness was a comfort in a way, given that today my jeans felt SO tight and uncomfortable. Movement was....well, not pleasant. I felt trussed up. My size 20 (UK 20) blue jeans are just too small and I must accept it. Again. I felt like a stuffed turkey bursting out of it's plastic wrapping. Everything was stretched tightly over my horrible, misshapen frame, and I felt, well - freakish - even though I'd tried to coordinate my clothes to look good, wore jewellery and make-up. My hair was freshly cut and looked neat, but still I felt middle-aged, fat and...no, not invisible but as though I had a huge, luminous arrow pointer over my head, following me around, marking the movements of "The Woman Who Is Bigger Than You". I am the big, pregnant-looking middle-aged woman. People stare and I feel SO self-conscious. I wore pop socks folded around my ankles, (the Norah Batty look because I didn't want the elastic digging into my calves, and the bulge would have shown under my silly, straight-legged jeans) blue (stretchy, elasticated waist) jeans and a grey T shirt that rode up over my hideously large abdomen when I moved. Ugh! The little blue cotton jacket which used to fit wouldn't do up around my body but I thought the long, silky scarf I draped round my neck would hang and the gap wouldn't be so obvious, and my black court shoes with little heel were uncomfortable. I just wanted to get home and put on something baggy and comfortable.



It would be so easy to accept my shape and live in huge, shapeless, loose garments. I could become Kaftan Woman. I could dress like the late Mama Cass. I like the idea of flowing voluminous swathes of material hiding the stumpy fat frame that is my body. Sounds good. No worries about what to wear each day. Right now, I DO accept my shape, but how I am kicking myself that I allowed myself to become so fat. With hindsight I can say I should have tried to improve my fitness even though I was without energy and ill a few years ago. If only I knew then what I know now I think I would have been striving not to gain weight. It's easy to put on, but so hard to lose.



I was a smallish rounded woman when I worked - well padded but certainly not fat, not wobbly and blobby as I am now, and much admired about twelve/fifteen years ago. Those were my attractive days, post divorce, out of an unhappy marriage, bringing up children, seeing my career take off and getting lots of male approval. In fact I had some VERY good years between 1996 and 2003. I had what I felt was a new lease of life. Then I became ill - wham! We do take our health for granted. Now mid-fifties I feel old in body (not head!)  and very fat and most unattractive (although my partner tells me I am pretty, bless him.) I still feel fiesty though and in my head, I'm invincible, although I know I am not. (Vulnerable would be a better word.) Put me down at your peril, world!


I ask myself - "WHY didn't you do something about it in 2008 when you began to mend? Why did you allow the slide into obesity, why didn't you vow to keep your fitness? You have more time to yourself now. WHY didn't you walk...love yourself...keep active?" Today I beat myself up in the same way. Here is a brand new day. What will I do with it?


'Not a lot' I hear that little voice in my head answer back. I have a glorious day in which to wallow, be self-indulgent. It stretches before me and unlike the decades before, it's a pretty hassle-free time. Bliss.



I think the truth is, if I carry on doing little and sitting about, I'll descend into immobility, and that thought terrifies me. I like being able to stride out...to walk, to bend...to weed the garden etc. OK, so through illness since 2003 - one blasted thing after another - movement WAS restricted and doing too much WAS painful, and I was drugged up to the eyeballs, so felt lethargic, but now I feel youngish still, in my head, and my face isn't too bad. I can claw back my vitality now I have had that last restorative operation. I CAN! (If I want to that is.....)



Trouble is, the whole aging process takes it's toll. We do slow down, lose strength and energy and our frames weaken. We deteriorate with age. That's frightening. I don't want to be an OLD person. I am still a girl - in my head.



TODAY and the years ahead...what do they hold? I have been thinking about them. I use it or lose it. I am growing older, I am middle aged, yet my stupid, stupid self-sabotage - my insistance this is ME time, an antidote to the incredible stresses and strains I bore over the last thirty years, that I shouldn't do anything that makes me uncomfortable, that I CAN be self-indulgent and have a right to be now I have retired from what was a stressful job, is bringing me down, making me a lesser woman.


Why isn't my retirement a time for self-improvement? I dunno.



Attitude. My attitude lets me down. From today onwards (perhaps, may be) I shall use it as I don't want to lose it. Wish I had thought about this years ago when the weight started creeping on. How will I look five years from now if I don't try to halt the decline...the march of time...or in my case...the slothful, inactive waste of precious days?



My life is precious, and so is yours, but life slips away. Self-talk needed. Enjoy it, use it and feel good about yourself. You are worth it. (Now, I should toss back my head and let my hair fly loose, and flounce away from the PC, as in the hair spray adverts.)


What will tomorrow bring? What will the rest of today bring? More of the same, or a new determination? Hmmm. Determination sounds like hard work. How much do I want a healthy, active body?


I need activity more than I need a diet. OK, so I do need to tinker with my meals, eat smaller portions, include more fruits and vegetables and I need to stop snacking but more than anything I need to build activity into my days. I am trying to convince myself that a walk round the block will be interesting rather than boring. My body will thank me as long as I don't sit down and enjoy sedentary pastimes for the rest of the day. If every time I walked round the block I picked up a one pound coin, I'd probably do at least ten laps! Incentive. How do you find the incentive to move? How can I motivate myself to be active? I hate gyms. I loathe them for all sorts of reasons, so I think walking is the way forward for me.


I know the theory. How on earth do I put it into practice?

"Just f*ckin' DO IT!" I am screaming to myself.

Oh, and before I finish readers...(sorry, I do go on, but stick with me) just let me tell you about this Californian woman who really moved me to tears the other day.

I was watching a programme we have here in the UK and you probably have something similar in the USA and in other parts of the world. It was called 'Super-Size v Super-Skinny' and about one obese woman and one anorexic woman and their eating habits. To cut a long story short, the fat woman was beamed a message from the States. The woman who was speaking to the overweight English woman was bed-bound..and late fifties I think. She had tubes in her nose to help her breathing and lay, with the flesh of her stomach out before her like a blanket on the bed. It covered the bed...like a small lawn. Her thighs were the size of small boats and she had several chins, podgy fingers and very chunky arms. She must have weighed 45+ stones. Her face however was the face of an ordinary woman, apart from the red blotches and tubes up her nose. Her eyes were extremely sad. She wasn't a sub-human thing although she was very much captive. The bed was her prison..her cage, and she couldn't stop those who came near her staring, in fascination and disgust. Her words, her manner and her dignity belied her fatness. She was an articulate and wise woman who had slowly, slowly descended into fatness, to hugeness - the way we can all go. She didn't put on the brakes, and found herself at the mercy of others who had to see to her daily needs. She could do nothing for herself except ironically, put food into her mouth. She had lost her dignity. She had lost herself. She was in pain, physical and emotional pain.

Her message? Don't allow the fat to grow..to spread, to take over. Stop the slide. From 150lbs we see 180lbs on the scales, and then 200lbs, and then 250lbs, and before long 300lbs, and it goes up and up but we don't want to use the scales. By then, hopelessness and despair can set in. She said (and I am paraphrasing her here) 'If I had only say 80lbs to lose, you wouldn't see me for dust. I'd be running to that gym. I'd be exercising like mad. I'd be out every day, with the kids, with people, moving, doing activities, going to the park...I'd be caring for myself. It would be so easy to put things right..."

Her name was Alayne I think, and at the end of the programme there was a little message to tell us she had since died.

OK, so I have a letter to post and the post box is up a hill about half a mile away. It's raining, but I don't care. That's where I am going.

Drum roll.

In my head I hear a drum roll. What does it signify? A break through? A moment of truth? A significant event? Perhaps.

Weighed myself this morning, against all my instincts. Drum roll now please. A while ago I decided that a preoccupation with food and weighing myself was very unhealthy. There is nothing worse than a diet bore. (Well there is, there's lots worse, but you get my drift...) I have friends who, when you go out to eat with them will labour the point that certain foods are just 'bad'. They are of course right, but I have been so tempted to say "Oh just shut the f*ck up and enjoy yourself!" I have to ask is my attitude worse?

I am not good in the company of food saints. In fact I am not good in the company of anyone who goes on and on about their personal project and dieters tend to be the worst offenders. Now I am one of them, but I refuse to be dragged down to the point where I am like them. I am the reluctant dieter. I'll do it because I have to, but apart from this blog, I'll go about the business of being more selective around food quietly. I might even break out and eat something 'bad' just for the sake of it. So there!

It's restriction that makes me mad...but perhaps I am stupid to get so worked up about it? Perhaps there is another way and I can purr rather than scowl because I don't really mind being on a permanent healthy eating campaign?

I actually LIKE health-giving foods. My boys had to follow a low fat, low sugar, high fibre diet from infancy. There was no way I was going to serve them food which might endanger their health. (Now they are older they make their own choices, which is as it should be, but I know all the theory about carbs, proteins, fats etc. I was checking food labels way back in 1987, before it became the norm to do so!)

Anyway..enough pondering my reasons for remaining the way I am...the fat woman. I don't want to be a fat woman. So how do I go about changing that? I HAVE to get my head round the fact that my life has to change, and my biggest problem is couch-potato-itis.

Right. I am not a couch potato in that I sit glued to the TV, eating constantly, huffing and puffing when I have to get up. No, I am not like that. Honestly. If anything I am a computer-potato. I love to write, I love to read, I love to surf. I am happy in front of my PC and can't imagine life without it. I can't bear trashy day time television.

However, I have  become a bit of a hermit. Oh I don't shun the world, and I don't lock myself away, and I still socialise with friends and my partner (who lives across the other side of town from me) but...now I don't work and now the kids have grown, I don't have much reason to go out. The day is mine to choose what I do with it...and I tend to gravitate towards my PC for entertainment, learning, knowledge and interaction..via writing. If writing burned calories I'd be anorexic. Thing is, cyber interaction involves no movement. My arse has spread so much from sitting that it has a shelf on it. Not a good look. (It would have been great during the Edwardian era though. No need for a bustle under my dress.)

I have to MOVE. That's what I have to do. I have OH's exercise bike in my sitting room. I get on that every now and then..but I don't have a routine. I live in suburbia, so if I go for a walk I walk past houses...and on main roads, busy with traffic. Where is the fun in that? I could drive to a park...and pay a parking fee for the car, but to be honest, walking alone for the sake of walking just doesn't appeal to me. I like walking, always have and I do it well*...but now, I have no reason to just go out and walk. I burned calories when I was working. I was always on the go. Now I have stagnated - I retired early in 2005. I gave up a good salary because I thought after 31 years of slog I was worth it. It was a bad decision with hindsight. Poverty (OK, so not REAL poverty, but a lack of disposable income) had ensued, as well as a much slower, less active life-style. So it would make sense to walk...or at least to build some activity into my day. My legs would thank me for it too. I know the blood pools in the legs if I sit still for two long, and the thought of deep vein thrombosis DOES worry me.

Why I resist being good to myself is a bit of a puzzle. It's a daft mentality.

OK, I weighed myself. This is where the really loud drum roll is needed. I am 15st 13lbs. That's 223 lbs. (I don't do metric. Sorry Europeans. Grrr. I hate metric measurements too. Another thing to add to my "I refuse to recognise this" list.)

Strangely, my weight hasn't fluctuated much in the last two years. I have been in and out of hospital and always my weight has been around the sixteen stones mark. Those nurses weighed me..and told me how much I weighed, but it was in kgs, so made little sense to me. (If they'd said 'lard arse", "morbidly obese" or "fatso" it would have been much more helpful.) I can't visualise kgs. Nor convert them. Well I can but can't be arsed to when pounds and ounces make sense. When I was working I weighed between 12 and 13 stones...that's between 168 and 182 lbs, so even then I was overweight, despite my activity.

I have bored myself now. Sorry if I have bored you too.
So..that's my starting point. One more pound and I would have been sixteen stones. 224lbs. I shall look out for that number on the scales, and perhaps for now, my goal is to stay below it.

I have eaten the two Magnums (yesterday) which were tempting me from my freezer. They have gone. A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. Yep. So far today I have had a bowl of oaty-nut cereal (yeah, I checked the calories on the box) a banana, two mugs of tea, one mug of coffee and a Go Ahead Fruit Bake, which is a cakey thing for fatties or people who think they are being good by not tucking in to something REALLY gungy and cakey. An apple would have been a better choice, but hey-ho.

I am off to my partner's house for lunch. That's what usually happens on a Sunday. He cooks a roast dinner...which I enjoy. Perhaps today I'll have only one roast potato..

See. I am being virtuous already. I want a halo.

* Oh....partner knows I walk quite fast. He said only recently "You move quite quickly for a fat bird..." I think that was a compliment?

Enjoy your Sunday.

Ooops...what's today's quotation?

Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.

~ Gloria Steinem (1934 - ), feminist. O Magazine, May 2004

Hmm. Not sure about that. Love me, love my fat? Love me for what I am? Given I don't love my rolls of blubber, and want them gone I feel I am NOT acceptable as I am. I am loveable. My fat isn't..it's despicable. Where's a shrink when you need one?

Hey, I short-changed you.

Sorry readers. (I'd love to have regular readers.) I promised you a quotation a day, didn't I?

Have this....

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.

~Mark Twain

Oh tell me about it Mark.

Me and forbidden food....we love each other. Just call me Eve.  *Chomp*

The lost Saturday.

Evening all...anyone out there?

It's late. Anyone ever see that film..an oldie, with Ray Milland, called The Lost Weekend? It's about an alcoholic who hides bottles all around the house and drinks to oblivion. I am reminded of him today because I just haven't seen much of it! I get up at 6.45am every week day morning, because I have to drive my oldest son to work. (He works in the middle of the country side, doesn't drive and there is a very infrequent bus service.) Given I am a bit of a night owl I survive on about five-six hours sleep per night.

Anyway, unlike Ray Milland, I don't hit the bottle...but today vanished. I slept in late, until 11.30am, which is VERY late for me..but I was fast asleep...and only noise from my boys woke me. I was surprised when I looked at the clock. My body clock usually kicks in and I rise fairly early. It didn't happen today. I felt very groggy when I got up...I made a big mug of tea (I just ADORE tea, it's my favourite beverage) and a bowl of cereal..an oat clusters with almonds one. No sugar, semi-skimmed milk. Then I had another mug of tea...I put some washing in the machine, showered, dressed, tidied up the kitchen and sat down. I yawned..and fell asleep on the sofa. This was at about 2pm. I woke at 8pm! I lost a Saturday!

I don't see my beloved on Saturdays very often as he is away following his football team. Good job he wasn't around today...I was a bit zombie-like for some strange reason. I told my sister about it (during the short time I was awake this afternoon!) and she said sometimes your body just has to catch up. The rest was probably long over-due.

The good news is, because I slept, I haven't eaten much at all today! Yay! This is the way to slim! Seriously..I got on the exercise bike and did a whole ten minutes...(I try to do lots of short sessions during the course of a day.) Well, that's the plan, and some days I am unable to stick to it, or just don't stick to it. I put the bike into 'calories burned' mode, and aim to burn 30. The resistance level is four and my heart is beating quite fast when I have finished. I also tell myself if I can burn 30 calories, I have to burn five more...I am hoping to work my way up to burning off an apple! And yes, if any seriously fit types or those into 'proper' exercise are reading this, I can see you sighing and giving up on me. As with the eating plan...I have to work myself into it. I think my miserable efforts are better than none at all.

I made myself a sandwich for a late lunch...a ham and Dijon mustard one, on a sunflower and pumkin seed wholemeal bread. I followed that with some caramel Snack a Jacks..(rice cakes with a sweet glaze ) and ate them sort of unconsciously. I was watching TV at the time and consumed half a packet before I realised! OK so they are low fat, but still, that was uncontrolled eating really. I need someone to lock all food stuffs away, and dish me out small portions at meals times.

When I win the Lottery I shall take myself off to a health farm for a few years;-) I like the idea of a chef preparing light, healthy meals and being served them. No preparation, no washing up. I could idle...er, I mean or swim/cycle/walk to my heart's content. Notice I didn't mention gyms. Exercise machines leave me cold. I have been a gym member twice and I found the whole 'going to the gym' business a complete chore. So boring.

It's Saturday, and I haven't had a glass of wine. We Brits are following our continental cousins and taking to wine drinking with meals. I enjoy a glass of dry white wine, although I know red is supposed to have more health benefits. However, I am trying to see alcohol as 'empty calories' and just don't buy myself wine any more. I was forming a habit of opening a bottle during the week and having a glass of wine with my evening meal. It's such a civilised practice....and an enjoyable one too. I can live without it though.

It's late, but I am not sleepy. Surprise surprise! Tomorrow I shall take to the scales. Sadly, I feel like a condemned woman, one due to be executed at dawn. This has me thinking. Don't condemned prisoners get one last blow-out meal?

See, with this thinking I don't see 'diets' as being successful. I wish I was fired up but I'm not, and I have no idea why, given my fatness is a health issue now.

Oh well, I shall go and read...probably until the early hours. I could probably consume at least 1000+ calories before morning, but I shan't. I shall stick to tea...and perhaps a low-cal ready meal. I am owed a few calories today.

Grrrr. I hate thinking about food like this..having to be conscious of what I put in my mouth. Eating should be a natural process, with no guilt attached. Grrr, grrr and thrice grrr!

Rebel without a cause....

Hey, day two already! Ha. Don't say I am not committed.
(I suspect I like writing more than I like planning healthy menus and getting off my bum to exercise. This is a doddle compared to HAVING to move, having to eat well and sensibly and finding the commitment to succeed at losing weight.)

I annoy myself, I really do. I have an inner rebel, a saboteur keeping me in this chair, convincing me that now I have retired after thirty years of stressful work and traumatic personal circumstances whilst raising children alone, the time is MINE to do with as I please. I should not have to do anything I don't want to. This new mellow me and all this free time, is my reward in my fifties, for the last thirty years of a fairly hellish and exhausting existence. Oh there were good times along the way too, many of them, and I adore my three children. They are worth every drop of perspiration, every effort of mine to keep the home fires burning whilst bringing home the money to pay the bills and every tear I have cried. Life is considerably less stressful now and much easier. My children have grown into fine young adults, despite two of them having chronic diseases. All now go out to work so days at home are mine to do what I please with - and I LOVE the solitude, the peace, the hours stretching ahead of me.

Sadly, however, my retirement from work coincided with several years of ill-health and I have been in and out of hospital during the last four/five years. I am fighting back though. I feel so much better these days, I am on the mend, but I am also so much, much fatter.

That's what a sedentary life does for a woman! The being sedentary - the moving very little during the day, has become a sort of habit. Strangely, I can walk away from fattening foods most of the time, and I can walk at a good pace for miles when I feel so inclined, (which isn't often) but I am not very disciplined about eating. I tend to grab whatever is available that doesn't require cooking. Sadly, an apple or a piece of fruit doesn't call me, but bread, butter, cereal and ready-made meals I can bung in the microwave do! I have become lazy. There are no two ways about it. Making an effort has become a pain, and I think it ties in with my insistance that this is MY time and I can be as slothful as I like!
Oh I feel so fat and bloated and these tight clothes are like a sausage skin on me. I am bursting out of them.

No idea why I am writing this blog, because I rebel. I strike out at anything that tries to restrict, control or change me...as a diet would. It's too much like hard work. Why should I deny myself all the foods I love? Why should I exercise? I hate exercising. Leave me alone, on my chair, in front of the PC and let my weight balloon and allow my muscles to flop.THAT is what I want to do. Let me sit here. It doesn't matter that I am neglecting all areas of my life and relationships as well as my health.
Sigh. I know all this, I write all this and yet I fight having to change. I resist committing to dieting and exercise when I KNOW the only winner in this will be me. I'll be in a race with myself...no competition, so why don't I just stop moaning and get off my bum and commit? Any answers, because it's a mystery to me?
I may read this another day and berate myself. I doubt very much if my own self-loathing and the uncomfortable way I feel now will inspire me to try to lose weight and move a bit more, but we'll see. It hasn't in the past.
How much do I want to feel better, slimmer, fitter? I am not sure. Perhaps I don't really want to make the effort it involves. I am basically lazy and careless and vaguely depressed because I am fat, and disheartened and fed up because of the massive task it will be to lose this weight. It can be done though.
I know the first step is the hardest, but I am refusing to take it. No idea why. Perhaps because I might fail, given my lousy attitude?
Only I can make the changes.

Hey. I am going to dig out an inspiring quotation every day. I like quotations. They don't inspire me to change my life though, but they are good to read. I get some exercise in nodding my head in a sage manner, respectful of the author's wisdom.

Here is today's gem. (What a value-for-money blog this is turning out to be, eh?)

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose."

~ Lyndon B. Johnson, address to the nation, November 28, 1963

36th president of US (1908 - 1973)

Hey Lyndon - what about today? You forgot about the power of today mate.

PS: Tomorrow, I'll tell you what I weigh. I am still avoiding those pesky scales.

OK, so here goes.....

Perhaps I ought to have entitled this post "And so it begins" but to be honest dear reader, I am not quite sure if it has begun. My weight-loss campaign that is.


There is no doubt about the fact that I am FAT. Yes, fat. I could be kind and call myself 'overweight' or 'plump' or 'pleasantly rounded', but hell, this blubber hanging over the top of my jeans (with elasticated waist of course) leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that I am a hefty old bird.


Old?  Hmmm. Am I? No. I am no spring chicken, having hit fifty, but sadly, in my head I think I stopped growing (mentally) when I was about 28. I feel exactly the same about things, and yes, I have matured and I am wiser, but my outlook hasn't changed much. Hopefully if you're younger you'll still find my blog has some merit, because a fat woman is a fat woman after all. I might not trip the light fantastic in my flares on a Saturday night any more, and I am not out man-hunting at weekends..(I have a lovely partner but we don't live together as yet) nor am I climbing the career ladder any longer. I am a mother..but my kids are in their early twenties and don't need me so much now. So, all in all, I can concentrate on being a fat woman who knows she needs to lose weight. What a bore.


I am sighing here. That is NOT a happy prospect. I can't get excited by the challenge. It means thinking about everything I eat, preparing foods, planning menus and moving my lardy arse around a bit more. A lot more.


This is a new blog. I have no readers as yet. I might be writing for myself because let's face it, I don't for one minute think I am going to inspire anyone to work on becoming healthier when I see the whole business as a chore. Yes...I have to 'love myself more'...blah, blah and anyway, being this heavy...(I'll weigh myself in a minute and I dread getting on those scales) is unhealthy. This is a vanity thing, but more importantly, I want to remain mobile and active. I am officially 'morbidly obese, so I'd be a complete fool to ignore that fact any longer. Humour me and allow me another huge sigh.


I know that the decision to lose weight can't be half-hearted..and it has been for the last year or so. I'll have  a few days every now and then when I'll make healthy food choices, cut way down on the fat, sugar and carbs, drink water, use my exercise bike for a few minutes *cough*  I play with the same ten pounds. Off they go, back they come. Off they go..back they come. You know the pattern. Then I give up for a bit and gain a few more pounds. I have tried. I eat better than I used to, and not so many junk foods tempt me. I have cut out all alcohol during the week. I have eschewed the glass of Sauvignon Blanc with my mid-week dinners...and that is quite a saving of calories. It's hard. I like to relax in front of the TV at the end of the day with a glass or two of vino, but that's a habit I have kicked. What is life without dry white wine I ask myself?? Hear me wail!


OK, so two days ago I bought two three-pack boxes of Magnums (Lovely lollies..vanilla ice cream encased in white Belgian chocolate.) They are  on the shopping list of a woman intent on losing weight, aren't they? This diet malarkey will start when I have seen them off...consumed them. Look - I have self-control. There are still two left. I have only eaten four of them in two days. They are winking at me every time I open the freezer door. I shall scoff any goodies in the fridge before I embark on this campaign, and there aren't too many dreadful things in there. Honestly.


Yeah, yeah, all you dedicated types would say it starts NOW and you'd throw those evil items away. Nothing in my fridge is completely baaaaaad. Some things are just a teensy bit not too good to consume if you intend to lose weight.


However..this is the deal. This pact I make to myself, and to you. (Echo...echo...echo....Who am I kidding? All you earnest types have given up on me already, haven't you? There is no one out there. I am alone and mad and writing to myself.) 


The deal is...I work my way up to this gargantuan life change. I have a couple of days to a) finish off the food I have, in moderation, and b) dwell on what it means to be a woman on a diet. Then I shall go to the supermarket next week a new woman...a woman with a purpose. I shall avoid all those areas with winking food. You know what it's like. Some things in the supermarket just want to befriend you, and I find jam doughnuts and danish pastries tend to be extremely pally.


I hear you screaming "No, no, no!! If you really want this, you start right now! Stupid woman! You wait no longer. You begin the journey this evening! Go and create something with lettuce for your dinner!"


It's all in the head, isn't it? You really, really have to convince yourself that the lardy thighs, bulging stomach,the rolls of fat, the swollen upper arms, wobbly chins, arse with it's own post-code, knees encased in fat and plump fingers have to go. What is there to think about really? Who needs that blubber? Still, until I get that light-bulb moment - the one that apparently makes you change your whole outlook on your big fat life - it doesn't happen. The fat hangs on. I allow it to.


Anyway. I am going to write about it. It's a struggle. I don't feel inspired, but my poor old heart deserves a break. It shouldn't have to pump so hard.


I started this, because one particularly inspiring blogger in the States, pointed me in the direction of a lady whose life ended suddenly last week. She was a cheery writer, and determined to lose weight, and now she has gone, and left her children and family behind. I didn't know her, but I read some of her blog, and felt so sad. A life over. RIP Bethany.


Heck. As I type I have Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E playing on my computer. Such a beautiful piece of music...


Excuse me while I blow my nose....Yeah. Even grumpy women cry.


I've already had more life than she was given, yet I have been blase about it..and the way I look, the way I eat, the way I move, the whole deal. Life is precious, isn't it? The clock ticks, and it ends one day. The chances are that I won't get my natural span if I don't lose weight.


So, perhaps this ought to be more than a half-hearted attempt to be the best grumpy, middle aged woman I can be? Who knows, if I succeed (and right now, that IF is looming large) I might become a tad more cheerful?


OK. That's post number one done. More of the same tomorrow. If you stayed to the bitter end I congratulate you on your fortitude. Well done :-)


And thank you.


Bah humbug <~~~~for added grumpy emphasis.