How a nurse can ruin your day ...

It's December.

And to welcome the month in I had a smear test today. JOY JOY JOY. Not exactly the opening of the advent calendar to the little joy of the chocolate. More the opening of ... well. Enough. There is something horribly medieval about those metal duck-billed cold basting devices. 'I'm rather nervous' I told the nurse. She looked at me over spectacles (not a medieval accessory I realise, but her look was withering, I felt like a witch about to be dunked). 'I don't really like this' I whimpered, trying to elicit sympathy. What on earth kind of comment was that? As if others spring into the surgery legs spread with excitement. 'Do you have a boyfriend? Hmm, well, doesn't he touch you?'

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Sorry, not sure how else to express the expression I made at this point).
Is that harrassment??

Good god. The NHS. Bedside manner. What are they teaching these people? Oh Lord. Forgive me. I nearly went down on my knees. I'm sorry for ever having had sex! For being a woman! For having a cervix! For having to trouble you, oh nurse, to do this thing. Who is more humiliated here?

Then, well, and why I'm telling you this: she bloody well weighed me! Was this part of the procedure? Do fat people need bigger torture instruments or was she just in torture mode?

81 kilos.

F**k.

'You need to lose weight'.

Thank you nurse.

'I see that you smoke. Hmmm. The pill, weight, smoking, over 30 years of age. Hmmm. Not good'.

Thank you nurse.

I thought I might just lay down and die by the statistics right there and then.

So, that was how a nurse ruined my day. Come back Elle, you, and the crab sticks are forgiven. I called Ray, to atone. He told me he has now lost 6 and a half stone on THE PLAN. Jesus. I have friends who weight little more than that. OH GOD. I felt heavier and heavier as we talked, as I was, coincidentally idling the isles of Sainsburys at the time, putting back the cheese and cereal like a child caught stealing penny sweets.

December. If it isn't the cruellest month it ought to be. Twenty days to go to 'the dress'.

40 days in the wilderness ...

I bought the bridesmaid dress. The bride called my bluff. As the date is now only 40 days away, I'd clearly shunted The Plan of Weight Loss (sorry Elle, the flesh really is terribly weak) into the sidings of lost dreams, and with it that farcical vision of sliding my willowy form into some Vera Wang strappless slip. Plan B was to say I'd only do it if I could sport a Vivienne Westwood creation. Thinking that was a foolproofly risible suggestion. But no, I discover this curious financial loop-hole that when 'wedding planning' (is there a verb?), sensible fairly non-glitzy people seem to lose all sense of real numbers. Someone who would never buy a pair of shoes for £100 suddenly thinks a £100 bunch of flowers seems reasonable. A bunch of flowers. I mean, I know, not the type you pick up from the garage. Whatever. So, then Vivienne's digits become a rounding error in the glorious magnanimity of wedding costs. 'Sounds great' she said.

So I bought it. Red. Long sleeves. Too tight, but, bless Vivienne for having curvy busty friends (unlike Mr Diesel who knows no 'Woman of Hips'). It does sort of flatten the bust rather but then again, long sleeves is most forgiving when squishing them under the armpits. They've got to go somewhere I suppose. Bastard pendulous protuberances. Am feeling quite cross with my large breasticles after this evening when a drunk in a pub asked me how much they weighed. Little does he know that, in a bid to make myself feel thinner (and the numbers add up) I have actually weighed them in the past - digital kitchen scales are the thing if you can manage not to lean - and then subtracted that from the overall weight mass when calculating my weight loss goals. Oh god, the SHAME of it. The embarrasing half naked at the kitchen table SHAME.

It does of course strike me that there is something tragic about counting down to someone else's wedding. Whoever said 'always the bridesmaid' was thinking of me. I've been to 43 weddings (none my own).

Looking back, neither did I weigh myself after the last blog missive. Weakness. Weakness. The road to hell. Quite. Numbers, schmumbers. Perhaps tomorrow. And tomorrow, and tomorrow. Creeps on this petty ....

And as if the wonderful god of irony was looking down smirking, the red dress I had bought was featured, the next day, in the Guardian fashion pages, in an article about outsize models. Thanks.

Forty days. And forty nights. Fasting? Bring it on baby!

Mysterious loss ...

I'm feeling mysteriously thinner. I think it's something to do with denim. I haven't been following 'The Plan' and am avoiding Elle and Ray with the flabbiness of my will power and the stretch marks of my excuses (unsightly, born of failure), so it can't be that. Or is it true that 'it's the thought that counts' and I've thought myself thinner just meditating on miso paste and crab sticks? Perhaps.

Denim is a curate's egg of a fabric. Forgiving and punishing. But of course it's all related to how much you wash it. Of course. The answer is don't, as all fattening people know and anyway denim can absorb a large amount of dirt/baby food/dog slobber/wiped hands etc without notice. We all have several pairs of jeans: when I am a fat person jeans, when I am a thin person jeans, jeans we bought and seemed like a good idea at the time (especially red ones, otherwise known as when I am a twat jeans) and jeans we can always get on. I have two pairs of thin-person jeans. Zara and Diesel. Large is a post-modern word in clothes sizing. Mrs Zara and Mr Diesel both have exceptionally thin friends with very long legs. Spanish? Italian? Either way, mysteriously, they currently fit. I haven't tried them on for over a year. Perhaps some kind of damp moth has relaxed the fabric? Or age? Or perhaps I am a bit thinner? Mysterious. Yes. As I keep saying.

Vow to go back on the plan tomorrow (holiday is over), and weigh self in morning.

'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Thanks Edmund.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ...

I haven't written out of shame. I blew it. All. Las Vegas style. Leaving Las Vegas Style - think Nicholas Cage with the supermarket trolley. Yup. I mean if you're going to ... why not? With guilt and sin, there's always forgiveness, or at the last resort, extreme unction.

The food intake this week was a formal not a material sin.

(This distinction is based upon the difference between the objective elements (object itself, circumstances) and the subjective (advertence to the sinfulness of the act). An action which, is contrary to the Divine law but is not known to be such by the agent constitutes a material sin; whereas formal sin is committed when the agent freely transgresses the law as shown him by his conscience, whether such law really exists or is only thought to exist by him who acts.)

Look, either way, its bad. But in diets as in religion, there is always a way back, from almost anything, isn't there? Isn't there? A way back? Forgiveness? Even from cynicism (Elle has told me that this blog is far too cynical). But not from despair. I know that despair is one of the worst sins, and I'm not there yet. In fact, I was anything but despairing as I ordered a large bag of chips at midnight on the Kilburn High Road on Saturday (£1.80's worth of joyfulness and hope). Ah, the crunch of fat, the sizzle of salt and malt vinegar. After an evening of champagne and about 20 (give or take) canapes (hot and cold) at an establishment do, it seemed like the right thing to do. Physically, morally and politically, given the company I'd been keeping. However, many unadvisable things do seem convincing at midnight on the Kilburn High Road (my pacifist friend recently had a punch up with two Australian cricket fans outside 'Chicken Chicken', so I should know better).

But in case this turns into a blasphemous confessional - I'm sure there's a circle of hell for frivolous scribblers like me who compare Catholic theology to dieting - I must tell you, I'm back on track - really.

Today:

3 tablespoons of oats
Cold milk
(sorry Elle, I just can't be arsed to cook them at 6.45 in the morning and besides they taste fine)
Expresso x 3

Apple x2

Bean salad (as instructed)
Green leaves (rabbit style)

Bowl of miso gruel
1 sweet potato roasted - tasteless
Fried egg (Mum gave me 12 from her hens so I felt I should)
2 tomatoes
4 glasses of red wine

Now, I know that doesn't look like I'm back on track, but I thought I could replace various things with the red wine? No, oh, perhaps that doesn't quite work.

Good thing: Have managed not to weigh self for 6 days - because I don't want to know.

Resolution: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps on .... Things can only be better. That sounds a bit New Labour, but they were pretty convincing at the time ...

A week in ...

A week in and I am the same weight. 12 stone 7lb according to my sorry scales. Sorry Elle. Sorry Ray. Sorry God. Sorry Me for ever being such a heavy-boned leaden-thighed millstone around the necks of your wonderful plan.

I did it. Sort of. I didn't eat any crap that's for sure: i.e. no bread, crisps, cakes, chocolate or other such fun items of snack nature. I did however languish and linger, slightly at the table of alcohol in the third circle of hell that is dieting. I know this is a mortal sin. I also went to 'The Designer Wedding Fair' (this too is a mortal sin I fear) and demolish a bento box including lemon torte and chocolate truffle. Many many sins. But a wedding fair? I ask you? Is there no understanding in this world? Merciful Lord.

But, to be truthful. I feel a bit thinner. I am not sure if I am confusing the sense of feeling thinner with the sense of feeling mildly virtuous or just put out by not having eaten anything nice for a week.

I did two yoga classes - accidentally stumbled in to the 'advanced' yoga class instead of the 'intermediate' and therefore had two hours of leg wobbling agony and embarrassment and chanting rather than 1 hour of breathing and bending. I think that counts as doing some exercise.

Of course the answer is that I should replace my scales. Clearly technology is in error. I have tried turning them off and turning them on again to no avail. The numbers still don't add up.

Let me tell you something about 'the plan'. I told them I couldn't cook. I think they thought that I meant I couldn't reduce a sauce to a jus or make souffle or something COMPLEX. What I meant was 'I am too lazy and tight to turn the oven on and I don't use a hand whisk and I live alone so cooking is pointlessly tedious'. So, the soups on the menu are out. So I didn't make them. I did make this slighlty rank 'miso soup' from a jar of miso paste. It resembles washing up water after a dinner parties worth of washing up. Not good. I fear miso is a major part of this plan going forward. Bless me Father.

The bridesmaid dress looms. Every time I tell someone about this diet, they don't, as hoped, say 'darling , you don't need to diet', they say 'good luck'. This is worrying. Do I have unrealistic body image? My father, who was 26 stone and 5 ft 8 inches was convinced he was anorexic as every time he looked in the mirror he saw a fat person.

I should go and mash some kind of soup or something now for my lunch tomorrow. See, not very appealing is it? When I could be finishing off a decent bottle of Rioja and watching Fitzcaraldo again.

Wish me luck! (Actually, jsut tell me I don't need to diet).

Good intentions and scales ...

I'm not quite up to describing the initiation process yet. I mean the actual diet. Too much to digest, ho ho.

BUT, how can it be that I weighed myself on Sunday (before the initiation) and was 12 stone 7lb (less than I thought which was pleasing, last time I weighed myself I was 13 stone 6lb). And then weighed myself on Monday morning (after at least thinking about 'The Plan') and weighed 12 stone 11lb. What the f**k?

Of course the 1st rule of dieting is don't weigh yourself every day, I know this. But it's hard to shake the 'it's the thought that counts' or 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' mentality of my dieting history ...

Yawn. A day of weird crab-related-astronaut-supplement-stick-food things. Of which more anon. I fear.

I am drinking a glass of wine. Medicinal. Small. Warm. Comforting. Little. Necessary. Forgiveness is a virtue.

THE PLAN ...

Tomorrow I am going on Elle and Ray's PLAN. It's a bit like The Alpha Course but we will be worshipping at the Temple of 'Weight Loss'. I thought if I wrote this down I might actually do it, along the lines of Berkeley's tree falling down and no one to hear it. Or something.

He was fat and lost four and a half stone. Now he's thinner. In three months. Still got several stone to lose but at least he's not getting the 'You are never going to see your child's 5th birthday' speech from the GP (they've just had their 1st child). A bit like that gripping scene near the end of 'Supersize Me' when the wonderfully fat, unhealthy looking and stubbly doctor tells Morgan Spurlock (who looks fine and is hardly even swelling really even after a month of Maccy D's) that his liver is going to explode and the fat and evil enzymes peddled by Ronald are going to seep out of his pores.

Anyway, Ray's now not in such a perilous position, and having known him as a reliable beer, claret, cognac man he's now tee-total. It is midly frightening. If only because it makes one contemplate ones own mortality. And liver. And fat ratio.

And the question is, is it an insult in a kind of helpful way (like when you Mum buys you Clearasil as a teenager) or just outrageously rude, to be asked to be a guinea pig for their new found 'plan' of weight loss?

'We need people with quite a lot to lose', Ray volunteers even before I have said how I'd like to try it.

Charming. Witnessing my slight sharp intake of breath, Elle, the petitie, immaculate dynamo behind 'the plan' counters with 'but not too much, I mean, you don't . .. you ... I mean ...'.

Too late. I offer her a metaphorical spade.

Is it right to assume that any fat woman wants to lose weight? It's taken as a cultural given that no one wants to be fat and that thinness is desirable and morally right. I have a moment of indignation, in a sort of discursive undergraduate way, but then realise that yes, I am just one of the masses of fat women who wants to lose weight. The realisation and admission that I am, to my own admission but self evidently to all observers, one of these huddled masses, is almost as depressing as the fat itself.

Would I feel more of an individual if I were thin?

If I follow 'The Plan' ... I may rename this 'the regime' as it makes more sense .... I may find out. So tomorrow I am being weighed by them, and taken on as a guinea pig (although I think I'd prefer rabbit rather than the perjorative pig word) for their book and weight loss club.

Needless to say, knowing this was coming I've been eating a lot of cheese and bread this week. Drinking red wine as we speak. As St Augustine said 'Lord make me chaste, but not yet'.