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'.