Progress
Update (aka There’s Something Wrong With These Scales)
Total lost: 80lb (5 stone 10 lb)
Amount left to lose: 50lb (3 stone 8lb)
Percentage of original weight lost: 26.3% (Over a
quarter!!)
BMI: 32.1 (moderately obese) Started at 43.6 (morbidly
obese)
2013
2017
Reading
Over the past year I’ve been reading around the subject
of weight loss & obesity in the form of memoirs, factual books & novels
with fat/obese characters. With the latter I began with Lionel Shriver’s Big Brother which, in the way it’s
written, has something in common with Life of Pi. The main character is hard to
care about, as is Michael Kimble’s Big
Ray who deserves all he gets. I also read the highly entertaining but sad Butter by Erin Lange & Liz Moore’s Heft, which I found to be beautifully
written and had great characters to really care about.
The most recent was Eating
Bull by Carrie Rubin, a thriller which explores all the issues connected to
obesity & centres around a nurse & a teenager intent on suing the food
industry, as well as a serial killer targeting obese victims! He gets his comeuppance
of course; shot by bow & arrow at the hands of the sweet fat boy who gets his
happy ending. Hurrah!
Weight loss memoirs vary in quality. I read one which was
shabbily written but I was still impressed with the man’s story. He goes from
forty-one to twenty-five stone, which is still way above most of us, even me. He
went to a clinic & was put on a monotonous very low calorie diet for the
first year. The theory is it gets a lot of weight off quickly, which is seen as
the priority. Not sure I agree with this. His evening meal was ALWAYS chicken,
cauliflower & broccoli with nothing added and the rest of his day was
protein shakes. I kept wondering why he couldn’t have a carrot and a bit of
beetroot for a change. Nothing like normal eating, is it? But his determination
with exercise was inspiring. He walked a marathon at thirty stone. Might have
been more sensible to start with a half. He began swimming at forty-one stone,
which must have been hard. Especially for a man. Belly out, you know. At least
women can get a well lycra’d swim dress and be almost glamorous. (I may be
deluded here!)
Some of the memoirs cover pasts filled with bullying
& the psychological issues of a changing body, the latter particularly harsh
for those who choose to lose ten stone in under a year through surgery. Many
contain tips. Much contradiction here of course. One written by an Australian
comedy performer contained some dreadful self-deprecatory jokes but she still
had a core of determination to succeed that was impressive.
I recommend Jeanette Fulda’s Half-Assed. In her twenties she lost very nearly half of her
original weight, a total of two hundred pounds, which bearing in mind I’m
aiming to lose a hundred & thirty in my early fifties, is astounding.
Jeanette explores many aspects of her weight loss & fitness journey &
wider issues surrounding it with intelligence & humour.
I read What Have
You Got to Lose by Shelley Bovey, a woman who wrote fat acceptance articles
in magazines for years. In the 80s & 90s there were magazines called Extra Special & Yes!
which were good for finding clothes but I was never completely convinced by
the movement. Up to a point acceptance is a good thing but when does it become
an excuse? Is it really fine to be so fat if you can’t even buy clothes at
Evans or you are struggling to walk?
Shelley Bovey began wondering, at fifty, what was the
difference between the 95% who lose and put back on and the 5% who don’t. She
uses her journalist skills to find out by interviewing those who had done so and
then she went for it, losing seven stone. Her book explores every aspect of
weight loss and she does a good job of convincing herself & the reader that
losing most of your weight AND fat acceptance can go together. One thing I
totally disagree on is her dismissal of exercise as something no one is going
to keep up. Not necessarily true.
I recently read Roxane Gay’s Hunger. It made me want to read more by her. She’s good. Also it made
me a bit ashamed of my preoccupation with the names I got called by boys when I
heard what happened to her. Boys again. But then she put on two hundred &
seventy more pounds than I ever did. She’s lost a hundred & fifty over the
years & I believe she will one day do the rest. Use your intelligence &
determination, that’s what I say.
And I’m now about halfway through Fat is a Feminist Issue. I remain unconvinced about much of this.
I’m sure it’s true that we sub-consciously get fat for a reason but I can’t buy
into many of the reasons. And where is the very obvious ‘People get fat because
food is DELICIOUS.’? Surely there’s as much truth in this fact.
So … Do I want to write a weight loss memoir? Not sure.
There’s hundreds out there & do I want to be known for this? On the other
hand, maybe I could help others. All I know is if I did this, I’d want to be
maintained for a least a year and that the words ‘Impossible’ and ‘Thing’ would
feature in the title.
Being
an Inspiration
Many people have said told me ‘You’re an inspiration’.
I’ve had this a few times before but never imagined it would ever be connected
to fitness & weight loss. I’m slightly embarrassed by this even though it’s
my own fault for going public (which feels great & I don’t feel under
pressure in the slightest. Must mean I’m convinced I’m going to do it) & am
even more embarrassed by those three people who’ve said they’re jealous. None
of them have anywhere near the amount to lose as I had or still have so it
seems strange. I’m often jealous of others but would never tell them.
Anyway, I don’t think I’ll really accept this until I’ve
done the lot, maintained for some time AND got my head around it. Then, I will
accept all the ‘well done’s and even the word awesome if I ever do The
Impossible Thing.
Wanting
to Help Others
For years I almost never saw someone fatter than me. Then
I heard there was an obesity crisis and soon I started to spot them. These days
I see quite a few of course, especially now I’ve lost some. It makes me notice
it more. Very wrong to be asking ‘Is she fatter than me?’ as I walk around
town. At least it’s only in my head. Like I said last time, very hard not to
become obsessed.
In the eighties there were people who wore badges with the
words ‘Lose weight now. Ask me how’ on. But it was apparently part of a scam.
Something called Herb-a-life, which still exists. I think I’ll close the door
on the research of trying to work that out otherwise it will need its own
separate blogpost.
If it is a scam that’s a shame ‘cos I’d sort of like to have
a badge like that because recently I’ve seen several folk who are clearly
struggling. Twice I’ve recognised that keeping coat/long cardigan on even on a
very warm day thing. As if you can cover it. And I’ve seen someone trying to do
a delivery job at what looks like getting on for thirty stone.
And I want to say ‘You can do it. If I can you can. There
is a way.’ But as my fitness guru extraordinaire says ‘Would you have wanted
someone to say that to you?’ The answer’s ‘No WAY’ of course but I keep having
this feeling of wanting to help others, which is weird because it’s not
something that comes naturally to me.
But ultimately you have to help yourself. It’s about
determination and stubbornness, about forgiving yourself for not being perfect
but still pushing yourself forward, about doing it your way, keeping your cool,
notrushing to get there, adapting as you go, realising this is your life and
about never ever giving up.
2011
2017
Till next time …
Sal
