But WHY?

I have never really addressed the whys and wherefore of why I am here. Well, clearly because I’m a bit fat. That much is obvious. But fat people are jolly, right? They’re world renowned for it, in fact. And so why wouldn’t I want to be jolly? It is crazy, I understand. But bear with me all the same. I have an almost pathological need to tell stories from the beginning - it is why so very many of my stories are very long and dull. So I just have to get this ‘beginning’ off my chest before feeling more comfortable posting stories from the middle, on the way to the end.

I am, I have mentioned about twice in every post I have written, in the middle rather than the beginning of my shrinkage journey. I’ve always been certainly on the podgy side of things, but then I fell in love, I fell into an office job … and I fell from podgy into porky and from porky into fat.

Then a couple of years ago, a series of things were the catalyst to me starting to do something to do something about it.

First thing? I was feeling unhappy. I was feeling embarrassed by the clothes I was wearing, and what was underneath them. I hated catching sight of myself in shop windows, and had no full length mirrors at home. I wouldn’t let anyone at all take pictures of me - including family at family events, which was a stupid and vain way of behaving, and I felt terrible for behaving like that.

I felt unfit and misshapen and as far from attractive and sexy as I could imagine feeling. I was travelling a lot, and felt pushed to tears as, while one seatbelt would ker-LICK! happily around my tummy with room to spare (Virgin, thank you; BA, you’re on the verge) others I had to strain and tug at to the point of wondering if I was going to have to shame myself by asking for an extension belt (Swissair - business class, no less - can burn in fucking hell, frankly)

And there were other things. Many things. Things that added up to a general frustration and a new found determination to do something about it. I wrote about another one of them here, once. I was shouted at by a fat nurse for being fat, and that upset me not a little; mainly because of the shouting, it must be said, because I already knew about the fat thing. Without further discussion or conversation about sensible things to do, I was put on blood pressure tablets, because it was presumed that my blood pressure was high simply because I was fat, rather than anything else. They didn’t look for anything else, and didn’t want to talk about reasonable things I could do - they could see why I had high blood pressure, and gave me the simple drugs they decided would make it, and me, go away.

I didn’t want to be on tablets for blood pressure, and I hated myself for getting fat and having put myself in that position.

A few months later in a new town and with a new doctor, I refused to take any more tablets, managed to have a rational conversation, changed my contraceptive pill and saw my blood pressure almost immediately drop to ‘utterly normal and bounding with health’, so shooting the fat-and-dying theory to shit. But that’s beside the point - by then I was also on a mission.

Both doctors had also said, like so many television programmes, newspaper articles and everything else, I was, on the BMI scale, obese, and thus should not even consider the vague possibility of having babies. Now, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t like being told what to do. Regardless of the fact that I had no intention whatsoever to have babies at that point, I was as pissed off as pissed off can be at being told that I couldn’t.
No one says ‘can’t’ to me. It is widely referred to as the ‘c’ word for very good reason. Unlike the other ‘c’ word, which is fine.

I was living at the bottom of a hill, and hating the fact I huffed and puffed at the top of it on the way to the station in the morning.
I hadn’t weighed myself in I didn’t know how long, because I was scared to.
I tried to eat healthily, but a three hour commute was leaving us tired and convenience-foodish and take-away-tastic, so no, I wasn’t really, but I had occasionally tried to put my love and I on stupid unmaintainable diets with silly names and even sillier lists of do’s and don’ts that lasted a week and made no difference at all.
I wanted to exercise but was ashamed of my body, I wouldn’t go near a swimming pool, didn’t want to be mocked by the healthier, thinner people than I just knew occupied every inch of every gym.
I was determined, and angry with myself, and sad, and frustrated but didn’t know how to do anything about it.

I wanted to be fat and jolly, or big and confident, I wanted to be part of a fat acceptance movement, or proud of myself for all my achievements and the personality that could shine through it all, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t.

I didn’t want to be thin, don’t get me wrong. But I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to walk up that hill. I wanted to wear clothes to look good in them rather than just to shroud the bits I hated and hope the rest was passable. I wanted to decide whether I wanted to have children or not without anyone telling me I wasn’t allowed even if I wanted to. I wanted to get on a plane, sit down, and ker-LICK the belt without wanting to cry.
Although I’m still boycotting Swissair, because they’re can’ts.

So anyway, one day, passing the gym that was next to the station on the way home, I suddenly, and quite by surprise to myself, just walked in, and joined.
That was weird.
And that was the beginning.