I take stock.

I started posting on here as something of a diet veteran. I hadn’t done anything too stupid - no cabbage soup diets, no food combining - but I had lost a couple of stone on low-carb diets, which I promptly put back on plus more, and considerably more on Weight Watchers, of which I promptly put back on 75% - making me a diet triumph, because 90% of dieters put the whole lot back on within a year plus ten per cent, or something. But by the time Anna and NWM and Wendy and I were putting this blog together, I had decided: no more counting, no more cutting out food groups. I was going to eat what I wanted, cook all of my food myself and exercise more.

I didn’t manage the exercising - I hadn’t organised myself properly, about which I will post another time. But I did manage to eat intuitively between Christmas 2007 and February 2008. There were no forbidden foods. The rules were simple: I ate whatever I wanted for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and ate until I was satisfied. I confined myself to fruit, vegetables or nuts in between meals. And I cooked everything I ate myself (apart from chicken beyti kebabs from the local Turkish, which are my absolute favouritest most favourite food ever). So if I wanted fried fish and chips that was fine - as long as I sliced the potatoes and fried the fish myself. The rationale was that if I wanted it badly enough I’d make it, and if I didn’t want it badly enough to take the time to make it, then I was probably more looking for convenience than fishy chippy happiness and should be rethinking my choice.

I Am A Cretin

There are a million reasons why people get fat, or can’t lose weight, or don’t want to lose weight, either consciously or sub-consciously. There are also a million different ways to motivate people who are losing weight and whilst Katy, Wendy, Anna and I all broadly have the same reasons for doing it, what motivates us will be very different. (As will the way we cope with for e.g. random scone attacks, sudden curries, The Effect Of Ladyhormones, not losing weight for a week when you are doing all the right things, etc.)

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I am often the first to pipe up with ‘helpful advice’ for my fellow Porketeers, ranging from “shut the fuck up, stop your whining and just get on with it“, to “love yourself, yeah?”, via “It’s really simple! Just eat less and move around more!”, with many other interjections in between.

None of this, however, detracts from the point, which is that I have not:

1. Lost one pound since we started this blog;

2. Managed to combine going to work with doing exercise;

3. Listened to my own advice.

I found this post on my other blog last night.I was much more amusing back then; much more amusing than, in fact, I’ve been for about 530 days. But that is another story all together, and I shall not (for once) digress.

I wrote it on 18th July 2006. After having a quick lie down and a suck at the gin, I got out my scientific calculator and did some maths. A bit of really clever arithmetic told me that, had I stuck to my very reasonable and effective regime (and assuming I had lost weight the proper rate of approximately 7lbs a month), I could have lost 9 stone since I wrote that post, and that’s about five stone more than I need to lose.

What a fuck-awful waste of time. People being kind or encouraging makes no difference, and sympathy makes me want to vomit. I have never really listened to anyone else’s advice (unless I ask for it), and I hate being told what to do, or being told I “must” or “should” do anything; but the one thing that will get me off my fat arse (in almost any circumstance) is the prospect of looking stupid.

Yes. It is true. I have been stupid. I am a cretin. I am a fool to myself. I am an idiot. I have wasted time, and potential for cartwheels, riding horses at dangerous speeds, and not looking like a mentalist in jeans.

As of this very minute right now, when I am faced with an open biscuit tin, I shall shout ‘YOU ARE A CRETIN!’ and withdraw my hand sharply. If I decide that I cannot be arsed to either go to the gym or ride upon the noble crosstrainer that the best of all men obtained and assembled for me*, I shall remind myself of how miserable I feel if I do not, and shout ‘FOOL!’ in the mirror.  And if hot cheese is in the offing, I shall form its delicious fatty-fatness into the word “I-D-I-O-T”.

Yes. It is time. I must stop being an idiot and get my fat arse in gear.

* It is the least I can do. I have non-stop quiet support, 24 hours a day, in all weathers, hairy crack or not. I have not properly appreciated it until now.