Well May has breezed through like a grand prix racing car, passing in a blur and now heading off into the distance towards June. Being my birth month there's always excitement - although I have to say birthdays aren't quite what they used to be. This year I had a joint Christmas and birthday present so when May arrived there was no anticipation of what I might be getting, it was already wrapped snugly around my wrist. However, as usual, over that weekend we had a series of get together with friends. The end result was far too much to eat and drink in what felt like one long running buffet over an extended weekend. Not good. In fact very, very bad. What made things worse was that three days later we headed with more friends to North Devon for a mid-week break in Lynmouth. More food and drink followed supplemented by a lot of walking in an effort to counteract the over indulgence. Well, I'm home now and have survived that initial 'OK scales brace yourself' moment without too much trauma. So with the birthday week firmly behind me it's all about eating sensibly and getting rid of those surplus pounds - right?
My mother struggled with weight problems all her life. As a teenager I remember the diets she'd go on in order to lose those extra pounds. One of them involved something that looked like those kid's sweets 'Flying Saucers' - see below. Only these weren't coloured they were white and looked totally unappetising - like, you're going to eat that? Really? Apparently once consumed they swelled up in the stomach and reduced the appetite. Then there were the Energen rolls - for those of you who remember they were horrible brown things which looked as if they'd been inflated with a bicycle pump and tasted like cardboard. Milk shake type drinks followed; tablets, the grapefruit diet, the boiled egg diet - an endless parade of weight loss attempts all with one thing in common. They simply did not work. As she got older, I think she recognised she was on to a loser, waved the white flag and decided enough was enough. All I could think of was the time and money wasted not to mention putting her digestive system through some pretty dreadful experiences. And yet had she simply tried reworking her diet the outcome might have been slightly different.
I take after my dad's side of the family as far as build is concerned. Actually that's wrong. Dad and his brothers and sisters were tall. I have to thank my paternal grandmother for my height. Now I have spent a good part of my life envying willowy friends, always yearning for longer legs and to be something more than my allocated five feet nothing. There are so many drawbacks with being small. Supermarkets are the worst places - you get overlooked when queuing at the deli counter and you always have to ask someone for assistance when you want something off the top shelf. Also when I was much younger, I was always being asked for some form of I/D in pubs as no one believed I was over 18!
Clothes are another contentious area. Today the petite woman is well catered for but I spent years taking up dress hems and trouser bottoms and dealing with much too long sleeves on everything - so annoying! Shoes as well - heavens, I'm really turning this into a bit of a soapbox moment today but it's so true! My shoe size is 36 (3). Actually I can even get in to a Size 35 (2) on occasions! There are those who actually think having small feet is lucky; that I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to buying shoes. Oh how wrong they are. There is even one particular shoe store in the city where they don't sell anything smaller than a 37 (4), yes it seems as far as they are concerned I have the feet of a twelve year old!
I guess if there is one positive thing about being small, however, it's that you can fool people about your age. At 18 my height worked against me, now it's a bonus! Because you are vertically challenged people tend to think you're younger than you are. I know this isn't always the case but personally I've found it does more often than not happen to me - which can be quite flattering! Oh and there's a second reason to smile - high heels. I absolutely love high heels - not the kind of skyscraper Louboutins that will land you in ED with a fractured ankle, but feminine heels you can actually walk in like these below which I happen to own a pair of.
As far as diets are concerned, yes I've been on a few although I never got hung up on them the way my mother did. Back in the 1990s I felt I needed to shed some weight. At the time I worked for the MD of a company where we did a lot of client lunches and regular intakes of food and wine were beginning to take their toll. The problem is of course that when you're small every extra ounce shows. You can't disguise it as well as someone who is, say, six inches taller than you are so drastic action needs to be taken. The American weight loss company Jenny Craig had opened up in the city, I knew a couple of people who had gone there and been really pleased with the results. So I thought why not? After a consultation I was told it would take me three months to shift just under a stone, which is what they decided was required to reach my ideal weight. They set a weekly menu and provided all the food with the exception of fruit and vegetables. There were some no-nos as far as I was concerned - for example I couldn't cope with omelettes made from powdered egg - horrific! There was no meat either, it was all soya laced with shed loads of garlic! They used to do small tins of 'stew' and 'mince' as a replacement for weekend meals and Sunday lunches. So for the time I was following this programme whenever we went out to dinner at friends I would take one of these tins along. One of my girlfriends used to refer to it as my tin of Mr Dog, which was a pet food available at the time. No one complained or threw a hissy fit, all those we ate with accepted this rather quirky menu change for me with good humour. Worse than the food though was the fact I was reduced to one glass of wine a week as well - it just fell short of having to join the Temperance League!
Once target weight had been reached there was a six month maintenance plan but unfortunately by the time I reached that point the UK branch of Jenny Craig was no more. Yes the weight did eventually creep back on, but not all of it and it took several years. I've danced about with weight loss on occasions ever since but am of the opinion that buying reduced sugar chocolate bars, crisps and milk shake drinks won't solve anything. They sell the dream of achieving what you want with no effort and that is not only wrong, it's not possible.
Believe me the only way to lose weight is by taking regular exercise and eating sensibly. Simple!
Till next week.
Jo x
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