I have lived most of my forty plus years with a fat person inside me, trying desperately to get out. As a child I was quite tubby and well on my way to becoming a Teletubbie when, at fourteen, Mother Nature stepped in and sentenced the fat person to life imprisonment with time out for bad behaviour.
I did not hear or see anything of the sanctioned fat person for a long time. But as I approached twenty five, IH friends warned that on the day of my 25th birthday the fat bottom of the fat person would be released and the width of my own rear end would double over night. While the over night phenomenon did not eventuate, over the course of the next three years my rear end was blossoming into a fat bottom. It was not at the stage where I needed to wear a ‘wide load’ sign but it was approaching the stage where wearing a thong was no longer in good taste.
However, at twenty eight Mother Nature intervened once again, and as a reward for enduring hours of breast feeding, the fat person and the fat bottom were banished. As wonderful as breast feeding was in maintaining a trim figure, I was not very good at it. After weaning Youngest Son, I chose the See Mother Run weight maintenance program. With two children in very close succession, this program did not require a personal trainer, nor did it require an allocated time slot in my daily routine. It was my daily routine.
But with both Sons now becoming teenagers, the See Mother Run program has been superseded and replaced with the Hear Mother Nag program. Unfortunately despite giving my vocal chords a rigorous daily workout, this form of exercise does not burn many calories and the fat person has been paroled once again bringing with them the fat bottom and the fat thighs.
With a holiday planned for Dubai in a few months, in order to avoid terrorising beach side holiday makers with the sight of my fat bottom in a swim suit, my choices were limited. Another child, breast feeding and the See Mother Run program were ruled out based on time constraints. Liposuction sends a shiver down my spine and I love good food too much to engage in fad diets. So I have enlisted the help of GM friend, who after living a comfortable life for the last few years has managed to gain a few extra kilos.
There is something about making a public declaration about your weight that immediately motivates you to get out of bed when it is still dark and do a 5km stint on the treadmill. However, when GM friend reported that he had lost 5kg in the first week I was called to attention and cranked it up a notch – banning all scrumptious treats in our household until further notice.
And things were going so well until a one week visit to Germany threw a spanner in the works, along with Bratwurst, Bockwurst, Weisswurst and every other type of sausage known to mankind. Imagine my horror when confronted with a menu choice of sausage with pommes, saut̩ed potato or dumplings. Despite the fact that the menu was written in German, the universal language of calories was translation enough Рfat, fat and more fat. Added to this was the temptation of the ice cream vendors on every street corner, the aroma of fresh coffee filling the streets and family members obsessed with stuffing you with chocolate. Note to self; next visit to Germany must be by bike in order to avoid the possibility of fat person inside making an unwanted appearance.
Needless to say, I have not dared set foot on the scales since our return. But with the Dubai trip drawing closer and GM friend reporting this week that the weight is falling off at his end, I fear that a bad result could send me into one of those eating frenzies that just do not make sense. The one where you have put on a kilo so you figure that adding cream or eating the whole chocolate bar won’t make any difference. Time to use the wild card and embark on the swim suit shopping mission – the site of the fat bottom and the fat thighs in the three way mirror should be motivation enough to get back on track.
