Old age brings many unwanted friends. Memory loss is one. I can’t remember many of the others, but weight gain is another.
It was in the spring when a friend pointed out to me, somewhat unhelpfully I felt, that my girth was expanding. I say unhelpfully, but actually I already knew that. Certain pairs of jeans were not doing up like they used to, T shirts were getting much tighter. At first, I put it down to shrinkage in the wash, but one look in the mirror told a rather different story: I was getting fat. I am loathe to give the exact figure but it was a stone more than when I last decided to lose weight and two stone over the weight I really wanted to be. It was time to take action.
My diet is generally quite healthy. I eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, I don’t eat ready meals and I take a lot of exercise. But the weight was creeping up on me and I knew why. I like a drink – you may have noticed in my blog – and I snacked a bit too. I have a sweet tooth for sweets, I like pork scratchings (I know, I know). I would snack on pieces of cheese, I would buy a cheeky bag of chips now and then. And if I was hungry, I would have some toast. Put all this together and it was not difficult to see why I was turning into a tub of lard.
I have been on diets before and they have worked, to a point. I cut out this, cut out that, reached my chosen weight, stopped the diet and put it all back on again, usually without noticing. I avoided weighing myself in order to hide the reality. What a shock I got when I climbed on the scales last May!
Rather go on a diet as such, I decided to make a permanent change in my diet. I have cut out almost all the snacks, I have all but eliminated bread, cheese and chips from my daily intake. I have not managed the same level of discipline with booze because, well, it’s very hard to turn down a lovely pint or a glass of something red, although that is the next step, unfortunately. The good news is that the change of diet is working.
It has taken four months, but the first stone has gone. There were weeks when no weight was shed and there were others when my weight actually crept up again, but I consoled myself, if consoled is the right word, with the fact that this was a change for life. The first half stone disappeared really quickly which didn’t surprise me. The change in eating habits usually has immediate, significant and satisfying results and my new diet was no different. My GP told me, in saying I should think about losing some weight, that the fatter you are, the more weight you lose at the start. If I’d carried on at the same rate of weight loss, I’d be around six stone by now but I know this is a long process.
My aim is to return to the level I was when I was 18, which will take some doing, but I will need to review things as I go. As you get older, things head south, as we say, and I have seen the awful effects of excess dieting in others who have become jowly and gaunt, often looking far less healthy than when they were overweight.
Looking at this year’s holiday snaps, I don’t look as bulky as I did last year and I do not have to avoid putting quite so many photos on social networks because there’s only so far you can breathe in to mitigate the worst effects.
If you don’t care about putting on weight, I think I am jealous of you. I was always one of those who didn’t put on weight until, in middle age, I started to. To add to my misery, we now have an Indian takeaway just down the road as well as a new and sadly excellent fish and chip shop. I would love nothing more than an unhealthy cod lot or some cheese on toast, or just a very small piece of cheese. I mean, there is only so much rocket and watercress you can cope with!
I think it’s worth it in the end. It is, I’m afraid, permanent and I am resigned to that. The price to be paid is a life largely without cheese scones, pizza, pasties and ice cream. I might not live longer but it will certainly feel like it!
