Weight Now

My true love.

I love cake.
I really do. A few years ago I met an old friend and over the course of our chat, he told me that his abiding memories of yours truly were of me asleep and eating cake. At this point, let me just say that I used to sleep a lot. I can't count the number of concerts, parties and films I slept through. I slept on epic bus rides across Europe and down Asia. I could sleep anywhere, at any time, in any position - a bit like a cat. And as I haven't had a good night's sleep in nearly three years, I do not regret a single snore. As for the cake eating ... well, let's just say that he astutely summed up the essence of my twenties.

Of course, all that sleeping and eating of cake eventually catches up with you and, meanly, it's often not in your twenties but in the decades thereafter. I've had two children in nineteen months and it's left me two clothing and one shoe size bigger. Now, I don't really believe that size matters. I think a person who feels comfortable in their skin exudes a certain kind of radiance: I've known very svelte women who wear their size like an itchy hairshirt; I've known large women - very large women - who manage to look jaw-droppingly fan.tas.tic in a way I can only envy because they wear their size like an expensive coat.

See, it took me a long time to align Outside Me with Inside Me, so finding Outside Me out of kilter with Inside Me again is a bit disconcerting. I don't carry too much extra weight well, I don't look like a curvy goddess, I tend to look like a strudel-scoffing Hausfrau (which, I suppose, I am.) More alarmingly, I never realised that childbirth can make your feet stretch - and they don't go back!!! - so I not only have a wardrobe full of clothes that don't fit, I also have half-a-dozen pairs of beloved pick-me-up shoes (hello high-heels! Toots to my suede boots!) that I can't even get my feet into. Sartorially, I feel like an ugly step-sister.

I caught sight of myself in a mirror three weeks ago and realised how ill-at-ease I look. Two days later (after a day of eating chocolate and banoffee pie - seriously, I'm not a martyr) I started a diet. I don't want to be skinny, I don't even want to be thin: I want to be comfortable. No, more than that: I want to be powerful. I want to be full of energy and dynamism ... preferably in that nice skirt I bought five winters ago.

I'd never dieted before, so some of the things I learned about myself were a little shocking, namely:

1. My idea of a portion size and a nutritionist's idea of a portion are entirely different. Fancy that! I, apparently, like to eat a Brontosaurus' portion of pasta, rather than a human's.
2. It takes about twenty minutes for my sated feeling to kick in. Until it does, I feel hungry and continue to eat, but I'm actually not. I think my stomach and my brain need counselling because they don't communicate very well.
3. I love sugar, but it hates me. It really does and I don't know why, because I have loved it dearly since early childhood. It makes me hyper, gives me headaches, encourages cravings and it has cost me at least one second-hand car in dentist's bills.

Three weeks later, I'm 4 kilograms / about 9 lbs lighter. I'd like to lose the same amount again. At which point, I'm going to put on my nice winter skirt, squeeze my feet into my high-heeled boots ... and eat half a banoffee pie.