Category Archives: Reflections on past times

Fitness in the home

Reflections on past times, ,

treadmill

So my friend asked me whether, given I was reluctant to go to the gym, I had ever considered setting up a home gym. This isn’t an unreasonable question, setting aside the fact that I live in a house the size of a shoebox. The answer is yes, I’ve considered it. In fact I’ve probably had more equipment in and out of my house over the years than Bannatyne’s if I’m being honest. Even growing up I remember owning a rope and pulley contraption which fitted over my bedroom door and provided resistance training of some kind…I can tell you it was red and white but I don’t remember much about using it. Watch closely, and you’ll see a theme developing.

My first proper piece of gym equipment was a treadmill which I’d seen advertised in a ‘New Year Sale’ catalogue – I was the idiot in line at 6am on New Years’ Day outside the store eager to grab a bargain. Clearly the alarm bells should have been ringing at that point when nobody else felt the need to turn up at stupid o’clock and join me. Far from racing through the store and pitting my wits against squillions of other bargain hunters all keen to get their hands on said treadmill, when the doors opened at 10am I was still in a line of one. Still, purchase made and car loaded off I went to start the New Year by jogging 10 miles a day in the hope that I’d be skinny by Easter.

Except when I got it home, I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. As it transpired, I didn’t need to turn it on – it wasn’t that kind of treadmill. (I mean FFS, hands up who even knew there was more than one kind?) It was a big heavy thing which operated by foot power only and in light of this new information it certainly hadn’t been a bargain. No wonder nobody else wanted it, it was useless. Well, I’m exaggerating, it wasn’t totally useless – it made a really good clothes stand when it was folded up behind my bedroom door. But as a treadmill, epic fail.

My next big purchase was a power plate – that sounded right up my street, and clearly this was going to be the answer to all my prayers. You do what? Stand on it and bend your knees a bit and it shakes the fat around so you burn it off really quickly? Get in, I’m all over that. Trouble was, it had a platform the size of a postage stamp and no matter what angle I tried, I couldn’t plant my feet and assume the position without falling off the damn thing especially when it started wobbling. I used it a couple of times but given that it sounded like a Boeing 747 was about to take off in my bedroom, the dog barked at it relentlessly (and why wouldn’t he, I kept landing on him) and it made me feel a bit sick, this too was a short-lived. To put the cherry on top, I’d bought it second hand and it had been stood in someone’s garage for a while so far from tightening up my gluteus maximus the only lasting legacy was that it left big dirty feet marks on my cream bedroom carpet.

Looking on the bright side, I had to walk round all this gear to get to the bed, so I did walk further as a direct result. Baby steps people, baby steps 🙂

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If I had a pound…

Reflections on past times, Worst memories, ,

£

…for every pound in weight I’ve lost over the years I could probably give Bill Gates a run for his money. I can’t remember the first diet I ever went on, but I do remember the moment it occurred to me that I didn’t have the same kind of Bambi limbs as most of the other girls at school.

It was sometime around top class in infants, when we were doing a topic about farms – I even remember the teacher who first alerted me to the fact that I was a porker under construction, she was called Miss Baume, and I remember her looking like an extra from The Liver Birds. She called me and another fairly chunky little girl out to the front of the class, and waving her arm in our direction announced that the two of us together probably weighed the same as an adult pig.

Yes, I’m serious, she really did that. I was 7 years old and the utter humiliation of that moment was the first time I recall feeling ashamed of the way I looked. I mean AS IF you would ever, ever, ever say that? I ran home after school in tears and my mum gave me a kit kat to make me feel better.

Fast forward a few years, to around the time that the film Grease came out in 1978. I was 13 at the time, and having watched the film at least 10 times and spent god knows how many weeks coveting a pair of shiny black leggings, (which were obviously going to transform me in the same way they’d transformed Sandy), I nagged my poor mum half to death. She clearly knew this purchase had disaster written all over it but eventually I wore her down – leggings duly purchased, I was very very pissed off when they didn’t in fact make me look like Sandy at all.

I’m still not sure whether it was because my legs were a foot shorter than hers, or because my arse was at least a foot wider – it might even have been down to the fact that the only thing I had to team them with was a pair of sensible Clarks’ sandals and a poncho (stop laughing, ponchos were all the rage at the time).

But if my memory serves me right, the school disco didn’t end with me making sweet music with the year nine stud muffin. Or even the year 9 munter to be fair…I think what was in those pants on that night scared all of us, and there are several people who probably still have a phobia of lycra to this day.

Things could only get better from there, right?

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Born chewing..!

Reflections on past times
Proof, if any were needed that I was born with a love of food!
Proof, if any were needed that I was born with a love of food!

I look at that photo, and smile. There’s no doubt I was loved – my mum and dad tried for 12 years to have a baby and it just didn’t happen. They adopted me at 6 weeks old, and never had a baby been so loved…or so well fed! I’ve dipped in and out of therapy over the years to try and understand this weird relationship I have with food and there’s no doubt in my mind that some of the way I’m wired stems way back to my formative years. Feeding me was my mum’s way of showing love. If I skinned my knee, or fell out with a friend, there was a ready supply of edible treats to make me feel better. Bad times, good times, difficult times, tears…all medicated with food.

Back then I’m sure I was regarded as a bonny baby – nowadays my mum would probably be hauled in front of social workers screaming about childhood obesity and food abuse…and on balance I guess they’d have a point. Looking at the picture, the space-hopper physique isn’t a million miles away what I see right now as I look down at the rolls of fat on my arms and the dimples on my knees (although let’s not forget there are some seriously foxy knees buried under all of that). I do speak from a position of certainty though when I say nobody’s going to look at the adult space-hopper and say ‘Awww…’ in quite the same way.

In many respects, as an obese adult, the bigger you are the more invisible you become.

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My skinny knees, admiring the view.

Reflections on past times
Maldives, 2007.
Maldives, 2007.

Well, that answers that then…that’s how I attach a photo. Yey, go me.

I feel wistful when I look at this picture…I spent hours in that spot, contemplating life, love, all the usual stuff. I was full of optimism. My job was coming to an end but I knew I’d be ok so I wasn’t too worried. I’d just met a new bloke and was in that lovely heady place of being constantly giddy (he didn’t work out, they never do but lets not even get started down that particular road) and I was away with my best friend.

Best of all, I was slim!! I’d just spent 8 months or more on a drastic VLC liquid diet and I’d dropped around 8 stones. I felt like a million dollars. This time – that time – I was going to keep the weight off…no doubt about it. I did too, for around a year…sadly I’ve spent the last 7 years putting it all back on again, and then some. Once my finger finds the ‘self destruct’ button, it’s over.

Today, those skinny knees are in here somewhere (admire if you will the square kneecaps…they’re an object of beauty don’t you think?) but they’re buried under layers of dimpled lumpy topsoil and currently sitting above chunky middle-aged cankles. I’m one week into my quest to find them again.

It’s probably the tenth or so such attempt since I returned to the ranks of being a fat knacker but you know what…this time, eh? I’m just back from another holiday and I could weep at the difference between me now, and me then. More of that later…for now, think positive. Baby steps, but still…steps are steps, one leads to another and this week at least they’ve all been in the right direction.

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