Did you watch the BAFTAs this week..? I love watching a red carpet awards event on TV, especially the Oscars…I keep the TV in my bedroom on low all night on Oscars night. I mean, I don’t stay up and watch it exactly, but every time I turn over in bed I just have a quick nosy to see who’s wearing what, and who’s winning all the gongs you know?

Given that I have a red carpet event of my own coming up in a couple of months albeit on a slightly smaller scale, I was particularly interested to see an article in the Daily Mail yesterday about how to get a body like a BAFTA winner. Splendid, I’m all over that.

Now, don’t get me wrong, much as I can’t wait to be skinny, there’s skinny and then there’s like toothpick skinny. I’m not aspiring to that look really, and in any event I suspect if I lost that much weight I’d look like I was wearing a flesh-coloured onesie. Years ago, when I’d lived on a liquid diet for months I looked a bit like a lollipop by the end, with a head that seemed too big for my body. I don’t want that…I just want to be normal.

So anyway, I was interested to see exactly what went into getting a BAFTA body, on the off chance that, you know, I could at least have a crack at it.

It seems Pilates is a big thing. I’ve just been looking it up, and it sounds very much like Callanetics. I think most of the diets I did in the 1980s were accompanied by me flexing one bit of my body or the other on a daily basis. Not exactly fat-burning, in fact it was more like the sloth exercise of choice but you know what, I do remember getting quite bendy.

Not like now…these days if I drop something on the floor I have to devise a three-point strategy to pick it up, not to mention the accompanying grunt. I appreciate that I’m twenty five years older than I was back in the day, but I wouldn’t mind giving Pilates a go at some point, I reckon that could be quite good. Do any of you dabble..?

One of the ladies walking the carpet seemingly did six hours a day of dancing and I’ve got to be honest that  suggestion got shelved before I’d even finished the sentence, along with the BAFTA-body habits of those people who exist on a diet of macro-biotic dust and other associated taste free morsels.

Not for me. I mean you only live once, right? In any event, much as I’d love a washboard stomach, I do appreciate that at fifty years old, never having had one I’m rather unlikely to get one at this stage. I’m happy to put the effort in but let’s keep it real. Besides, I don’t have a problem if I’m left with a bit of a belly…it’s having ten bellies that I fall out with.

I used to have one of those exercise belts, which promised the earth, working your muscles one twitch at a time by dispensing little electric shocks as you went about your day. I’m sure they’re hugely effective for those string beans who just need a little toning up and the blurb on the box definitely promised miracles.

The results were more disappointing than they might have otherwise been had I given any consideration at all to the context…carrying 140lbs on top of any abs that might be lurking somewhere way down deep presents something of a toning-up challenge to both man and machine.

Anyway, I reckon between the walking, the hurt machine and fierce attention to what I’m feeding my face with, I’ve pretty much got all bases covered. Plus, if all else fails, I know where to find Spanx… 🙂

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