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Between how we see ourselves and how others do

At some point in our lives most people begin to wonder about their size, heath and fitness and then perhaps whether or not they can be bothered to diet or exercise in order to improve their self-confidence and/or body image.

That’s assuming, of course, that they’re not in the group that thinks they’re stone-cold perfect and tends to swan about trying to find mirrors or shop windows in which they can check that this is still the case.

[This set is not to be confused with those like me – who (as the saying goes) ‘have a perfect face for radio’ – yet go around doing similar, but only because She Who Must Be Obeyed had decreed that we must when out and about in order to check that our flies are not undone and/or that we haven’t got the remnants of our last meal plastered all down our front … and on that subject can anybody tell me why the purveyors of choc ices always make them so that the choc part disintegrates as soon as you bite into them?].

In my experience you can always tell when your figure is widely regarded as being that of a fatty – and here I must offer a general apology to those who are sensitive about their plus-size and trot out a wide variety of excuses as to why they can do nothing about it, e.g.  they’re big-boned, have over-active glands, an eating disorder, or only have to look at a cream bun to put on weight.

To be fair, nobody ever wants to be called out for being a fatty – I don’t – but I’m in the camp that takes the view that the idea there’s nothing one can do to improve one’s lifestyle and/or health is baloney.

In this respect, inevitably, will and self-discipline come into it.

In my view – being a black & white sort of a person – if someone is 20 stone and happy with it, fine, but if they’re not then there’s almost always something they can do about it.

As it happens I am aware that most people who know me ‘picture’ me as  … er … prosperous-looking, generously-proportioned, solid, portly and however else anyone might choose to describe it.

I’ve had recent confirmation of this.

About two years ago now – having at last recovered what passed for normal mobility for someone of my advanced age and size who had not long before had a hip replaced – I made a seminal decision to get fitter by taking more exercise and watching what I ate.

Partly this was in line with the ‘use it or lose it’ theory in the context of having my new hip; partly it was prompted by my lifelong interest in playing sport and wishing to regain that wonderful inner feeling that naturally accompanies being fit; and (lastly) a sense of wishing to remain active and maintain my quality of life for as long as this was possible.

Accordingly, I acquired a fitness-tracking wristband and set about upping my physical activity. I set myself a target of completing at least 10,000 steps a day, going for walks lasting 90 minutes or more and visiting my local health club gym two to three times per week. Mostly I managed to stick to this regime to the point where I became disappointed or worse whenever I was prevented from doing so by social or other engagements, or even random circumstances.

Gradually I made progress. At the beginning, very gradually. But I kept going, now also recording what and how much I ate and/or drank.

After a year I had dropped the best part of a stone. This wasn’t via a steady downward line on anybody’s graph – there were weeks, even sometimes months, where I ‘trod water’ or even put on three or four pounds and stay there for a while – but I found that, by getting back on my chosen track, I could always return to where I was and felt content.

At one point there was a heady moment when I reached a weight 20 pounds less than I had been when I set off upon my fitness campaign. It was even 10 pounds lighter that I had been on the day I left school at the age of eighteen.

As it happens, I didn’t stay there long, or then kick on even further.

I discovered that my ‘natural’ weight – if I can be said to have one at my age – is in fact the same 13 stone 4 pounds that I troubled the scales at on the day I left school – mind you, it doesn’t need telling that these days I’m wearing said avoirdupois in some very different body places to where I was back then!

But I have digressed considerably: let me return to my thought for today – the recent confirmations I have received that I have always been regarded by the world at large as a fatty.

In the past three to four months I have had little to no opportunity to exercise as per my previously-mentioned fitness regime through a combination of a suddenly crowded engagement diary, family duties and the fact my health club has been semi-closed for refurbishment purposes which development has put me off visiting it completely.

Despite this, I have managed to maintain my weight within a pound or two (up or down) of 13 stone 4 pounds by watching what and how much I eat and probably nothing else beyond than sheer good fortune.

I don’t feel remotely as fit as I did six months ago but at least I’m still within ball-park terms of my self-defined ‘natural’ weight.

And yet.

And yet, over the past month – when wearing casual clothes, including T-shirts – I reckon that on at least a dozen occasions, completely unsolicited, friends and neighbours (with admiration in their tone) have either told me “You’ve lost weight …” or asked whether I have.

I haven’t received these ‘positive’ comments with any particular pride or sense of achievement, primarily because (as mentioned above) I’ve done little to maintain my fitness recently.

Rather, I’ve [correctly in my view] taken them as irrefutable evidence of the fact that – hitherto, generally to the world at large – I have always been regarded as a jolly, well-upholstered, chap.

To finish at the end of what has been another busy week, let me link my readers to a piece by a lady called Cindy Tan on a supposedly ‘new secret’ dieting tip, as appears today upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL

I would just like to add – as my own reaction to it – that ‘it doesn’t butter any parsnips’ for me personally.

Anyone who ever went to a boarding school will freely admit that they not only always eat everything that is put on their plate (that was compulsory), but also wolf their food down fast (‘seconds’ were only ever doled out on the ‘first come, first served’ basis).

It won’t surprise anyone that both attributes are forever ingrained in every boarding school pupil. It’s why – even years later – you can still spot a boarder at twenty paces.

My point being that no ‘lah-dee-dah’ fancy nutritionist is going to persuade me to start eating my food slowly. It would be tantamount to asking me to denounce everything I’ve stood for these past five decades …

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About Gerald Ingolby

Formerly a consumer journalist on radio and television, in 2002 Gerald published a thriller novel featuring a campaigning editor who was wrongly accused and jailed for fraud. He now runs a website devoted to consumer news. More Posts