Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(13)

Jude just called me back, laughing. ‘Really don’t do Facebook yet. I just got a thing saying Tom is checking out dating profiles. He must have ticked a box by accident. Everyone can see, including his parents and former psychology professors.’





THE FLABBY DIAPHRAGM


Wednesday 9 May 2012

175lb, Twitter followers 0.

9.30 a.m. Emergency! Back has gone. I mean, not actually gone, in sense of still having shoulders attached to bottom. But was just checking Twitter for followers then slammed laptop shut, tossing head dismissively and saying, ‘Pah!’ and whole of left upper back suddenly went into spasm. Is like I didn’t notice I had a back before and now it is complete agony and what am I going to do?

11 a.m. Just back from osteopath. Osteopath said it is not fault of Twitter but due to years of lifting children and I should try bending from the legs instead of the back – i.e. squat like an African tribal woman, which seems a bit ungainly, though not to insult the gracefulness of African tribal women who are of course very graceful.

She asked if I had any other symptoms and I said, ‘Acid.’ She poked around my stomach exclaiming, ‘Gosh! This is the flabbiest diaphragm I’ve ever felt.’

Turns out, because of my age, my entire middle section has refused to go back like it was and all my intestines are flobbering about, uncontained. No wonder they are hanging over my black sweatpants like porridge.

‘What shall I do?’

‘You’ll have to start working that stomach,’ she said. ‘And you’ll have to lose some of the fat. There’s a very good new obesity clinic at St Catherine’s Hospital.’

‘OBESITY CLINIIIIIIIIIIC?’ I said indignantly, jumping up from the bed and putting my clothes back on. ‘I might have a bit of baby fat, but I’m not obese!’

‘No, no,’ she said hurriedly. ‘You’re not obese. It’s just very effective if you want to lose weight properly. It’s very hard when you’ve got little ones.’

‘I know,’ I gabbled. ‘It’s all very well knowing what you’re supposed to be eating, but if you’re surrounded by leftover fish fingers and chips at five o’clock every night, and then eat them and have your own dinner later . . .’

‘Exactly, the clinic puts you on meal replacement so there isn’t any argument,’ said the osteopath. ‘You just don’t put anything else into your mouth.’

Not sure what Tom, Jude and Talitha would say about that one, harrumph harrumph.

Left in huff, then had sudden urge to go back in and say, ‘Will you follow me on Twitter?’

9.15 p.m. Got home and surveyed self aghast in mirror. Am starting to look like a heron. My legs and arms have stayed the same, but my whole upper body is like a large bird with a big roll of fat round the middle that, when clothed, looks like it should be served up at Christmas with cranberry jelly and gravy; when unclothed, as though it’s been cooking all night in a pot in a box full of straw in Scotland, and is about to be served up for an extended family’s post-Hogmanay breakfast. Talitha is right. The secret is to alter the automatic fat positioning of (unacceptable outdated phrase approaching) Middle Age.

Thursday 10 May 2012

174lb, Twitter followers 0.

10 a.m. Just spoke to Obesity Clinic. Encouragingly, there was some doubt over whether I was actually obese enough to be accepted! Found self, for first time in life, lying about weight to make it heavier than it actually is.

10.10 a.m. Am going to completely transform my body into a lean muscular thing with tight band of muscle round the middle, holding in the intestines.

10.15 a.m. Just reflexively put remains of kids’ breakfast into mouth.

Thursday 17 May 2012

175lb, Twitter followers 0.

9.45 a.m. On point of Obesity Clinic departure. Feel have got to lowest ebb ever. Will be like one of those people you see in medical news reports looking ashamed of themselves, having their blood pressure taken in hospital gowns while a trim, streamlined reporter talks in front of them in stern, concerned tones, about the ‘Obesity Epidemic’.

10 p.m. Obesity Clinic was FANTASTIC. After initial awkwardness of having to repeat ‘The Obesity Clinic’ increasingly loudly to the receptionist, eventually reached the clinic, to see a man who was so large he was actually wheeling his fat on a trolley in front of him. He seemed to be being hit on by an only slightly less large woman who was saying to him in a seductive voice, ‘Were you Childhood Obese?’

People were looking at me, with the sort of admiration I hadn’t felt since I was twenty-two and running round in a psychedelic shirt tied up in a knot revealing my flat midriff. Realized they must think I was one of the clinic’s success stories nearing the end of my ‘programme’. Felt unaccustomed, leaping sense of self-confidence. Realized this was wrong, and disrespectful to fellow patients.

Also, the very fact of seeing fat as a separate body attachment being wheeled on a trolley started to make me see fat as an actual thing. Realize, in the past, have seen fat as some totally unreasonable, random act of nature rather than a direct product of things-put-in-mouth.

‘Name,’ said the man on reception, who, worryingly, was very fat himself. Surely the people who work at the clinic ought to have got this one down by now?

The whole thing was medical and complex: blood tests, ECGs and consultations. Once we got over the moment of awkwardness when they tried to put me down on the form as a ‘geriatric mother’ it all went absolutely swimmingly. Seems like the whole thing of weighing yourself is not the point. The point is to drop dress sizes. And people who are very, very fat – say fifty or a hundred pounds overweight – can lose a lot – like twelve pounds of fat in one week! And that is actual fat. But if you’re just trying to lose 10, 15 per cent of your body weight, anything more than a couple of pounds isn’t losing fat, it’s (darkly) other things.