The Fat Post

Okay: first things first – happy birthday Peas! Sorry you’re not in Jozi to celebrate, but something tells me you’re having a grand old time with the Rhodents! Hugs and kisses, I’m glad you decided to jump on the bandwagon and join the 26-ers.

Now, on to the subject of the title:

In my mind, I’ve always been 56 (kilograms, that is) not 57. In fact, I still feel 56. Unfortunately, all evidence to the contrary…

It all started, not on a dark and stormy night as most such horror stories aptly begin, but rather on the pleasant evening after my birthday picnic before we hit the Colon. I asked 3rm if my usually hot blue pants looked smashing, and he said “errrr… no. definitely not” (he’s horribly honest like that). Okay I thought, they’ve just come out of the wash, they’ve obviously shrunk a little, I’ll stretch them out some other time when rude 3rm is not about.

Then, the other day, I decided to go to gym (primarily because I couldn’t face up to the thought of showering in our very blocked-drained shower), and as an after-thought, I stood on the scale. Let me say outright that I do not believe in weighing yourself – it’s more about how your clothes fit you and how toned you look (and of course how fit you feel); the number on the scale has a very rough correlation to all of this. But I thought, hell Ant, you haven’t weighed yourself in about 3 years, let’s see what it says. Thinking, of course, that it would show what I have always thought was my approximate weight in recent times – 56ish kg. Especially since 3rm and I have been running quite regularly for the past two weeks – I thought there might even be a nice surprise in store with me coming in closer to 55ish. Not so at all. “57,4!” the heartless scale boasted. Still, ever the optimist, I assumed this was all due to the fact that it wasn’t first thing in the morning, and I’d consumed practically a litre of water after my workout in thirst.

But then, because I’m slow at reaching conclusions and the universe is unrelenting in its need to humiliate me, my mysterious expansion was revealed to me elsewhere. On Sunday, 3rm and I went shopping for Peas’ gift in Rosebank, and naturally I got distracted by The Space, and even more naturally I found two dresses I wanted to try on. So I did what I would normally do, which is take the items in a size 34 (a.k.a. size 10), drag 3rm to the change room and parade the said garb in front of him. Except the first dress was toight (damn these designers! They can never stick to conventional sizings! – see how slow I can be?), and the second even toighter (um, that’s weird. It’s a different designer, I’ve just had a number of similar experiences recently – could that mean it’s me? But then that would mean… gasp! That would mean that I’m… I’m…) And so the penny dropped. Denial is a powerful, powerful thing.

So in Cape Town on Tuesday, I broke a rule of mine: it’s my policy not to buy any item of clothing thinking “it’ll fit me properly when I lose weight” – we all know it’s rare that you do, and the clothes just end up never being worn. But my irrational rationale told me to buy the mini-mini-mini skirt (in a size 36 of course, but this I’m positive is cut too small, and I’m sticking by this whether you believe me or not) and force myself to wear it in public. I’d be so self-conscious about the fact that I looked 57 in it, that this would give me the oomph to shed the dastardly kilo and then cavort around in it as a heavenly 56. Anyone buying my logic? 3rm, I hope you realise this means we can’t ever stop running - in fact, I think we aught to up our daily efforts by a km or two!

PS: unrelated, but certainly worth mentioning – I hope you all heard the news that Australians have gone on the rampage following news of Steve Irwin’s death – dozens of stingrays have been found needlessly slaughtered on Australia’s beaches as humans felt the need to take their revenge for Steve’s death. Stop the madness!

PPS: do you pronounce “kilometer” with the “kilo” bit as you would in “kilogram”, or is the emphasis on the “o”? It drives me truly mental that it shouldn’t follow convention with other “kilo” pronunciations.