THE
FAT
BAG
stuck between a rock cake and a hard plaice
Pearl Barley
London, England
© 2010
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-4709-4692-0
Printed in the United Kingdom
4.0 out of 5 stars Been there, done that…
Quite
amusing - if you've ever battled with your weight you will recognise
some of this, if you've never had a weight problem it will help you
sympathise with those who do!
Preface
Have you ever fought and lost the battle of the bulge? Have you ever gone to pinch an inch and found yourself with a generous handful? If so, you will quickly relate to the trials I encountered in a humorous, almost pathetic, account of my lifelong battle – looking at past efforts, living in the present, and looking towards the future – to lose weight.
As you roll about laughing or roll your eyes with scorn, spare a sympathetic thought as I endeavour to find the answers to why this weight-loss activity becomes such an obsession (not unlike flogging a dead horse) to the point where it’s taken over my life and frankly makes me thoroughly miserable. Wherein lies the truth as to why the failure rate is so high?
And even if you haven’t got a ‘pick’ on you, I hope you will still empathise and appreciate that, for some, life simply isn’t fair!
AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEWS
5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic book!!
I
felt this book was written about my life. I could totally relate to
the author's struggles to loose weight. This is an amazingly
hilarious and well written book. If you have struggled or are
struggling with your weight then you must read this book.
3.0
out of 5 stars An amusing Bridget Jones style read
This
book was what it promised. A funny, witty look at years of yoyo
dieting. It obviously caught me in the sample and also due to my mum
being a chronic yoyo dieter from before I was born and still to this
day.. *sigh*. So for me personally I found it a hilarious insider's
point of view of the craziness that is extreme dieting. Every
golden promise of weight loss appears to have been seized and
explored in this book and the 'Bridget Jones style' writing is quirky
and enjoyable… a funny chatty read that comes across on the
borderline of fiction/non-fiction. It probably would be a good read
for those attempting the.. ahh.. not so sensible dieting practices?
*grin*
5.0 out of 5 stars At Last!
I
highly recommend this book to anyone who was/still is, having a
battle with their weight. At last, it's OK to relax a little, and not
take ourselves TOO seriously. It’s very well written, and you can
tell its from the heart, the author pours out the highs and lows with
her bare to all honesty.
5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing and Relate-able
From the first page I was hooked. And believe me there is no
requirement to ever have had a weight problem or to be of any
specific age, it's relate-able and intriguing to the masses. From the
witty play on words (the title, need I say more) to the extremely
insightful reminiscing, this author is definitely the one to watch.
Congrats Pearl, I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for any other
musings from you.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
I just loved this book, its
definitely worthy of the 5 star recommendation that I have given it.
I found myself relating to Pearl’s tales of weight loss and gain,
its definitely a book to make you think and at the same point laugh
along too. A great read and now I'm off to search Amazon for any more
of Pearl's books.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thoroughly enjoyable read
A thoroughly
enjoyable read. A personal point of view that many could relate to.
It is very funny in places and thought provoking in others. It offers
no quick fixes or solutions but a humorous perspective that allows
you to make up your mind one way or the other.
Acknowledgements
Dedicated to Tweetie Pie from Your Mini Munchkin Mummi (mini in terms of height, not size, and how ironically you’ve cut my nickname down to ‘Munchie’). You supported me and watched me slave over a hot computer for months. Thank you for your faith in me and for being my harshest critic.
I’d also like to thank the vast majority of ordinary folk whom I have observed and who, unwittingly, gave me countless inspiration to create this funny series of accounts.
I have mentioned TV shows, etc that have inspired me and it’s true – if you want to feel better about yourself, watch a weight-loss programme where the contestants weigh 30 stone or more - it might not inspire you to diet but, should your struggle be on a par with mine, it may certainly stop you from ever getting that big!
Contents
CHAPTER 1. Been There, Done That, Bulged Out of The T-shirt ….. page 1
CHAPTER 2. The Body Beautiful – Love Your Fat? .............................. page 9
CHAPTER 3. Sweet Teeth …………………………………………….. page 19
CHAPTER 4. No Longer A Sign Of Affluence – It’s Not Fare! ……… page 21
CHAPTER 5. I Don’t DO Exercise ……………………………………. page 25
CHAPTER 6. Fitness Paraphernalia …………………………………… page 29
CHAPTER 7. Less is More? …………………………………………… page 33
CHAPTER 8. Eat-As-Much-As-You-Like ……………………………. page 37
CHAPTER 9. Pepsi Max Or Diet Coke? ………………………………. page 39
CHAPTER 10. On Yer Bike! …………………………………………… page 41
CHAPTER 11. Double Chin (and a Slimline Tonic) …………………… page 45
CHAPTER 12. Think Thin? …………………………………………… page 47
CHAPTER 13. A Change Is As Good As A Chicken Breast? ................ page 49
CHAPTER 14. Committing The ‘Morsel’ Sin ………………………… page 53
CHAPTER 15. Greeds Must When The Breville Drives ……………… page 57
CHAPTER 16. Being A Recovering Food-A-Holic …………………… page 59
CHAPTER 17. Mind Over Platter …………………………………….. page 63
CHAPTER 18. Whine and Dine ………………………………………. page 67
CHAPTER 19. Romancing The ‘Stone’ (i.e.14 pounds) ……………… page 71
CHAPTER 20. Forbidden Fruit ……………………………………….. page 75
CHAPTER 21. This Little Piggy Went to Town ……………………… page 79
CHAPTER 22. Finger-Lickin’ Good ………………………………….. page 83
CHAPTER 23. I Hope My Bum Looks Big in This …………………… page 87
CHAPTER 24. What Don’t Kill Will Fatten ………………………….. page 89
CHAPTER 25. Don’t Talk With Your Mouth, Fool ………………….. page 93
CHAPTER 26. Turkey, Trimmings, and all the Stuffing ……………… page 97
CHAPTER 27. It’s Not The Losing That Counts …………………….. page 99
CHAPTER 28. Lean Mean Grillin’ Machines ………………………… page 103
CHAPTER 29. Divine Indigestion ……………………………………. page 107
CHAPTER 30. Cold Turkey ………………………………………….. page 111
CHAPTER 31. My Cup Runneth Over ……………………………….. page 115
CHAPTER 32. All Menus Are Not Created Equal …………………… page 119
CHAPTER 33. Griddle Or Girdle …………………………………….. page 123
CHAPTER 34. Self-Catering - A Holiday Romance ………………… page 127
CHAPTER 35. This Fat Bag ………………………………………….. page 129
BONUS chapter But Is It The End? ……………………………………. page 135
1
Been There, Done That, Bulged Out
Of The T-shirt
I can’t remember quite when I’d decided, “Enough is enough!” but it kick-started my resolve...again! This was not the first time, nor, perhaps would it be the last time I would be heard to say, “Enough is enough!”
Truth is though, ‘enough’ was never enough in real terms. One could have ‘sufficient’ and still want more. This applies to food more than any other product known to man (apart from money I suppose). Temptation is a terrible thing. The thing that can lead from sin to sin until one becomes entangled in a such a web of self-deceit and self-delusion that it’s impossible to see oneself coming off this ‘roller coaster’ for the duration of one’s life.
But don’t let me make this sound like a tale of despair – far from it; this story has a happy ending. But let’s start at the beginning:
I was a fat child…yawn…erm; no… let’s start again. I was NEVER fat as a child. But I became greedy in my teens. Starting work at 16 but with a mental age of 11, I spent my wages on sweets and cakes. There was a fantastic little bakery across the road from work that had every array of cake you could think of. Unlike the Gregg’s of nowadays these cakes had a real drop-dead gorgeous homemade look and taste. (Here’s a plug: check out any Jewish bakery). On the shelves were such an assortment, you could spend half your lunch hour trying to make your mind up what to have…and the other half tucking into pastry, cream, or icing ... or in my case, jammy beggar, I was lucky to find all three in one cake.
Getting wages was a means for getting to work, buying the odd skirt or pair of shoes once in a while, but mainly buying my own goodies to hide in my room at home, like my own jar of peanut butter, my favourite biscuits at the time - McVities Chocolate digestives, custard creams (twist it, lick it & dunk it were habits associated with the custard cream long before Oreos came along – take my word for it) and ginger nuts - and liquorice in any form for my midnight feasts. I quickly got into a lifelong habit of squirreling food and sweets away for bedtime to chomp on while reading a good book. That’s also how I became so good at English and spelling since I never read a book without something to eat, and I rarely ate anything unless I had something to read. Hence, even at meal times, at the dining table no less (I know, I know, it’s not dining etiquette) it would be a newspaper on the table or a cornflakes packet if there was nothing else to hand. Eating and reading, then, became unlikely companions for me from a very early age.
This destructive development was arrested in my late teens when I started to become interested in clothes, and, subsequently, boys. The clothes bit happened when I ended up changing jobs and worked in a boutique up the west end (yes, I’m old enough to remember when clothes’ shops were called boutiques - that’s me giving away my age – big up Chelsea Girl) which sold, primarily, clothes for the young and trendy, and while I was young, I was hardly what you’d call trendy. I have to admit to being a bit of a late starter – and I also had no dress sense whatsoever until I started working at the store (my mum used to buy my clothes) and beginning to understand what clothes and colours looked best on other people, so, consequently discovering what looked good on me.
That time – when I was 18 – by now living in my own digs (yard, gates, pad, and crib, whatever you want to call it) - lasted about two years wherein I started off fat and ended up thin. Of course I didn’t stay that way. Here’s how it happened.
The other girls wore the merchandise but I didn’t. I was a size 18 in a size-12 world. And I had never noticed before, being content to stuff my way through my food like there was no tomorrow, and when I started at the boutique, firstly, I discovered that I was a very good sales woman which was a confidence booster in itself (my boss kindly remarked that I could sell a woman her own handbag), but I also despaired that I was fatter than average compared to the other girls who – God help us – were between size 10 and 12…and on diets! At first I was appalled but gradually it started to rub off on me, and I finally joined in – probably out of shame – and I did, in fact, successfully drop a couple or three stone, but I have to confess…the other girls, I discovered, weren’t dieting per se, they were skipping meals. And what the heck – it worked, so that’s what I did.
I did, in fact, have a boyfriend in those days. A local lad I’d met on the bus to and from work most days. And we settled into a comfortable little girl and boy romance – you know the kind where you’re both kids really and the highlight of your relationship is kissing with tongues. He’d dropped a couple of hints about my weight before, but I let them fall on deaf ears and made him feel bad for wanting me to look different. Deep down, of course, the little voices in my head were beating me up and I felt crushed. But I wasn’t about to let him know that.
Anyway, back to the ‘boutique’ and the ‘revolutionary diet’ that solved all my problems. If that were really the case, this story is going to be very short.
No, in truth, that diet was the beginning of the end for diets and me in general. Of course the weight fell off. Why wouldn’t it if one went from stuffing sweets and sugary fatty foods to... absolutely no breakfast, lunch or dinner, plenty of water and the odd salad leaf or carrot sticks and celery on a daily basis. If I could have cut the calories in water I would have. And the yardstick I used for my progress was of course the clothes in the store. The day I managed to get into a size 14 was a day that everyone cheered me on, and I kidded myself I was happy. During this time I remember succumbing terribly out of pure starvation, sneaking off during a work day (that desperate was I)
to a local café where I bought a Kit Kat bar (the two-fingered variety) and was ravenously chomping into it when one of the other girls came in and caught me. The look of pity on her face, coupled with the shame and guilt I felt made me burst into tears – mid-chomp – dribbling gooey chocolate down my now not-so-ample chest. She hugged me actually and assured me it was all right, but I still felt like a criminal of some kind. I wonder to this day what she was doing in the café.
Thus, started my secret bingeing. Do you see what I say about temptation being a thing that leads to many sins? You will note many more examples as you continue to read through this pathetic (but hopefully heart-warming) account.
Losing the weight paid off big time! The boyfriend had gone away to study (applied biology if I recall) and in his absence since he only came home every couple of months (by which time I already suspected he had someone else as his visits were less frequent), I dieted and exercised like my life depended on it (as well as the fact that his jeans were smaller than mine, and we can’t have that now can we?). In fact (thrillingly for me) we arranged to meet at our usual night club when he came home one Christmas, and he hadn’t seen me for about 5 months. We seemed unable to find each other in the crowd and when we finally did, his eyes nearly dropped out of his head. He said he honestly couldn’t find me and that was, as per the evidence, because I’d lost so much weight, I no longer looked like the plump frump he’d left behind. I now had a wicked figure, was wearing tight jeans and high heels (smaller jeans than his by the way), and I’d had my hair done. Oh to see that look of wonderment on his face was a feeling beyond words.
After that, I gained more confidence and the boyfriend seemed superfluous to requirements so I ditched him – partly because he suddenly wanted to marry me and settle down with kids and stuff like that, which was an absolute ‘no no’ at my tender age, but most probably it had more to do with my newfound popularity. There were guys tripping over themselves to get with me from every angle. The power of a beautiful woman has to be lived to be believed (well, maybe I won’t go so far as to say I was ‘beautiful’ but I certainly felt it).
I clubbed it, I partied hard, and I had a ball. I started living on Rice Krispies and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I had very late nights and early mornings, and how I managed to keep my job and party so hard – even during the week – I’ll never know. I suppose it comes with being young. At the same time I attended a gym once or twice a week (long before fitness and all that became the ‘in thing’), rode a bike more or less everywhere even though I had a car, joined an amateur dance group and took up martial arts, all in an effort to stay slim almost to the point of obsession (it justified the KFC). And the weight continued to fall off.
I started smoking. Someone ’kindly’ told me that it helped to dull your appetite so you wouldn’t want to eat so that’s what I did. My new job gave me more money than I knew what to do with so, whilst being older but still immature, I just paid my rent and spent the rest. Obviously it was clothes and shoes high up on the priority list, then money to get into clubs and petrol for the car. Soon cigarettes and alcohol were added to my list, and I continued to be obsessed with my weight to the point of living on slimming tablets prescribed by my doctor who was, I confess, duped when I went for my weigh-ins loaded down by the hidden stones and rocks (and car keys) I carried in my coat pocket. He wasn’t fooled for long (maybe 6 months) but perhaps that’s all to the good because I became addicted to the tablets, taking up to four a day instead of just the one, and who could blame me? – they stopped me eating and kept me awake which suited my job as a night operator. I could go 12 hours without eating anything and then when they wore off I’d go to sleep and get up and take some more. It never entered my head I was damaging my health. All I cared about was staying slim and being even slimmer. So long as I had to lie on the floor to hitch my jeans up using the bent part of a wire hanger to do up the zip because, of course, all my jeans were now bought a whole size too small so I’d have to slim into them and then while I could get them on and done up, I couldn’t actually sit down in them, but I didn’t do an awful lot of ‘sitting down’ at that time of my life.
I got another close shave health-wise after a friend introduced me to throwing up after a meal. The ‘beauty’ of this strategy was that you could eat whatever you wanted, and however much you wanted, just so long as you made sure you threw up within the half hour. I found my fingers too short to go down my throat so it was either a pen or a toothbrush. Gross I know, but it worked well for a while. In fact, it seemed like the very best solution of all. How naïve are young girls, eh?
One day though, lucky for me, I dropped the habit cold turkey (definitely no pun intended). I remember the day the bulimic girlfriend and I had gone to the cinema and she’d visited the ladies. Thinking she had been gone an awfully long time I went to investigate to hear her retching with her head in a toilet bowl. It echoed round the room and sounded, frankly …disgusting!
I think it was when I weighed about 7½ stone and still thought I was fat that I should have realised I had a problem, but, again, the will to be ultra-slim was so strong and maybe I suppressed a lot of commonsense along with my appetite. I loved being bony – the ankles, wrists, hips and ribs were my markers to what satisfied in terms of my looks. I had a flat stomach and an ample chest (a birthright I believe) and I was now wearing size 10’s but I still wasn’t happy. That is when unbeknownst to me I was bordering on anorexia and collapsed at work one night and got rushed to hospital. I vaguely remember someone at work mentioning to me that week, or maybe even that night, that I didn’t look well, and that in fact my skin looked grey. I took no notice and thought nothing of it, but in truth looking back I now remember being very, very ill for a long time before that night. I remember not being able to drag my weak body out of bed in the
mornings. I remember scaring myself to death with out-of-body experiences, hallucinations, and hearing voices. Trust me, it really happened. I only know now, in retrospect, that ghosts had not moved into my home to terrorize me and play tricks with my hearing, but these experiences went on for months, and I’m surprised it took so long for me to work out that I might just need some help. Sleep deprivation and abject starvation are very dangerous and can play evil tricks on your mind.
I remember feeling hungry to the point of feeling sick but having nothing in my stomach to vomit. I remember scrambling to boil an egg one day because I was so desperately hungry and I absolutely stood over it, willing it to boil quicker than the three required minutes. I remember wolfing it down with a teaspoon and heaving because my throat was constricted and my stomach had shrunk to nothing. Fancy that, not even enough room for a boiled egg. You see, I had told myself I still had loads of weight to lose; that in fact I was still far too overweight, and if I could only get down to 7 stone, then I’d be alright. I think they call it body dysmorphia or something like that. I remember being depressed and unwilling or unable to go to work sometimes for days on end. Then when I eventually got there, I could never complete a shift. I lost that job by the way.
Still the reasons for all this never occurred to me till I was lying in the hospital bed contemplating my circumstances and stung by the ‘cruel but kind’ doctor who had worked out my physical problems from tests and observation that I was refusing all food, and she gave me an ultimatum: put on a few pounds before I leave hospital or sign myself out immediately. She said I was suffering from severe malnutrition, and somehow that simple diagnosis saved me and helped me to decide to change things around. I had to quit with what had become an unhealthy obsession.
So I went to see a therapist. And I began to regain weight. I in fact put on a fair amount of weight. Four stone in total, and I was back to square one!
2
The Body Beautiful – Love your Fat?
It’s surprising how comfortable you can feel in your own skin, regardless of how much fat is wrapped round your body. As a member of a minority group (fast becoming a majority group by all accounts) I feel I am qualified to say that it’s other people who make you feel bad about yourself. It’s like this, if you felt good being round and cuddly and everyone else was comfortable with it, then by rights you should be happy. But even if you feel comfortable and ‘love your fat’ you’re still not 100% happy although you might want to fool yourself you are, because everyone else around you – that is, the skinny ones – think you’re a raving loony and deluded into the bargain if you think a larger figure is remotely sexy.
So you end up compromising – you eat what you want, never look in the mirror, God forbid you ever step on a set of scales, knowing full well the pounds are continuing to pile on, but, well, such is life – you can’t have everything. Till the next diet when, out of nowhere, you get that calling to do something about your weight, you look at yourself properly for the first time (or chances are, you saw yourself in a recent photo from the office party and immediately hated what you saw). By this time, the high fashion size 12-14 power dressing is replaced with big, baggy tops, trousers and skirts - mostly in black – extra large, then extra, extra large that (supposedly) hide the bulges (it doesn’t actually – it might camouflage to a certain degree I will grant you, but you’re still fooling yourself if you think people can’t tell you’re fat just because you’re shrouded in a kaftan. You start not going out so much and you’re too heavy for fashionable high heels. You end up hiding yourself away and comfort eating to the point where even Gok Wan can’t make you look good naked.
I spent about two years, maybe three, overweight again. I was still relatively young and relied mostly and took full advantage of my outgoing, bubbly personality. You could win over a lot of people if you could make them laugh. And so was born, the proverbial roly-poly person who was fun to know but not quite attractive enough to date. Well actually…that’s not quite true in my own personal experience, thank God! I’d made a pact with myself that if the weight stopped me getting a boyfriend then I’d definitely do something about it, and for a good while that never seemed necessary. I didn’t find out till much later on - maybe when I started to get older and wiser – that there was a certain type of (older) man who dated big women; who genuinely liked their women big, (thank God for them) and I learned to despise the kind of guys who thought beauty started first and foremost with a Barbie-doll figure – disregarding the personality and even the face – you could have a face like a bag of spanners as long as you sported the hour glass figure! How shallow! It was a disappointing discovery however that only a small percentage of men liked their women big (without being fetishists), and the rest simply wouldn’t look at me twice.
It was about this time when I began another diet obsession, spurred on by my love of going to music concerts- rock and jazz – and the imminent arrival of one of my all-favourite rock stars from America, playing in England, at the Hammersmith Apollo about 6 months hence (the artist formerly known as Prince). My strategy, always, on going to concerts was to get my money’s worth by watching the show and sneaking backstage to meet the star (long before top security) – often collecting autographs and having photos taken with the stars. Boy, what I wouldn’t have done with a camera mobile phone back then (we’re talking about the early 80’s). Anyway, the thing was, in a previous photo with a prominent jazz musician (Gil Scott-Heron), also from America that I was lucky to meet the Jazz Café in London, I looked absolutely humungous and I thought I really spoiled the picture, and I hid it away.
Again, at a family wedding, there was me thinking how I looked really good in my bright orange satin skirt suit, but instead looking like a balloon on legs that had been ‘tangoed’ with a small, round head, big round body, and spindly legs tapering off into pointy toed high heeled sandals I could barely walk in. Oh I looked a sight!
So, however it happened, I embarked on another marathon diet. This time I didn’t even bother with fads and cabbage soup, I literally cut my intake down to the bone. I substituted sweetener for sugar, low-fat spread in sandwiches, the bare basics for breakfast (small bowl of cornflakes, skimmed milk, and an apple). I exercised nightly after work on the floor, doing stretches and sit-ups, devising little dances that stretched or bent my body, leg exercises and exercises for my arms and chest with baked beans tins for weights. Again, I never knew I was obsessed. I just got high on the actual weight loss.
There were times, don’t get me wrong, when I simply drooled over the thought of a Chinese meal and for some reason I had a craving for chocolate. Chocolate, thankfully, would you believe isn’t one of my must-haves. That simply doesn’t make sense does it, since I’m a woman, but in truth it is, for me, too sickly sweet and I can feel quite sick after a small Galaxy. There is a God after all then! Christmas gifts of boxes of chocolates would last for months in my house. I think it was Mars bars back in the day that put me off – far, far too rich!