Thoughts from the bunker

 

Wobbly in white

Brides are supposed to wear white frilly frocks and a veil, and carry flowers. It’s virtually the law. But when you’re 57, five foot two inches tall, and basically spherical, any sort of floor-length frock in ivory lace makes onlookers inevitably think of tea cosies and those antimacassars old ladies throw over the backs of their settees.

As for the symbolism of white, I’m just not going there. Suffice it to say, I’m no maiden.

A shorter kind of wedding dress would be more suitable for a Town Hall ceremony in winter (I’m thinking of the weather – I can just imagine me saying my vows while everyone stares at the filthy wet tidemark round the hem of my long dress, not to mention the half-torn veil wrapped tightly round my neck and twisted into my hair by the Yorkshire gale-force wind that will inevitably be blowing on 21 December), but a shorter dress would reveal the extensive eczema rash on my legs. This is just one of the many surprises middle-age has sprung on me (along with hot flushes, a nasty temper and an unanticipated tolerance for Jensen Ackles). The eczema doesn’t itch, and is completely non-contagious, but my lower legs and feet look like they’ve been splashed with dark-pink paint and have the texture of sandpaper in places. I don’t want to reveal such shins in public as I find it hurtful seeing people wince and shy away (obviously thinking I have leprosy or scrofula), even if it is just in my imagination.

So a trouser suit is looking like the best option. But even then, I’ll look like a grossly inflated Sandy Toksvig, with glasses. 

You see, I’m just not losing weight fast enough.

As you know, I've shed some of my excess fat, having been diagnosed as pre-diabetic last year, but it’s such a slow process. In the past, my various weight-loss regimes have quickly resulted in a steady but noticeable decline in poundage. However, this time the weight-loss doesn’t seem to be actually visible to the human eye. A friend who hasn’t seen me for a few months recently said she could tell I’d lost weight – but the evidence she cited (that my neck and face looked saggier, basically – she put it more diplomatically than that, but I knew what she meant) wasn’t particularly uplifting! I’m also losing weight in fits and starts: my weight constantly fluctuates and the downward trajectory has a very shallow slope.

People often assume that fat people have no idea about good nutrition. However, like every person who has ever been on a diet, I know precisely what I should be eating. If you want to know how many calories there are in any given food item, ask a fat person. We’re experts. I rarely eat fast-food – it must be twenty-odd years since I had a Macdonalds or a KFC chicken fillet burger. We are both good cooks and we generally cook our meals from scratch using fresh veg, farm-shop meat, and good quality fish. We cook with olive oil, have embraced the joy of kale, eat small quantities of fresh fruit daily, drink semi-skimmed milk, try to stick to three modest meals a day. I try to eat several portions of fish a week, despite P being allergic to fish which means cooking two separate meals each time. I’ve cut back a lot on my consumption of bread and bread-products, and I’ve started changing the way I cook things to reduce my intake of fat and sugar. For instance, I’m now making fat-free scrambled egg in the microwave – it tastes like rubber, but, hey, it's low calorie. We’re buying reduced-sugar chilli sauce, reduced-fat cheese and coleslaw, and I’m cutting back significantly on my mango chutney habit (honestly, if left to my own devices I could happily eat mango chutney with EVERY meal).

But the problem is that, though I’m cutting down on my daily food intake most days, and doing more exercise, I do tend to allow myself one or two treats at the weekend. As many of you know, I’ve been going through a baking phase in recent weeks, but most of what I bake is given away to family members or put in the freezer. I only eat a small quantity of it myself which is a kind of masochism I realise makes people think I've lost my marbles. Since lockdown ended, we've started going out for lunch at the weekend to nice cafes that have tempting cakes and scones displayed in arcane ways designed to make them appeal to our inner glutton, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to ignore their siren call. And P does a great bacon, brie and cranberry baguette which he perfected during the first lockdown and which I find impossible to resist, to the point where I have now put a formal ban on having brie in the house. We went to my sister’s for a barbecue last weekend and she had a bowl of nachos and dips open on a table in front of me! I defy anyone to resist the lure of crisps with creamy dips. Pringles are the worst – I have long suspected that they are impregnated with class A drugs, they are so addictive. I just don’t buy these things at home because they are too easy and irresistible to eat once opened.

There are a lot of things we no longer buy, in fact. Biscuits, for instance. Before I started dieting, I never really liked biscuits much. I could definitely take or leave them. Now I'm cutting out such things, a humble pack of chocolate digestives or even plain rich tea fingers have become a torment worthy of Dante's inferno. So we now buy only biscuits I hate (basically, shortbread, Jammy Dodgers, Bourbons, Fig Rolls, Custard Creams, Jaffa Cakes), and they are kept in a sealed plastic box just for visitors. Putting things inside boxes, preferably with other boxes on top, is a great way of stopping me nibbling as I am also famously lazy. 

And, yes, before you say anything, I know virtually everyone in the world loves Jaffa Cakes but – though I like both orange and chocolate individually – I hate them in combination. I don’t think citrus fruit goes well with chocolate – I draw your attention to those hideous lime-and-chocolate-flavoured boiled sweets South Yorkshire grandads always seemed to have in their pockets in the 1970s (I think it was a local by-law).

My exercise programme keeps stalling due to injuries and fibromyalgia pain, though I’m still battling on. Most days, I do twenty mins of yoga and about an hour of gentle aerobics. Or I go for a walk, though the hay fever is making the walks unpleasant. It’s no fun sneezing constantly and getting a blocked nose, itchy throat and watering eyes, and it’s no fun for my friends either – I mean, no one likes listening to their walking companion snorting and grunting like a feral pig, and people quickly grow weary of holding my arm so I don't walk into trees while rubbing my itchy eyes. One reason I opted for a winter wedding was to avoid hay fever season. However, I’m also allergic to dust so, if the Town Hall is dusty, I can forget about looking elegant and dignified on my wedding day. 

So, my efforts to get into shape for the wedding are so far not achieving much – except irritation, frustration and stress. I just don't seem to have the necessary level of will-power to be a proper grown-up. One evening soon, P is going to find me sitting on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night, wearing an old net curtain with a doily on my head  - Jaffa Cakes in one hand, custard creams in the other, face covered in jam - moaning ‘Come to me, my precious!’…

NB: Nothing says 'Congratulations on your wedding' like a crate of Mango Chutney.