Fat.

I am overweight. I’m not talking morbidly obese but overweight enough that if I go to the doctors about an ingrowing toenail my weight will be mentioned. I’d probably get filtered out of a fair few online dating searches and I am fully aware that there is no point in me walking into Topshop. I’m one of the greedy, lazy and indulgent set that simply can’t resist stuffing their fat faces. I’m possibly at some point going to be a terrible burden on the NHS, employing Malaysian immigrants on a minimum wage to come in and wash my hard to reach places.  I’ve been a member of Weight Watchers, Rosemary Connelly, Slimming World, Sainsbury’s Diet Club. I followed the Cambridge diet, detox diet, the eat meat not carbs diet (can’t remember the chaps name). I been a member of LA fitness, David Lloyd. I’ve owned and thrown away two exercise bicycles, one set of steps and various ‘send off for’ sporting equipment. I have a wardrobe full of many sizes. I can tell you that my size 12 jeans are pristine, worn a handful of times in that brief blissful moment of successful dieting.

I am one of the greedy ones in a world of poverty and hardship. I feel like a criminal everyday. I am BBC stock footage for every fat crisis report. It’s fucking tragic isn’t it?  My hard life, feeling sad because I can’t ‘eat less and exercise more’. I'm crying into my pizza and chips right now. I could get off the sofa and go for a nice long walk, dance to music or vigorously clean my house. I could decide right now that food is no longer my special friend, that it is merely fuel to support my mind and body. In fact, I could go one step further and never think about what I eat ever again. I’ll just eat when I feel like it and if I want a chocolate bar I’ll eat it, instead of nibbling on all that crap diet food that always leaves me so dissatisfied and hungry. Surely that’s the answer?  If I still stop denying myself food I’ll find my own balance, after all we all know dieting makes you fat.  But the simple fact is I won’t. I won’t go for a long walk or dance vigorously j-cloth in hand, I’ll keep eating and eating and I’ll get fatter and fatter.

Therefore, I am constantly at the black gates holding  back of hordes of fat. It’s a daily battle. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose and the fat months prevail until I fight back with my steadfast companions: disgust and fear. This war is made even harder because I am always trying to lose weight, living on 1500 calories. An exhausting and relentless effort to not only hold back the hordes but to try and reclaim lost lands. Everyday of my life.  

Relentlessly too the fat-o-meter swings back and forth; tight jeans, comfortable jeans, tight jeans comfortable jeans. It never stops and I am always on guard.

Why is this such a struggle? I can’t make sense of it. Last May I gave up smoking; waving goodbye to a thirty year old habit. It wasn’t hard. Really. I did a bit of vaping, had a roll-up from a friend one night, sometimes sniffed the air of a passing smoker but the reality was that giving up smoking was a proverbial piece of piss.  I am organised, smart, practical and sensible. I don’t feel greedy. I’m not like Augustus Gloop stuffing my face full of pies. But somehow during the day I am secretly eating more than I should. It’s all very secret, my eating. You rarely see fat people overeating in public. I’ve hidden my eating  from my partner of twenty years. Everyday is a new day where I start in control and every day I fail. Then it all begins again the next day. I only need one slip and that’s it; my face is back in the fridge. Finally comes the self-loathing, the guilt and the hopelessness or maybe helplessness.

Unfortunately I’m not able to give any answers, if I could l’d have released a book and DVD. I sense that overeating is an addiction and an almost impossible one to beat at that. I know that overeating is far more complex than just the view that people are greedy and lazy. Why would anyone choose to live in a way that makes them deeply unhappy simply because they can’t resist a cupcake? Should we look at overeating as just another addiction? Should we start denying fat people that second burger at McDonalds? Refuse them the right to buy a multipack of Monster Munch? How about a twelve step programme to abstinence? (Although abstinence from eating could cause some serious health issues such as death).  Ultimately we all make our own choices, that’s our right,  but maybe if we  collectively start to acknowledge the complexity of overeating we can support rather than just condemn.