Three-and-a-bit years of food diaries, calorie-counting, superfoods and supplements, not to mention the kickboxing, marathons, spinning, weights, squats, lunges and running down (thankfully not up) Haverstock Hill at 5am, beginning a 15-mile run to the gym for more training.
I have lost 35 kg. I have dropped 5 dress sizes. I weigh less now than I did at age 13 after I had completed a series of sessions with a dietician my mum used to send me to for weekly sessions (nothing else could ever as effectively instil a sense of unattainable perfection in your teenage daughter, believe me).
So last Saturday night, as I sashayed into P’s engagement party (aka The Naughty One Who Never Blogs – there, we’ve all said it now), wearing this lovely 60s-style
animal print shift dress from Warehouse (I love my leopard print so much) in a Size 6, I should have felt a sense of smug achievement.
I did not. Life was so much simpler when I was a Size 16 and resigned to the fact that having been big all my life, I would never be thin; the best I could hope for was a Size 12, and the diet would start tomorrow. I could eat what I wanted without appreciating the significance of carbs or calorie counting. I could just
be. Now, a substantial part of my day is taken up with ensuring I have a stock of low-fat, low-GI food on me at all times, so that I am never tempted to reach for the chocolate. If I have to eat out for dinner, I make sure I book the table myself, so that I can fit in an intense training session first, and work out how to burn off more fat. Much of the rest of the time is spent obsessing over whether my tummy is more rounded than it was yesterday, or wondering if the muscle group I trained yesterday is hurting me enough, or if I trained hard enough this morning. Oh, and I somehow fit in a full-time career and social life around all of this.
And I defend both my sanity and my right to live like this. I may go over-the-top sometimes, but that’s symptomatic of my obsessive personality. Ironically, it is the same drive that has enabled me to lose 6 stone that is now striving for what is perhaps a spurious perfection. Dress size and weight loss are the zeitgeisty issues of our time, and yes, I admit it: I am a fashion victim, a stalwart subscriber to popular culture, and I want to be in on the action.
The whole Size Zero debate has spiralled out of control. I am with the columnist who wrote about this in last week’s Sunday Times (can’t remember her name). Models have always been thin (and Size Zero refers to the American Size Zero, which is actually a British Size 4). We have to make a distinction between a full-blown eating disorder, and using diet and weight loss as manifestations of our own obsessiveness and neuroses. In the case of the former, this article pointed out, the issue for an anorexic woman is about control, so she is hardly going to be affected by what others say/think/do about their own weight. Regarding the latter: how offensive to be told, sympathetically, that I am a victim, a weak woman who falls for society’s idealisation of what a woman should look like. Well, yes, I do. Many of us do. I cut and style my hair in a certain way. I wear particular clothes. I use make-up to present my face in the way I wish it to be seen. I mean for god’s sake, I am just as much under the influence of bloody fast food advertisements and outlets as I am Size Zero models everywhere I go, and I would never set foot in one of those places (which incidentally I think ought to be banned on health grounds).
Let’s get one thing straight: the truth is that most women want to be thin. I have learned an enormous amount about the bitchy, coveting, competitive nature of all women throughout my experience of losing weight. Everyone is very happy for you until you become thinner than them. I recently bumped into a friend of my mum’s, someone I have known since birth. She ignored me – something I suspect had much to do with both her daughters having ballooned since they gave birth a year ago - until someone said to her “look how much weight D has lost”, to which she replied “Oh? Have you lost more?” (I had lost 12 kg and dropped 2 dress sizes since I last saw her), and then added, crossly “do you eat anything?”
This is the other interesting issue: no one can entertain the possibility that you have got off your arse and worked hard to achieve something; if you have lost weight, you must surely have an eating disorder. Two people in the last week alone have complimented me on my weight loss, and then asked me – in public – if I am bulimic. Can they not entertain the possibility that I have just worked bloody hard? When people ask you how you’ve done it, they don’t want to hear that you have cut out refined carbohydrates and sugar, and that you have spent the last 3 years getting up at 4.30 am to train, that your body is in constant agony or injury. They want you to tell them that it can be done easily and immediately, simply by settling down on the sofa with the remote control and scoffing cream cakes. Bloody hell – if it were that simple, I would sell my secret. Could this be yet another manifestation of our collective disdain for hard-working women whose dedication results in some achievement? After all, it would be socially unacceptable to go up to someone who is overweight and ask them if they
overeat.
Don’t assume that losing weight transforms your life for the better. It hasn’t in my case. I have always – generally - been a confident, outgoing person. But I am definitely more insecure about my body now. Before, I couldn’t compete using my body, so I didn’t. Now I have one more thing to be judged on, and while in the past, an extra bulge was the least of my body hang-ups, now the tiniest sign of bloating is cause for major stress. It is also difficult to break old patterns of thinking. My friends S and S are getting married in December, and as soon as they told me the date, my immediate thought was “shit! Only 3 months to lose weight for the wedding”, and then I realised that actually, I’m at my target weight/size and do not have to crash diet (to no avail) 2 weeks before the wedding (as I used to do), to fit into my dress.
The greatest lesson I have learned throughout the whole process, though, is that anyone can achieve anything, but it takes time, dedication, perseverance and patience. Most people are not prepared to nurture that drive and put in the work. And therein lies the
real problem: in our culture, we are programmed to want everything now: fast food, drop-in nail bars, even lunch-time plastic surgery – it’s all about a quick fix and making things easier. Look no further than the modular, coursework-heavy education system in Britain for an example of the steady erosion of good old hard work.
I may be obsessed with my weight, but ultimately, I am always obsessed, paranoid and neurotic about something (it’s in my genes!). This was the case long before I ever picked up one of my beloved fashion magazines, and will no doubt continue long after the Size Zero debate has subsided. My diet and exercise regimes, while incomprehensible and much-criticised by others, have nurtured my drive, determination and work ethic, and this has impacted positively on other areas of my life. The
real victims of current societal trends are those who think everything can be solved with a quick fix. So next time you feel the urge to criticise Size Zero-ism, consider what you are
really rallying against: is this perhaps something you secretly aspire to? Or do you fear other women’s achievement?
