Anna’s Diary – Week 2

If you missed the first part of Anna’s diary start there, before carrying on here to read about “the bloat” and to learn what the acronyms VFW and STS stand for…

Anna’s Second Week

I have discovered that having been seriously overweight, I’ve been missing out on more than just slipping into a size 12 pair of jeans for over 20 years. Yes, I’ve been missing out on the bloat! When your girth exceeds that of most women’s hips you tend not to notice the little thing in life like bloat and scoff at friends who advise you that they feel 6 months pregnant after a heavy meal. Doesn’t happen when your navel caresses the top of your thighs, as you are indifferent to any sensation other than that of taking the table cloth with you when you squeeze between tables that seriously shouldn’t be that close together in a restaurant. The look of horror on diners’ faces as you approach to endeavour to shimmy your corpulence through a gap intended for a child, and their clutching their plates in fear, have you apologising even before you are within table-clearing-with-your-stomach party trick distance. Far safer to sit at that draughty table near the door than risk that humiliation!

Now that my hips are actually hips, and the jelly lump is confined to that area normally reserved for washboards but in my case is still a great candidate for the old vacuum cleaner – I have of late noticed THE BLOAT! It’s lovely – a real wake up call to the fact that even though I am restricting calories and watching everything to the point of almost saying the calories out loud before eating, I can feel very full on smaller amounts!

And to a previously Very Fat Woman (VFW), it’s yet another reason to celebrate. My jeans actually get tighter! My belt hurts! I stop eating! Yes, yes yes!

The downside is of course that now I have to agree with all those bland conversations about gaining at “that time of the month” where before a 4lb gain made no different in the grand sea of lard that was my stomach. Now it does and so I too can sigh and join in with the one-upmanship of monthly gain!

For that reason this week is a STS – which is not some kind of nasty picked up on holiday but Stayed The Same. Oh yes, there is a whole new language to this dieting lark! But I can tick all the boxes, the food, the exercise, the nutrition so it’s been a good one. Next week has to be a down one though, otherwise my diary could make very unhappy reading!

(Image above by Pete Reed)