Friday June 2nd.
Alcohol Units: 1.
Weight: 126 pounds.
Cigarettes: 0.
Calories: 1000-2000.
Max. circumference of thigh: 22 inches.
Results of blood test: Depressing.
See how I wittily used the Bridget Jones Diary device to begin this entry. Oh weren?t the 90s great.
Rarely do I get girlie, at least not in public and probably not enough at home either. When you have a beautiful and sweet golden retriever to compete with, it?s easy to think ‘why bother’. I especially hate it when women comics complain about the size of their hips, thighs, bums or overall weight. But as I’m about to prove, I’m a hypocrite.
I went to the doctor to complain about the fact that I can?t lose any weight, despite exercising and eating vegetables once a week or so. It wasn?t so much a complaint, that makes it sound like I went there to refute some earlier doctorly claim or to demand a refund. It was more of a hope that I had some ailment that would explain both the weight gain and failure to lose it. According to the scales I?ve put on about 7 pounds over a couple of months. Replacing the batteries in the scale and moving it to a different surface did not reveal the 3-4 pound discrepancy I?d hoped for. Therefore I diagnosed myself with hyperthyroidism because in addition to the weight issue, the other common symptom is increased irritability.
Disppointingly, all my tests results were in the normal range. Not even on the high or low end, just in the ‘you’re boringly ordinary’ middle. No medical explanation for the irritability either, but I think I already knew that. Discovered that the doctor had sneakily added a cholesterol test. Didn?t ask for it, it just appeared on the results sheet. My attention was drawn to it by the red pen circle around the total number and the words ?too high!!’ handwritten next to it. On the positive side she did also circle the number for my good cholesterol, and wrote ?very good? next to it. Apparently I excel at eating both healthily and badly which gives me some hope.
I?m quite sensitive about the whole pear-shaped body issue. I?ve always wanted long legs and boy hips, the straight up and down ones with the sticky-out hip bones that models always have. Unfortunately, I have stumpy legs and what are termed ‘child-bearing hips’, which given my feelings about children makes very little sense. I don’t even see what difference this would make to giving birth. You can have an extra-wide funnel with an opening the size of a watermelon but you’re still going to have a problem squeezing it all out through the narrow neck end.
I don?t think curves have been hot since the whole Rubenesque era. That’s when the painter Rubens got saddled with the pasty-white fat girl one night in the 1600s and decided to pretend that he found her all sexy and voluptuous. He did lots of paintings of her so everyone else would want a fatty and he could get off with the hot skinny one with the tan.
Apparently Marilyn Monroe’s curves were sexy, but that?s when she was clothed. I think Elton John was a bit lazy in writing his song Candle in the Wind. Maybe if he?d done his research and gone to the newspaper archives he’d have found that the papers actually had a little more to say about Marilyn?s body.
?All the papers had to say
Was that Marilyn was found in the nude?
(and that she had thighs like tree trunks)
So, having stood in front of the mirror holding a tape measure round my leg with one hand and using the other to gather up the excess fat in the back in order to gauge the circumference of my ‘fantasy thigh’, I shall be doing something about it. I’ve ruled out lyposuction or hiring a handyman to do a bit of sanding/chiseling, which leaves exercising more and eating less. I?ll also be buying new scales and weighing myself obsessively and having a daily trying-on session of the three pair of new jeans that I still fail to fit into. I should probably stick this annoying quote from Liz Hurley on my mirror. Talking about her post-child weight loss, she said
?You have to choose: cookies or jeans.?
Damn her, I?ve always chosen cookies and a loose pair of shorts. But at least my man wasn?t caught with his pants down and a hooker in his lap. But, who knows .. maybe if she was up for it and looked good in a tiny bikini.