Louisa Simmonds

nice beer gut (Photo credit: HGruber)

The old man has started his annual trip to ‘fitness’, citing his reason as the middle-aged baby belly which has suddenly developed from nowhere, yet protrudes a little too confidently above the over-tight waistband of his trousers.

He blames me, of course, for this foreign mass that looks like a five month pregnancy, and which apparently he has spent the past ten years inadvertently holding in as it developed; squeezing it down into his trousers so that he could pretend that it wasn’t in fact growing like some undisturbed tumour.

He has obviously spent a long time in denial.

Evidently, it’s my fault for not telling him that he had become the ‘F’ (rhymes with cat) word, although it would obviously be far too politically incorrect of me to divulge his problem publicly….but you guessed it, yes, he’s become what us Brits affectionately call a bit of a ‘fat bastard’.

But can you imagine the abuse and retaliation that would have been lobbed back at me in the event that I had drawn attention to his aforementioned ‘spread’ before he discovered it himself?

Sometimes marriage is a no-win situation.

If I’m honest, I found the feel of his barrel-shaped belly bordering on sexy, (on the rare occasions when we were able to have a furtive spoon because the dog had taken over someone else’s bed). And usually after a few Chardies.

His mass obviously has nothing to do with the volume of dessert he has consumed over the past ten years. He says.

Or should I say, the three or four desserts that he would consume nightly, because he could, due to the fact that ‘he hadn’t eaten anything all day’? Like smokers, men with permanently extended guts tend to exaggerate how little they eat.

For some reason he simply didn’t realize that Magnums, Cornettos and Dairy Milk were so calorific. Why hadn’t I told him? Why did I buy them and put temptation in his way?

My fault.

Well, sorry honey, but I’ve been kind of busy fighting my own fat battles for a while now. Unlike you, who can apportion blame to ice cream, chocolate, beer and a resistance to exercise, I’ve carried the scars of gestating two whopping babies, consuming vats of medicinal Chardonnay with which to cope with aforementioned offspring, and more recently, the menopause war; where apparently, (and as unfair as it sounds), my body has been surreptitiously actually layering fat down (without my permission), to protect my weakening bones.

Although when I explained this scientific reasoning to the kids, they looked cynical too.

So strict diet rules have been imposed again. We are only allowed to eat salads now and  the old man has promised that he will eat fish and Sushi without retching; like a mature adult does.

Last night I took the ‘before’ photographic evidence of his mass, (which unfortunately he has refused to allow me to insert into this post. Killjoy) and his goal is to be a 32″ waist again by next Summer, and he may even celebrate by wearing some of those uber- tight 50s-style trunks that young, hot guys wear (and which I get very hot and flustered over) to our local pool.

The mind boggles, (well, for a nano-second at least).

He has even started running, and intends on swimming with me once he has the balls to expose his ‘middle-aged ’ growth in public.

Avoiding Maccas will prove to be the most trying endurance test for him, and we will no doubt have to restrain him and his mass when the withdrawal symptoms really kick in. Those occasional snackettes of a milkshake and burger are now a thing of the past, for I am certain that if a biopsy was carried out on that little baby belly of his, old Ronald Macdonald would have a lot to answer for.

Personally, I think it is a question of vanity. I eat reasonably healthily, exercise when guilt really knocks at my door (New Year, New Body) and I am slowly developing a reluctant acceptance of my mature, more generously padded body.

Luckily, unlike the old man, I’ve had to become quite partial to the unmitigated sexual delight of a mixed salad, for a while now.

#middleagedspread #Health #middleage #overweight #exercise