Louisa Simmonds

So the diet’s going well. Not really.

Some of you might remember that I’ve been trying to shed a few of the mince pie kilos for a few weeks now.

Holiday Jogging by Mihhailov at http://www.flickr.com

Not in a rash, drinking-nothing-but-shakes kind of way, because I’m not a complete fruit cake.

Did someone just say ‘cake’?

No, I’m being sensible for the first time in my life, because being ‘sensible’ on a diet is all the justification I need to carry on eating.

And I really don’t want to have to go through the pain of piling the pounds back on as soon as I catch a whiff of a macaroon when I stop dieting.

So what I’m doing is refining WHAT and HOW MUCH I eat. Ie. I’m cutting back a little on portion size and doing some exercise to combat drinking like a fish and scoffing Marvellous Creations on a Friday night.

Needless to say, weigh-in days have been distressing at times. I lost a kilo at the end of the first week, but by the second week (after I’d decided that this dieting thing was easy and WTF was everyone moaning about), I stopped losing.

Hmmm, that must be all that fat turning into muscle, I convinced myself.

I knew the Week 3 weigh-in would be bad before I even stripped off, had a poo and precariously teetered on the edge of my scales, visualising weight loss. That week was a bad time to start doing my food shopping online because I ordered enough fresh fish to get my fishing license revoked and had to eat it all by myself because no-one else in the family will touch something with a face on the plate. So each night I sat down to what must have been a kilo of Barramundi all to myself and my baby belly. Fish may be healthy but not in supersize portions.

In week 4, I had a bad week at work.

In week 5, I couldn’t exercise and had to eat loads of chocolate because I had my period.

So actually, losing weight hasn’t been as straightforward as I anticipated.

Because life gets in the way.

Nevertheless, there has been one positive side-effect, *whispering*, I have begun to enjoy exercise.

I know…call me a traitor.

But I’ve found that I love swimming and jogging (walking quickly) and I’m really quite good at them.

Did I mention that that’s me at the top of this post.

It has helped mentally that I feel the part now, having invested all of my Christmas gift money on some very supportive, sporty Lorna Jane tops – the ones all those rich private school mums wear when they pretend they’re going to yoga, when in fact we all know that they’re really going to coffee – as well as some skimpy little Kylie shorts and a pair of last season’s Nike trainers. I also treated myself to a new cozzie. So I feel like I deserve to be out there, doing my sporty thang, if you know what I mean?

And I practiced my jogging arms so I wouldn’t look really stupid and tested out the sports bra for sway control and nipple protection before I went out.

And I checked how to breathe properly underwater when swimming and how not to inhale water through my nose or cough and splutter when I get a mouthful of salt – because those are dead giveaways that you’re not a professional swimmer, aren’t they? And I am swimming in an Olympic pool, no less!

And I can jog and swim much further than when I started now. And I sweat loads – like real, salty, sporty sweat….although not in the pool, obviously. But my legs even hurt after swimming too. And other swimmers give me that knowing nod of approval when they see me wheezing in the changing room, even when I unleash the saggy breasts and matted pubes in the shower.

And the really weird thing is that I look forward to exercising now. On the days when I can’t go, due to stupid work or parenting responsibilities and I don’t release those endorphins, I feel strangely disappointed and unfulfilled.

In the words of James Brown, ‘I FEEL GOOD….nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.’

#Women #Diet #Health #middleaged #Humor #fitness #jogging #exercise