Memoirs of a fattie

Today we have been treated to pictures of Davina McCall proudly showing off her washboard stomach.


She is doing some fit club, celebrity lose weight show - I've posted a link to today's  Mail story for anyone interested in seeing her straining with a car tyre or gurning to heave a medicine ball to achieve a six-pack- ok, ok, we'd all love one.


Davina put through her paces


I can’t cope up with the constantly-changing messages of what is and isn’t going to make me fat.

Health experts get some perverse pleasure issuing relentless guidelines on what to eat, drink, not eat, and how many hours in the gym you need to stay slim.

I have become a bit of an expert in the world of health, diet and fitness over the past few years – and that’s selling myself short.

Having been a chubby teenager (ok  fat) , I was left with a hangover of crippling fear at the slightest thought of putting on weight.

Nowadays the comment “you’re looking well” from a friend I haven’t seen for ages immediately fills me with suspicion.


In seconds my brain has processed and translated the words to “You look like you’ve put on weight” and everything becomes a blur as my mind trip-switches into auto “which-diet-am-I-going-to-rescue-this-with?” mode.

Honestly, I could spend hours with that person and come away at the end of it with  “I think I’ve got enough eggs in for the Atkins Diet".

I prowl and scan for fat, carbs, protein, sugar, salt - you name it I’ve clocked it and weighed up the consequences.

I have counted calories, points, sins, carbs, free foods, healthy extras, probably every dieting yardstick known to man and Rosemary Conley.

I have added them, divided them into my height (squared), logged them, charted them and iPhone weight App inputted  them until I could match Carol Vorderman in numerate proficiency.

I have measured out a 1kg bar of dairy milk in 28g increments while adding naughty points to a graph each time until an a hour later I have finished the bar anyway.

And guilt, is there such a thing as a food Catholic? Because if there is I’m running for Pope.

I have gone to bed filled with remorse for eating a bag of M and Ms after getting through the day on just two bananas and a meal replacement bar.

I’m sure I’d feel less self-hate if I had just mugged a wheelchair-bound pensioner in a Scope shop.

But I still keep lapping it up, every salt warning, chocolate revelation and red wine diet (yep, that one doesn’t work, at least not after the second-bottle munchies have kicked in), while never over the past 20 years honestly being able to say I’m content.

And I am still obsessed although I am an apparently healthy 11 stone.

I know I am my own worst enemy because I fall for it every time and I am willingly bullied into beating myself black and blue with my own chocolate smeared guilt stick while pledging to Dr Dukan I’ll never fall off the wagon again.

At this point I am going to add that it is even more unfair because I am a bloke and apart from Gok Wan and Elton John I don’t know anyone else to share my frustration with, and they’re hardly likely to pick up the phone to compare waistlines.

While reading a new health revelation today - alcohol-soaked worms apparently live longer - l began to wonder if scientists had weighed them to, my mind deciding on whether to stock up on vodka on the way home. 


And that's when I decided enough is enough.

The best advice I think I've had was from Paul McKenna’s I can Make You Thin, he makes a valid argument for the diets don’t work case.

He points out the one thing that I, and thousands of others who force feed themselves grapefruits in the morning because the diet police say missing breakfast is illegal, are missing.

We should just  listen to and trust our bodies.

Why do I recoil in disgust at fish and chips for tea because I have used up all my  points for the day so  am only allowed boiled rice (but as much as I can eat).

I would probably consume less calories, and feel better, if I just ate something “normal” and stopped when I was full rather than forcing down chopped vegetables until my stomach feels as if someone has been at it with a bicycle pump.

I tried the "eat what you want" diet and  despite my refusal  to believe anything so non-punishing could work, it did.

I couldn’t get my head around anything that didn’t involve flushing my system with green tea and lemon juice, or filling myself up  with fat-burning gooseberries (or some other wonder-food).

But after careful reconsideration I have decided to let myself off the hook and give into common sense.


Anyone been through the same? There is a comment box at the bottom with your name on it.

Gok, Elton, if you are out there your advice would be gratefully received.

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