Food..

Today I wanted to write about food. Not for any particular reason - well that's not quite true. I was getting out of a car the other day, one of those big 4x4 type things, which people buy and think are convenient for moving people and things about town, but totally forget that what they're doing is getting a vehicle that's a good further 6 inches higher than an ordinary car, and that if you have legs that are a bit shorter than the average, involve a leap into the dark when you get out of them. Actually getting in to them is difficult enough. But that's neither here nor there.

Anyhow getting out of this thing I twisted my knee, and it's been so painful over the past few days in particular. Clearly I've twisted the tendon or something. I thought - and loads of people said - go and see the doctor, but what could a doctor actually do? It's not like I need painkillers, I have my regular prescription in case my back goes (now that's a really long story!) so if it gets really bad I take one of those. It's just that I know if I go and see the doc, well the likelihood is I'd end up with a long wait to get an x-ray which would show nothing as x-rays don't show muscular damage, and an appointment for a bit of physio. My surgery is lucky enough to have it's own physiotherapist, so that wouldn't be too long a wait. And if it keeps on going, I've not doubt that that's exactly what I will do, go to see the doctor.

But the reality is I know the reaction I'll get. Anyone in their right mind would say the same thing, which of course everyone I know is too polite to actually say, well, if you weigh as much as you do, you must expect to get problems with your joints! And I want to say this, they would be absolutely right to say this. So here I am, back at the old conundrum. The old bugbear in my life - food, weight, size.. etc.

The first time I really became aware of bodysize was when I was quite a small girl - there was an incident at some kind of Christmas party my parents had, when this woman - I do know who she was, but she's dead now, and I wouldn't want to upset her family, (not that they're likely to read this) so I'm not going to name her. She was a tall thin woman, with one of those extraordinary bone structures. And I have a memory of her wearing a suede suit that my mother envied deeply, but I doubt that she was wearing this on this particular occasion. She was talking to my mother, and my sister was within hearing - I can't remember if I was or not, but I know that Jo was incredibly upset by it. She said to my mother "Honestly Joyce, isn't there anything you can do about those two?"
Of course what she meant was we were fat little tunks. I would have been perhaps 8 or 9, and Jo a couple of years younger. I think that was perhaps the first thing that hit me, body wise. Then there was a dreadful, personal incident that happened at my ballet class, when we were all in the locker room changing to go in, and I overheard one mother say to another mother "Who is that little elephant in the pink tights?"

Well it's easy enough to laugh about these things now, but they set in tow a whole range of feelings and behaviours that I'm still battling with now. I can remember a very distinct feeling of isolation, of arming myself against this sort of comment. I don't think I was too successful! But what it did kick off, of course, was years and years of yo-yo dieting. I go through long periods of What-the-hell-ness, it's my affair what I weigh and that's that, then 6 months of bizarre eating. Yeah I've done the cabbage diet - gross. Absolutely gross. I've joined clubs. Which is a real ordeal for me, as on a psychological level, I think being weighed in public is a form of torture. Of strange women, screeching "Oh well done, you've lost a quarter of an ounce!" Some return on seven days of starvation that is. The fact the room is packed with total strangers when they do this. Ghastly.

I've even been successful at times. I lost huge amounts of weight when I lived in Brum as a teenager, desperate to get in to a pair of black cords. I made it, wore them perhaps three or four times before some kind of disaster came along and I started to eat again.

So at the end of all this, I have to start to loose weight again. And I am doing, I know, I've been cutting down on the fats and sugars, increasing the fibre - nothing dramatic, just slow and steady. No groups, no strangers. Lord it's a pain. But I'm thinking my knees will thank me in a few months!