The horrifying fact of the matter is we bought some new scales. They are the accurate, digital kind, purchased to replace the clunky old ones that were much-loved and cherished for years, possibly because, as we’ve now discovered, they rendered the two adults in this house four kilograms lighter than was actually the case.
Spring is sprung and so are we. No longer able to pretend we still sit within a healthy weight range. No longer able to feign surprise when we weigh in at the doctors, or pop onto someone else’s scales just to like, compare. And there we both were, telling ourselves everyone else’s scales were wrong. Our old scales were correct because we’d had them for so long.
The situation is dire. Well not dire, but worse than we thought. The ubiquitous five kilos we and everyone else I know feels they need to lose, is now considerably more for the two adults in this house. It’s a number I’m not that keen to say out loud at this stage.
And I hate this time of year, when the possibility of having to get out in public in short sleeves and summer dresses looms. I can’t bear to go through another hot season layering sarongs and scarfs on top of each other to cover bits I don’t want to share. (And I’m not going to say tuckshop-lady arms because my arms are an insult to tuckshop ladies, so lets just say that area in particular is in need of work).
Being just that little bit overweight is the ultimate first world problem. We eat too much, it doesn’t make us look good, and eventually it will make us sick. The older one gets the less one cares about the looks bit, but the more important it becomes to not have weight hanging around our mid-section.
Gaining weight is fun – it involves cooking and socialising, tea and cake and roast dinners. Losing it involves abstinence, carrot sticks and focus, focus, focus. I’m trying my hardest to swap chocolate for fruit, wine for mineral water (just every now and then), and to ramp up the vegies and fibre.
I’m not alone. The great Spring Panic is everywhere. Venture down to your local park right now and tell me the evidence isn’t all over the place. People in spanking new Nike running shoes attempting to make it around the oval at least once, bootcampers, personal trainers and iPhones attached to Lorna Jane-wearing fast walkers pounding all over the pavement. It’s busier than the post-New Year resolution, first week of January at the moment.
Will any of us last the distance? Will we get to the place we need to be and stay there? Will any of us ever win the great weight war, and sit comfortably and happily at a healthy weight.
I’m just taking it one mint slice at a time. And unlike the old scales, which might have deigned to flicker a little bit after about a month of hard work, the new ones are much more responsive, and show every little bit of weight loss, even just a little point-something of a kilogram. Watching them go down can be quite exciting, which sounds pathetic really, the things that get you going in middle age. But there may be some good in bad.
