It’s been nearly a year since I came back from England and the thing that’s probably the most terrible thing about that fact is that I haven’t really walked anywhere. For a year. Walking around in a mall just doesn’t count, and anyway, what’s the point of walking around a mall when you have a wallet that would resemble Kate Moss’ cranium if you opened it up and peeked inside?
I can’t afford the luxury of a gym – not even the dodgy ones you see in the movies where they have cockfights in the basement. Going for a quick run in the neighbourhood would be a cheaper alternative, but the problem comes in when the police have to identify my remaining body parts to notify the next of kin. Yeah, this is Jo’burg baby! Love it or hate it, you can’t run in it.
The point is, I haven’t exactly been very active of late, and when your primary function in life is sitting in front of a computer all day and the highlight of your week is driving down the road to Checkers for groceries, you are going to end up with a flabby, square butt. Things tend to atrophy, and then gravity takes over.
Okay, I’m probably lying – my trip to Checkers every week isn’t really the highlight, but it does come a close second. I also go to my mother’s at some point during the weekend, and when that happens, I invariably end up stuffing my face with Mother’s Food. So it gets worse.
During the week my lovely husband is fond of having chocolates, ice-cream and popcorn (not necessarily in that order) after supper in front of the television before going to bed. Naturally I participate in this tradition because I wouldn’t want him to feel lonely, eating all those terrible, terrible things by himself.
It’s pretty darn obvious from reading the above that I needed to make a bit of a change in the way I live. When I realised that I could no longer walk in front of the full-length mirror in the hall without my eyes closed, I decided something had to be done.
I’m not terribly large. I wear a size 10 (34). But the thing is, I’m really short. Like really, really, really tall to the negative power of 5 billion. Dwarves would be allowed on the roller-coaster before me. I’m 147cm tall (about 4ft 8in, I think). Twelve-year-olds tower above me. Ominously. That’s why, even though I now weigh 56kg, I still have to lose about 10kg to look proportionately normal.
To make matters worse, I’m naturally pear-shaped. I have hips that make Oprah look like a catwalk model. Well, in my mind, anyway. It probably looks worse when you’re looking down at them all the time. When I was around thirteen I woke up one day and boom! Hips for Africa. I’m still waiting for the boobs, fifteen years later.
But lately, when small objects started to gravitate to and orbit around me, I knew that the time for action had come. So, I started The Diet yesterday. So far, apart from a bit of muscle ache from jumping around in my lounge like an simpleton with a skipping rope, it is going pretty well, but it’s still early days yet.
When I start fantasising about biting Francois Pienaar dressed up as a giant Lays potato crisp, you might just see me standing at the traffic lights with a cardboard sign which reads: “will write Mills & Boon novels for lipo”. Please spare some change...
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