FBD24

The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Twenty-Four – You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties

We're attending a big party this week. It’s the kind that involves sitting down and putting various food items into your face until you can’t fit any more in. I’ve been to many like this before. If we were wear togas we’d be heading to the vomitorium between courses (if such a thing ever existed).

I'm not very good at this kind of thing. I know what I’m like when ever a finger-food table presents itself like a tempting, shimmering mirage before me, floating into view between the badly-dancing middle-aged men (all trying hard not to hold their thumbs aloft as they boogie to Bon Jovi). I’m the first in the queue, the guy with the biggest plate, balancing a pile of food so compacted that you can’t tell where the vol-au-vents end and the profiteroles begin. But that’s OK, chocolate sauce is a great leveller. I’m the one that people back away from as I return to my table, just in case I have a sausage roll spillage incident. As if. I’d have my mouth under it before it hit the dance floor.

(Which reminds me: I’m going to America for a holiday soon. The Land of the Free Buffet beckons. Better be prepared to pay excess baggage on the flight home.)

So that was how I used to act at buffet parties. But these days… Well to be honest I’m still the same person with the same comfort-eating addiction that I ever was, but I’m really trying to control my pigging out. Which is why I’m pretty apprehensive about this gathering of the clans. I don’t want to blow all the good work I’ve done to get this far, but I also don’t want to have to be the only one turning food down, successfully sitting out the sausage shovelling only to be faced with the dreaded yet familiar refrain of ‘come on, join in’.

One thing that I’m certain I won’t be doing is drinking. I know that these days I’m such a lightweight (as far as – and only as far as – alcohol is involved) that I’d show myself up after just a couple of shandies. And the ones closest to you are the ones to never let stories like that drop. Like the time with the white suit and the chilli con carne on the chair seat; that one will stay with me forever.

If I go out for beer (and let’s be honest: that’s always several beers, never ‘a beer’, singular), I’ll definitely put weight on. I’ve been checking this for a while now. I’ve found that my weight increases by about a pound for every pint I drink. That’s an incredible amount. I have no idea how I manage it, but it’s true. I’ve lifted a few beers in my time. They never weigh that much, even if you throw in the glass. And I’ve done that once or twice too.

A few FBDs ago I spoke of how my resolve was slipping, how I was drinking a little more again, and eating a little more to go with the little more drinking.

Well I’d like to say that I’m on top of that. Again, I’d like to, but…

I know what it is, it’s the evil exercise. It’s a theme I’ve explored in these articles before: as I burn off more calories my head tells me that the engine needs more fuel. If I’ve been at it like a steam train (as it were) then the fireman needs to shovel in more coal. Or in my case, pasta. Or deep-pan pepperoni pizza.

I’m aware that depression always makes me eat more. And the (mostly self-inflicted) pressure of this impending family get-together depresses me mightily.

So, in best cheap supermarket magazine tradition do I…

A) …join in because it’s more fun if we all do things together.

B) …eat lightly and healthily, regardless of the peer pressures?

C) …simply not go? This would avoid problems on the night itself but in all probability create others that would last longer, possibly for years .

D) …other, simply because there’s always D) other.

Or, if it were worded as an A-level question;

Shaun has an important function to attend. He is trying to lose weight but is concerned about the pressures to over-indulge at the event. With reference to this item and other sources discuss the social forces apparent in this scenario, and suggest possible outcomes.

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