The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Sixty-One – Count Your Many Blessings

“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

So says the incredibly skinny model Kate Moss. The phrase is apparently one of her mantras for keeping in shape. This is clearly a woman who has never tasted my mum’s chocolate cake.

Now I’m not going to get into the entire Size Zero debate; nor am I going to discuss if an “anorexic clothes horse” (as one critic memorably described her) is a good role model to impressionable girls, or even whether she has any obligation to be. But what I am going to say is this: surely there’s more to life than depriving yourself of tasty pleasures?

I mean, I could happily forego (for example) a Mac-Nasty burger, fair enough, but not my mum’s chocolate cake? That’s an entirely different matter. Some things are too good to let go of. Now I can understand that Ms Moss has an incentive that is not applicable to me. I’m a fat bloke making a living moving words around. She’s a waif-like millionaire supermodel. (Strange term that: I’ve never seen a catwalk queen coming out of a phone box wearing Bridget Jones pants outside her low-slung dVb jeans, but it does paint a lovely picture). If I suddenly pork out on the pies and turn up at the office massively overweight, my bosses won’t tear up my contract. I know this for a fact; I did, and they didn’t.

Given this recent weight gain I should certainly consider cutting back even though it’s the wrong time of year to think about eating sensibly. I know many other portly people who have put their faith in a large-scale points-based weight loss system, with varying degrees of success. Maybe this could be a workable solution to my own belly-battle? I borrowed some books from a friend who’s been through this and started reading.

The most obvious thing to look at is the number of points in my ‘treats’ – the foodstuffs that make eating a pleasure, that are so much more than mere fuel – so that was where I started reading.

It’s no secret that I like a drink. I don’t need much. I’m a physical heavyweight but an alcoholic lightweight. Give me a couple of pints and I’m happy. But apparently a pint of beer carries the same number of points as a triple vodka. Now seeing as the entire point of alcohol is to chill out and forget the woes of the day, vodka’s coming out the clear winner! (See what I did there? Vodka?... clear? ... Please yourself.) Less points. Same effect. Score!

Regular readers will know that I’m also a lover of pepperoni pizza. It’s quite simply the single tastiest dish ever made. If it were a woman it would be Cindy Crawford with a bottle of Scotch in one hand and a pair of Sheffield United season tickets in the other. Seriously, it’s that good, but I’m fully aware that its crust is stuffed with calories and bad fats. But according to this points system, half a pizza contains the same amount of bad-for-me-ness as three bananas. I have a banana chopped up on my cereal every morning. If I cut that out, I could blow out with a full pizza every Saturday.

I know that sounds frivolous and I’ll admit to having frivolled with my food more than once, but my point is that if I want to cheat, to massage the figures (as it were) then this system seems as easy as any to manipulate.

In the research for this piece I’ve learned that the companies that produce these plans sell their own branded food and drinks as well; these apparently make it easier for you to count the points. And they also produce books, magazines, subscription websites, electronic calculators, card calculator wheels, special weighing scales – for you and your food - and of course the meeting groups, all designed with two main goals; to help people lose weight and to make money for the firms providing the information. Yet surely these two aims are contradictory? If the target audience actually achieves their target weight, then they will no longer require the products. So isn’t it in the interest of the organisations in the weight-loss business to make sure that the prospective losers never achieve their targets?

Surely just having what I want, but much less frequently would be a simpler way to do things? Eat very sensibly most of the time, but allow myself the best quality version of the foods and drinks that I really love every so often. I should just trust in – and act upon – my own knowledge of what I should eat. And maybe buy my mum a smaller cake tin?

Going back to Ms Moss, she may be right, maybe nothing does taste as good as skinny feels, but I wouldn’t know. I have no idea how good or bad being that thin is. Neither have I any desire to find out. The blessed Delia Smith says that “Food is for eating, and good food is to be enjoyed”. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, and would add my own version.

“Life’s too short for thin-crust pizza”. Give me a deep pan every time. Just make the servings less frequent.


© Shaun Finnie 2009
 

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