So the day got off to a great start for me. I went to my wardrobe to get a new pair of jeans for today and the first pair I picked out was one of my old 34 inch waist ones. I haven't been able to wear these for about three or four years and they, like several similar sized jeans have just hung in the cupboard, untroubled for months. Occasionally I would try one pair on to discover there was no way I could do them up and put them back in silent despair and go and have a piece of cake to make myself feel better.
But this morning I picked out the jeans and wondered if now I am down to around 13 and a half stone would the Cinderella jeans now fit me again. I thought it was unlikely. I had been closer to 13 stone back when I bought these.
However, hope springs eternal and I pulled on the trousers to discover they fitted me almost entirely comfortably. I even needed a belt to be totally sure of securing them. It was good to know that this couple of months of effort (with a couple of weeks of overindulgence in the middle) had paid off. It also means that I now have access to about five pairs of jeans that had been redundant for months on end. Some of them are quite new. There is one 33 inch pair which I bought by accident and couldn't even fit into back then. I haven't tried those ones yet. But surely that is my trouser based Holy Grail. If I can get into those then all will be well with the world.
I don't for a second believe that my waist is 34 inches by the way. Given it was about 41 a month ago I would think the best it could realistically be is about 38, which I think proves that GAP fiddle the sizes of their trousers to make their customers feel better about themselves. But you can say what you like about that - it certainly works. I felt good about myself all day, even if later as I was watching "We Are Klang- Klangbang" at the Soho Theatre (one of the funniest, most original, most disgusting bits of stupidity I have seen for a good while - I began to cry with laughter at the line "We haven't got a minge!" Pure, unadulterated fun. Do go and see them if you can) I did find that I was having to readjust myself slightly to get comfortable, which was embarrassing as I had a high powered TV executive sitting to my left with the power to destroy the career of anyone she might notice playing pocket billiards in public. Worst of all she might assume that I was becoming aroused by the unpleasant spectacles that the Klang team were performing in front of me and that would really be the end of the tattered remains of my reputation. Luckily I think I got away with it and no-one will ever know of my shame.
But the jeans are practically the right size for me. It's a time for celebration. A big bit of cake would be perfect.... If only cake wasn't perfect for celebration and mourning then maybe I'd be thin. Or if only my life did not consist of all these highs and lows and nothing in between. But luckily I have discovered that a cake of soap has hardly any calories, so I will eat one of those to celebrate and will be able to wash out my mouth at the same time.
The other exciting weight news is that on my FitDay graph the circle which indicates how healthy my weight is is now touching the "moderate overweight" section. It's still clearly in the "severe overweight" bit, but part of the circle is encroaching on the orange zone which is very encouraging. Given two months ago that circle was alone in a sea of red, it is good to see it approaching the shallows of the orange, though the dry land of yellow sandy "healthy weight" is still some twenty odd pounds away. I think I will have to be dead to make it into there. I'd also have to buy a whole new wardrobe of clothes and my faux 34 inch jeans would be too big for me and would be destined to return to their sad life of hanging on a hanger unloved and unwanted and unfarted in. None of us would want that. Now those jeans have been slightly anthropomorphised we all want them to be the jeans I wear for the rest of my life. Even if they are already four years behind the fashion.
But despite a few drunken nights the weight has been peeling off since my return from Africa, which makes me wonder if I have picked up some kind of parasite or disease. If I have I don't really mind. If it means I can get into my old jeans then I am happy.
WIN A PSP
November quiz - Question 2
I live in London and as Warming Up attests I spend a lot of time on the tube system here, but which London tube station has the longest name with no repeated letter in it? (ie each letter in the name appears only once. eg "Shepherd's Bush" has repeated s's, h's and e's and thus it's not that)
This is a much better question to ask when people do not have access to a tube map to find out. It's surprisingly long so it's a good one to ask at the pub when no tube maps are around.
Remember the winner will be the person who gets the most questions right, so if you don't know all the answers you might still be in with a chance. If you don't get this one you are just lazy though.
Please wait until the end of the month before sending all 30 answers in together. Anyone sending answers individually will immediately invalidate their entry to the competition.
