1. Not losing any weight. Don’t tell me not to be discouraged because I am. And I don’t feel healthy either, I just feel dead and hungry.
2. The in-between clothing stage. Should I throw away the loose jeans and t-shirts or should I hold on to them — just in case?
3. Getting insensitive diet advice from physically fit people. I know they’re just trying to be helpful and encouraging, but the foe-creating retorts that come to mind as they blabber on about how easy it is for them to lose weight are difficult to keep zipped up.
4. Waiting for someone, anyone, to say: “Have you lost weight?” and being able to say in return, “Why yes I have, two whole pounds! Thank you for noticing.”
5. Planning what I am going to eat before I eat it. I realise that eating on a whim is not the best way to diet (and eating that way is probably responsible for me having to be on a diet in the first place), but I am after all a growing man who needs to know that he can have his impulsive steak and mashed potatoes without feeling guilty about it.
6. Weighing myself. Even more so in front of others.
7. Watching my weight go down one day (because I read the scale myself) and watching it climb up the very next (because someone else read it for me).
8. Looking forward to the day that I will be at my “goal weight” and realising that I have to continue with this horrendous diet in order to “maintain” that goal weight. It’s not a nice feeling knowing I’ll never actually be “off” my diet again. It is my life… for the rest of my life… which, if I don’t diet, won’t be as long as I would like!
9. Watching physically fit people around me eat and enjoy everything I can’t eat.
10. And especially... eating less and exercising more.
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 27th, 2011.
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