The Fatslayer Chronicles

Phew, the 2lb weight gain (which is still hanging around) is probably menstrually-related, since my period started yesterday.

I’ve had so few periods in my life that I can’t recognise the signs – I’m as ignorant as a ten year old. I don’t think I suffer from PMT (I’d know if I did, right?), and I’ve never noticed any other ‘symptoms’ like sore boobs or stomach cramps.

How unwomanly am I?

I think maybe I’m just totally obtuse and uninformed about the workings of my own body.

Today I noticed that my skirt (which has been hanging off my hips for at least a month) was tight enough to have caused a red ring around my waist. My stomach felt huge and was as tight as a drum.

It suddenly occurred to me that this is ‘bloating’.

Every day it seems you overhear some woman or other bemoaning how ‘bloated’ she feels, and I was beginning to think that it was one of those urban myths, like the Kentucky fried rat story. I’m sure ten years ago no-one ever mentioned it, and I always assumed it was a trendy euphemistic way of saying that you were dying for a good fart.

Not any longer. I’ve officially joined the bloated brigade. I didn’t have the urge to fart at all, but if you’d stuck a fork in me I’d have zoomed off like a pricked balloon.

Not nice.

It made me wonder, though, if I’ve ever experienced this before, and just never noticed it. Maybe I was just so fat before that I never even registered that my belly was as distended as a pot-bellied pig’s.

I wonder what other bodily manifestations I’ve been missing all these years….