Confession Time
Rebounding (to Green Day) 47 minutes (502 calories burned)
Today's Weight 208.5lbs (though STILL TOM!)
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I'm beginning to look thinner. Definitely. My face is finally beginning to get a little definition, and a neck seems to be emerging slowly from the swamp of double chins. And my knuckles and wrist bones seem more prominent, for some strange reason. Oh, and I'm pretty sure my earlobes are getting pretty foxy too - I'd better stop losing before I start to look too gaunt!
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OK, because this blog is all about honestly, I'm about to reveal something really shameful and despicable about myself. Are you ready?
Sibling rivalry and schadenfreude are terrible things, aren't they? So why do they seem to rear their ugly heads whenever weightloss is on the agenda?
I phone my parents twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, and usually one or other of them (and often both of them) will bring up the subject of weight. This usually takes the form of a disparaging comment about one of my sisters or one of my nieces, and the conversation goes something like this...
Mom (or more commonly Dad): "X came round at the weekend. Oooh, she's looking a right state. You should see the size of her backside..."
Me: "Uh huh.... So did you have a nice time at the theatre?"
Parent: "She must be 15 stones by now. Talk about thunder thighs and arms like an Irish navvie..."
Me: "So what play are you going to see next week?"
Parent: "She insists she's only a size 20 but she's at least a 24...I don't know who she thinks she's kidding..."
Me: (cracking) "So how much weight has she put on then...?"
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What is it with parents? They insist they love us whatever we look like, but they prove that's not the case with every sentence they utter. And guess what - the sister who happens to be doing better than her siblings is ALWAYS a colluder.
When you've grown up in a household with two thin-to-medium-sized-body-image-conscious parents and 4 great hefty gallumphing girls (and one skinnier one), the only way you're EVER going to get any approval or praise is when you start shedding pounds and out-thin your sisters. Or (more accurately) they out-fat you.
Whenever there's any change in the status quo, sisterly solidarity goes out of the window, and is replaced with naked competition for our parents' approval.
Dieters red in tooth and claw.
It's pathetic and shameful! Whenever one of my sisters loses weight, we all line up to oooh and aaahh over her new svelte body, and we pretend that we're thrilled for her, which we are - to a certain extent - but not totally. 'Cos as soon as she starts to slip and regain the lost pounds, we're like a coven of harpies, making snidey oh-so-innocent comments to our parents, that are designed to score maximum points.
One of us will say (innocently, of course), "How's P doing on her diet. Is she still losing steadily?" (when we know damn well she isn't) and then we'll sit back in our shameful relief as our parents are off like a ferret after a rat..."Oh no, she's piling it all back on, she's eating like a pig at the moment, she'll start blocking out the sun if she gets any fatter..." Yada, yada, yada.
Then we siblings can heave a collective sigh of relief - the status quo is restored, we're all fat together and no-one's in danger of being the only fat one left behind.
Is my family the only one that is this dysfunctional? I KNOW I should be 100% thrilled for my sisters when one of them manages to lose weight, but there's always that nagging inner worry that if you're left behind all of the crushing weight of parental anti-fatness will cascade down upon you alone...
I think that's why I'm always so keen to get my sisters dieting when I'm dieting - so that we can either all be fat together or all be thin together. Just as long as I get to be the thinnest first...
