I have neglected this little place but I'm back for now, with nocturnal ramblings that won't make much sense. It's partly to stop myself getting some toast, although I am starving...!
I have a confession: I google 'thinspo', as in 'thinspiration'. As much as I hate the word, every few weeks I google it and have a look at what it throws up. The quality can vary: I can find great pictures of, say, Louise Redknapp (size 8, I think?), or I can find stuff like this:
Hmm, not quite the look I'm attempting.
Anyway, I had a little think tonight about why I want to lose weight. The other night Colin said that if you want something you really have to go after it. I want to lose weight but rarely manage it. Do I really want to? Yes. But I love my food too much, far more than I love myself - I'd prefer to eat than to improve myself. Doesn't say much for my self-esteem.
I think I want to lose weight mainly for how it looks - yes, I know, surprise surprise, but it goes deeper than that. It's not about being healthy because I know I am, reasonably. I can exercise and not feel on the verge of collapse, I fit into the 'perfect' dress size (most days). No, it's more about what message you send out to others. I always think that people who are perfectly slim and toned seem too, for want of a better word, 'cool' to bother thinking about eating. They see it as a necessity, not a pleasure, and that's how I want to be. They're too busy enjoying life and doing things that don't involve food - their lives aren't sad enough that they get excited about some roasties that turned out well. Fat people (barring ones with medical conditions) are fat because they like food.
My brother moved back home today, and over our post-tea cuppa we talked about our weight. Mum's putting him on a diet and exercise regime. He said he'd give anything for my metabolism, at which point we compared how much fat in our stomachs we could grab. True, he's 5' 10" and pushing 15 stone and is thus way overweight. I'm 5' 3" and pushing 9st 2lb these days (not good, I'm creeping back up). The problem is that I come from a fat family, a family obsessed with eating well. My dad is a vegetarian who adores vegetables and salad and so on. My mother is a serial dieter who has been on countless plans and rarely succeeded, ever since I was born. My brother has gained weight ever since he went to secondary school but was always a tubby kid. I was a skinny kid until I hit about 10, and then I ballooned, and I can remember looking at beach holiday photos from when I was 12 and Mum saying, "You might not want to look at these, Annie" - she was right, because I was hideous.
I Facebook-stalk old schoolfriends who I know are thin and pretty. One girl in particular, who is at Oxford to boot, is stunningly pretty and thin, and can even look good in a binliner (literally: there are pictures from an 'anything but clothes' party where she made a dress from a binliner and looked marvellous).
My weight is the only thing I can change. I can't make my face more delicate or feminine, I can't make my boobs bigger, I can't slim my hips down. Of course, none of this matters to Colin, or so he says. However much he goes on about me 'deserving' (pah) someone more toned and taller, despite the fact I can't stand overly-toned physiques, I think he deserves someone with toned legs and a flat stomach, with reasonable boobs. If I can't be prettier, I can be thinner, and I think that's the thought I need to keep in my head when I approach the buffet at Pizza Hut tomorrow. Why my friends must stuff me with saturates I will never know.