I feel fat

I feel fat today.

It's probably because I am fat.

Not 'a bit overweight', 'tubby', 'chunky', or 'big boned', just plain and simple fat.

Sat in bed with laptop on lap (where else should it be), my line of sight is distracted by my belly hanging over the front of it, and what really peeves me, is I don't believe I deserve it.

But I know it must be true, because I was spammed at work by official Trust email offering 6 week 'healthy lifestyle' courses to people with a BMI of greater than 27. This basically means that even if I was a stone lighter, the health police would still reckon I was fat enough to need help.

I've always had a somewhat cavalier attitude to health and fitness. I enjoy good food, a good drink, and up until recently, a good drag on a fag. My weight has steadily increased since reaching adulthood, but I never considered myself fat, just a bit of a big unit. My diet used to consist of comfort food and booze - I could quite happily have a Super Sized Whopper for tea, call into the pub for 4 or 5 pints and a couple of bags of peanuts, then stick a pizza in the oven when I got home without batting an eyelid. I didn't pile on the weight, and had stuck at around 15 and a half stone for a few years.

And contrary to popular opinion, I'm not completely averse to the concept of exercise, I used to quite enjoy it, and really it's been problems with my back that put pay to that on a regular basis.

In all, I was quite happy with my lifestyle, contentedly accepting middle age spread with a pint of Broadside in one hand, a bag of dry roast on the table, and a tab on the go. I only really cared whilst on holiday an Borneo last October. Not for how I looked, but for just how fucking exhausting it was trekking through a humid rainforest carrying a few extra pounds and lungs full of shite. I was sweating like swine in a sauna, so had to carry around extra water, which in turn made it more effort to do anything.

I survived, and had a very pleasant Christmas eating and drinking what I damn well pleased, but with a niggling worry in my mind that in April mrsslippy and I would be off to The Amazon for more of the same, and I would prefer it is it wasn't quite so knackering.

Now despite being offered the chance of a six week course instructing me, I think I know what needs to be done. It's a simple balance sheet that doesn't balance. Fuel in is greater than energy expenditure.

I need to either eat/drink less, do more, or a combination of both.

The Slippymark Diet. I shall patent it. Eat less and do more you greedy, lazy fucker will be my mantra, and the title of my book. And that will be all that needs to be printed, because in essence, that's all you need to do.

So I decided to quit the fags, cut the booze, eat a little more sensibly, and maybe even try a little gentle exercise. It wasn't a New Years resolution, or some kind of mid-life crisis (although fuck me - it is creeping up..). I just thought I might feel a little fitter in the jungle if my lungs worked and I was half a stone lighter.

But I'm not.

The most I've been to the pub is twice in a week - more often than not it's just been the once, and I've not bought any peanuts. I've had the odd G+T at home, but not come anywhere near 21 units in a week (apart from Matts staggers where I did that in a day), where as normally I would have hit that by Wednesday...

No Burger Kings. I take a packet lunch into work, and don't graze on snacks and cakes, or mmmmmmmmmm.... pasties. In the evening I eat the same as mrs slippy most nights, albeit slightly bigger portions, and because she's eating sensibly too, there's definitely no saturated fat or hidden sugars.

And when it's not pissing it down or snowing, I've been walking to work and back, enjoying the hilarious but wholly inappropriate Collings & Herrin podcast.

Yet far from being half way to losing half a stone, I've actually put over half a stone on.

And that's what's not fair. I know that when people quit smoking, they generally put on weight, but that's because they comfort eat, and I haven't been!

So if the fuel in is less then surely I am less active? But I don't think I am. Perhaps the exercise I am now missing is a trip down and up the stairs again every time I popped out the house for a fag? Or the act of lifting one hand to my mouth every time I'd have a drag?

I've met people over the years who when questioned about exercise respond with 'This is the only exercise I need', whilst tipping their hand in front of their mouth as if drinking an invisible pint. So maybe that's it? Maybe, for me, beer is like celery, only better. More than just calorie neutral, boozing does burn fat?

Or maybe it's just my destiny to be a big bastard. I'll ponder it further over a glass of water...