Big Fat Loser

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Seat belt extensions

As I mentioned at the end of last month, April for me was a month of travel - both for business and pleasure. I ended up making a total of 10 (yes, TEN) different plane journeys during the month - some of them short hops within the UK, and others to more far-flung places.

In the past, one of the indignities of being a really fat person was squeezing myself into my midget-sized economy seat, and having to ask a member of the cabin crew for a seat belt extension. I'm not sure why, but airlines all seem to be really stingy when it comes to the length of their seat belts. Would it kill them to make them another foot longer? What would that cost - a few pence for a bit of extra webbing?

Anyway, for anyone with a waist over a certain size, a belt extension (also used to strap new-born babies into their mother's laps) is required. And to add insult to injury, the extensions are always red or orange in colour, so they really stand out too. I'm sure the airlines do it deliberately, in order to humiliate fat people and discourage them from flying. Indeed, if they could get away with it, they would probably cut the luggage allowance for fat people, or make them travel in the hold.

Some airlines have toyed with the concept of charging some fat people for two seats. Luckily that's never happened to me - and despite my size, I've always tried not to 'overflow' into the seat space of passengers in ajoining seats. Indeed, in my quest to make myself as small as possible on board planes, I will often spend an entire flight with my arms crossed - which gives me quite painful back and shoulder pain long after the flight.

Anyway, there was a point to this post, about half an hour ago... Which is, that on all my trips during April, I've been lucky enough not to have needed any seat belt extensions. That, in itself, is a minor victory for me, and an indication that I am getting (slowly) thinner. In fact, on one flight I even had about 6 inches of spare belt, and had to tighten the slack - something I haven't been able to do for well over 15 years.
Saturday, April 29, 2006 | 1 comments

Communication with friends

I'm not sure why, but when I began this weight-loss thing about two months ago, I decided not to talk about it with my friends. I'm guessing that I assumed that I would fail, and that I didn't want them to know about that failure. It would be easier to let them believe that I'm happy with my current weight (which I'm not), rather than make a big announcement about going on a diet and then nothing change.

Even now, when I realise that it is working and that I am losing weight, I still can't talk to my friends about it. I think one of two of them have noticed that I've reduced my bulk a little, but they haven't really said anything either. Perhaps they're waiting for my lead, or feel that it's a bit rude bringing up my weight in conversation.

I desperately want people to express their amazement at how well I'm doing, but they don't. And I get the feeling that if I start to mention my dieting only now, then it will look like I'm fishing for complements - which I guess I am.

At the moment, I feel I'm at somewhat of a cross-roads in my dieting. When I began at the start of March, it was on the basis that I would do it at least up until Easter. And that was two weeks ago now. And since then I've been away on holiday, and haven't been so anal about counting my calories. And so, while I haven't put on any weight, I still feel a bit like I've fallen off the wagon.

My big decision is... do I continue with my dialy calorie counting using Weight Loss Resources, or do I switch to a general 'healthy eating' programme? I'm very tempted by the latter, but don't yet feel disciplined enough (or educated enough) to keep up my good work. But on the other hand, I also feel that I'm getting a bit obsessed with recording every single thing that passes my lips, and wish I could be more relaxed about my eating.

Of course, if my friends knew about my diet, I would have been able to seek their advice. Not that any of them are remotely interested in dieting - with them all being naturally thin.
Saturday, April 29, 2006 | 0 comments

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Normal sizes

I just did something quite exciting. Or rather, I did something that was exciting in its significance to me, but an activity that is otherwise quite dull and mundane for most other people. I went clothes shopping in a high street shop - Marks and Spencers to be exact - a great British institution.

Now, shopping in M&S may not be everyone's idea of excitement. But it wasn't the shop itself that was significant to me. It was the fact that it was a normal shop. One that sells normal sized clothes - not one that specializes in fat men's clothing. Okay, so what I was buying was at the very top-end of their sizing range, but it made me very proud.

For about the last 10 years, I've had to buy all my clothes from specialist retailers that deal in big and tall men. There aren't that many of them on the high street, so I had to get most of my clothes from mail order firms and (latterly) internet shops. And my main concern at the time was not so much how the clothes looked, but whether they fitted. I must have spent a small fortune ordering things that turned out to be too big or too small. But I never sent any of them back - I guess I was too ashamed to admit they didn't fit me, particularly if something was too small. So I ended up keeping these clothes for a while, hoping that they would one day fit me, before eventually throwing them away. It was a terrible waste of money, and many of the clothes were of quite poor quality anyway.

And so the idea that I can now go out into a shop and buy clothes is great. I will be able to see and feel them, and even try them on in certain shops, before parting with my cash. I will be able to buy things that are vaguely fashionable as well - always bearing in mind that some fashionable items look rubbish on fat people.

About a year ago, I was wearing jeans with a waist size of 50 inches that had a saggy bucket seat that made my arse look like a bag of spuds. But these new jeans I just got in M&S are only a 44 inch waist - proof that this weight loss thing is working. And while my arse is still quite sizable, and not exactly sexy, at least the jeans fit it well.

Anyway, for the moment I'm going to be a bit restrained about what clothes I get myself. After all, if I can manage to keep this weight-loss thing going, then even the 44 inch jeans will get baggy over time. My size 4XL t-shirts are already too big for me, but I can live with them for another month or two ? until the top half of my body (with its still quite-sizable belly) starts to catch up with the bottom half, and I can start buying normal sized tops too.
Sunday, April 23, 2006 | 0 comments