Tuesday 19 December 2017



I bought some bathroom scales yesterday and was alarmed at what they told me.

I used to have two bathroom scales until I moved house almost three years ago.  I assumed that the scales were somewhere or other in one of the many boxes of chattels I brought with me, but eventually, when all visible boxes had been unpacked without revealing any scales I concluded they'd been lost somehow or other.

Meanwhile I noticed it was getting harder to squeeze into trousers and eventually has to start buying trousers with larger waists.

Having weighed myself for the first time for about three years I resolve to eat less.

I haven't been stuffing myself recklessly, and avoid dreadfully fattening stuff like fried food and pastry, but I have started to allow myself an occasional cake or potato.

There is a mechanism of self deception behind weight gain.

A perverse sense of 'justice' bids us compare our eating with other people's 'He/she eats chips every day without gaining weight, so why shouldn't I?' The answer is that the lucky chip eater may have a different metabolism, eat less of other things, or may take more exercise.

It is also tempting to cite one's own previous eating  habits as a precedent. I used to eat a lot more than I do now, but for whatever reason, I can't afford to eat as much now.

If one weighs too much, one is eating too much.


1 comment :

Sasha said...

I do sympathise. I, too, have been eating too much, and I notice that my trouser waistbands are not as loose as they used to be. I prefer not to weigh myself.

It's my theory that we oldies put on weight for reasons of survival: because we're of little use to the tribe now, they may throw us out and leave us to starve. Then, our layer of surplus fat will help to keep us going.