frustration

The wheat field I can see from my computer chair has changed from green to gold now. When the wind blows more than a little, which it often does here, the whole expanse moves, like a Mexican wave in a football crowd

I’m about half as thin again since they planted it. Which reminds me; I think I’ll go and weigh myself. All those resolutions gone out of the window. Funnily enough it was my GP’s fault really – the weighing part, not the diet. I ‘d finally gone to see him about why I felt dizzy and faint each morning. I normally never go and see a doctor unless I have something simple, like an earache, or an insect bite. I really don’t like doctors very much and I especially don’t like these ones here.

There was one where I used to live who was lovely. He was a friend too, and I knew that if I ever had to go he’d always listen to me, one human being to another, without treating me like an idiot, which seems to be the default position for GPs. I’d forgotten about that until I moved here and had to change.

So anyway I said “I’m feeling really dizzy each morning. I’ve been on a diet and lost a lot of weight and I think I might be anaemic or something” and he said “how much weight have you lost”, and then we kind of slipped into a verbal battle where he refused to believe that I couldn’t quantify it in pounds or kilogrammes. Honestly, I can’t do that kind of stuff. My brain doesn’t work that way. I can’t estimate distance, weight, height – you name it, I can’t even begin to guess.

I said “I don’t know. I don’t weigh myself” he said “you must have some idea” and I said “ no honestly. I haven’t weighed myself since I was about 25. I didn’t like obsessing about it so I made a point of not doing it” I tried to help – I said “I think I was a size fourteen when I started and I’m an eight now – if that helps?”

He looked blankly at me. “So how many kilos is that then?” I sighed. “I have no idea”. I saw him typing, “patient refuses to discuss weight loss…” I said “ I am NOT refusing. I just honestly don’t know – really. I have no idea. A lot.” God this was turning into the most pointless visit ever. Now I’d have a “mad person” label every time I went to see anyone there. Shit.

I tried another tack. I took a breath and tried not to sound as annoyed as I felt. “ I really didn’t want to obsess about weight, like Bridget Jones you know? That’s why I don’t weigh myself. It was a conscious decision. I just felt uncomfortable and went on a fairly low calorie diet”

His eyes lit up; numbers. “How many calories?”

“About 800-ish, more or less, and I take vitamins. It’s pretty well balanced”

He looked at me and I just knew what he would say next.

“You need to be eating 1.600 calories a day”

“Bollocks” I thought. “You have less idea than me, you fuckwit. You people haven’t changed since I was a teenager.. Builders need that many calories. I don’t. It’s people like you, who put everyone in the same box, that made my eating problems in the first place.”

When I was eighteen I just stopped altogether. I lived off chewing gum and coffee and the odd cracker because I had no idea about balancing food. Now here I am at 49. I’ve made an informed decision. I’m not doing a stupid fad thing – honey and water fasts – only egg whites – nothing like that.

I spent ages reading about how your metabolism changes when you reach the end of your forties, before the menopause. How you can suddenly put weight on much more easily than before; how you need to readjust your diet; be in really good shape, so when you do hit the menopause it’s less horrific.

I actually don’t know much about the menopause – only the odd half remembered Germaine Greer article about how nice it was to feel free from the pressure of looking attractive, and all those jokes you hear about hot flushes and things. Perhaps I ought to buy a book.

So anyway, I bought some vitamins and I actually take them for a change, instead of forgetting after a few days, and then finding them out of date months later and putting them in the bin, as I always have in the past. Every day for four months or so, more or less; I was really proud of myself for doing that. And then I made up the simplest diet. No weighing little tiny bits of things – I can’t be arsed – it’s obsessive – I would rather read a book than waste my time doing that. I just chose a few things from each category – vegetables, protein, whatever – and I eat them every day, and that’s it.

500 calories would be too low. That’s how many there are in those awful liquid diets they have on the front of the Daily Mail. You pay some plastic looking woman a fortune, and she gives you a motivational talk (the idea makes me shudder as I write) – and then she gives you a box with sachets of disgusting milkshakes in it, and every now and again you meet up with her and you stand on the scales and she gives you another little talk and more milkshake powder.

800 is my concession to health. I eat real things. Apples, and soya beans and stuff. I am looking at the doctor and I’m not saying any of this except in my head. I know it would just be turning the screw on my already fucked medical record, which he has blinking on his computer screen in front of him. I can see his fingers itching to type more.

I look at him and try very very hard not to let the contempt show in my eyes but I know I’m not doing a good job of it. It’s a fault I can’t correct. I think it’s genetic. I remember seeing it in my father’s eyes, and I see it every day in those of my youngest son. We have no patience with people if we don’t think they are very bright.

We are having a battle of looks, me and the GP. I win. He looks away first. Then he says “well we might as well weigh you now. How tall are you?”

So I broke the habit of a lifetime, and found out I was almost the same weight as I had been the last time I’d stood on the scales.

Nowadays it’s all about BMI. I don’t think that existed in the eighties. He did a few calculations and said “your bmi is normal, veering towards underweight. You don’t need to lose any more”

I wondered what he’d say if I told him how much I used to weigh, when I really did have an eating problem. I don’t want to be like that again – just as I was a little later

I said “I would like to be a little thinner than that. Not much more. Then I’ll stop”

He looked at me and said “at your age that’s a perfectly reasonable weight. You aren’t a teenager anymore. I’m going to send you off to have some blood tests but I’m fairly sure once you start eating properly you’ll be okay”

I took the little form he’d given me. Made myself smile politely. Tried to remove the thought bubble saying “wanker” that I was sure must be floating just above my head. At least I’d be able to find out if it was anaemia now. Then I could take some iron or eat spinach or something.

I went home and emailed T about it. He laughed at my description of the fuckwit GP, but he said he thought I should actually add a few more calories and then he added something else about not deliberately messing with my health.

I can’t remember exactly what he said, and I am not going to go back and reread those emails to find out. Not now. There have been other jarring email moments since then, and lately nothing at all.

Right now I think we might be dead in the water before we have even hit the ground, if you want to mix metaphors, which can sometimes be fun.

I am trying to ignore the fact that I seem to have lost him. I am trying to pretend that I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. It isn’t working very well.

The diet is though. I’ve weighed myself a couple of times since then and I am nearly where I want to be. It’s shallow, but extremely comforting that there is one area of my life I can control, while everything else spirals off in different directions.

I could go on, and mention swine flu, my falling apart marriage, blood test results, Norman Tebbit , my sick dog, the many and varied drugs I have been offered to help my holiday go with a bang – all conveniently delivered to my room, the Oxbridge entrance process and the email I received this morning from Karen who has finally found me again (but only on facebook – I have so far evaded giving her my email address). She says “ma vie est super belle!!!” as we all could have predicted twenty five years ago, but I think that’s enough for now.

I think I will go back to Stanley’s funeral – he is much more interesting.