Fat Chance (30 page)

I stopped the Chatman diet there and then. My body—which had dropped into fat storing, self-preservation mode thanks to Barry Chatman’s bullshit—made sure I paid for my gullibility by piling six pounds back on in the following two weeks. It didn’t matter how little I ate, or how much exercise I did, I simply could not prevent my metabolism snapping back like a rubber band after having been so artificially stretched for a month.

Needless to say I was despondent.

That was when I booked an appointment with a nutritionist on the NHS. A proper, bona fide nutritionist, with certificates from recognisable medical institutions. Her name was Claire. Her skin looked very healthy.

‘Can you tell me which one of these diet programmes I should go on, Claire? I’ve tried so many now and none are working for me,’ I pleaded from across her neat desk.

‘You don’t need to go on a diet programme, Zoe,’ she replied. ‘You just need to eat a balanced variety of foods, watch your calorie intake, and exercise regularly.’

This didn’t make any sense, so I asked her to repeat it.

She did so.

It still didn’t make any sense. It sounded
far
too simple. ‘Just run that by me one more time?’ I said doubtfully.

Claire the nutritionist sighed. ‘I get this a lot. For some reason people think it’s complicated when it really isn’t.’

She went on to explain a few cold, hard facts to me.

Weight loss is about burning more calories than you take in. Our bodies are essentially engines. If you put in less fuel than you burn off, then your body turns to its fat reserves to compensate. That’s how you lose weight.

That is the
only
way human beings lose weight.

From the
dawn of time
that has been the only way human beings have
ever
lost weight. Everything else is just gravy—if you’ll pardon the rather on-the-nose expression.

Like Greg and his exercises, it just comes down to simple human biology, and understanding it properly.

Billions of pounds are wasted every year because people—including me up until this revelatory conversation—just don’t realise this plain and simple truth. If you eat a balanced diet and exercise off more calories than you consume you
will
lose weight. It’s a biological certainty.

Unfortunately it isn’t a
quick
biological certainty. To burn off fat and keep it off permanently requires time, effort, and patience—three things the Western world doesn’t have much of.

Hence that thirty billion quid.

All the weight loss programmes, books, websites, videos, packaged meals, snacks, health shakes, and pills in the world don’t really make a blind bit of difference, if you don’t understand and appreciate the effort it actually takes to get thin. Once you do, everything becomes a lot clearer, and a lot easier on your purse.

I walked out of Claire’s office with a renewed sense of
purpose
.

She’d given me a pamphlet detailing all the do’s and don’ts of proper dieting and I intended to stick to it religiously. I still felt a bit strange about following a diet that hadn’t cost me a single penny, but tried my level best to ignore the feeling.

Since that day I have seen a more gradual—but
permanent
—loss of weight over the last three months. There has been no yo-yo effect whatsoever.

Neither have I suffered from bad breath, runny bowels, acid reflux, or extreme lethargy. In fact I’ve never felt better in my life.

I am highly fucking annoyed by the entire thing.

GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY

Sunday, August 31st

13 stone, 10 pounds (6 stone, 6 pounds lost)

I
looked at myself in the mirror this morning.

Can you remember the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?

I don’t mean the quick glance in the morning to check that none of your breakfast is still between your teeth, or the thirty
seconds
you spend in the changing room at Primark deciding whether stone wash jeans are still a good idea in the twenty-first century.

I mean the act of just standing in front of your own mirror (preferably full length) and taking a long, hard look at yourself.

It’s a surreal experience. Especially when it’s the first time you’ve done it for about ten years.

I’ve never been one for much in the way of narcissism, even when I was young and thin and should have cared about that kind of thing. I could go days without looking in a mirror if my hair was short enough and I wasn’t attending a job interview.

As I grew older and my waistline grew larger, the
last
thing I wanted to do was stand and see my flabby, naked body staring back at me. It wasn’t a conscious decision, of course. I don’t think anyone intentionally goes out of their way to avoid looking in a mirror because they’re fat. It’s just something that naturally happens when your sense of physical self-worth ebbs away as the pounds pile on.

Today, however, is a special day. And on special days you can find yourself doing things you never thought possible.

I woke up at six thirty in the morning feeling refreshed and well rested. I have
never
woken up at six thirty before feeling refreshed and well rested. If in the past I have been forced to awaken at such a god awful time it has been with sleep dust jamming my eyes together, a groan escaping my lips and a long, sonorous fart escaping my backside.

Not only am I refreshed and well rested this morning, I am also excited . . . and not a little nervous.

The reason is simple: today is the day of the grand final
weigh-in
. Fat Chance ends today, and there is every chance Zoe and I will be fifty thousand pounds better off this evening.

With this cheery prospect running through my head I leave Zoe dozing in bed and pad softly through into the bathroom for my customary early morning piss.

Look at the way I described that, would you?

I
padded
softly
through to the bathroom.

I did not stumble, plod, or shamble through to the bathroom: I padded softly.

Six months ago I would have been incapable of padding softly anywhere, unless I was on a planet with a far lower gravitational pull than ours.

In the bathroom I have the decided pleasure of taking a piss butt naked. The opportunities to take an early morning whizz naked in Great Britain are few and far between. It’s normally never warm enough. But we’re experiencing a mini heat wave at the moment in these parts, which gives me the chance to walk around with
my
parts swinging free. I’m not going anywhere near the conservatory, though.

I finish the piss and turn to leave the bathroom. Then I stop in my tracks as I notice something fixed to the back of the bathroom door that I’ve not thought about in a long time.

No, not the ratty dressing gown I haven’t worn in months, or the threadbare towel Zoe uses when she’s dyed her hair. I’m referring to the thing hidden behind them both.

I unhook both dressing gown and towel and give the mirror a wipe. It’s very dusty, and I have to stifle a sneeze so I don’t wake Zoe up.

Having cleaned the reflective surface to a satisfactory degree,
I dr
op the gown and towel and stand straight.

The man looking back at me is a complete stranger.

The kind of guy I’d probably be quite jealous of if I saw him in the changing rooms at the gym.

This man is lean and fit. He stands confidently, his shoulders squared and his head cocked to one side, a rather perplexed expression his face. Sure, there’s a small spare tyre around his middle, but nothing too offensive for a man rapidly approaching his forties.

This is a bloke who looks like he can jog for miles without suffering much damage. There’s at least thirty press-ups in those shoulders before they give out, and maybe even twenty sit-ups in those abdominals.

All in all, he seems pretty well put together. Someone with a lifestyle to be envied.

. . . and I have no idea who he is.

A sudden wave of emotion washes over me. Tears start to form at the corners of my eyes and I find myself having to take a deep breath.

I think back to an early spring barbecue, a Mister Benn suit, and a broken chair—and have to fight back a choked sob.

They hit me all at once. The feelings of inadequacy, the lack of self-worth, the sure and secure knowledge that for a decade I felt and acted like a fat, lazy failure. All those neuroses and doubts that you bury deep, deep down where you think you can safely ignore them.

But they are always there, you know. Always ready, willing, and able to climb from the recesses of your soul if you give them a decent leg up. All it can take is the decision to do something you haven’t done in years—like taking a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror.

It takes me a few seconds to calm down, to remember that I have done so much to change the way I look and feel since March and that bloody barbecue.

When I look back into the mirror I do so not as the fat, in
adequate
man I once was, but as the fit, healthy, confident man I am
now
.

A fierce sensation of pride overwhelms me. It’s a strange and alien emotion I don’t quite know how to handle.

I have done this.

I have lost six stone, and in doing so changed the person I am forever.

Every step on the treadmill, every curl of the dumbbell, every pound spent on a useless piece of exercise equipment. It’s all represented in the new and improved Greg Milton looking back at me with a smile on his face.

Hell, now I’ve lost all that fat around my thighs and waist even my penis looks bigger.

This man in the mirror is no stranger. He is
me
, and I am damn proud of that fact!

‘Are you taking a shit in there, Greg? Only I really need to pee,’ Zoe says from beyond the mirror’s reflection.

I throw the door open and give my wife a massive hug. I am delighted to discover she is as naked as I am thanks to the early morning heat.

‘Oh, get off, you lunatic,’ she says, pushing me away. ‘I can smell your B.O. from a mile away.’

‘Come and look in the mirror with me, baby,’ I say to her.

‘What?’

‘Look in the mirror with me.’

‘I need a pee, Greg. Stop being weird and let me by.’

I take her hand. ‘In a second. Just humour me.’

I drag my reluctant spouse into the bathroom, close the door, and position us both in front of the mirror.

Zoe rubs her eyes. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

I stand behind her and drape my arms around her neck.

For the briefest of moments I flash back to the day I first met Zoe, and the pose we stood in for Lionel the Pervert’s camera. ‘Just look at us,’ I say in a soft voice.

Zoe sighs and forces her eyes to focus on her own reflection in the mirror. In them I see the exact same emotional process I’ve just gone through. At first Zoe looks confused, as if she’s never seen the gorgeous woman staring back at her before. Then comes the shame, the shame of knowing that this woman was underneath all that fat, screaming to get out for so many years. And finally, there is the mixture of pride and pleasure at a job well done, and a human being rediscovered.

‘We did . . . we did it, didn’t we?’ she says to me, fighting back the tears.

I kiss her softly on the neck. ‘Yeah, we did, baby. I’m so proud of you.’

Zoe kisses me with a fierceness and passion that takes my breath away. The tears stream from her eyes. ‘Not half as proud as I am of you, my gorgeous man.’

I kiss her again, moving my hands down her back and
squeezing
her bottom. She breaks away, grabbing my rapidly hardening penis as she does. ‘I still need the loo, Greg. Go back into the bedroom and make sure you keep this where I can see it.’

I’ve never been a big fan of morning sex before, but I now
recommend
it without reservation.

The final weigh-in is due to start at Fitness4All at 2 p.m., giving Zoe and me plenty of time to prepare. We eat unsweetened porridge for breakfast like the good little weight watchers we are and then take ourselves off for a nice walk around Langtree Lakes in the sun. I had planned on an hour of vigorous jogging on the treadmill, but Zoe convinced me otherwise.

‘We’ve done everything we can, Greg. Let’s just have some fun this morning, okay?’

This turns out to be a wise decision. The fluttery nervous sensation in my stomach goes away a few minutes into our walk. It’s a little hard to be on edge when you’re walking through the rich English countryside on a warm late summer’s day.

Even though this morning wasn’t supposed to be about the exercise, we still covered a good five miles by the time we return home for a light lunch at midday. That’s the thing about regular exercise—the more you do it, the easier it is to find yourself falling into it even when you haven’t planned to.

By the time we’re driving to the gym, my butterflies have returned. Zoe is in much the same state. The next couple of hours are the culmination of six months of hard work. Will all the effort have paid off? Will we have lost enough combined weight to win the competition?

I bloody hope so, as I can hear the suspension knocking on my Focus as we turn into the car park, so will no doubt need some of that fifty grand when the MOT rolls around in a month.

Zoe gasps as we catch sight of the gym entrance. There’s an enormous crowd outside. Ten times the size of the one we saw at the start of the fun run in June. The gym security is having to keep them from streaming into the lobby and trampling the art deco sofas.

There are Stream FM banners and posters everywhere, the largest of which is strung across the top of the entrance screaming that the finale of Fat Chance is here today at two o’clock. Not that anyone needs reminding—the station’s been playing near constant adverts about it for the past week.

It dawns on me that we’ll have to walk through the crowd to get into the gym.

‘I don’t think I can do this,’ Zoe says as she slides down the seat to hide herself.

‘We haven’t got any choice love,’ I tell her as I park the car and stare out of the window at the gathered masses.

‘No, no. I can’t.’ She points a finger. ‘Look. There’s Angelica and Dominica trying to get in. They can barely get past them all!’

‘They don’t appear to have lost that much more weight,’ I notice, a slight note of triumph in my voice.

‘They gave up weeks ago,’ Zoe reminds me. ‘This thing is between us and the FrankieBen.’

It’s a lot more fun to pit yourself mentally against the competition if you’ve given them a cool-sounding nickname.

I open the car door and grab our kit bags. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over with.’

Zoe slides down even further in her seat. ‘No. No, I can’t do it.’ She folds her arms across her chest. ‘I’m staying here.’

‘Don’t be so silly. It won’t be that bad. They’re just a group of fans.’ I look over and study the crowd. ‘Perfectly harmless.’

‘You think so?’

‘Absolutely. They look like a fun bunch of people to me, baby. One of them is even wearing a top hat.’

I manage to grab Zoe before she can run out of the car park. I’m sure the bite marks on my arm will fade in the coming weeks.

We approach the throng together on unsteady feet. ‘Just keep your head down and muscle your way through,’ I tell Zoe, putting my arms out to protect her. This must be what being a bodyguard to the stars is like.

I have a hairy moment when the woman in the top hat tries to thrust her breasts into my face and poke me in the eye with a marker pen, but other than that we manage to make it through into the gym lobby more or less unscathed.

‘They still haven’t taken that bloody stand down,’ Zoe says with disgust, looking at the cardboard display featuring Photoshopped versions of us both that turn my stomach.

‘Just ignore it. That isn’t us any more.’

‘When this thing is over I’m burning that fucker,’ Zoe hisses.

‘Hi guys!’ It’s Hayley, the Fitness4All meet and greeter, and
all-round
young man’s wank fantasy. She’s looking so enthusiastic it makes my soul ache. ‘Glad to see you both! It’s an exciting day!’

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

‘You’re the last to get here, guys.’ Hayley does very well to keep any signs of irritation out of her voice. ‘Go on through to the changing rooms. We’ll let the crowd in once you’re out of sight.’