The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl (24 page)

“Whoa!” His eyes were wide. “Wow, you can really see a difference.”

“I’ve got worse pictures than that,” I said quietly, feeling a surge of panic. “But don’t worry, I’ll never look like that again!”

He shook his head and wrapped his arms around me. “Why are you so hard on yourself?”

I would like to reach a point where I could be proud instead of ashamed. When I read through the Folder the other day, I was amazed by how far I’ve come—not only my body, but my health and my attitude. Yet there’s still a part of me that thinks I’m just a big useless lump that doesn’t deserve affection and attention. What the hell is wrong with me?

I gained a pound over the past two weeks. No doubt I’ve made it worse by working two late shifts this weekend and consuming my weight in chocolate HobNobs. The biscuit tin is always full at Geriatric Rescue, and I can’t help nibbling anxiously between calls, wondering if the next one will be critically injured or dead.

Anxious is my default state these days. What’s not to worry about? Will we earn enough money for Russia, will I ever get skinny, what will I do when my visa expires, will I understand the client’s accent, will Gareth notice my hairy legs, will I remember to get out of bed, what day is it, which job am I meant to go to today?

“Do you realize,” Rhiannon said after a particularly harrowing call, “that if we’d stayed in Australia with our old jobs, we could have saved enough money for all these trips in half the time?”

“Oh man,” I mumbled, spraying crumbs over my keyboard. “Don’t say that.”

“We could have just taken a few months off and done all the travel in one hit, without destroying our careers!”

“And without the ugly dark circles under our eyes!”

She sighed. “Why did we put ourselves in this idiotic position?”

“Well, it’s not just about the holidays,” I said. “It’s the life-affirming experience of living and working in another culture.”

“Ahh, of course!”

“If we’d stayed in Oz we’d never have known the joy of haggis.”

“And the joy of seeing a rainbow of pubes in the shower that don’t belong to you!”

Our laughter was delirious, near hysterical with fatigue. We’ve only had two days off in the past month. Working one mind-numbing job is a challenge, but two mind-numbing jobs have us teetering on the brink of madness. And our precious meal-planning routine has gone out the window, my gym attendance is patchy, and I’ve barely seen Gareth in weeks. He’s bonkers with stress over his job and thesis, plus his band has been arsing around in the recording studio at the weekends. I treasure the tender scraps of time we have together, although often I’m too tired to do anything but coax him into going to the shops to fetch chocolate.

But I am determined to remain positive and Think of Russia. There’s only two weeks before we leave on our epic tour, and each night we ceremoniously cross off another day on the Official Countdown Calendar. When I fall asleep doing chest presses at the gym or spend another Saturday night answering distress calls, I just remember that soon I’ll be fulfilling a lifelong dream. We may have taken the most ridiculous, roundabout route to Russia, but I know it’s going to be worthwhile.

I’ll never forget my first glimpse of Red Square. We approached in the Contiki tour bus; orange and obnoxious amidst the local black Mercedes and crumbly Ladas. We rounded the Kremlin, then finally the multicolored domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral came into view.

While the rest of the group were still fumbling for their cameras, Rhiannon and I were off the bus and running. Have you got some little thing that you always wanted to do? Someplace you always longed to see? The Pyramids, the Great Wall, the Cumberland Pencil Museum? Your obsession may sound batty to most, but it’s your silly dream and it means everything to you.

I opened my mouth to say something profound to mark the momentous occasion, but could only manage a squeak. I was overwhelmed by all the things that had happened there: the military parades, the demonstrations, the Paul McCartney concerts. My breath caught in my chest and my legs felt weak. It wasn’t because my heart was about to explode after that short jog. It was simply the pure elation of being in Red Fucking SQUARE!

I take it for granted these days that I can walk as far as I want for as long as I want. I take it for granted that I can find clothes that fit me, talk to strangers, lift heavy objects, and catch trains in strange foreign cities. I normally avoid congratulating myself because I don’t want to substitute a fat body for a fat ego, but today I had a little moment. I couldn’t believe it was me on Red Square, the same scared person who said three years ago she was Too Fat to travel.

Hours later my body is still tingling with excitement. I keep thinking about all the things I’d had to change to get to this point, and now I just want to eat up the world and all its scrumptious possibilities. If I could get myself off the couch and over to Russia, what else can I do?

Bloody anything, really.

I survived twenty-one days on a Contiki tour! At first I thought three weeks of enforced socializing was going to kill me, as I’ve never been good with backpacker types. I hate all those tedious, competitive conversations about Where Have You Traveled and How Cheaply Did You Do It. And though I’m far more confident than I used to be, I’d still panic whenever someone sparked a conversation or bought me a drink or asked me to sit at their dinner table. At first I couldn’t stop the Fat Chick’s automatic assumption that they were only talking to me out of politeness.

But soon I noticed everyone else was just as nervous, and that cheap Russian vodka was a wonderful way to kill off shyness. Suddenly I felt bold and eager to meet people and hear their stories. One night in St. Petersburg we got chatting to a bunch of locals about fast cars and koalas. As the vodka burned in my belly I thought how seven countries in twenty-one days seemed obscene because we could only skim the surface of all these people and places. I wished I could stay longer and plunge right in, because I’ve been skimming the surface for too long.

I missed Gareth, so deeply and pathetically it made my bones ache. I drunk-dialed him on my mobile on the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, determined to finally tell him I loved him. But I rambled for so long about the Musik Museet in Stockholm, where Rhiannon and I played the eighties-style electronic drum kit and pretended we were in Mike and the Mechanics, that I ran out of calling credit. This meant we were incommunicado for the next two and a half weeks. I stood beneath a plastic palm tree and howled, “No! Noooo!”

Two hours later Rhiannon found me wandering the decks and took me to the bar. I had yet another wine and morphed into one of those dreary people who babble on and on about their boyfriends when drunk.

“I love him,” I slurred to Tamie and Liz, two lovely Australian girls. “He’s funny and sexy and bald and I knew right away we’d end up together.”

“Aww Shauna, that’s so sweet!”

“I know! I’m sorry!”

I’m too much of a control freak to ever get so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can push it to the point where I can’t shut up. The alcohol makes my limbs feel liquid and dreamy, and I feel a desperate need to vocalize all the emotions I’m normally too scared to acknowledge.

“I want to be with him,” I mumbled, draping my arm over Tamie’s shoulder. “Always.”

“Really?”

“And I know he wants to be with me. I can just feel it, Tam. Feel it. He wants us to stay together too.”

“You mean after your visa runs out?”

“Yes.”

“Ooh! Shauna’s in love!”

“Yes!” I hiccuped. “Shauna’s in love!”

There was still a tiny, deranged sector of my brain convinced that three weeks was plenty of time for Gareth to realize he didn’t want to be with an insecure, lard-armed Aussie. But when I got home today and heard that warm Scottish accent on the phone, life was instantly sweeter than all the chocolate I’d scoffed in Finland.

“Can I come over later?” he asked.

“Well, only if you want to,” I said coyly. “If you’re not busy. I mean, I can see you on the weekend if that suits you better?”

“I haven’t seen you for three weeks!”

“Oh yeah!”

You’d think after eight months of blissful togetherness I could accept that someone could want to be around me on a voluntary basis, but I am still bewildered by it all.

When he arrived on my doorstep tonight I blurted, “I love you!” before I could lose my nerve. I deposited a furry Russian hat on his lovely head.

He smiled, and to my immense relief said, “I love you too.”

I’m still coming down off my Russia high. Everyday life is so bloody dull. There’s no breakfast waiting for you when you wake up, no itinerary, no exciting new city to explore and no 30p vodka shots.

I was back at the House of Sport today, typing letters and removing staples and daydreaming about our travels. I have to admit, despite all the spectacular churches and museums and historical sights I saw on our tour, my holiday highlights revolve around food. From the pickled herring in Stockholm to the pirogi in Poland to the obscenely fat sausages in Berlin, I was determined to sample it all. Even McDonald’s seemed exotic when it was on Red Square!

The sweets were my downfall. I was inspired by Jane’s impressive collection of international candy wrappers and decided to start my own. It was a great excuse to scour the supermarkets in every city. Who knew the Finns were so good with chocolate? I fell for the mint chip Fazer bar, the delectable hazelnut goodness of Geisha bars, and the squishy malty whatever-it-is of the Tupla. And what warmblooded creature could resist a chocolate bar actually named I Love Chocolate? Because we all do!

There should have been some respite for my waistline in Russia and Belarus, where the chocolate tasted of dirt, gravel, and perhaps the remains of former dictators. Luckily I’d smuggled a dozen Finnish treats over the border. Our included meals were universally awful, and I’m sure that’s not a reflection on Russian food so much as on our budget accommodation. One breakfast in St. Petersburg consisted of a cold frankfurter sausage and a spoonful of green peas, so I preferred to live off Geisha bars, vodka, and a bag of almonds I’d bought from Tesco.

Needless to say, I’m too scared to go back to the gym and get on the scale. Tonight I examined my candy bar wrapper collection instead. It’s alarmingly impressive. Why didn’t I buy smaller bars? What was I stockpiling for? In case the tour bus broke down or the Russian food queue came back in vogue? The Iron Curtain came down years ago, but try telling that to my stomach.

Just half an hour ago at the supermarket I spotted a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream.

“Yeah baby!” I crowed, picking up the tub and heading for the checkout. “You were meant to be in my belly!”

Now I’m sitting here peering down into a half-empty tub. What possessed me? I’ve absolutely demolished it. You know you’ve eaten too much ice cream when the edges have melted away and you’re just left with this ice cream ball that spins around and around as you chase it with a spoon.

I feel quite ill.

I’ve gained four pounds and have shown no sign of getting back on track since Russia. It was only Wednesday night that Gareth and I were reflecting on eight months of bliss and how we seemed to have turned into inactive slugs since hooking up. He’s still knee deep in thesis and has turned to hula hoops instead of mountain biking. And I’m back to my hectic work schedule, in readiness for our Baltic jaunt, and still scrambling to get into a routine. My weight goes down, my weight goes up; my jeans squeeze and release my thighs like a concertina.

We decided to make more of an effort, starting with cooking a healthy dinner. Without guzzling two bottles of wine. That’s how I ended up at Somerfield with my virtuous basket of stir-fry veggies, noodles, and fruit. But I couldn’t help detouring down the frozen aisle thinking, Rhiannon’s at work, I’m home alone. I could scoff some ice cream and no one will ever know! And Gareth will think I’m a legend for whipping up this nutritious meal!

Oh how crafty was I for concocting such a cunning plan! Not bloody clever at all, since now I feel like a whale and will no doubt be trying to suppress my gurgling stomach all night.

I wish I could get over this “Quick! Eat! While No One’s Looking!” mentality. The world is not going to run out of ice cream. It’s always going to be there, so I’m not going to be deprived of some wild pleasure if I leave it alone for a while. Do you ever feel you’re so eager to be skinny and tap into the sexy clothes and supple flesh, but part of you is afraid of missing out on something if you don’t stay fat?

After another four-week hiatus I weighed in last night—206 pounds.

What? STILL? What the hell is going on? I actually stomped on the scale in fury.

But then I remembered that out of those four weeks I’ve only really been eating properly for one of them. Somehow I thought seven days of perfection would make up for months and months of halfhearted effort. Shouldn’t I be instantly rewarded for finally saying no to chocolate? I thought the scale needle would land triumphantly on my goal weight and my trousers would fall down, right there in the middle of the gym.

Maybe next week, then.

Gareth has gone gallivanting again. This tag team relay across Europe is getting tiresome. To celebrate the Submitting of the Thesis he’s gone to France with his friend Steve to scoot around on motorbikes for a fortnight. He’ll only be back for one day before Rhiannon and I head off for two weeks in the Baltic States.

Just two hours before catching the ferry, Gareth was showcasing his inability to multitask. The stress of finishing his thesis and preparing for his trip was all too much. He was frantically trying to attach the luggage box to his bike, but turns out he’d ordered the wrong kind. He had to pack all his belongings in a plastic shopping bag and tether it to the bike with rope. Oh dear.