Fat Chance (7 page)

‘We’re just in a break,’ she continues, ‘but when we come back we’ll get on with today’s chat. How’s everybody feeling?’

This is again greeted with mumbling, which Elise either doesn’t register or chooses to ignore. ‘Great! I’ve got a few questions lined up for some of you, but if I don’t ask you one directly, feel free to chip in on somebody else’s answer if you like.’ Elise has said this every time we’ve stood in here, but so far, no one has felt much of a desire to break free of the pack and offer up information without it being forcibly teased out of them by the two DJs sitting in the booth beyond.

This has created a severe problem for me, as, without much input from the other couples, Elise keeps retreating to me for questions as I’m her friend, and someone with experience of working in local radio. So far I’ve easily done the most talking in the previous two weeks on the show—including having to recount a sanitised version of the M&S changing room farce.

‘Can you at least
try
to leave me alone this week?’ I said to Elise on the phone last night.

‘I’ll try my best, chick,’ was her rather noncommittal answer.

The ad break has ended and we’re about to kick off another update on how Fat Chance is going.

‘Welcome back, everyone,’ Elise says into her microphone in that smooth DJ voice she’s spent years perfecting. ‘It’s 8.36 and you’re listening to the Elise & Will Breakfast Show here on Stream FM. We’re here once again with all six of the lovely couples who are involved in Fat Chance, the fantastic weight loss competition we’re running here at Stream.’

‘That’s right, Elise,’ Will takes over. ‘And what a pleasure it is to have them back here once again. Can’t believe it’s only been a week since we saw them last, can you?’

‘No, it only seems like yesterday since we spoke to them,’ Elise replies cheerfully.

‘Looking forward to hearing what updates they’ve got on their progress, though!’ Will adds.

‘Me too. Should be interesting to hear how the weight loss is going.’

‘Exactly. Especially with only a week to go until the first
weigh-in
, eh?’

‘That’s right. Just seven days until we see which couple has lost the highest percentage of body fat since we started the competition in March!’

These are the kinds of conversations only DJs can have. What you or I may say in two words, these buggers can say in umpteen dozen sentences, with scarcely a pause for breath.

‘I wonder which of our couples will be in the lead after the first few weeks,’ Will says, feigning interest like a fucking champion.

‘Well, why don’t we go over to them and ask them what they think?’ Elise suggests, as if the idea has just popped into her head, and as if this conversation hadn’t been rehearsed three times before coming on air.

‘Great idea!’ Will exclaims, like his on-air partner has suggested a clever new way to cure cancer.

I really
hate
local radio.

And so our congenial hosts engage us in painfully stilted
conversation
.

Elise first tries Valerie and George, asking them who they think is doing the best so far. This is a fairly silly question, as neither has met the rest of us more than three times.

‘I don’t know,’ Valerie says, eyeing the rest of the crowd. ‘Maybe Angela and Dominica?’

‘How about it, guys?’ Will asks them. ‘Is Valerie right?’

‘Not really,’ Angela hesitantly answers. ‘I’ve lost nothing, and Dommy has put on a pound.’

‘Angela!’

‘Sorry, sweetheart.’

I see Elise grit her teeth and force a smile. ‘How about Shane and Theresa? Who do you guys think is doing the best out of
you tw
o?’

Shane has missed the question completely as he’s spent the last five minutes staring up at the microphone near his head,
occasionally
poking it to watch it spring around on its metal arm. This leaves Theresa to answer. ‘I don’t really know. We still look pretty bloody fat from what I can see, Elsie.’

My friend’s eyes bulge a bit. ‘It’s Elise, actually,’ she corrects. I have to stifle a laugh. I must remember to call her Elsie at every available opportunity.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Theresa says and pokes Shane in the side before he can bugger about with the low-hanging microphone again.

Will looks a bit desperate and tries another couple. Unfortunately he turns his attention on Lea and Pete, much to Elise’s horror.

‘Over to Lea and Pete then,’ Will says, forcing a low, almost inaudible squeak from his co-host. ‘Who do you think is doing well in the competition so far?’

‘Dunno, mate,’ Pete answers. ‘We ain’t met none of them much. Like that bird said, we’re all still fat bastards, ain’t we?’

‘I lost an ounce,’ Lea adds. ‘Though our scales is shit ones from Asda, so they don’t work right.’

Excellent.

At least two potential fines for swearing are now heading Stream FM’s way from the regulators.

Will and Elise both look like a live electrical current has somehow been connected to their headphones. There’s a brief pause while they come to terms with such flagrant use of bad language on air.

This interview is going absolutely
brilliantly
so far.

Then the inevitable happens.

Elise, looking for a way to salvage this situation, turns her gaze on me. I lock eyes with her and shake my head vigorously. I know what’s about to happen. ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ I whisper under my breath.

‘Over to Greg and Zoe now,’ Elise says, an apologetic look on her face. ‘Who do you guys think is doing the best so far?’

Greg looks at my red face and decides to jump in before I explode. ‘I think Frankie’s lost some weight,’ he says.

‘Aww, thank you honey!’ the Jamaican lady replies with a smile.

‘My pleasure,’ my husband replies with a smile.

‘Thanks, Greg. And over to Zoe,’ Elise continues. ‘We really enjoyed your story last week about the troubles you had in
Marks & Spencer
. Any other anecdotes you’d like to share? Maybe about any diets you’ve tried so far?’ The look of desperation and pleading in Elise’s eyes is unmistakable. If I don’t provide her with some sort of worthwhile conversation, this entire segment will only be remembered for its use of bad language and boring responses from a bunch of uncomfortable fat people.

I know what Elise is after.

She wants me to talk about the cabbage soup diet.

For the past week I’ve been giving it a go, and made the stupid mistake of telling her about it on the phone.

I’ve been backed into a corner. I can either leave my friend swinging in the wind, or once again regale the world with a tale of my weight loss misfortune.

Sigh.

Sometimes being nice to your friends is a real pain in the arse.

The version of the story I’m about to tell the Stream FM listeners will be short and simple, and will leave out a majority of the gory details. But for the sake of accuracy—and because I have to fill the rest of this diary entry with something—I’m now going to recount the horror of my experience with the cabbage soup diet here in its entirety.

Now in my defence, I’ve never been one for going on a diet. I’ve simply never felt the need until the last few years. I’ve done little to no research into what kinds of diets exist—and whether they actually do you any good or not.

So hopefully I can be forgiven for thinking that the cabbage soup diet
sounded
like a good idea.

I’d Googled ‘lose weight fast’ and it came up as one of the first suggestions.

It sounded absolutely marvellous on paper—and extremely easy to plan for. Simply eat as much cabbage soup as you like, alongside a variety of other healthy meals, and drink only water and unsweetened fruit juice.

All I’d have to do is follow the regime of eating cabbage soup and other healthy food for a week, and
ten pounds
would come off my weight!

Ten frickin’ pounds, people!

‘If it’s that easy, we’ll win this competition for sure,’ I said to Greg after having read the details out to him from the computer screen.

‘If it’s that easy, everyone would be doing it,’ he replied cynically.

I ignored him.

If the cabbage soup diet didn’t work, then why were there so many websites on the internet dedicated to it? It must be a good diet . . . otherwise no one would be talking about it, would they?

Would they
?

With a hale and hopeful heart I set about on the cabbage soup diet on a Monday morning, looking forward to being three-quarters of a stone lighter by the following Sunday.

Day one is okay.

It’s absolutely
fine
.

By the time nine o’clock in the evening rolls around I feel like I could eat a chair leg, but other than that, I feel good about myself and the diet.

During the day I’ve had three bowls of cabbage soup, drunk about five litres of pineapple juice, and eaten about twelve of my five a day in fruit. I’ve stuck to the diet plan religiously, and by the time I go to bed I really feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Okay, I need to get up to pee seven times during the night, but it’s all going to be worth it in the end!

Day two allows me more cabbage soup (obviously) as well as all the vegetables I can eat—and some carbs in the form of one jacket potato with a little butter.

I skip breakfast, because the last thing I want to eat at seven in the morning is broccoli and cabbage.

By the time lunch arrives I’m so ravenous that I eat my portion of cabbage soup at work in three nanoseconds flat, washing it down with apple juice and a pint of water.

The jacket potato doesn’t stand a fucking chance at tea time. I manage to make it through a bowl of cabbage soup as well.

I’m starting to dislike cabbage soup a great deal. Only
forty-eight
hours have past, but it feels I’ve already eaten more of the stuff than the population of war-torn Leningrad.

I only have to pee five times during the night, which I choose to see as a positive thing.

Day three dawns with me blowing the covers off the bed, thanks to the kind of flatulence that really shouldn’t exist outside a badly drawn comic strip.

The buggers don’t tell you this part on the websites, do they? There’s not a mention of how all that cabbage makes you gassier than a hot air balloon.

Today I can eat only cabbage soup, along with fruit and
vegetables
, excluding potatoes and bananas. Oh joy.

I eat a tin of pineapple chunks for breakfast, half a bowl of
cabbage
soup for lunch, and a pile of steamed vegetables for dinner.

I hate vegetables.

Limp green little packets of blandness, with all the excitement of an ‘Antiques Roadshow’ marathon.

What I wouldn’t give for some
meat
.

What I wouldn’t give never to look a cabbage in the face again.

Unfortunately, I have already lost four pounds, so the diet is actually working—which means I’ll have to stick to it.

Day four allows me the pleasure of eating up to eight bananas.

I’ve consumed all of these by the time lunch rolls around.

I’ve also farted so much in the office, it’s a wonder no one’s called the Health & Safety Executive to come down and take
readings
.

I have fucking cabbage fucking soup for lunch.

By three o’clock I’m feeling decidedly light-headed.

By six o’clock I feel like throwing up as I smell the cabbage soup heating in the microwave.

I force it down my gullet with all the pleasure of eating a bowl of fresh sick.

I fart my way to bed with arms and legs that feel like lead weights, and a tension headache forming across one eye.

How I’ve longed for day five to roll around. It means I get to eat some meat! Ten ounces of beef, along with up to six tomatoes.

Do you know how big a ten-ounce portion of beef is?

Not bloody much.

Not when you’ve had no meat for a week.

Still, I spend the entire day fantasising over the burger I’m allowed to eat for tea. And I’m going to fry the bastard thing as well. I don’t care what anyone says.

The cabbage soup I have for lunch is so laced with cayenne pepper to give it some flavour (any flavour) that it makes my mouth burn for an hour afterwards.

The people at work now have to make a decision. Do they avoid my backside to keep away from the constant stream of
flatulence
erupting from it? Or do they avoid my frontside to dodge the nuclear bad breath emanating from my mouth?

The aroma of frying beef that evening is the best thing I’ve ever smelled in the world, ever. I eat the burger as slowly as possible, luxuriating in every bite, along with the six fried tomatoes I’ve put with it.