The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl (13 page)

“Are they awful?”

“Yes!” she confessed. “I feel like a budgie. But I want to get back into my jeans.”

“Tell me about it,” I sighed, eyeing the Dairy Milk wrapper on my desk. After a month on the loony pills, I’ve been feeling rather good, bouncing out of bed and attacking my job search with renewed vigor. But I’m still gaining weight. I need to do something before I’m right back where I started.

“They have free information sessions every Tuesday. You could check it out.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said. “But it doesn’t really sound like my cup of tea.”

Today I gave a pint of blood and a one-off payment of $700 to SureSlim.

OK. I know I’m a sucker. But I’m a desperate sucker. Try and understand, people.

I went along to the information session with no intention of signing up. They had a short video and a PowerPoint presentation, full of scientific jargon and graphs to make it all sound very important. I remained skeptical, but then they told us about the individual weigh-ins. Apparently it’s just you and the SureSlim lady in a discreet cubicle. No Weight Watchers queues, no hissing at the weigh lady to please not say your weight out loud, no more overhearing everyone’s boring tales of fluid retention. Just me and one person devoted to my weight loss needs. That sounded good.

And finally the killer punch—a slide show of Before and After photos. Mary Bloggs lost 28 pounds in five weeks. Seventy pounds in four months. One hundred pounds in six months. Page after page of slob morphing into slender.

My heart swelled with longing. I want this to be me. I want to be a loser again. I want to be a success story. I don’t care what I have to do.

So I signed up and sent my bank account into the red. I know I would have spent all that money on chocolate eventually.

The SureSlim scales are digital and can assess your fatness to two decimal places. If I’d known that, I’d have removed my watch and shaved off my eyebrows today.

Two hundred eighty-six pounds.

These past few months of gloomy gorging has set me back nearly 40 pounds. I’ve regained nearly half of what I lost last year! I blinked back tears in the little cubicle, completely stunned and almost impressed by how I’d managed to screw up in such a swift and spectacular fashion.

My consultant was babbling on about my so-called Customized Eating Plan. It was exactly the same as Amanda’s but with bigger portions since I’m twice her size. My yogurt ration is 200 grams, whereas she gets 90 grams. Except they don’t call them portions at SureSlim. They say grammages.

“It’s important to eat all your grammages,” said my consultant. “There’s your protein grammages and your veggie grammages.”

That’s not even a proper word! I snorted inwardly. But I kept silent, because I had paid her $700 and given a pint of blood for her to have the answers.

“And in addition, you get four crispbreads per day or one slice of Mountain Bread, which is like a flatbread.”

“Is that all the carbs I get?”

“Well, there’s carbs in your veggies as well,” she explained.

“Oh yes. Tasty.”

If I didn’t feel so crap about my massive regain, perhaps I would have argued that there was no way this program was sustainable. But right now I’d do anything. And I have to admit it: I need my hand held again. I have a reassuring list of rules and instructions and I will obey them. I’m just going to let someone tell me what to do until I feel strong enough to figure it out for myself.

I’m on Day Four and feel I can officially declare that I hate SureSlim.

I hate the natural yogurt. I hate the dull green vegetables. I hate the lack of carbohydrates. I hate the stinking birdseed, and most of all I hate myself for thinking this was a good idea.

They told me I might experience some headaches and irritability on Day Three as my system adjusted to a new way of eating. I swear I felt the precise moment the last granule of sugar dissolved from my body. The withdrawals were my punishment for all those months off the wagon. Last night I was so fucking desperate for a piece of bread I actually threw myself on the floor and pounded the carpet.

“Tell me, what is so wrong with a piece of bread?” I cried to Rhiannon.

“There’s nothing wrong with a piece of bread,” she replied patiently. “But you told me not to let you eat any bread if this happened.”

“Well, clearly I was an idiot.”

“Just think about the seven hundred bucks.”

“Fuck this! I’m going to bed.”

It was only 7.30
P.M.
At least I was safe under the covers. I almost asked Rhiannon to lock my door so I wouldn’t raid the fridge in my sleep.

I’m a loser again!

I weighed in at SureSlim today. Eleven pounds gone! I made the lady weigh me three times just to make sure it was true.

I can’t believe I made it through the week without kicking any puppies. I’ve been having nightmares about linseed, and my poo has turned an alarming shade of green from all those vegetables, but … eleven pounds!

I was worried sick that it wouldn’t work. I thought my body was defective, that I was destined to never be any smaller. But eleven pounds have disappeared and I can’t wait to crack on this week and make it happen again and again.

I’d forgotten how good it feels to be good to your body.

Someone in the UK did a study and found that there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of soppy pop songs being played at funerals instead of traditional hymns. On Friday, I was at a funeral that featured the number two tune on the list, “My Heart Will Go On.”

Usually I hate that song, but on Friday in a tiny church in Grenfell, with the sunlight filtering through the stained glass, it was suddenly the most soul-wrenching tune ever invented.

Mum’s cousin Rick had passed away from a heart attack. He was only 48. I barely remembered him from all those family reunions, so I thought I’d breeze through the day untouched. But that song ripped me up. Something about you being here, so there’s nothing to fear. What the hell are you on about, Celine? He’s not here.

As her mournful voice rose higher, my throat felt like cement and I was glad I’d bought tissues.
When I die,
I said silently to no one in particular,
I want you to play “Pyramid Song” by Radiohead. That song makes me cry, but at least it’s not Celine. If that’s too depressing, then please play “Bootylicious.
”

The wake was back in the old church hall. Her Majesty smirked down at us from a faded portrait above the stage. All those little things you only see in country towns seemed so comforting now. Egg sandwiches and sponge cakes made by the ladies of the church committee. Rumbling urns of tea and coffee; pale green cups and saucers.

I hovered around Mum and Rhiannon. I didn’t want to be far from them at that moment. I gazed at the glorious buffet for a full ten minutes before I finally buckled and had a cheese and tomato sandwich. Sweet, forbidden carbs.

My Aunty Marg came over for a chat. Rick was her nephew; she’s one of Poppy’s four sisters. I’ve always adored my great-aunts, so tall and warm with peaches-and-cream complexions. We joked around and talked about how sad it is that people only seem to catch up at funerals. Mum, Rhi, Aunty Marg, and I all stood there for a minute holding hands. In another context I would have felt ridiculous, but right then it felt like the perfect thing to do.

“We’ll have to head off,” said Mum. “We need to visit Poppy before we head back to Canberra.” Poppy’s deteriorated even further in the last couple of months. No one’s saying it but we all feel the need to see him as much as possible while we still can.

Aunty Marg nodded. Her expression clouded and she clutched my arm. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to see my big brother like that. When I lean down to kiss him goodbye and he squeezes my hand, I swear I can hear my heart breaking.”

I hugged her tight for the longest time.

Suddenly she grabbed my hands and looked right at me. We’re a family of jokers. We’re not ones to get philosophical or serious. But she squeezed my hands and said, “Shauna, you have dreams, right?”

“I think so.”

“Well, you have to make plans. You have to make your plans then go out and make them happen.”

I squeezed back and nodded.

“Look at what’s happened to us all lately.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “You don’t know what’s around the corner. Promise me you’ll make some plans.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about that since.

After two more weeks of SureSlimming I’ve lost another five pounds. I think it’s safe to say I’m BACK, baby!

Right now I’m full of that insufferable smugness that comes when you find your dieting groove. The wheels are back in motion, you’re in control, and it seems impossible that you could ever feel any other way. This time I’m not naive enough to believe it will just carry on indefinitely, but I’m going to cling to the feeling for as long as I can.

Now that I’m over the sugar withdrawal, I’m enjoying the simplicity of my SureSlim diet. Almost everything I eat is fresh and wholesome. Yogurt, fruit and seeds for breakfast. Chicken and salads for lunch. Stir-fries or lean meat and veggies for dinner. The most processed I get now is a can of tuna or a crispbread. When I was doing Weight Watchers, I was so obsessed with keeping my points count low that for me nutrition was often a secondary concern. Lord knows how many dodgy chemicals were lurking in all those sugar-free fat-free taste-free yogurts.

I also don’t mind going cold turkey on the junk food. Last year I was forever plotting ways to fit a sundae into my points allowance, but now I’m content with my three meals a day with no fancy stuff.

That said, I know I can’t do this forever. A life without bread is not a life worth living! And the diet is impossible if you want any sort of social life, as not everyone serves up big bowls of birdseed and lettuce for dinner. For now I’m sticking to it as much as possible so I can blast off this regain, but in the long term I’ll need to borrow the best bits of the plan and come up with something more sustainable.

So it feels like I’m heading down a healthy road. And already when I zip up my jeans, they’re staying zipped again.

I dreamed of how I’d find my perfect job. After searching for so long, I thought there’d have to be some sort of dramatic moment. I’d spy the ad in the newspaper and hear a sudden chorus of angels. “Yes!” I’d cry, raising my hands to the heavens. “This is the one!”

I’d write a stunning application, spend a ridiculous sum on a new suit, then dazzle ’em in the interview. They would drop to their knees and beg me to work for them.

But in the end it was quite an anticlimax. Yesterday morning one of my recruitment agencies called about a job with a company downtown—a twelve-month contract with a view to permanency. Ho hum. I sneakily knocked out an application while pretending to type up meeting minutes. Two hours later the agency called back—the client wanted an interview.

Here we go again, I thought. This morning I told Amanda that I was meeting a friend for lunch, then changed into my suit in the car. It started to rain as I scurried into the building, so my hair was glued to my temples like limp spaghetti. But as soon as they started talking about the job, I realized, Holy shit! This IS me!

For once in my life I had all the answers. Yes, I can write copy. Yes, I can edit and make websites and take photographs. In fact, I’d love to do it! I felt poised and confident. I’d just got back to work when my mobile rang with the job offer.

For some reason I was feeling plucky and haggled to get a higher hourly rate. They didn’t need to know I’ve been stapling for a living, I could pretend I was a hot commodity. And it worked!

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed typing out my resignation letter and signing it with a flourish. I finish next Wednesday. Freedom at last!

And the new job is around the corner from the SureSlim office. Could it be fate?

I’m a mountaineer!

Well, sort of.

My Edmund Hillary kick started a few weeks ago when my best mate from university moved here to Canberra. I can’t believe my luck lately. New job, new diet, and now Peita is living in my town and working at Parliament House.

She called up and asked if Rhiannon and I fancied going for a walk. How very strange! I’ve met friends for movies or cake but never for exercise. This would normally be my cue to devise an excuse—the Mothership is coming to visit, I have an unspeakable rash, my house is on fire. But I had to be bold. The new Shauna is not a hermit!

Mount Ainslie is plonked in the middle of the city behind the War Memorial. I’d never really noticed it before until I was standing at the foot of it. Apparently it was an easy two-kilometer trail to the top, but it might as well have been Everest. Fifty meters up I slumped against a gum tree and begged for water. While Rhiannon and Peita chatted and admired the scenery, I wheezed and wondered if rescue choppers would be able to penetrate the rocky terrain to collect my corpse.

It took an hour to reach the top. Small children, wiry grannies, and arthritic dogs all overtook me along the way. I could very well be the unfittest person in the world.

The next morning my leg and butt muscles were so stiff I had to roll out of bed and crawl along the floor to the bathroom. It was ten times worse than the agony after that first BodyPump class.

But we trekked up again today. This time we were ten minutes faster and I only stopped nine times. I even found enough oxygen to briefly take in the view. I thought my hamstrings would snap and ping me off the side of the hill, but I made it! I leaned over the fence and bellowed down to all the public servants, “
King of the world
!”