Lee Randall: Fear and self-loathing are my default settings

Published on Tuesday 26 May 2009 19:02

SOME people have a real capacity for happiness. Some people would be revelling in the satisfaction of a job well done. Some people enjoy robust mental health. I'm not one of them.

Colleagues and friends are affectionately calling me "skinny." I'm not. Not remotely. I'm merely skinnier than before. As I wrote months ago, it's a relative measure. I recall also telling you that I felt slinky. No more. Lately I've been feeling fat. I've also developed an unexpected and unhealthy obsession with my earlobes – they seem to be lengthening by the minute.

These are exaggerations, to be sure. It's bound to be caught up with my heightened edginess at swiftly approaching my mid-century. It makes sense. I know it does. And yet I don't. Part of my psyche looks into the mirror and no longer says, "Well done, you!" Instead she screeches, "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" She's a complete pain in the ass, and of course she's louder, shriller, than all the other voices in my head.

Dieting was so much easier than not dieting. Saying no is absolute. Saying no creates a safety zone. Saying no even makes you a little smug around the edges, which is highly unpleasant as a personality trait, but does wonders for the waistline.

Lately I've said yes. Yes to alcohol. Yes to chocolate. Yes to a hunk of bread. The scale went up three pounds, then down two. All my smaller clothes still fit. No-one at the office recoiled in horror, saying, "She's gained back every ounce!" Nevertheless, that's how it feels. Taking myself in hand, I note that it's scientifically true that certain foods create chemical reactions which lead to cravings and feelings of emotional dissatisfaction, while others – the ones I most frequently selected while actively dieting – leave me happy and peppy and bursting with the joys of spring. So, duh, those are the ones I should continue eating for ever and ever. They're certainly the foods I planned to continue eating, until sneaky greed got the better of me.

Psychotherapy would have been a smart adjunct to my diet plan. I'm back at that parlous place (I have visited so often that the cushions bear my permanent butt imprint) where I want so very much to behave like a "normal" person around food. Where I play dangerous games, even though I know there's no way I'll win. It's the just-one-drink, just-one-dessert syndrome. But if I was a "just one" kind of girl, I never would have accumulated such a lot of stretch marks and cellulite in the first place.

It's weird, because while I was dieting, it was do-able. When I visited Paris back in February I wasn't that far into the project, and still oh-so-vigilant. I sampled the fine wines and sublime sweets, but in the main, adhered to the regimen and managed to lose weight.

These days I live in constant fear. It's like running a low-grade fever. You cope, but eventually something inside is fried to a crisp. And while there's a line to be drawn between charcoal and diamonds, frankly, I can't take that intense pressure.

I need to get my joint pain sorted out so that I can cope with exercise in order to tighten up some of this flab. I need to accept that while I now weigh what I did at age 35, I don't pump iron the way I did back then, and it's not the same body. I need to carry on weighing and measuring every morsel of food I eat and thinking hard about when to say, "Yes, I'll have some of that" and when to say, "No thanks".

Then, and only then, will I have a shot at feeling safe.