I went down a couple of dress sizes a few years ago, at the twilight of my twenties, and it made a number of friends ask me for my secret. Some men enquired, but mostly it was women who took me aside at parties, lowered their voice and said: so, how did you do it?
I hated it when it happened. I wasn’t ashamed of having lost weight or talking about it – it was just that… well, there wasn’t a secret. I used to drink too many pints of beer and I switched to drinking fewer glasses of white wine. I used to eat a lot of cheesy pasta drowning in butter and I replaced it, more often than not, with rice lightly seasoned with olive oil. I never used to exercise, then I started exercising twice a week; no more, no less.
Because none of these changes were especially drastic, it took months for the pounds to start dropping. I didn’t even notice the difference for at least a season, maybe two. It did work in the end, though, and I’m pleased to say I’m still a size 10. Everyone has their own size, and clearly this is mine, provided that I live a reasonably healthy lifestyle.
Why did talking about it make me curl up with embarrassment, then? Easy: because people wanted to hear something else. They wanted to hear anything but what I had to say! They were hoping that maybe I’d done something intense and insane but lasting only three or four months, and had then been able to get back to having all the fun in the world afterwards. They thought that, maybe, I’d found a way to cut all the nasty things from my life without missing them, perhaps with the use of a magic spell.
The truth ended up being more mundane than all that, as it often is. Sometimes, these days, I really want to eat a mountain of cheesy pasta with some nice ham and so I make myself some but I counterbalance it by eating especially well for two or three days after that.
Occasionally I get carried away and drink too much but, on nine pub nights out of 10, I leave after I’ve finished my two medium glasses of white wine, even if I’d rather stay out. If anything, it only makes it more fun when I do decide to let my hair down. The hangover the next day feels glorious, and gloriously deserved.
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The same thing goes with sports; I’ve never felt any desire to become one of those gym bunnies who work out every other day or – good lord – every single day, but I really do try my best to stick to my twice-a-week regimen. Mild consistency is better than brief bouts of excess, no matter how impressive or well-meant they are.
Again: no one wants to know that, least of all Brits. It’s something I noticed a while back and slightly struggle to make sense of even today. In some ways, you couldn’t be further from being a country of extremes. Mildness in weather, character and social mores is what defines you as a place.
Still, you can be deeply all-or-nothing. If you go out to drink then man alive, you will drink. If you decide to abstain then you will do dry January, and decide not to have a single drop for an entire month, for reasons I’m yet to truly get. When I first moved here I was struck by the number of vegetarians I encountered, with vegans nearly overtaking them as we travelled further into the 2010s. Other friends would eat vast quantities of red meat, and often relatively little else.
There are many in my generation who’ve now decided to forsake alcohol altogether. For the avoidance of doubt, I absolutely support the decision of those who struggle with addiction, or the potential for addictive behaviour. I quit smoking last year and I know, deep in my bones, that I will never be able to have another puff of a cigarette for as long as I live. I’m just not sure all those quitters really had to forsake the delights of a drink or two once in a while. Is learning moderation really that much harder than deciding to shun something altogether?
Similarly, there are many who will now be flooding the country’s gyms in an effort to stay fit, and ending up resenting the very concept of exercise within days as they push it too far. Why not just commit to going once a week now, but keep doing it even after February comes around? Why not decide to add 30 alcohol-free days to your year instead of bunching them up together?
There are some people for whom all-or-nothing will be the sole solution but, for most of us, it ought to be possible to dabble in guilty pleasures without ruining our lives in the process. It can be hard to figure out, but it’s so often worth it. Speaking of which – it’s nearly 6pm where I am, I had a dry day yesterday, and I definitely deserve a lovely glass of something cold to deal with this endless, dark, damp month.
