Fat Woman and the manifesto

Instead of a "these are my resolutions, I am sharing them in the hope it will keep me honest" post, Fat Woman is outlining her priorities in 2014. These underpin everything Fat Woman does in her lifestyle and when Fat Woman feels under attack from people who are telling her that she's doing it wrong, she reminds herself that mostly they don't have a clue about what she IS doing. If you want Fat Woman to listen to your opinion please make sure you have read all three thousand plus words of this, the Fat Woman's Manifesto.

Fat Woman's Manifesto 2014
1. Stay awake
2. Do not smoke
3. Be functionally fit
4, Stay stable
5. Have a calorie deficit without feeling hungry

Priority number one: Stay awake

If staying awake sounds like something that you do naturally in the same way that you breathe then: lucky you. Fat Woman has an under-active thyroid with the associated auto-immune disorder, Hashimoto's Syndrome. This pleasing condition remained undiagnosed until Fat Woman was 25. After putting on a stone a year for her entire life it was a joy for Fat Woman simply NOT to put on weight and to know that it wasn't that she was stuffing her face with so much more food than everyone else. What was even more wonderful for Fat Woman is that with thyroid medication she is comparatively full of energy. When Fat Woman wakes up in the morning she feels she has finished with sleep. It used to be that Fat Woman could sleep 11.5 hours every day, and still feel exhausted when she work up. It took three years of dose adjustment to get Fat Woman on the right dose, including a horrible period when she was over medicated, which was worse than being under medicated, and then Fat Woman found that her dose needed to be correlated with bodyweight. Therefore Fat Woman would spend her time in a loop thusly:

1. Be properly medicated. Have lots of energy and a healthy appetite and reasonable metabolism.
2. Lose weight because of eating well and living reasonably.
3. Thyroid dose is now too much. Body reacts by making Fat Woman put on weight until she is the right weight for her dose again.

Fat Woman went through this loop no fewer than four times in 2013, each loop taking approximately eight weeks. In the end Fat Woman gave up eating a calorie deficit for a while as it was too heartbreaking to lose the same eight pounds over and over. Eventually Fat Woman learned to run her dose at a slightly lower level than she felt perfect at to allow her time to change it before she became over medicated. Fat Woman has not quite got this down to a science as she may only have blood tests every two months (that is unusually generous for the NHS) but she is doing better. Of course, having Hashimoto's means that if the syndrome flares up then Fat Woman's thyroid itself could behave differently, which stuffs everything up. When your thyroid dose isn't right you get brain fog, you can't concentrate or remember or learn things as efficiently, and quite often the symptoms mimic depression, not to mention you have a whole host of physical symptoms. So staying awake is Fat Woman's topmost priority. Fat Woman would rather be fat and mentally functioning than walking around in a stupor, unable to concentrate on anything unless powered by adrenalin.

Priority number 2: Do Not Smoke

Fat Woman used to smoke. It was partly in self-defence as everyone she knew did it and it smelt disgusting unless you did it too, but also there was a vague idea that smoking stopped you eating and that made you thin. This was partially true initially and Fat Woman certainly lost a few pounds at one point at university when she was living off cigarettes and barely leaving the newspaper office, but actually it made Fat Woman short of breath and less likely to walk anywhere. Fat Woman gave up smoking for good the day she realised she was an addict. That was in 2003 and Fat Woman still won't touch a cigarette. This is made easier by the smoking ban and the fact almost no one Fat Woman knows smokes any more. Fat Woman is down to a crave once a year, but is ever-vigilant against slipping off the wagon. Giving up smoking still remains the hardest thing Fat Woman ever did.

Priority number 3: Be Functionally Fit

Fat Woman was always functionally fit, for some values of "functional", up until the 26th stone. That last stone was just too much and Fat Woman suddenly found walking incredibly hard. That only took a small amount of dieting to deal with, but there were more serious things to contend with.

Fat Woman took up swimming because it was a safe thing for a fat person to do, and hurt her back doing breaststroke, which meant she couldn't even swim. Swimming Coach may have been a bit of an arse on a personal level, but he knew his swimming and diagnosed Fat Woman as having a screw kick, and also said that breaststroke was really bad for making the back arch anyway. Fat Woman now does a lovely front crawl.

Fat Woman had terrible RSI all down her arms, caused by the muscles at the top of her spine not working properly and all the other muscles compensating for years. Fat Woman had always felt that what she looked like wasn't a problem in life as she could contribute in other ways such as in more intellectual things, but once she couldn't use a computer any more because of the sharp pain in her hands her life had to change. It took Fat Woman two years to face up to the fact that she had to give up her previous work completely and get better, but she was very glad she did.

Fat Woman had problems in her left knee from the age of 11. Fat Woman remembers her knee going out from under her in registration one day. Certainly it was never looked at by the doctor again after that so Fat Woman accepted she had a weak knee. By the time Fat Woman started working with Personal Trainer she had horrible sharp pain whenever she tried to put all her weight on that knee. In fact, Fat Woman's one rule of the gym was that she wouldn't do anything that required her putting all her weight on one leg and hoiking the rest of her weight up on top of it. Eventually Osteopath diagnosed patellar tendinitis. Between Osteopath and Personal Trainer Fat Woman worked through patellar tendinitis, compressed cartilage, embedded knee caps, various strains on muscles and ligaments, problems with the iliotibial band, and finally a badly tracking left knee cap. Fat Woman can now go up stairs without screaming and will admit that the one-legged squats and the assisted stretching were worth it.

So Fat Woman is concerned that she stays functional. Fat Woman likes being strong and healthy, able to lift and move and do what she likes. Fat Woman is fitter across the board than lots of her friends are now.

Priority number 4: Stay stable

Fat Woman reached 26 stone without developing an eating disorder, which Fat Woman thinks is something of a miracle. Fat Woman thinks this is pretty damn impressive, but also that it highlights that things such as mindful eating only work for you if your body is in good order. Fat Woman was told to listen to her body, that her body would tell her what it wants. Fat Woman's body lies. Fat Woman's body wants cake. Nowadays that's occasionally, but really mindful eating isn't the panacea some people make out it is.

Fat Woman found that having enough thyroxine in your body gives you an appetite off-switch that she'd never experienced before. The second day that Fat Woman was on thyroxine replacement she looked at her dinner and in tones of wonder and amazement announced that she was full. The feeling was completely different. Before Fat Woman had eaten until she felt "full", that is, that her stomach felt physically full. Then Fat Woman went through leptin resistance. Suddenly Fat Woman felt satiated by much smaller amounts of food. Fat Woman could eat little and often and feel a correlation between the amount of calories she ate and how quickly again she needed food. Fat Woman has no proof that this was the case but it was five months after she started resistance training and several people that month remarked on how good her skin was, which is listed as a marker of coming out of leptin resistance. Having hormones acting appropriately means that Fat Woman doesn't feel like she's going crazy when things don't work for her the way they do for other people.

Fat Woman gave up diet Coke. Fat Woman had thought that at least there was one thing in the world that tasted great and wasn't doing her any harm and that she could drink without feeling guilty for consuming calories. Fat Woman never noticed any side effects from the aspartame even when she was drinking a two litre bottle a day. What did happen is that Fat Woman gave up Diet Coke for Lent. On Easter Sunday Fat Woman was looking forward to a nice cold can of her favourite beverage but found instead that she was drinking overly sweet brown water. Fat Woman has tried diet Coke again but the magic has vanished. Interestingly, Big D PT told Fat Woman about the effects Phenylalanine has on the blood sugar of some people and Fat Woman is convinced that this was a bit part of her problems; she would eat normally but would suffer huge blood sugar drops. These mostly ended up in Fat Woman dinging her car. Fat Woman has just got another car so the proof of this theory is going to be in the driving, or rather the not-hitting. Fat Woman certainly doesn't miss feeling normal one second and in the next second feeling that she'll kill someone if she doesn't get fed in the next two minutes.

Fat Woman's mother provided a pretty healthy home diet but did have the habit of regarding anything sweet as a "treat". Fat Woman spent the first year she lived with Thin Husband shaking off her mother's food issues and finding out what her own might be. Fat Woman certainly doesn't reward herself with food, although she does have a tendency to show affection in the form of cake. Fat Woman would absolutely show affection in the form of marketing consultancy, but very few people take her up on that. Cake happens to be one of the few things Fat Woman does well that not everyone can do. Fat Woman developed a protein bar for Personal Trainer when he was weightlifting and "on a cut" and now serves them as protein pops, on sticks with a nice plastic wrapper and a bow, so it's not about what the food is, more about Fat Woman sharing her skill. No one wants to hear Fat Woman play the clarinet.

Fat Woman won't eat out of obligation. Fat Woman still remembers the first time Thin Husband refused to even taste any of the cakes that Granny had made because he wasn't hungry. Fat Woman's jaw dropped as she was so conditioned into politeness and showing appreciation for someone else's efforts. Fat Woman is very good at the apologetic refusal and will take home packages of sweet things for Thin Husband, or for the round filing cabinet under the table.

Fat Woman will not suffer abuse. Fat Woman did some training in trauma resolution. It turns out that the most traumatic experience in Fat Woman's young life was being denied food when she was hungry because she was a fat child and therefore didn't deserve to eat. Fat Woman got this particular traumatic incident seen to, but is keenly aware of the interpersonal politics around food. Fat Woman has to put up with the following:

• People thinking that Fat Woman shouldn't be eating that BAD THING, as though single item is going to make the difference between Fat Woman remaining fat or suddenly become thin. This is stupidity and interfering and is a disjoint generally shown in elderly relatives, particularly those of the in-law variety.
• People thinking that what Fat Woman considers to be part of her healthy eating is actually unhealthy and a BAD THING. Fat Woman has trouble getting these people to define the parameters of their arguments, usually because that requires investment and thinking about what they are saying, and they don't actually care about Fat Woman, they just want validation that their way is right. The only validation Fat Woman is going to give you is http://validator.w3.org.
• People thinking that Fat Woman shouldn't be eating AT ALL, because fat people don't deserve food, they should stay in one room until they are thin. As all humans need food on a regular basis this is a dehumanising thing to think about anyone. Fat Woman likes being functional and not in pain from hunger thank you very much.
• People who think that they know what is best for Fat Woman. Fat Woman knows what's best for Fat Woman, and is as far as she knows the only person with a full overview of her needs. Fat Woman is not going to work with anyone who doesn't respect her autonomy and the fact that this is not about them.
• People thinking that they have some kind of moral superiority over Fat Woman because they are thin and she is not. Fat Woman likes what CS Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters about the inverse side of gluttony, delicacy. Fat Woman likens listening to these people to listening to someone boasting of how much money they make. You just shouldn't have to put up with it.

Of course, if people only thought these things it wouldn't matter in the slightest. It's the ones who let it leak out of them that that get up Fat Woman's nose. Fat Woman doesn't see why she should put up with bullying or control games from anyone, no matter how well they think they mean. Fat Woman is pretty sure that "meaning well" is a top-brain justification whilst your subconscious is actually getting its rocks off on your power games and sense of superiority.  Fat Woman is a fairly well-balanced human and likes to be strong enough as a person to consider the opinions of others rather than resorting to the defensive position of not caring what anybody thinks. It is now proved that fat shaming makes fat people fatter, which rather throws daylight on this controlling and abusive behaviour. Control is at the core of every abusive relationship. Now, if someone had been in an abusive relationship with a partner you'd understand if they were very good at spotting controlling behaviours, the red flags that signal abuse ahead. Fat Woman has had quite enough of these food-based abusive relationships over the years, thank you, and when she says that what you are doing is a micro-aggression and that is unacceptable, dollars to doughnuts she's right. Fat Woman isn't going to be in any kind of an abusive relationship, so she certainly isn't going to be in one with you over food. When Fat Woman says stop, she means stop. If you don't stop Fat Woman will push back, in as aggressive a way as is appropriate to get you to STOP. Fat Woman will protect herself as necessary from worry and hurt and any kind of mind game. Fat Woman now knows her food needs and has a right to manage them.

Staying stable means Fat Woman being able to take part in life, to join in outings and events where food is part of the occasion without her going into melt down, demanding changes in plans or denying herself. Fat Woman is a foodie and a social person and loves going out to dinner with friends or throwing dinner parties. Fat Woman doesn't want to have to stay on a tightly regimented diet with no joy or fun for the rest of her existence.

Priority number 5: Have a calorie deficit without feeling hungry

Fat Woman believes firmly in the idea that a calorie deficit means you will lose weight. Fat Woman knows that anything else is a violation of the laws of physics. Fat Woman is now skilled at eating a diet with a 500 calorie deficit each day without feeling hungry. Fat Woman could eat her entire calorie allowance in chocolate if she wanted to, but that isn't massively healthy and would also leave her hungry so she doesn't. Instead Fat Woman eats low GI carbs, and not very many of them, high protein, lots of fibre, some fat, and low sugar. Fat Woman denies herself nothing because that can end up working against priority number four, but makes her choices on a daily basis. It's about balancing needs, physical hunger with health and emotional needs. Fat Woman will eat salt, fat of all kinds, sugar, starches and anything else she damn well pleases. Fat Woman has parameters for her diet. Sometimes she keeps to them better than others, but that is what she works with.

Fat Woman hopes you can see that with all she has to worry about she hardly has time to be concerned about the long term effects of eggs on cholesterol levels or whether polyunsaturated fats are better for you than saturated fats. Fat Woman cooks mostly from whole foods, eats processed foods when she knows what they are made from or could conceivably make them herself and weighs and measures ingredients wherever she can. Fat Woman would be the Health poster girl for the NHS, if only she wasn't actually fat.

Fat Woman would like to congratulate anyone who got this far for their patience and interest. Fat Woman appreciates it and thinks you should have a cookie of whatever kind fits your macro. As this blog is hosted by Google you've probably had several already.

Fat Woman and the unfortunate leftovers

Fat Woman had a very good Christmas so far as food was concerned. As Fat Woman was hosting she was able to stock the foods that she liked and plan meals to be if not totally on her usual eating plan but to be her kind of healthy whilst considering the dietary preferences of others. There were plenty of unhealthy foods for everyone to indulge in, and Fat Woman even made some of her traditional mince pies with the correct ratio of pastry to mincemeat and with pastry made from lard and also without sugar. Fat Woman served gammon on Christmas Eve and turkey and beef on Christmas day, with the plan to serve cold meats at least once a day thereafter.

By the 29th December Fat Woman had had quite enough salt, sugar and fat and got back on her eating plan. Mostly. Fat Woman did have a mince pie in the afternoon, but no one else was going to eat them and they are really, really good. Fat Woman has won prizes for her pastry. On 30th December Fat Woman declared it was time to throw things away. The stollen bites that Fat Woman bought for Boxing Day tea, for example; Fat Woman shouldn't eat them and Thin Husband won't eat them, so they can go straight in the bin rather than sit around until they are too stale to eat or they go mouldy. Fat Woman is working up the mental courage to do the same with the perfect mince pies. Many things such as biscuits and crisps, can simply stay in the cupboard until they are needed or wanted by Thin Husband. Thin Husband is allowed to eat anything he likes as he remains the same weight as he was when he was 18 and if he does put on a pound or two he loses it when he stops eating biscuits for a week. Fat Woman is pleased for Thin Husband. Really.

Fat Woman's father had brought along a gammon as part of his contribution to the festivities. Fat Woman believed her father when he told her the gammon was three kilos, but given that (1) it took waaaaay longer to cook than a 3 kilo gammon would according to her Majesty Queen Delia and (2) Fat Woman had 2.5 kilos of gammon looking at her a week later, Fat Woman suspects that wasn't the case. Fat Woman and Thin Husband like the traditional gammon and even like cold gammon for a few days, but Fat Woman feels there are limits to the amount of processed pork she can be expected to eat. Even bacon becomes wearing after a few meals on the trot.

Fat Woman announced that she was going to throw the remaining three kilos of gammon in the bin.

Thin Husband said that Fat Woman couldn't throw the gammon in the bin.

Fat Woman said that she had a gammon joint in one hand and a green wheelie bin outside, so she didn't really see what was stopping her.

Thin Husband claimed the green bin was full.

Fat Woman said that wasn't true, but she could always use the black bin (for general waste).

Thin Husband said he was going to eat the gammon.

Fat Woman said that she could freeze some of the gammon for him, but wanted to know just how many gammon sandwiches Thin Husband was planning on eating over the next six months, as she knows that whilst she is happy to eat the same nice thing every weekend, Thin Husband likes variety in his diet.

Thin Husband refused to consider this question.

Thin Husband claimed that he would freeze the gammon to feed Fat Woman's father when he comes to visit.

Fat Woman pointed out that her father visits twice a year so that would be a long time to keep the gammon and also that he probably couldn't eat that much gammon in one visit, although if Thin Husband was very keen she could certainly invite her father over much more.

Thin Husband said he was going to take packages of gammon to Fat Woman's father every time they visited.

Fat Woman pointed out that her father had refused to take more gammon away with him as he had an identical gammon waiting for him at home.

By this time Fat Woman was enjoying watching Thin Husband wriggle on the pin of his childhood indoctrination that food cannot be wasted, especially as usually Thin Husband feels no responsibility for eating food before it "needs eating" and Fat Woman regularly cleans out lovely things from the fridge that Thin Husband has ignored. Fat Woman rejects all suggestion that she personally has any responsibility for eating food rather than letting it go to waste and is particularly unhappy about such claims when they also delivered alongside the message that she is morally reprehensible for being fat i,e. from Thin Husband's mother.  Fat Woman enjoys throwing away food that is not on her eating plan, even if it would have been nice to eat; it makes her feel empowered and slightly pleased that she is making food choices, not running on childhood programming.

Eventually Fat Woman took pity on Thin Husband and sliced the gammon so he could put it in the freezer. Fat Woman suggested that Thin Husband package up the gammon in 150g parcels and put them in the freezer. Fat Woman couldn't resist pointing out that if Thin Husband packaged up all the gammon then he would be having gammon sandwiches every  weekend for the first six months of 2014 and perhaps four portions would be quite enough. Thin Husband had nothing to say about this but Fat Woman noticed that his packages were closer to 200g. Thin Husband then shoved eight portions of sliced gammon into Fat Woman's freezer, taking up the same amount of freezer space as four to six portions of healthy home made meals.

Fat Woman is betting that Thin Husband makes a point of eating gammon sandwiches exactly once in 2014 and then forgets about them. If Thin Husband knows Fat Woman thinks that way he might manage to make a second gammon sandwich some time in 2014. Fat Woman thinks it far more likely that Thin Husband will wait until the weekend after Fat Woman has thrown away the remaining gammon and declare that what he really fancies is a gammon sandwich and then asks Fat Woman what happened to all his gammon he saved from Christmas.

Fat Woman is just glad that there is no question of freezing cheese as they have a positive cheese mountain waiting to be addressed.

Fat Woman and the food police

Fat Woman suffered the food police over Christmas. Not the overt kind of food police, who are easily dealt with when they stick their big noses in, but the undercover kind. The undercover food police are aware of what you are eating in the same way a stalker is aware of your every movement; it's unnatural and unhealthy and very disturbing when you realise it. You might not realise it whilst they are keeping watch but eventually they can't resist giving themselves away, because they need to feel superior, and part of that is making you feel inferior. Fat Woman views food policing as a kind of bullying and has never seen it used for good.

Fat Woman had said she was sorry, the only fruit she had in was seasonal fruits such as satsumas, she didn't have apples in the house because she doesn't usually eat a lot of fruit as it's a bit high in natural sugar. Food Policeman gave a nasty little laugh and asked how that fitted in with eating chocolate. Fat Woman snapped back that she doesn't usually have chocolate in the house either. Food Policeman retreated for the time being, but had given away the fact that (1) they were aware of what Fat Woman had eaten and (2) they had views about what Fat Woman should be eating.

Fat Woman hates being defensive about what she eats, but if she is honest she hadn't eaten that much, having been careful to eat enough but not lots at meals and having allowed herself only a very few treats. Fat Woman wasn't denying herself though, there had been at least four chocolates that day, and denial was what the Food Policeman wanted to see, that Fat Woman was punishing herself for her moral failing of fatness. Between this and the horrified cry of "More food?!" every time Fat Woman put out a scheduled meal - and all scheduled feedings were run on a help yourself basis, not presented as a serving or plated - Fat Woman had had quite enough of Food Policeman by Boxing Day evening and was goaded into playing "I'm better than you because I can go longer without eating". There was only supper on Boxing Day because Thin Husband declared he was hungry and offered some. Food Policeman was forced to admit that actually they did need to eat after all. Fat Woman didn't say anything.

Fat Woman does not have an eating disorder, but it's no thanks to people like Food Policeman. Fat Woman freely admits that she has issues with people who make her feel like she shouldn't be eating. Eating is a basic human need and to suggest that someone shouldn't be eating or isn't worthy of food is dehumanising in a terrible way. Fat Woman does not react kindly to people attempting to dehumanise her. When people stick their nose into Fat Woman's diet making Fat Woman feel that she shouldn't be eating, Fat Woman reacts by not eating enough at meals, which means she is terribly hungry later and is left trying to find extra food. This usually means that Fat Woman ends up eating more than she intended because its harded to find nutritionally balanced food on the go and if she doesn't eat the right kind of things Fat Woman is hungry more quickly.

Fat Woman doesn't have many holiday hills to die on but she isn't going to be made to feel uncomfortable about her basic human rights in her own home. Fat Woman anticipates a very small Christmas celebration next year.

Fat Woman and the walk outs

Fat Woman wasn't having the greatest training day. First, Fat Woman's breakfast omelette had been spoiled by some dodgy smelling bacon, and she had resorted to smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, which is just not fun without fruit juice, coffee and a copy of the weekend newspaper. Secondly, Personal Trainer had not had enough sleep. Fat Woman could tell this from the deep shadows under Personal Trainer's eyes but he confirmed it anyway. Thirdly, Personal Trainer is hopped up and waiting for Christmas like a four year old, which makes him silly and a bit of a pain. Fat Woman had spent forty minutes the previous day riding a lift with her four year old god son and had been very glad to give him back to his mother. Sadly, Personal Trainer is too old to give back to his mother.

Personal Trainer made Fat Woman do walk outs. Fat Woman hates walk outs because they always feel like she is doing way more work than it looks like, and making them turn into renegade rows is just adding insult to injury. Fat Woman wasn't made any fonder of walk outs when Personal Trainer nearly fell off his seat laughing at her because he said she looked like she Spiderman clinging to two sides of a gap. After making Fat Woman start the movement with a squat Personal Trainer then kept singing the Spiderman theme tune, and not even the 1980s cartoon theme that Fat Woman recognises.

Personal Trainer is getting coal for Christmas. 

Fat Woman and the little piece of magic

Personal Trainer is very good at encouraging Fat Woman. Personal Trainer knows that Fat Woman responds incredibly well to positive criticism. As Fat Woman once explained to Swimming Coach, whilst there may be people who react to being told they are useless at something by showing that they are not useless after all, this motivational technique does not work with Fat Woman. If you tell Fat Woman that she is useless and will never be good at something then Fat Woman writes you off as an utter cock and fails to see why she should care what you think about the weather, let alone her. Personal Trainer doesn't often take advantage of Fat Woman's reaction to encouragement but will occassionally say things like: "I know you can do it!" or "Come on, I believe in you." Personal Trainer hasn't yet managed to say these things with sincerity but Fat Woman is tolerant of his youth and lack of duplicity, and anyway, saying these things to Fat Woman somehow works, although Fat Woman reserves the right to roll her eyes as she continues struggling up an incline on the treadmill/lifting a big heavy weight/doing the nth set of some nasty exercise Personal Trainer has thought up just for her.

Personal Trainer isn't big on actual rewards, thinking that the results of the work are reward enough. What Personal Trainer does say quite often is "Well done. Ten points to Gryffindor." Personal Trainer is a film buff and has seen all the Harry Potter Movies. This has been the cause of some friction with Fat Woman who is not a film buff but a book lover. When Personal Trainer asks if Fat Woman has seen some movie or another the reply is usually that Fat Woman hasn't watched the movie but she has read the book. This has been the cause of misunderstandings when the plot or characters have undergone significant changes between page and screen but none more so than in regards to the Harry Potter saga. Fat Woman has read all the Harry Potter books but has only watched the first film. Fat Woman thinks films can't possibly include all the subtleties and details that you can get from a book and once she's seen the visual world on screen she isn't overly keen to invest time in finding out that what she knows is going to happen actually does (or doesn't) happen.

The major clash between Fat Woman and Personal Trainer is that Personal Trainer is your full-on classic Gryffindor type. Chivalry, nerve and daring are all qualities Personal Trainer has in spades. Fat Woman finds the whole Gryffindor type unsubtle and lacking in refinement and rather hot-headed and finds chivalry faintly offensive. Fat Woman might have made it into Ravenclaw with her wit, wisdom and love of learning, but actually would probably have ended up in Slytherin. Fat Woman is okay with this as she is rather Slytherin in many ways; she certainly doesn't care what other people think about her, she thinks before she acts (even when kicking Personal Trainer on the chin) and she has the traditional Slytherin characteristics of cunning, ambition and resourcefulness. Admittedly, Fat Woman only ever said that in fact it should be ten points to Slytherin in order to wind Personal Trainer up, but now it has been said she is happy to go with it because Fat Woman had no idea how actually wound up Personal Trainer would get about the idea of points going to Slytherin. Fat Woman puts this down to the movies being less balanced in their portrayl of the Slytherin house than the books, painting it as completely evil. Certainly it only adds to Fat Woman's amusement.

When meeting a chum at Kings Cross Station Fat Woman saw that you could have your photograph taken at Platform 9 3/4 wearing a house scarf of your choice. So Fat Woman donned a Slytherin scarf and had a snap taken in order to prove to Personal Trainer that any points she earned should go to Slytherin.



Personal Trainer looked at the photo and whilst shaking his head sorrowfully said that all he saw was a red coat, which meant Gryffindor.

Fat Woman thinks that Personal Trainer can be a bit of a steam roller about these things and she wasn't having it. Fat Woman thinks that if you are going to allow adults to associate themselves with houses in a fictional magical boarding school then you should jolly well respect their allegiences.

The next week Fat Woman had another photograph to show Personal Trainer. Fat Woman said that she couldn't let the honour of her house be besmirched.

Personal Trainer looked at the picture of Fat Woman in her Slytherin scarf and green coat and for the first time since Fat Woman has known him appeared to be lost for words. Personal Trainer then asked Fat Woman how she had changed the picture.

Fat Woman replied that it was with magic, of course.

Fat Woman and the surprise tin

Fat Woman had a session to use up so she booked a cardio session with Personal Trainer. This is how Fat Woman refers to the gym sessions when she is not doing resistance work. When doing cardio on her own Fat Woman likes rowing, cycling and the cross trainer. With Personal Trainer a cardio session means boxing. Fat Woman and Personal Trainer have been doing very little pad work in session since Personal Trainer started his Tuesday evening BoxFit class so it was fun to do a couple of rounds of pad work in their old silent and fast style.

Once Personal Trainer had lulled Fat Woman into a false sense of security he announced he had a lot of technique work for Fat Woman. Apparently Fat Woman has lazy uppercuts when padding, terrible footwork, and a tendency to drop her right hand well before she should. Fat Woman has no defence against any of this, apart from the fact that she was taught to make the most of pad work for her cardiovascular benefit and suddenly Personal Trainer has decided she should know more about boxing.

The gym has just had a proper punch bag installed. Fat Woman thinks it is rather light and Personal Trainer agrees but says that he will wait until the novelty wears off and the testosterone-fuelled evening crowd have finished showing off to each other before he replaces the bag with his own proper heavy bag. Fat Woman is glad that there is a proper punch bag now as it was the only thing she missed about her last gym. Instead there was an inflatable punch bag that everyone refers to as the Big Green Penis (BGP). Fat Woman can hit the BGP hard enough to knock it over and once when Personal Trainer was being particularly aggravating even managed to land a right hook that bounced the tip of the BGP of Personal Trainer's head.

Fat Woman spent half a session learning how to move around the bag, where on its swing to hit the bag and also how to stop the bag. Fat Woman was told off for pushing the bag rather than snapping her jab back. Fat Woman learnt that she should move her back foot first and drag her front foot after it once she has thrown her shot. Personal Trainer says that Fat Woman is not close enough to the bag most of the time. This is because Fat Woman doesn't want to get hit in the face by a rebounding punch bag. Personal Trainer says that if Fat Woman stopped pushing the bag and learned to hit it at the proper time and also practiced moving like he taught her that she wouldn't be in any danger of being hit by the returning bag. Fat Woman knows this is true but is concerned about what happens when she is practising these things but has not yet learned them. It was a good and productive session ending with fast pad work and Personal Trainer was pleased with Fat Woman.

At the end of the session Personal Trainer asked Fat Woman what was in the tin that she had in her gloves bag. Fat Woman's gloves bag was her Christmas present last year from Personal Trainer. It is a cotton shopping bag with a picture of boxing gloves and "sponsored by Personal Trainer's company name" on it. Personal Trainer had it printed especially for Fat Woman. Fat Woman doesn't actually keep her gloves in her gloves bag any more because she has so many other useful things - protein shake, water bottle, iPod, gloves, wraps, emergency oat cakes etc - in the bag that there isn't really room for the gloves, so they hang off the handles. Fat Woman doesn't want to hurt Personal Trainer's feelings by upgrading the bag though.

The tin that Personal Trainer had spotted was one of Fat Woman's treat tins, small decorated metal boxes with a hinged lid that have held all kinds of delicacies, from zero carb fudge when Personal Trainer tried no-carbing, to the protein bars Fat Woman designed for Personal Trainer, to Personal Trainer's favourite chewy cashew nut flapjacks. If Fat Woman appears on the gym floor with something that might contain goodies it is reasonable to expect that Personal Trainer will be a recipient. Personal Trainer made it a rule early on in their relationship that Fat Woman wasn't to bring in food for anyone else unless he got some too. Fat Woman thinks that although Personal Trainer insists he is all grown up he's awfully like a small boy at times, which makes her the indulgent auntie.

Personal Trainer wanted to know if the tin had flapjacks in it and if he was getting any flapjacks. Fat Woman said there were cashew nut flapjacks in the tin and that Personal Trainer could have the flapjacks if he could tell her why she would be bringing him a tin of flapjacks on that particular day.

Personal Trainer asked if it was because if Fat Woman put flapjacks in a tin rather than one of her high quality air tight boxes she stood a chance of getting the tin back. Fat Woman forgave Personal Trainer the first box as it went missing but is demanding the return of the second, which Personal Trainer simply wants to keep. Fat Woman is very indulgent of Personal Trainer but her kitchenware is not up for redistribution.

Personal Trainer asked if it was because Fat Woman had lost weight again. Fat Woman thinks he meant that she had gone down a size in jeans, which she used as an excuse for making him flapjacks a while ago, but that was not the reason. Fat Woman had actually made Personal Trainer flapjacks when she could get into the jeans she currently wears, which was a heck of a lot earlier than the time she would be seen in public in them. Fat Woman didn't think Personal Trainer should get two lots of flapjacks for one size of jeans.

Fat Woman looked patient if a little exasperated and suggested that Personal Trainer consider that particular day. Personal Trainer can be unthinking where Fat Woman is concerned but he is not usually dim. Fat Woman watched Personal Trainer over the top of her glasses as he mentally ran through possibilities. Fat Woman could see Personal Trainer mentally checking off her birthday (lunch bought, card given), his birthday (early next year) and any other news (no shooting trophies won recently).

Eventually the penny dropped and Personal Trainer asked Fat Woman if she was giving him flapjacks because it was their two year anniversary.

Fat Woman felt the phrase "our two year anniversary" a little jarring because last year Personal Trainer was very clear that it was a Fat Woman milestone and not a Fat Woman and Personal Trainer milestone, but as he got her a lovely card with the number 1 on it for one year of training and took her clay pigeon shooting in the snow with her new gun Fat Woman didn't really care what he called the event. In fact Fat Woman liked the idea of having a training birthday far more than having a shared anniversary because it was all about her.

Fat Woman said that it was indeed the first day of her third year of training. Personal Trainer did his surprised face and asked if that was today. Fat Woman did the "don't try to bullshit me" look and handed Personal Trainer the tin. Personal Trainer claimed that they weren't due to train that day so it was not on the calendar and so Fat Woman never knew what might happen the next day which was scheduled training and therefore the proper date to celebrate. Fat Woman knows perfectly well that she and Personal Trainer had discussed the upcoming date just ten days previously and that he hadn't bothered to mark it in any way precisely because he wasn't bothered so she let him squirm under the assumption that she would be bothered that he hadn't bothered. This amused Fat Woman, who thinks that if you have a whole year to do something and you don't do it in a timely fashion you may as well not bother at all. Also Fat Woman is fairly sure she wrote her milestone date in Personal Trainer's diary at the same time she was writing in her birthday. Fat Woman believes in being proactive about these things.

If we are going to be strictly truthful Fat Woman made flapjacks as a way of rubbing it in to Personal Trainer that he really should have remembered the milestone of the nice lady he calls his favourite client. Of course, Personal Trainer might have bothered to remember, but Fat Woman feels he has rather been taking her for granted recently and didn't expect him to remember without being prompted, and whilst she acts like his indulgent auntie where cake is concerned she isn't going to prompt him over things that.

Fat Woman just wishes she'd kept at least one of the flapjacks for herself. Fat Woman does make exceedingly good flapjacks.

Fat Woman and the unfuelled training

Fat Woman had not been eating carbohydrates before training with Personal Trainer. This pleased Personal Trainer greatly, and as Fat Woman doesn't mind breakfast omelettes three days a week she was happy to continue with this plan. It makes Fat Woman a little unfiltered, but luckily Personal Trainer thinks this is amusing.

Personal Trainer had suggested many times that Fat Woman might try training completely unfueled. Fat Woman had argued that by eating 400 calories for breakfast and training at 11am she was effectively unfueled because she needs more than 100 calories a waking hour to maintain her weight. Personal Trainer was inordinately pleased with this and considered Fat Woman's rapid weight loss (more than the weekly 2lb that Fat Woman usually gets) to be proof of how efficacious this method of training is. Fat Woman reckons it was more to do with her system being in utter shock that she was back on a hard core diet. Last weekend Fat Woman had a whole 36 hours off her eating plan, one evening of a company party with free champagne and really lovely food, and one day of hangover. Fat Woman doesn't think she did too much damage as she stayed off orange juice, her usual hangover cure, but she did eat too much spelt flake cereal. Also she let Thin Husband make his awesome chili pasta bake without policing how much bacon, pasta and cheese he used. So Fat Woman thought that it was probably a good idea to try training unfueled and turned up to session expecting a great big pat on the head for being a good and brave girl.

Personal Trainer was resoundingly unenthusiastic about Fat Woman's coming to training without eating anything. Fat Woman was surprised and also a little hurt by this lukewarm reception as Personal Trainer had raised the issue of training without eating first many, many times. Personal Trainer said that the current plan was working so they shouldn't change it. Fat Woman had not been expecting this reaction and was nonplussed, and a little irritated.

Fat Woman trained, drank a protein shake, ate a cereal bar, went home and had a proper meal. Then Fat Woman spent the afternoon in a horrible blue funk. Fat Woman felt exactly as she used to a 2pm on days when she had got up at 5am to go to breakfast meetings, depressed and miserable. Fat Woman is usually a cheerful and positive type, even if she is a little acerbic sometimes. Fat Woman stopped going to breakfast meetings when it became apparent that she wasn't actually genuinely miserable, she was just sobbing over her laptop because she was tired. It took Fat Woman the whole of the next day to shake off the strange blue mood that had settled over her.

Next session Fat Woman declared to Personal Trainer that she was never doing unfueled training again and described her strange mental state of that afternoon. Personal Trainer suggested that Fat Woman had experienced what he knew as "The Crash" and shared that he himself suffered terribly when training before eating. Fat Woman stared at Personal Trainer as though he had grown a second nose and then through gritted teeth enquired as to why he hadn't mentioned this to her. With blistering honesty Personal Trainer replied that if he had told Fat Woman about The Crash she would never have tried unfueled training. Fat Woman did not scream: "No SHIT!" as Personal Trainer doesn't like profanity but feels her eyebrows said it anyway.0

Fat Woman is going to practice lying by omission in Personal Trainer's style, starting with the ice-cream she had for pudding this evening.

Fat Woman and the intolerant behaviour

Fat Woman is a big fan of tolerance. Fat Woman is if anything intolerant of intolerance and tries very hard not to be the thought police but thinks that anyone who is an adult and not stupid should behave to a certain minimum standard in public, and also when asked not to use a word or phrase should pick another bloody word. Fat Woman particularly hates people who lose their temper. Fat Woman has a seriously nasty temper and has spent years restraining herself. If Fat Woman was riled enough to actually want to hurt someone it would be a bad day for Society. Instead Fat Woman reminds herself that everyone does the best they can with what they have and strives to be patient. 

Fat Woman is spending a lot of time in calorie deficit at the moment. It has been worth it as Fat Woman has lost a fair amount of weight. The ironic thing is that whilst friends have been saying "Have you lost weight?" all summer when Fat Woman hadn't, no one has noticed her recent shift. Fat Woman can live with that, but she is fairly sure the people who were "noticing" before had just forgotten how fat she really was in real life. 

Fat Woman is a little short tempered as a result of running on low energy, and never more so than at the end of an unfueled training session. Fat Woman regrets that the unfueled training seems to be effective, so she will do it for a while longer. Still, Fat Woman is training hard with Personal Trainer. 

The only thing that remains the same each week about sessions with Personal Trainer is that at the end Fat Woman suffers assisted stretching; hamstrings to prevent back pain and quads to help keep her knees free of adhesions. Personal Trainer is quite amused by the fact Fat Woman is actually very flexible and plays the game of seeing how far over Fat Woman's head he can force her foot. In one of his cheekier moods Personal Trainer suggested that Thin Husband should be grateful for all this assisted stretching. Fat Woman was deep into hunger and broke a rule and snapped back at Personal Trainer that Thin Husband prefers dead bugs. If you don't know what dead bugs are you can find out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsqCDbiflsg. The trouble with this retort was not only had Fat Woman broken a cardinal rule of never, ever letting on to Personal Trainer anything about her sex life (Fat Woman does not want Personal Trainer thinking about her and sex in any way as it could only end in negative judgement as Fat Woman is much older and fatter than his girlfriends) but in losing her temper Fat Woman cited the wrong exercise. Fat Woman meant the table top hold, which is where dead bugs start, but without waving your legs around. Fat Woman has no idea what Personal Trainer thought about what she actually said but frantically hopes that he had the same kind of "Urgh! No!" reaction that people have when they are forced to confront the subject of their parents having a sex life and shoved the memory of the whole conversation under a mental pile of rocks rather than puzzling about just what would be enjoyable about dead bugs in bed.

When trying to force Fat Woman's leg behind her ear Personal Trainer waits for a signal from Fat Woman that he has gone far enough. Fat Woman used to say "Stop!" but Personal Trainer ignores that and pushes a little further so now she goes with "Ow!" Fat Woman tries not to make loud in-pain noises during session as she can be heard all around the gym and also it's not good for Personal Trainer's business. Personal Trainer has an annoying little joke where he ignores what Fat Woman is actually telling him (which is "Stop trying to force my leg behind my ear!") and makes a rather weak joke about there not being any owl in here so far as he can see. This has been going on for half a dozen sessions.

Fat Woman is not at her most tolerant at the end of an unfueled training session when she is lying on her back in the middle of the gym with a young man treating her as a rubber stress toy and today when Personal Trainer made the same joke yet again Fat Woman realised that she would love to wipe the smug smile off his face, love to stop him from abusing the power he had over her whilst she was apparently helpless and physically beneath him. Personal Trainer was looking over the top of Fat Woman's foot so he could continue to laugh at her when Fat Woman realised that if she just flexed her foot a little she would hit Personal Trainer right on his smug little chin..,

Fat Woman is not very proud of herself today and confesses she deserves to spend some time on the naughty step, possibly doing step-ups. Fat Woman would like to report that there was no permanent damage done to Personal Trainer's handsome countenance as it was only a very little tap. Fat Woman is not sure if Personal Trainer even noticed she's done it on purpose. Fat Woman is not sorry though, only a little bit guilty.

Fat Woman and the disappearing calories

Fat Woman is back logging what she eats and counting her calories. Fat Woman doesn't get why people claim that calorie counting is so hard; it's not like it was in the 1980s (the first time someone gave Fat Girl a calorie book) when you had to weigh food, look up that food in the book, calculate the total and then write it in your paper diary. Now you use an application, put in how much you ate and what you ate and everything is done for you. If you bear in mind that protein and carbohydrates have 4 calories a gram and fat has 9 calories a gram then it makes it fairly easy to estimate anything you aren't making yourself.

Fat Woman had an horrendous session with Personal Trainer and was inclined to treat herself at lunch time. In Fat Woman's strange little mind "treat" now means eight ounces of jacket potato rather than six, and having sweetcorn along with her chicken breast. Fat Woman is as surprised as you are especially as it would have been the perfect day to claim a right to buying and eating at least part of a box of Mr Kipling Frosted Fancies (in shops NOW, only for Christmas!). A chicken and sweetcorn jacket potato might not be everyone's idea of a treat, but when you've had a PT session with Personal Trainer it seems like exactly what you need. Fat Woman is disparaging about sweetcorn as a vegetable, considering it only sightly nutritionally superior to a boiled sweet and a fibre pill, but even Personal Trainer has said that everyone needs a little bit of sugar in their life, although he would prefer it if Fat Woman would eat her afternoon toast without jam. Fat Woman ignores this as Personal Trainer would also rather Fat Woman didn't eat toast. Fat Woman has given up fruit juice but is damned if she's not going to eat bread.

Fat Woman weighed her jacket potato before cooking it. Fat Woman likes to do this because the auto cook function on the microwave requires you to enter the potato weight. Fat Woman also likes to play "guess the weight of the potato" because there is a school of thought amongst Health Professionals that thinks that fat people have no idea of how much they are eating and these Health Professionals like to show fat people different sized samples of food in order to prove it. Fat Woman amazed at Slimming Word with her ability to guess the weight of the potato. Mind you, Fat Woman also remembers asking an American friend to pick up some 6-8oz potatoes at the supermarket. The friend brought back three giant potatoes weighing 2lb each. Fat Woman hasn't seen potatoes that big on sale in a supermarket in ten years or more.

When Fat Woman weighed her jacket potato before cooking it was 230g. When Fat Woman looked at her sightly over cooked jacket potato after cooking it was greatly diminished in size, so she weighed it again. It was 130g. Fat Woman figured that 100g of water disappearing was not a big deal.

Fat Woman went to enter the details of her lunch into her food diary and it occurred to her that she had been assuming that the food she entered the values for uncooked food. Fat Woman double checked and found that 230g of raw potato was listed as 175 calories whilst 130g generic cooked jacket potato was listed as 142 calories.

Fat Woman would like to point out to anyone who thinks this is a minimal difference that such minimal differences are what weight gain is made of, and also that if she wants a square of dark chocolate at the end of the day she has to work really hard to make sure she has enough calories left without being hungry.

Fat Woman is picking the lower value today on the grounds that she never offsets exercise against her calorie intake and so is probably due a few extra calories anyway.

Fat Woman and the number of the day

Fat Woman likes numbers, particularly 256 but that's just a personal quirk left over from her computer spod days. Numbers are quantifiable. They prove things. When things are valued numerically you know where you are. And if you don't like what you're seeing rather than changing the number you can measure something else, such as body fat percentage rather than weight.

Personal Trainer has two main ways of torturing Fat Woman. In her heart-raising muscle-building sweat-and-pain-inducing workouts Fat Woman usually either works to time or she works to reps. Fat Woman prefers reps to time for some unknown mental reason, probably because you are more in control with reps whereas working to time is a pain unless you can watch the clock because you have to know how much time is left to be able to conserve just enough strength to get through it. Fat Woman likes Tabata workouts because 20 seconds is easy to quantify .German interval training sends Fat Woman to sleep.

Personal Trainer used to give Fat Woman nice friendly little numbers. Fat Woman hasn't seen a number under fifteen for ages. Fat Woman can live with this as she is getting stronger all the time, as well as faster and better in form. Still, Fat Woman thinks fondly of the days when ten of anything was expected of her and she got a rest. Now Personal Trainer expects multiples of tens.

Personal Trainer has a new number. That number is 100.

It is lucky that Fat Woman appreciates the symmetry of numbers and how things multiply because she did non-stop sets of 20 TRX bodyweight squats to a depth that not even an Olympic lifter would sneer at followed by 20 dumbbell straight legged deadlifts five times in a row without rest or mercy. And if anyone is thinking that isn't a lot of squats Fat Woman would like to point out that when she's squatting her own bodyweight she's probably lifting more than you do anyway.

Fat Woman has the worst DOMS she's had in weeks and her only satisfaction is that having made her in pain and therefore grumpy Personal Trainer is going to have to put up with her for an hour. Fat Woman also has the Sesame Street pinball song about numbers stuck in her head and may have to sing it out loud to kill the earworm.

 

Fat Woman is also remembering 5-4-3-2-1 chocolate bars but can't remember how they tasted.

Fat Woman and the pleasing judgement

Fat Woman went to shoot a CPSA registered shoot. It was Fat Woman's first registered shoot since the one detailed in Fat Woman and the clay shooting competition. Fat Woman did not have a nice time at her first registered shoot.

Fat Woman had a much nicer time at her second registered shoot. Fat Woman went to the shoot, shot a 49, had tea with some nice people she had met before and came home again. This was mostly because the shoot wasn't squadded, so Fat Woman wasn't stuck with a group of grumpy strangers.

Fat Woman was a little disappointed that she didn't manage more than 50, but admits that she made two silly mistakes. The first was when Fat Woman was distracted by a trap for a different stand going off behind her head, even though she knew she should be shooting the crow in front of her. The second was a crossing bunny rabbit of the kind Fat Woman has shot a hundred times. Fat Woman doesn't regret her first miss of that rabbit but does regret her second miss, which was stupid.

Over all though, Fat Woman was quite pleased with her return to registered shooting and really liked all the interesting targets. Fat Woman did have to face up to the fact that she couldn't hit a quartering crosser with a punt gun and asked for this to be addressed at her next shooting lesson. It turns out that Shooting Coach is good but not infallible and even after her next lesson Fat Woman still cannot shoot a quartering crosser with any consistency.

What Shooting Coach did say was that Fat Woman's 49 was really worth much more than that. Fat Woman was incredibly surprised at this because Shooting Coach is very nice to students, but is blisteringly unforgiving when it comes to cartridges, rules, refereeing, set up, weather or anything else that might affect the score. Shooting Coach said that in his opinion it was an unusually hard registered shoot, and the fact that it was also incredibly windy meant that Fat Woman might have scored well into the 50s had it been a similar shoot. This was nice to hear because it meant that not only is Fat Woman keen to go and shoot another registered shoot, it means that when she hears of people doing slightly better than her she might be as good as them after all. Fat Woman is not particularly competitive, but she likes to know her place in the firmament. This probably means that Fat Woman is way more competitive than everyone else who doesn't really care what anyone else is up to.

The really important thing that Fat Woman can take away from her latest competition experience is that she wasn't dead last. This pleases Fat Woman greatly.

Fat Woman and the bad mood

Fat Woman has been a little on the grumpy side recently, it is true. On the inside Fat Woman feels that her tetchiness is entirely rational and allowed. After all, Fat Woman can't help if the world is full of selfish/uneducated/irrational/slow thinking people, can she?

The thing that clues Fat Woman into the idea that perhaps it's her not the rest of the world (apart from the fact that she is not a narcissist) is that there are just so many unthinking/self-centred/ignorant/thick people around. Now, Fat Woman is not a saint by any stretch of the imagination, not even the human kind that Maximilian Kolbe was, but she has always lived by the principle that all words and deeds have effects and finds it very hard when people act as though they are acting in a vacuum. What is up with people being so awful? Not just directly to others, but being indirectly horrible? Then claiming that "I didn't meeeeeean it like that!"

Today Fat Woman is fed up with the lack of celebration for people who have lost weight and worked hard to be fit but who have not reached "target weight". It's as though you are only redeemed once you are a socially acceptable size. In fact, Fat Woman has quit Tesco Diets for MyFitnessPal at least in part because of this. Most properly fat people won't ever reach that "target weight" that's based on BMI. It's just impossible. Fat Woman is disgusted with this unfair and frankly shallow state of affairs. Why is losing 5 stone an achievement to celebrate when you end up at 10 stones but not if you're still at 15 stones? Bah!

Fat Woman is going to go and lift some heavy weights to make herself feel better.

Fat Woman and the difficult equation

Fat Woman has a favourite doctor. The doctor won Fat Woman's love and respect when she said: "I don't know. Let me look it up." This same doctor once said in front of Fat Woman: "After all, no fat people came out of Belsen." Fat Woman likes this quotation and has even said it back to the doctor, who had forgotten the context in which is was originally said and was rather shocked to hear the words coming out of the mouth of a fat person. Fat Woman had a naughty little moment of glee at that :-) Fat Woman has also pointed out to her doctor that it is actually easier for a very fat person to lose weight because just moving around means they burn so much more. Fat Woman quite misses the days when an hour on the rowing machine would net her a burn of 1200 calories.

As a result of getting to know Fat Woman and her realistic and sometimes shockingly accurate grasp of her health and situation, Fat Woman's doctor is sympathetic and treats her clinically i.e. according to how Fat Woman says she feels, not just as to whether her blood results are within the lab range. The doctor also lets Fat Woman have thyroid blood tests every two months to try and help her out of the loop where she loses weight easily because her blood is right, then suddenly her dose is too high and she puts on pounds within a week, and then is the right dose for the weight she is now. The year Fat Woman has lost the same four pounds at least five times. After June Fat Woman changed her mantra to "Don't stop!" because it is too heart breaking to focus on weight loss when she is doing everything right on paper and yet her body is working against her. A week of weight loss costs Fat Woman at least five hours of exercise, plus twice as much in preparation and travel, plus the same again in food shopping and preparation. To have that disappear in a blink of an eye is massively disheartening.

The one thing that Fat Woman and her doctor have always agreed on is that if calories consumed are fewer than the calories burned you will lose weight. It's simple physics, for goodness' sake. Metabolic disorders make this rate slower, but you could in theory simply reduce the amount of calories until you started losing weight. Unfortunately this comes with side-effects such as having no energy, feeling sick, being in pain from digestive problems, being barely able to walk etc etc. Fat Woman admits that she thinks far too much of herself to follow any eating plan than leaves her hurting and unable to function when the alternative is to be functional and fat. Fat Woman is defensive of her need to eat as she has had quite enough experience with people thinking that because she is fat she shouldn't be allowed to eat at all. For anyone who is not entirely clued up on such things, food is a human need and having food is a human right. In fact Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Fat Woman considers the suggestion that fat people be denied food on any grounds let alone the idea that having fat on your body is somehow morally offensive to be at the very least degrading as well as in violation of Article 25: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food". It took a very long time for Fat Woman to get her head around the idea that she deserved to eat, even if she was fat.

Fat Woman counts herself lucky that she made it past 35 without developing an eating disorder.

Fat Woman lost weight for the first time as an adult when she learned about the Basal Metabolic Rate calculator in 2007. This was the first scientific evidence Fat Woman had even seen to suggest that weight loss plans could be anything more specific than "eat 1500 calories a day". For what it's worth, Fat Woman can lose weight on more calories than most women need to maintain their weight. Fat Woman uses the number of calories she would need to consume if she were completely sedentary and subtracts the 500 that make up a loss of a pound a week (a pound of fat being 3,500 calories) and then doesn't eat any more food even though she does a fair amount of exercise. This means that when Fat Woman follows her eating plan and has all her hormone levels in the right places she can log up to 2lb weight loss each week.

Fat Woman had been making fitness progress including putting on muscle but had not lost any weight for a while. Fat Woman had a review of her priorities and decided that although losing more weight wasn't her first (or even second or third) priority she would find it useful for it to happen, so she returned to first principles, which meant keeping a food diary. Fat Woman has the private opinion that anyone who claims they want to lose weight but who won't commit to writing down what they eat and how much so it can be compared against their BMR is hoping for some dieting magic. This is of course what a lot of diet clubs prey on. Fat Woman hates the idea that dieting is "hard". It's not fucking hard if you've got a basic understanding of adding up. With MyFitnessPal you don't even have to do the maths. What is the issue with putting food on the scales before you cook it, or reading the side of the packet? Fat Woman suspects this wilful ignorance is really a refusal to face up to the fact that people are eating more than they should be. As Fat Woman spent years being fatter than the amount she ate meant she should be she has no sympathy. People should go to therapy and deal with their issues.

Fat Woman is quite clued up about nutrition and has learned many good practises such as swapping carbohydrates for fat and knows that low Glycemic Index carbs make you feel fuller for longer. When Fat Woman is on plan she has a food diary that not even Personal Trainer can moan about (apart from the bread - Fat Woman will not give up bread, she did it for three months and it made no difference, and it still rankles with Personal Trainer). Fat Woman prides herself on being able to create a filling and tasty meal within her allowed calories and has learned lots of new recipes and cooking techniques since she overhauled her diet. Thin Husband only had one comment about the regime inflicted upon him and that was that he liked having so much steak.

So Fat Woman started her food diary again in a determined effort to make further change and move forward.

Personal Trainer has a knack for smelling weakness where Fat Woman is concerned. Sometimes this means he wants Fat Woman to make him a cake, but where he seizes the advantage is when it comes to their area of contention: nutrition. Fat Woman thinks she is perfectly fair in saying that if Personal Trainer brings her two peer reviewed papers, one establishing the principle and the other confirming it, she will apply the findings to her diet. Personal Trainer finds it annoying that whatever he recommends Fat Woman will go off and research until she understands what is being talked about instead of blindly trusting him. Fat Woman has been told by too many medical practitioners that she should eat starvation levels of food in order to lose weight so she doesn't trust ANYONE on the subject of nutrition. Also, Personal Trainer once made the mistake of saying to Fat Woman that soy was a fat burner when it is in fact an emulsifier, and the resounding argument lasted four days, ending with Personal Trainer denying he ever said it. Fat Woman does not believe that she imagined it or that Personal Trainer went on to offer the excuse that he got the tip from someone who was ripped so it must be true (arrrgh!). Fat Woman also eschews fat burners (dangerous to very fat women), zero carb diets (same, less chance of a heart attack, more chance of depression), green tea extract (shown to be ineffective in women over the long term by more than one study), and the idea that the calories you eat late at night are more fattening than those you eat in the morning (please see previous references to the laws of physics). That's not to say that Personal Trainer has suggested these particular ideas to Fat Woman, but they float around every gym.

This time Fat Woman found herself hoist onto the petard of her belief in calories in versus calories out. Personal Trainer has reviewed Fat Woman's nutrition several times and made helpful suggestions such as swapping some carbohydrates for fat. Fat Woman thinks this was a perfectly sensible suggestion, unlike when Personal Trainer suggested taking out some of her cereal and replacing it with nuts or seeds. Fat Woman looked at the relevant nutritional information and found that would actually decrease the protein value of that meal and increase the calories and pointed out to Personal Trainer that she wasn't paying £4 a box for granola for no good reason. Instead Fat Woman took out some cereal and replaced it with a protein shake. Personal Trainer will not shake his belief that unfuelled cardio is beneficial, although Fat Woman has refused to try it on the grounds that to maintain her weight she needs to be fuelled 150 calories per waking hour, and that by eating 400 calories for breakfast she is technically well unfuelled by the time she meets Personal Trainer at 11am. Personal Trainer then suggested that Fat Woman could have a lower-carb breakfast. Fat Woman wanted to know just how low Personal Trainer thought low carb was, as her scrambled eggs on toast had just 20g of carbohydrates in and that was low by anyone's business. Personal Trainer acknowledged this but then said in that case perhaps Fat Woman could try not eating carbohydrates before training.

Fat Woman flicked through her mental database for reasons why she shouldn't eat a zero carb breakfast on training days and found none. Fat Woman found herself agreeing that she would refrain from eating carbohydrates before training.

Fat Woman has been back on a calorie-controlled diet for the last ten days, and admittedly the sightly higher than usual number the scales showed that motivated her to restart serious calorie counting could have been a little inflated due to things like water retention, but she has dropped 10lb in ten days. Fat Woman is worried that either she she is in the sweet spot before she tips over into overmedication for her underactive thyroid (it's a bit like being on speed apparently) or she is going to have to admit to Personal Trainer that despite the lack of scientific proof his suggestion has worked.

Fat Woman and the interesting assumptions

Fat Woman was going to post about the interesting assumptions made by people about her simply because she is fat, but frankly it's boring and can be boiled down thusly: New person sees Fat Woman and assumes that because she is fat she is sedentary, eats unhealthily and eats too many calories in a day, and this is mostly likely because Fat Woman is stupid and uneducated and probably self-delusional as well.

Fat Woman is tired of coddling prejudiced and ignorant people and thinks they should all be sent on some kind of course where it is explained to them that their assumptions are just that, assumptions, and that to be useful members of Society they could do with learning to keep an open mind and to assess evidence rather than spouting their own personal distillation of what they have absorbed by osmosis. Fat Woman thinks that if you aren't yet clued into the fact that what people look like isn't a good way to tell anything about them apart from what they look like you are probably incredibly slow on the uptake. Or you live in some weird Jilly Cooper-created world where all the heroes are handsome and rich and everyone else is fat, ugly, poor and stupid. Fat Woman hopes for your sake that if that is the case then you're a hero and that you remember where that world is because she's fairly confident that most people in this world whose opinion she would give a toss for think you're a twit. And that goes double if you display racism/sexism/homophobia/religious prejudice, and double again if you deny you're doing it.

Fat Woman lives every day in a great big calorie deficit and has no extra energy to spend indulging people who haven't wit enough to operate as anything other than media-programmed bots with received wisdom filling up their RAM. The most tiresome part is people who get defensive if it is even suggested that they might like to change their behaviour because this is a slight on their moral impunity and the preciousness and rightness of their existence and of what they said, even though they have never actually thought about what they said before, they have just spouted it. Fat Woman has spent years with people telling her that her existence as a fat woman is an affront to life, the universe and everything, so she has no sympathy for those who might find it difficult to accept that polite Society has moved on and they need to temper what they say.

People are different to you and that's okay. Now, mind your manners or you won't have any friends left.

Fat Woman and the scary Hallowe'en candy

Fat Woman likes Hallowe'en. First, that's because Hallowe'en has an apostrophe in its name. Secondly, Hallowe'en is pure fun. People dress up in costume to make other people smile, and these other people give the people in costume sweets to make them happy. It's just a big happiness loop. Fat Woman has little electronic ghosts outside on her doorstep and a sign in the window saying "Trick or Treaters welcome 5.30pm-7.30pm" just so that everyone is clear on the parameters of her engagement with the celebrations, and so that parents allow their little darlings to knock on her door.

Fat Woman was shooting earlier in the day so her usual two hour window was shortened by half an hour. This meant that Fat Woman has slightly more delicious sugary things left over than she had expected. Thin Husband refused to take the remaining sweets to work on the grounds that he and his minions would "just eat them". Fat Woman is not seeing the issue with this; Thin Husband now weighs less than he did at university thanks to Fat Woman's healthy cooking, and so can indulge in sweets. Fat Woman suspects that Thin Husband doesn't want his minions at work moaning about how they've put on weight thanks to the sweets he brought in, but he never actually said that so Fat Woman let it go.

Fat Woman is back to writing the most boring diary in the world, her food diary, so this is a really bad week for Fat Woman to have a box of sweets in the house. Fat Woman is generous with the quality of her Hallowe'en sweets and could quite happily eat her way through the remaining bags of Moam chews, starting with the strawberry and cherry ones, moving on to the lemon and orange ones and finishing up with any cola or mixed flavour ones. However, Fat Woman is not going to have any more than the couple (five actually) of strawberry chews she snaffled whilst manning the door at the same time as trying to cook dinner so there are six packets of sweets that need disposing.

Fat Woman is not averse to "wasting" food. Fat Woman refuses to be caught in the dichotomous morality projected by the world around her that tells her it is not only bad to waste food but it is also bad for a fat person to eat anything more than a calorie deficit. Fat Woman regularly throws away perfectly good fruit on the grounds that Thin Husband won't eat it and she that she has had her rations. Fat Woman also refuses to eat anything past its best before date on the grounds that it might not kill you but it doesn't taste good, and if you're eating mindfully and being aware of every mouthful it isn't a fun experience to be aware that every mouthful tastes slightly stale. However, Fat Woman was loathe to consign the delicious Moam chews to the black bin when they could bring so much joy and happiness to others. Fat Woman has calculated that the entirety of the leftovers would be 4,728 calories, or as Fat Woman sees it, nine and half days of calorie deficit i.e. dieting. Fat Woman is fairly confident that if anyone ate that number of excess calories they would put on approximately one and a third pounds, or if she did so herself she would put on three pounds and get a disgusting sugar crash afterwards. Fat Woman is possibly engaging in doublethink and thinking that sugar is evil but only to her, everyone else will take a little bit and enjoy it in a restrained and healthy matter.

Fat Woman is taking the extra sweeties to the gym today. The staff of the gym are made up of lovely young people who do cardio five times and day and they can afford to eat sugar. Or if they are like Personal Trainer when he's on one of his hardcore healthy eating plans and think sugar is evil they can throw them out. Honour is satisfied either way. If Fat Woman worked at a gym she would offer customers free sweets after every workout in the most evil customer retention strategy ever.

Fat Woman and the helpful input

Fat Woman likes taking helpful input from people. Fat Woman has a Twitter feed full of tweets from people or organisation that share great information about new exercises, research and food as well as other individuals with an interest in fitness. Fat Woman has also found everyone at the gym very helpful, although possibly a large part of that is that she has always been under the obvious care of Personal Trainer. Upsetting Personal Trainer's client is like upsetting Personal Trainer, and despite him being a genial chap most of the time no one wants that. 

Since becoming an adult Fat Woman has never suffered the verbal abuse that other fat women talk about having to endure on a daily basis. Fat Woman puts this down partly to her air of confidence - Fat Woman is unusually self confident for a human being, never mind a fat woman - and partly because she lives in a small university city with an unusually educated populace. Fat Woman used to get her fair share of randomly thrown abuse as a teenager, but usually from other young people.

Fat Woman found the following words posted as an anonymous comment on her blog:

Do you fat women even realize how fucking ugly you are? I mean I almost vommitted looking at your picture, you fat ass. LOSE SOME FUCKING WEIGHT, YOU DISGUSTING FAT COW!!!!!!!!!

Fat Woman hasn't seen such a fine example of illogical hatred in a long time. 

Fat Woman hasn't actually published a photograph of herself on her blog. Fat Woman hasn't even linked to the little cartoon of herself she uses on Twitter. Fat Woman is amused that a three-letter word comes with such power.

Fat Woman thinks anyone commenting anonymously on a blog has already devalued their message enormously, but that hardly needs saying.

Fat Woman can allow spelling mistakes, but does not think the abuse of punctation and uppercase letters lends gravitas to any message, let alone what can only be called a troll. Fat Woman would like to point out that she is using "troll" as a verb here.

Fat Woman is shaking her head at all the other rookie mistakes the troll (noun) is making here. Fat Woman really hopes the troll generated the warm fuzzy empowered feeling he was hoping for because he hasn't managed to scare, upset or hurt Fat Woman with his badly-typed diatribe. The troll is blog fodder.

Fat Woman would like to make some points for her more logical and engaged readers:

(1) Fat is officially incurable. See this article on cracked.com.

(2) Fat Woman considered "fat" as an insult to have lost its sting after having heard it levelled at the tiniest women who happened to have normal bodies i.e. not the airbrushed limbs of a doll."Fat" as an adjective is comparative. Fat Woman has never heard the word used in a non-bullying way. 

(3) Human bodies aren't disgusting. Anyone disgusted by anything that is more than one deviation from the norm needs some education and some tolerance. Some people look different to the media-presented "normal", and that's okay. The media-presented "normal" is about making money for private company owners. 

(4) Fat Woman doesn't actually care what you think. Fat Woman would prefer it if you had a healthy informed attitude towards human bodies, but you probably have your own issues to deal with.. Fat Woman wonders if wishes were granted how many people would wish to have no fat on their bodies at all. In case that isn't clear to you, if you had no fat you would die.

Fat Woman isn't going to bother justifying how she got fat. It doesn't matter if Fat Woman got fat because she ate all the pies or she had a medical condition. The fact is that Fat Woman is fat, has always been fat and probably always will be fat. Fat Woman is okay with that and is certainly not going to buy into the idea that she is a non-person because she doesn't look like someone in a magazine or on a video. Fat Woman is pretty damn fit now, and almost certainly lives a healthier lifestyle than any troll. 

Fat Woman is writing this post because she would like her readers to realise that fat shaming is a tool used by bullies.Fat Woman would be grateful if people would avoid fat shaming themselves or others, whether that is by refraining from saying "you're so fat" or "I'm so fat" or giving helpful suggestions such as advising on diet. Fat Shaming, like Slut Shaming, is about controlling other people. People shouldn't be controlled, they should be autonomous, and control of other people is the basis of abuse. 

Fat Woman thinks that if you can't understand why it's not okay to tell fat jokes by now you're probably still telling jokes about ethnic minorities.

Fat Woman has put "a better class of troll" on her Amazon wishlist.

Fat Woman and the amazing combination

Fat Woman was padding away in BoxFit class. Personal Trainer has finally got around to starting a BoxFit class at his new gym. Fat Woman has been waiting an entire year for this to happen. Other coaches do not compare favourably.

Fat Woman was working with a nice lady who is quite new to BoxFit but who was just starting to get the hang of punching the pads. This meant that together Fat Woman and the nice lady could make a good loud sound. After every combination of punches both Fat Woman and her partner would reset their hands. The combination was was left-left-right. The lady boxing Fat Woman was right-handed so her right punch was much stronger than her left punch. The noise the lady's gloves made on Fat Woman's pads was: "thump-thump-BANG! thump-thump-BANG!"

Fat Woman got well into the second chorus of We Will Rock You before the set was over. The most amusing thing to Fat Woman was that on hearing her padding "thump-thump-BANG!" other people were starting to fall in time with her. Fat Woman wishes that more people in the gym were singers because it could have been an AWESOME Glee-style moment.

Personal Trainer pointed out to Fat Woman that if she had breath to sing she wasn't working hard enough. Fat Woman escaped burpees, but reckons it would have been worth it.

Fat Woman and the sweetest gift of all

Fat Woman has a pretty good relationship with Personal Trainer. As well as their working relationship Personal Trainer and Fat Woman occasionally have coffee together and on special occasions go and shoot clay pigeons. In fact, it was Personal Trainer who took Fat Woman shooting after her initial shotgun skills course and later taught her how to shoot a driven bird. When Fat Woman isn't looking on Personal Trainer as her own personal SS torturer, she regards him as an extra nephew to spoil with cake and little gifts from holiday. Personal Trainer resents any suggestion that he is a child, up until there is a present or something good to eat on offer.

Personal Trainer likes food. Fat Woman found that Personal Trainer was a great tester for any kind of project, especially cake. Personal Trainer is inordinately fond of chocolate cake. Just before Personal Trainer had his 21st birthday he expressed a wish for a giant chocolate cake like the one Bruce Bogtrotter eats in Matilda. As Fat Woman is sentimental about milestone birthdays she provided what is known as the Ultimate Chocolate Cake, a chocolate sponge layered and covered with chocolate ganache. Fat Woman even decorated the cake and added a candle The following year all Personal Trainer wished for was the same thing again. It had to be made with 74% dark chocolate, not the 60% that Fat Woman personally prefers, and it had to be made in well advance as the cake reaches perfect four days after baking. Personal Trainer claims that the only sweet thing he has eaten that is better than the Ultimate Chocolate Cake is Fat Woman's banoffee pie.

Fat Woman is about to retire from cake provision for Personal Trainer has taken up baking. Fat Woman smiles at Personal Trainer's comments on how much it costs to produce a batch of brownies. Fat Woman has been hearing tales of Personal Trainer's baking disasters (a tablespoon each of bicarbonate of soda and baking powder make a mess of your oven floor), his purchases (a blender with a whisk attachment) and has seen pictures of his successes. The most impressive success so far was Personal Trainer's chocolate cake. Fat Woman received a picture of an impeccably glossy chocolate cake topped nearly with chocolate squares. Fat Woman sent back compliments and good wishes that the cake be as impressive as it looked.

On Monday after training Fat Woman's personal trainer presented her with an enormous piece of chocolate cake and encouraged her to eat it straight away. Personal Trainer even facilitated this happening by presenting Fat Woman with a fork.

Fat Woman has the best personal trainer in the whole world.

Fat Woman and the line that goes down

Fat Woman is enjoying learning to shoot. Fat Woman likes clay pigeon shooting so much that Thin Husband has put her on rations to prevent binge-shooting. Fat Woman is now getting quite good at learning new sports and has recruited a shooting coach. Actually, Shooting Coach started teaching Thin Husband first, but as Fat Woman has to organise the lessons and take Thin Husband's gun to the ground for him she figured she wasn't going to miss out.

Fat Woman had spent a box of cartridges failing to get the better of a rising going away bird and thought it time to seek expert advice. At Fat Woman's lesson Shooting Coach explained how to shoot the presentation, and Fat Woman managed to break a few clays. Then Shooting Coach got Fat Woman to break the clays with a less measured and more instinctive reaction. Everything was going well, until Fat Woman lost all ability to shoot and missed and missed and missed and missed again. Eventually Shooting Coach, who likes to end a lesson on a killed bird, allowed Fat Woman to give up. Shooting Coach went off to coach Thin Husband, and Fat Woman shed her shooting gear and went off to have a cup of tea and no biscuits.

Half an hour later Fat Woman had drunk her tea, inspected all the guns for sale and was starting to twitch. Fat Woman hadn't intended to shoot more before lunch but it seemed a terrible waste of time to be stuck in a club house that smelled far too strongly of deep fat frying when the weather was fine and there were cartridges waiting to be shot. Fat Woman hates self-buttoning, but she had noticed that the ground had a DTL (Down The Line) layout with microphone controlled pull. Fat Woman thought this was the perfect opportunity to get some private, unobserved shooting time to practice what she had just been taught. Fat Woman doesn't mind being useless at things but when she is learning something by trial and error she prefers not to be observed.

So Fat Woman went back out to the car, suited up again, went back to the clubhouse to get a ClayMate counter (and a telling off for bringing her gun in with her), then went off to the DTL layout only to spend five minutes looking for somewhere to plug in the counter.

Eventually Fat Woman gave up on the grounds that she is a bit slow sometimes but isn't entirely dim, and went back to the car to stow the gun, back to reception to ask if she was being a bit stupid, back to the car to get the gun out again then back to the DTL layout to await the arrival of the ground staff member to button for her. Fat Woman had time to comes to terms with the loss of a completely private practice session, reasoning that anyone who works at a shooting ground has seen it all before and has no interest in what each individual customer is shooting. Fat Woman is not keen on the vanity of self-conciousness; at best she finds it tiresome in others, at worst she considers it narcissistic.

Eventually a member of staff turned up. Fat Woman asked to shoot 25 birds from the middle stand on the grounds that she only really wanted to practice going away rising birds. The anonymous staff member thought this would be fine so after a few minutes of setting up Fat Woman was finally ready to sink into practicing what she had just learned. Fat Woman had recently studied diagrams on hold DTL points so was ready to give the game another bash. Fat Woman set her feet, mounted her gun, set her hold point, called pull and shot a target twice in quick succession, and then found that Thin Husband and Shooting Coach had appeared behind her.

After ruining Fat Woman's mental focus with an unexpected appearance Shooting Coach was nice enough to actually coach Fat Woman through the rest of her round, and said that Fat Woman ended up hitting roughly half of the birds. Fat Woman knows this isn't great for DTL, but considered it an improvement on her earlier performance was pleased she had actually learned her lesson. Fat Woman was feeling much more confident about DTL by the end of this and planned some happy times amusing herself at gun club with the nice quiet mic-operated DTL set up.

The next time Fat Woman had a chance for a round of DTL she started off by hitting four out of the first five birds with her first barrel. Fat Woman was quite pleased with this, especially as she had shot a proper round of DTL just twice before, once with Personal Trainer in her fourth hour of shooting when she scored three points, and once nearly a year later when she scored only slightly more. Fat Woman was therefore very pleased about her 4/5 hits, especially as she had forgotten about being allowed to use the second barrel when she missed with the first one. So Fat Woman moved to the next stand and called "Pull!".

Nothing happened.

Fat Woman called "Pull!" again in a louder voice. Still nothing happened. Then Fat Woman called "Pull!" really loudly - and Fat Woman has a very loud voice when she projects properly - and nothing happened. It wasn't until Fat Woman turned her natural squeaky soprano voice into a deep, deep contralto and bellowed "Pull!" like she was Pavarotti that she could actually get stand 2 to work.

Ironically, the same stand was entirely happy to count Fat Woman closing her gun as a call.

By the end of the round Fat Woman had developed a very strange holler, calling "Pull!" in a way that sounded not dissimilar to a cow lowing. Having to call for a bird multiple times did not have the greatest effect on Fat Woman's shooting, but she considered she had compensated well, hitting two thirds.

The Gun Club office were not surprised at Fat Woman having had problems with the microphones. Apparently if the mics are set sensitively enough to pick up the higher female voices at the height they are displayed at, they are then too sensitive and send out lots of no-birds. Fat Woman is writing this off as another example of entrenched sexism in the shooting world. If Fat Woman makes a fuss about this then Fat Woman is obviously the problem.

No long after this Fat Woman shot DTL at a different ground and did so badly that friends reassured her that it was "a very hard ground to shoot at". Fat Woman appreciates the kindness, but is happy to own up to the fact that (1) she completely forgot her hold points until stand 5 (2) she forgot that DTL birds start dropping fairly quickly (3) she has no idea how to hit a dropping DTL bird (4) she basically shot like a pig with trotters. Fat Woman has a reasonably thick skin and had not disgraced herself in the earlier SportTrap, so put DTL down as one of the things she has yet to learn.

Fat Woman confessed to Shooting Coach that she hadn't done very well at DTL and might not have been the best advert for his tuition that day. Fat Woman is not used to having to say this kind of thing to Shooting Coach. Usually Fat Woman starts a lesson by bouncing happily up to Shooting Coach and announcing that she has practiced what he taught her at her last lesson and has been fairly successful with it and has a tale of how the latest skill came in useful. This time Fat Woman was a coward and dropped a throwaway comment into an email on the grounds that Shooting Coach is terribly busy and might not have noticed.

Shooting Coach is turning out to be as sharp as Personal Trainer and doesn't miss a trick.

Shooting Coach's response was initially sympathetic, in tone if not in words, but surprised Fat Woman by pointing out that trying to do every shooting discipline would probably result in her going along the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none route. Fat Woman had not considered that there was any possibility of her being a master of anything, but considered that if Shooting Coach hadn't been able to teach her DTL, she wasn't a natural at it and it was actually a relief to be off the hook as far as future sessions were concerned.

Fat Woman has not given up on DTL entirely but has certainly shelved it until such time that Shooting Coach thinks she has learned Sporting well enough not to be led astray by rising going away birds, maintained lead and orange-coloured clays, or alternately until Sporting Coach throws up his hands and admits that she might as well go and try being a good all-rounder because she isn't going to get any better at Sporting. Fat Woman is just sorry that the skeet range doesn't have the same voice-operated facilities as DTL, and expects that Thin Husband will be equally as sorry when she drags him around to button for her.