Weighty issues

Funny how people always believe that they want to believe.

For the past year or so I have been walking past mirrors and shopfront windows and those fleeting glimpses of myself have persuaded me to believe that I have lost some weight. I am, I believed, thinner than before. Just one month ago, I was exulting about being able to go one size lower in the fitting room - okay so it was still a teensy bit tight, but at least I've gone past the days of not even being able to zip up a size 10 pants!

Still, the scales don't lie. I watched in growing horror as the red numbers happily kept skipping up and up until they settled at a point which I could not, did not, want to believe. Good Lord! I thought as I saw the final number. It can't be me.

This revelation came at the doctor's yesterday when I went for my regular hypertension check-up. The doctor asked: what happened? Weight up? Check. Cholesterol up? Check. Triglycerides up? Check. And the worst of it is, it is confirmed that my diastolic pressure has gone up. I've obviously been a bad bad bad girl.

I say a bit feebly: too much bak kwa doc?

He wanted to (a) double my dosage of meds or (b) give me drugs to lower my cholesterol. I suggested (c) I'd go on a diet and exercise plan and lose some weight by the time I see him in 6 months. If I failed to lose the requisite amount of weight, he was free to put me on whatever drugs he wanted. Deal, he said promptly. And added, not too much - I think about 1 to 2kg less would be satisfactory. He wanted to refer me to a dietician - me!! I shook my head vehemently and begged him to let me try it myself first before he brought out the heavy artillery like dieticians. It was one thing to steer myself off char koay teow, but a whole other ball game if I had to have my foodlist dissected and analysed by an unsympathetic professional.

The rest of the day, I go about racking my brains on just what on earth could have caused the explosion - and came to the sad conclusion: ramen (particularly the oil-rich, MSG-rich broth of my favourite marutama), ikura, tobikko and other assorted fish eggs, the Sunday morning $3 packets of oily chai-tow-kway (fried carrot cake) sans egg, the $3 packets of wanton mee (加 面 Uncle!), the experimenting with pasta carbonara... and worst of all, the hours of sitting time in front of the pc - at work and at home.

To cheer myself up, and to do honour to my promise to the doc to eat healthily, I had a caeser's salad for lunch at PS Cafe at Paragon. Never mind that the salad came generously laced with a creamy rich Caeser's salad dressing, generous shreds of parmesan cheese, crunchy slivers of salty bacon and a nicely poached egg. I also happily ignore the fact that I already had two half-boiled eggs for brekkie in the morning and this would be my third. For the day. So much for the mantra of four eggs per week. I would be lucky to get through with anything less than 3 eggs a day.

Next, I hit Marks and Sparks next door. And shopped for... yes, what all depressed women generally shop for... underwear!! That just made me feel so much better - I tried to ignore the fact that the lacey lil bits I bought would look just as nice and alluring as I thought they would on the backside of an SBS bus which is about the size of my butt these days.

I bought three pretty dainty lil things anyway.

And a black lacey nightdress - again censoring the image that kept cropping up in my mind - Miss Piggy on a satin-covered dais wearing the very same outfit. Might I also add that I bought this without trying the thing on at all. You know how it is about the old hopeful trick to buy stuff a size smaller as an incentive to shrink down to fit the dress instead of the other way around... welcome to my world.

I was about to treat myself to an ice-cream in the basement and debated long and hard about that before giving up, brightening up with the thought that now I could have fun planning and shopping for healthy lunch menus - though I really haven't got the foggiest where exactly to start - something about brown rice and wholewheat bread first I think...

So I gave up on the ice-cream and went for a haircut (see how I am fitting the typical depressed woman's profile here?) at Shunji Matsuo. I preened in the mirror and thought, I don't look so fat what... but when Jane was done, I was trying hard not to feel like the egg that my graduated chin-length bob now made me feel.

Off I went down Orchard Road, mentally sizing up every woman that I passed. Hmm, that one is just as big as me. Oh her, geez, gosh would-ja look at the size of that butt! That one, hmm okay not bad, I think I would look like her if I lost a couple of kgs. Ah, she's as plump as me, but okay okay, so she's about 4 inches taller - no wonder she looks thinner!

Everywhere I went my eyes followed the various assorted butts, boobs, legs and waistlines of the women I passed like an obsessed DOM. I don't know what got into me. Body envy.

Passed California Fitness and wondered if God was giving me a sign - now that I try to look for signs from God these days - but decided against it. Joining California Fitness or Planet Fitness or any ubergym would just make me even more depressed and slice off more of my already depleted self-esteem. Imagine sack-shaped me working the treadmill alongside slim and pretty young things? Are you laughing this hard already? Plus I would need to invest more moolah in a whole new exercise wardrobe! So that's out.

Finally I hit Isetan at Scotts. My favourite supermarket for Japanese yummies. They were having one of their many Japanese regional fairs and on sale were tubs full of mentaiko, wasabi squid, seaweed, Japanese donuts, black lines of marinated sardines. Oh heaven! I love making the rounds sampling all these little bits. I finally succumbed to mayo mentaiko and another box of silverfish with sliver's of fin and tobikko. Yum!

Getting on the bus to go home, I saw a seat on the packed 105 - right at the back and the inner window seat. I had to get past a makcik with loads of plastic bags on her lap. Makcik refused to get up. So-o, I had to squeeze myself through the eye of the needle, belly sucked in, bags held high, past her sizeable lap, and plonk myself down, breathing hard and hoping my butt did not get in her face.

Transport policy makers please note: to have a world-class transport system, please oh please start by giving us more leg room on the buses!! Right now a long-haul trip on a bus could predispose you to DVT, with the teensy space that is given. I think the ministers should spend one hour during peak hour trying to get a seat on a crowded packed bus and try their luck at squeezing their butts past formidable makciks like the one I am sharing a seat with!

Still, I reflected as the scenery whizzed past, that could have been easier done had my butt been a couple of inches smaller.

No getting round it - I have to lose some weight. I have six months to do it. I can easily go into a detox two days before I see the doc and be 1 to 2 kg lighter as he stipulated, but that's cheating. So I've decided to be a good girl. I will try my level best to lose some weight. 1 to 2kg at least. More better. But I won't get ahead of myself and set targets I can't keep.

First things first... get off my butt and squeeze past makcik to get off the bus.