Fit in 15 Days - Day One

I'm not a fan of exercise classes. I've done aquacise with friends but never found bouncing about in a dance studio much fun. Yet I need some sort of exercise routine.

I've gone and got my fat back. After years of shifting it and being 1 inch from my target, I've thrown it away on pizzas and Granny P pies. I'm not unique in my self loathing but it hurts more this time.

I bought all new thin summer clothes and now not one item fits. My legs look like bloated tree trunks and I'm starting to collect bags of fat on my arse. And let's not mention the double chin.

So I paid £5 for Davina fit in 15. It's been sat looking at me for 2 weeks and today I decided I was going to give it a whirl. Rather than putting off the inevitable and getting even fatter.  I decided I'd give it 15 days to change me.

Here's the thing if all it does it's improve my cardio so I feel better about heading to the gym and using a treadmill for 20 minutes then I'm happy. I'm not about weight loss just the inches and all those lovely clothes I bought sat waiting for me to wear.

I started with the cardio. I'm tierd and hated davina firming face but I did love that she was fucked halfway through too. It's hard & intense but the sweat dripping off me equates to inches so it was worth it. I've done other DVDs and found them lacking. This I was light headed and in need of a hug. I prey it only gets better tomorrow.

I'm a good person. I'm a bad person

Currently I'm sat on the 9:35 to London. En route to collect my aunt from the airport. It's a beautiful and sunny day. I have a coffee, croissant, music recommended by a friend (perfect by the way, thank you) and paper to keep me occupied, but my heads splitting I'm trebling a little and my stomach is in knots.

Because my aunt has been deported from India after having a mental breakdown and I'm terrified of how she will look. I'm expecting her to be thin and malnourished and have a frightened look in her eyes. But I'm also expecting to be pulled aside by security and told she kicked off on the plane. I think it's the fear of unknowing that is getting to me.

I'm alone on this adventure. She's upset so many of my family that only myself and the youngest of her siblings would consider the journey. I'm alone because its all short notice and my aunt was unable to get time off work. But she's sorted hotels and got her flight details and been the one woman show behind the logistics. I will after all this tell her how grateful I was to not be the only one who didn't want to leave a family member alone in London.

See my crazy aunt has pissed off so many people. She came off her medication (rightly so it was far too much and she was more dead than living), but she doesn't think she has a mental health problem. She wrote vile letters and said even more vile things to my mother. I shouldn't even be on this train helping her but I am, because if it was me I would hope that I have one person in my life that would do the same for me.

I have valid reason to want her to rot too. When she had her last break down she became obsessed with my sister. She is the prettier one really and has a much more likeable character. One weekend my little sister was on a shopping trip with a friend. My aunt came round and she told me about Jesus talking to her and how she was going to marry Gaddafi or Sadam or one of those (it was around the first gulf war), she then told me how my sister was going to be saved by her and she was going to heaven. I said I didn't believe in all that and she told me "that's why I won't save you and you'll go to hell".

As a child even when you say you have no faith the idea of hell is still a scary concept. So I too have a reason to for wanting he to freeze to death behind a bin, but when she telling me all this my brother was in his room getting high so I'm more annoyed with him for leaving me alone with a women they all knew was acting a little crazy.

I feel like No one in my family what it means to be a family. You take the good with the shit and make the shit good. She doesn't need buckets of meds and a straight jacket. She needs someone who will listen and not judge her but also tell her she's gone too far. I don't want to be that person, but I think I'm going to have to be.

I'm on this train for selfish reasons too. My mother would die if her sister vanished and she learnt she died (because my aunt would vanish, I think she's close to breaking or broken). My mum would break apart inside because she was an idiot and didn't want to deal with something as hard as getting her sister well. It's for my mum I'm doing this because she doesn't cope well in a crisis.

On discovering I was alone in my quest to return my aunt to the motherland my mum rang me and started to offer to come with me. I was short and blunt and really wanted to tell her to fuck herself in the arse with a whisk, but I just said no. Told her she couldn't cope and I didn't need the stress of getting her across London. She no doubt cried after that call. If my brother had spoken to her after he'd of been on to me then saying I made my mum feel bad when she shouldn't. But she should, because her daughter is alone on a train collecting her crazy sister from London Airport.

There's another reason too. My heart is full of guilt as I was never there for my uncle when he was sick. He died two weeks before my wedding and I never got to say goodbye. It's for him I do this because at the lowest darkest blackest times he helped me. He helped me by just being there. He never judged me or told me off for being a dick. He just listened. Jesus Christ I miss him. I hope he'd be proud of me.

I failed my uncle and it hurts more than words could ever say and it's with him in my heart I made the choice to be at the airport with a train ticket home and a familiar looking face.

I'm also a bad person. She has no where to go. I don't want her in my home. I don't want her to know where I live. Not yet. Not when I'm in work 13 hours a day. Not when I don't know how bad her breakdown is. I can't have the time off work to look after her I also can't trust her to not smash up my house. She's in a hotel tonight and homeless outreach in the morning. That's if she's decides to come back with me.

She might decide she doesn't want to come back and I don't think I'll try very hard to convince her to. But then I think of my gran and how happy it'll make her to see her daughter returned. I will keep that image and find the energy to mean she will be on the train back with me.

Brought up on Transformers & Thundercats

This week I learnt my husband didn't really know the stories of the brothers Grimm. "Snow White has dwarves in it yeah?" I was shocked. He claimed it was because fairy stories are for girls.

"Cinderella?" I asked, "she had big feet and stole a shoe so the prince tried to track her down to give her the other one"
"Elves and the shoemaker?"
"Made the shoes Cinderella nicked."
"Ok. Hansel and Gretel?"
"Ate a house killed a witch."
"Rumplestilzskin?"
"Dunno that one. Stupid name though"
"Jack and the Bean Stalk?!"
"Bought some beans. One grew massive, ruined the garden."

I worry what will happen to our children.

Zathura

When I worked at a cinema Zathura was one of the many films shown. It was billed as a space Jumanji. This film brings back bad memories. I worked a weekend which also happened to be the height of a vomiting bug going round the schools. I had to clean up a lot of sick in the screens showing that film. One child projectile vomited on the escalator it was rancid.

It's also the first movie I saw with Kirsten Stewart in. Reason two for my hate. Now I have the third. The annoying older brother is PEETA MELARK. I hated the boy when he was in the vomit Zathura (I even found him annoying in Bridge to Terabithia) but now he portrays my most hated fictional character.

Zathura I hate you.

Mark Owen would have a way better Garden Party

So M&S, not content with only coating half (HALF) Percy Pigs pants in hundreds and thousands and charging £6 for the pleasure they are now telling us the here comes the sun.

That's right the same week middle earth gets a ban on hose pipes and the rain comes down and the floods rise up in the North Gary Barlows having a garden party at his middle earth mansion. His mates Myeline Class and Dannie Minogue are having a egg and spoon race and grandad got out the old tv to watch the olympics. Shame that it won't work as its analogue but hey we can have a sing song round a campfire but Marks not coming. He's got the chiminea on and him and Kylie are watching the olympics on the out door projector.

You on a really good day

Not one for New Years Resolutions that actually change your life I did on my first day back to work start having a Berocca tablet. Berocca claims to be "you on a really good day". Its basically a crap load of vitamin C and those pesky B vitamins (http://www.berocca.co.uk/ has all the sales gumpf).

Does it work?
After two weeks I'm going to say yes. I feel more alert, the mid day dip in energy has gone. On the days I forget to have one it's not a good day.

Does it taste nice?
Not really. It tastes like cheap orange squash but the fizz makes an improvement to the taste and don't smell it because it's not a good smell.

What happens to the unneeded vitamins?
At some point in the day if you have a good level of the vitamins then you will have a pee that's a really bright yellow. It's as unsettling as when you eat beetroot.

It wasn't a resolution but overdosing on vitamins B and C is currently working for me more than caffine.

Hey fatty bum bum

"OMG!! Dawn French has lost weight!" Well that's what they could of said on Daybreak this morning. It's true the nations loveable "self proclaimed" fatty has shed some pounds. Not out of vanity, but for her health.

This annoyed me. Why is Dawn not allowed to say, "well I looked in the mirror and thought, man I've got too fat". Because, as a fatty I can say it's ok to think that. To think I don't mind being fat but this is too fat for me, is not letting the awful media win. Why is Dawn not allowed to be like the rest of us and long for the younger, thinner days? I'll tell you why. Because she's a "self proclaimed" fatty.

Then I read this http://t.co/y2gw8jLz Not that it's a terrible article in Mail terms, the comments are however vile and some should be ashamed.

Comments fall into three groups, "she's still too fat", "She'd still be married if she lost the weight sooner" and my favourite "she's a bad role model for women being that fat." Even the positive ones are bordering on the abusive.

She'd still be married if she lost the weight sooner

Bloody hell! Lets clear this up from the start. If your husband/girlfriend/partner/family/friend will only love you if you're ten pounds lighter you need to tell them to fuck off. That negativity is what is ruining you and making you miserable, not the fat. Your weight does not make you the awesome person you are, you do. If Lenny Henry and Dawn French did split because she got too fat, he needs to look in the mirror at his middle aged spread.

She's a bad role model for women being that fat

Dawns fat. She always has been (and to her credit never denied it), but I don't think that's a bad thing. I grew up with French and Saunders, and the Vicar of Dibley, you know what? It was good to see a fatty doing well on TV and not be cast as a perpetual dieter or the fat friend. In Dibley she had men falling from the Heavens and they were what my scouse friend would term hotties. It's one of the reasons I love her she made sure that her weight was never used as a negative point, if it was ever used it was for comedy and even then it had a sense of irony. Because of this, in my eyes she's an amazing role model for women.

She's still too fat

Let's talk fatties. Most talked about at the moment is Claire from Steps. She made her come back as the thinny turned fatty turned thinny and bounced about this way on any TV camera and magazine interview that cared to mention her. Are we shocked and saddened by this public display of yo-yo diets? No.

I gasped when I saw her DVD "Fat Attack" photos and was saddened to see on BBCTHREE a woman so miserable that shes decided her misery is because she's fat and not because of something deeper. She glazed over her struggles with eating disorders in STEPS in such a way it's obvious she has never killed those daemons. We probably all watched the STEPS documentary for the same reason. To see her expand and contract like a balloon. This isn't a positive role model for women. She claims to be with her "weight struggle" but isn't she just another advert that fatties don't succeed and happiness is a size 12?

Jessica Simpson has also bounced around but she's never made an issue of it. The press however has made out that she shockingly ballooned and her weight was spiralling. I don't think Jessica ever got fat, just stopped being stick thin.

Yes, fat can be unhealthy and make you sweat more and cause you to have loads of health problems, but so can being too slim and not eating the right foods. You can be fat and eat the right foods. You just eat too much of them and sit around on your arse.

Dawn FRench never made an issue of her size she used it for comedy but I never thought of her as fat. She was large. Large in size, in personality, love and presence. That's why I can say I am a fatty bum bum that wants to shed a few pounds. Not to be thin but more firmer with a layer of fat to keep me and the hubby warm in through the cold winter nights.

Thanks Dawn for being a perfect role model.