IT had come to a time of reckoning.
I'd never been a Shrimp or Twiggy, but large, rather handsome bones I
thought, had carried the rest of me with few problems for a fair piece
of a lifetime.
Suddenly, I could not undress in front of myself, let alone anyone
else. Accidental glimpses in the honest mirror showed thighs like pots
of simmering oatmeal, a torso bursting with fresh adipose tissue,
buttocks that virtually bobbed against my shoulder blades as a walk
became a wobble. Clothes skulked in the wardrobe, refusing to strain
themselves across my bulging frame.
''It's my age, it's the sedentary life, it's this Scottish diet, it's
temporary, it's terrible,'' I whined, as intimates made subtle Fatso
remarks.
Then the Good Hearted Glasgow campaign caught up with me and kindly
offered and explained their cholesterol test. After that they went into
aspects of my degenerate lifestyle and said I had a 50-50 chance of
suffering a heart attack before the official retiring age.
This was received through a haze of hangover from a do the night
before, sharpened by no breakfast, with coffee and cigarettes to
adrenalise the doomed lump of protoplasm through an active morning.
''You know what makes sense,'' said the kindly woman who ran my crimes
through her computer and handed over the irrefutable printout. I hid it
somewhere, but know it by heart, till I drop.
In the meantime, I wryly nudged myself into trying a couple of things
to shift the habits of a declining adulthood. More by chance than
design, my efforts became linked with the powdered protein replacement
meal. Having seen local ads about the Herbalife weight-control
programme, I decided to give that a whirl.
A very pleasant woman named Kay came round to see me with her box of
goodies and told me how well her family were doing using the various
herbal and vitamim preparations. Not only were they controlling their
weight, they were feeling relief from asthma, arthritis, irritable
bowels, and other complaints.
Kay looked blooming, slender and bright-eyed, I must say, though she's
almost as old as me.
In the cause of science I took Formula One -- a protein powder
flavoured with vanilla which you mix with water or low-fat milk twice a
day, to replace meals.
Along with this 30-day canister, I received Formulae Two, Three, and
Four -- herbal tablets, vitamin-mineral tablets, canola oil capsules
(no-one seemed to know what a canola may be) and the magic Formula Five,
khaki-coloured oval pills, encapsulating a vitamin mineral complex with
herbs.
This little collection put items into my stomach I've rarely dreamed
of ingesting -- hydrangea, couch grass, and chickweed, of which I've
shifted tons from the garden, cornsilk, and hawthorn berries, along with
kelp, carrageen, and dulse, and several things I eat regularly in the
raw. Garlic, honey, oats, rosehips, parsley, soya, walnut, fennel, cider
vinegar, sesame seeds, ginger, and plenty more ingredients appear in the
lengthy lists attached to the formula containers.
It might have cost just under 50 quid for the lot, but think of the
withering cellulite, and the money you're not spending on real food for
the month, I told myself.
Apart from taking 15 pills a day and beating the chalky powder into
breakfast and lunch in a cup, the Herbalifer is supposed to take at
least one meal a day of nutritive quality. How I lusted for supper,
where the humblest dish could be smelled and chewed.
After 10 days, I'd lost four pounds and stayed there.
After 15 days my throat started resisting the pills. It took 20
minutes to get five of them down using hot or cold drinks.
Kay made regular phone calls to see how I was getting on, but I was
obviously a disappointment. I should have been half a stone down after
the first two weeks.
Physically, I felt fine and energetic, but the Herbalife literature
they left with me was depressing. I thought it would explain something
about nutrition and the way the formulae worked. But the journals,
obviously meant for distributors only, were full of stories and pictures
of glossily smiling folk who told how they were becoming millionaires
selling the products.
Nutritionally, Herbalife seems to be fine and provides a great back-up
for the body chemistry while the body takes in less. This body just
balked at the pill-taking routine.
Food scientist Dr John Piggott, from Strathclyde University, looked at
my rattling collection and said it had obviously been produced with a
good knowledge of nutritional needs and balances.
''However, a broad and varied diet with reduced intake, developing
different food preferences, and more exercise would do the same trick --
and be more interesting,'' he added. But he conceded that weight loss
would be at a slower rate than that theoretically achieved through the
sudden switch to meal substitutes and the supplements in pill boxes.
''Cutting out sugar, full-fat milk, and snacking between meals could
make a surprising difference,'' he pointed out. ''Appetite research
shows that you don't eat more at mealtimes if you cut out snacks. But if
you eat raw fruit or vegetable before a meal, you'll get some starch and
fibre and can reduce your energy intake at mealtimes. It helps if people
eat more salads in the evenings. They can change habits and develop new
food preferences more easily than they imagine.''
He made some diplomatic remarks about middle-aged people and their
metabolic slowdown, leading to weight accumulation, and the facts that
men generate heat more efficiently than women, burning up their fatty
bits better. Yes, we menopausal lardy ladies have noticed some of that.
After a break, I'm now finishing off my pill and powder course so as
not to waste the #50, avoiding snacking apart from a carrot or apple.
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