Bad and wrong

14st 4lb (oh for f*** etc); 4.0 units of alcohol yesterday; 1,255; Slough (but not the one in Royal Berkshire).

“Comfort eating” is surely the ultimate misnomer. It does nothing for my physical comfort when my belt once again starts to lose itself in the roll of adipose tissue around my middle. And it does even less for my sense of self-worth. Particularly given that only five months have passed since I won a valuable bet by losing 21lbs, thereby getting my weight down to 14 stone in the first place. I know full well that eating too much is bad and wrong. So how come I consumed a ready meal which was clearly labelled “serves two” for supper last night? And, even more pertinently, when the fruit I had for dessert failed to afford complete satisfaction, why on earth did I help myself to just the one ginger biscuit and end up eating the whole sodding packet (950 calories)?

I think it may well be because I am a greedy fat bastard. I suppose I always have been. “I see he likes his food”, people used to observe to my mother when I was a boy, as an alternative to “He’s a fat little f***er, isn’t he?” I commend the phrase to you as a way of conveying that thought to parents without getting all your teeth knocked out. It will be much more useful now than when I was a lad, as there are so many more young porkers around. I was definitely marked out as one of the two or three “fat” boys in my class at primary school. Yet when I look at the photographs from that time now, I am sure that if my 1959 self could be teleported into a reception class of five-year-olds in 2008 I would stand out as being at the slimmer end of the spectrum. I suspect that my complete ineptitude at all games had as much to do with perceptions as my actual girth.

However that may be, I am definitely on a slippery slope now, even if it is contrary to all the laws of Newtonian physics to be slipping upwards. I suspect I am over-eating because I feel sorry for myself, in the absence of the Less Tall Cheshire Brunette. Though in fact it is I am who am absent, in self-imposed exile in Northumberland. I was invited to accompany her to Chester races today, albeit with the unspoken warning that “I know you hate racing, so please do not come along and try to make everyone else hate it, too.” Though when I spoke to her in her car at lunchtime, when she was running hideously late as the result of some mysterious scheduling error, she did concede that she would have been on time if I had been there.

At least today I accomplished two profoundly tedious but necessary tasks which I have been putting off for far too long: completing a VAT return and digging out and collating all the data which my bank will need to complete my tax return for me. I devoted the whole afternoon to the latter job, and felt much better when it was over. Nor did I over-eat afterwards.

However, I have a strong sense that my feeling that a heavy burden has been lifted from me will only last until the bank sends me the bad news about how much I am going to owe to the taxman in 2009. I must ensure that there are no biscuits, cakes, pies or ice cream in the house when that bad news arrives. And that there is no petrol in the car to take me to the shops. Though I suppose having no money left to spend will deal with both the food and fuel issues rather nicely.