Less of that.

I'm on a diet. It's been two days, and the app I use to log everything I eat and my weight is very happy with me. "You've lost 0.3kg!" it said to me this morning. It seemed like a small amount to get excited about, but dieting is a world where things go wrong fast and get better slowly.

I tried one of those calorie calculators, which told me that, at my height (short), I can eat around 1400 calories a day if I want to lose weight. I tried increasing my height and it turns out that if I was six feet tall, I could eat nearly 2000 calories every day. So if you think about it, the main problem is height rather than width.

Losing weight is a controversial subject. For a woman. I don't think men ever get finger-wagged when they decide to lose weight. No one tells them that they shouldn't do it because they'll make all the other men feel bad. Men's bodies are an island, independent of themselves. Women have to make sure no one else feels bad.

I wasn't very motivated to lose weight until one day, I demonstrated to a family member how to use a blood pressure machine by using it on myself and the number was... let's just say it was so high that when I log my blood pressure, my Apple Health app says "Are you sure this number is correct?". It's quite high. It never used to be. Not until all this fatness turned up out of nowhere and cake.

So even though we're not supposed to want to lose weight now, I am. But not because of the blood pressure. It's the clothes. I can't fit into them. I looked into my wardrobe and saw dresses that are strangers to me now. I went op shopping and there was nothing on the racks I could even get my thigh into. I miss wearing my clothes. I miss shopping for new clothes without thinking, "Ooh, elasticated waistband, that could work." I feel like a better person would be motivated by health, not vanity, but it looks like I'm not that person.

There was a period in my life when was good at all this. Pre-children, obviously. I was an exercise person, I went to the gym. Now I am a person who glares resentfully at the gym charges on my bank statement each month. I need to use that thing.

First step: eating better. Second step: go to the gym where the exercise people are, become one of them and possibly become a bit smug about it. Third step: fit into clothes and, by happy coincidence, do not have a stroke from high blood pressure. Fourth step: cake? No. No cake. Fourth step: be very, very good and enjoy my new life sans elasticated waistbands. Let's call it a plan.