(Top note: the personal posts are back!! Please tell me this isn’t a mistake.)
NEWSFLASH: I need to lose weight.
REWIND: I think it’s fair to say that I’ve had my ups-and-downs, weight-wise!
I was always pretty skinny up until about 1988, when I first gained a bit of weight. And I do mean a bit. At the time I was drinking some alcohol and also smoking an amount of pot (which, I’m sure many of you know, gives you “the munchies”). So, I was aghast enough, after seeing a photo where I looked kinda round-faced, to go on a diet! I probably weighed 11 stones. But by mid-1989, I weighed a mere nine stones—the lightest I’ve been my entire adult life. In fact, I was a bit too light. I am, after all, 5’8″, and my build, while not large, is not petite—so nine stones was pushing it!
It didn’t last long. I was back up to maybe 10.5 after a few months. And that, to my mind, was a good weight for me. Anyhow, I have to say that at the age of 20, losing weight was a breeze. I had a simple method: I just ate exactly half of every meal. The weight came right off, quickly & efficiently.
The cycle repeated somewhat in 1998, a decade later! After a disappointing relationship breakup, I found myself drinking a lot more in 1996/97, and one day I realised I’d become a flabby, dishevelled slob!! (I think a photograph displaying this was again the wakeup call.) I used the same method—half of every meal. And I cut back on the boozing. At the age of 30, the weight still came off pretty easily. I got down to about 10.5 stones (I had probably been 12/13 prior), and then I noticed my face was looking a tiny bit drawn and perhaps very, very slightly saggy around the edges, so I stopped right there!
I did quite well this time. I stayed around 10.5 until, I think, 2003. One day towards the end of that year I noticed I was getting a tiny little pot belly and I realised, at 35, I was gaining a bit again. But I thought that was OK within reason, and didn’t fret about it.
Nice & slim in November 2003. Pic by mom. A bit darker than I’d like.
After mom got really sick late in 2005, and died and the end of May 2006, I did find the stress and anxiety of that period had me comfort eating quite a lot, and I did get noticeably heavier. During this period my hair also went to hell and I started to notice my first grey hairs. 2006 was a rough time for me.
While living in Brighton for a few months in 2007, I was very ill for a while with glandular fever, which seemed to occur after having a nasty fall on some spilled shampoo in Tesco. So I did swiftly drop most of the excess weight. For a while I looked quite haggard, but when fully recovered my appearance improved a lot and I think I looked OK. I was probably 11.5 stones. A bit heavier than ideal, but overall not too bad.
I ended up back in the West Midlands at the end of 2007, and I stayed around that weight level for a few years. But in March of 2011 I had a job interview in London, got offered a job with a (far too) modest starting salary, then proceeded to spend six weeks relentlessly looking for a place to live down in the Smoke. Of course my other handicap was having a dog. Most landlords hate dogs, and this is especially true in London. And when your budget only allows for renting a flat—you’re a bit screwed. After six weeks of sleepless nights, numerous trips to London & viewings, getting wildly stressed-out and dehydrated, two things happened. My employer withdrew the job offer—and I got ill with kidney stones!!!!
After that, and following two months of ill health, financially I was completely wiped-out and I went into a freefall money-wise which went on, to some degree, for another three years. As I moved into 2012, I lost lots of weight. I was 10 stones, maybe even 9.5. But unlike the previous times, it looked real bad on me. During this period, now being 43 years old, sadly I developed a degree of lipoatrophy (facial wasting), which is caused by age-related depletion of collagen & elastin, from which I have never fully recovered.
Me looking a little under the weather in 2012.
Financially, I did manage to stabilise a little in 2013, so I was eating better and gained a decent amount of weight back. I still had lipoatrophy, but at that time the weight gain mostly compensated.
In June 2014, I became Steve’s lodger. I hoped this would be temporary, but I’m still here today!! (That’s a loooooong story.) My main objective was getting straight in terms of finances as I had been living on my overdraft for about 12 months. Six months at Steve’s did the trick. Anyhow, in mid-2015 I took a stab at getting a place of my own again, but it lasted all of five weeks. And then back to Steve’s. This failure hurt me a whole damn lot. (That’s a loooooong story, too.)
In the fallout of that, and of me and Steve getting into all that FILMMAKING MALARKEY (detailed at length in the blog archives)… I became progressively more depressed, more despondent and less active, and started to gain weight again.
When the COVID MALARKEY reared its detestable head, this impact was doubled. Maybe tripled. Even quadrupled. Whatever. Everyone was getting less active. I piled the weight on with great aplomb. I don’t even want to know how heavy I was at my heaviest, but most definitely the heaviest of my whole life.
Actual unpublished photo of me from 2024.
Then, Steve spent almost two months in hospital. This was February to April of 2025. Actually he also spent a couple of weeks in there in January. Again, loooooong story. He’s OK now, BTW. In any case, I had been trying to think in terms of losing weight for some time. Steve being incapacitated certainly forced me out of the rut and into much greater levels of activity. In spite of the circumstances, I kinda liked that aspect.
Did I lose much weight? I think I lost some weight overall, although seemingly not a single mm from my fat stomach. And I got fitter too. Then he came out and I was back to being somewhat inactive. Maybe not quite as inactive as before. And certainly I tried doing some light exercises for a few months, not to any great avail—a bout of ringworm forced me to stop that, unfortunately.
Into 2026, our mutual lousy shitty horrible diet, in tandem with my generally elevated stress levels, was really causing me gastric issues. So I had to put my foot down. I needed to eat a little better, and hopefully somewhat less too. Adding pickles and sauerkraut to the schedule as a regular bonus, and probiotic yoghurt… has largely stabilised my digestive situation.
And have I lost weight?! Well… yes. Some weight. Most of it isn’t off my stomach, although lately I note that my waist measurement (CLASSIFIED) is 2″ less than it was a year ago. So that’s something.
My ass in April 2026. My stomach looks slimmer here than it actually is.
But, my lipoatrophy is more apparent again, dammit. My cheeks look similar to back in 2012, only this time I’m a damn sight heavier. This is a brutal consequence of losing weight at the age of 57. Why do you think there’s such a market for dermal fillers?! My neck, too, is noticeably more crepey and crumpled in some lighting. It’s not atrocious—but it’s not great either. I may start wearing scarves.
The late Nora Ephron has a valid point.
And there’s the dilemma. I’d like to lose more weight. In fact, I want to drop another 2-3″ off my stomach. I’d be OK with that. But what this might do to my cheeks and neck is horrifying me. A course of Sculptra would cost me £1500 and I’d need to do it every two years. As to the neck… no idea… a facelift is way outside my prospects as they stand. Gold Bond “crepe corrector” cream, I can tell you, does not fucking correct the crepes!! Not that it’ll stop me trying! 🙂
And please, don’t start me off about cellulite…………
So, who knows!! Suggestions welcome. I’m considering facial yoga.