Ariane Sherine's Blog, page 17

The Oatcake Diet

The end is nigh! Not for mankind (hopefully), but for my infernal dratted diet. After nearly four months of oatcakes and houmous, I can't wait to start eating normally again (internal monologue: "That's the way you put it all back on, Ariane").

Anyhow: back on August 1st, I weighed ten stone, and set myself a target weight of eight stone, to be reached by October 25th. Shedding 20% of my body weight was harder than I'd anticipated, and the goal proved harder to meet than Barack Obama.

So I redoubled my efforts: fast forward four weeks, and I'm almost at my target weight. The weight loss has been so gradual, I haven't been able to see any kind of transformation in the mirror, but I opened the door to a friend who hadn't seen me since July, and she exclaimed, "Hello - and what have you done with the rest of you?!"

I'd like to claim that I've discovered some kind of marketable, saleable weight loss solution which will rake in the pounds, leaving me able to buy my dream house in Regent's Park. Alas, my newfound thinness is due to a combination of vanity, folly and eating a diet no one else would ever want to eat, so I can safely say that this isn't the case.

Nevertheless, I shall share my diet plan with you. If anyone actually tries it I will be amazed. You will lose weight on it - if I can, anyone can - but it's not much fun. I shall call it 'The Oatcake Diet'. Here goes:

THE OATCAKE DIET

10am: Two oatcakes. (You know, those dry cracker-like spheres made from oats and palm oil.)

11am: One date. (Nothing to do with romance, but a big dried fruit from the Middle East. I ate the variety called 'Medjool', because they're far bigger and nicer than standard dates.)

12 noon: Two more oatcakes. (A pattern emerges.)

1pm: A heaped tablespoon of houmous. (Made from chickpeas, looks like sick. Yum.)

2pm: Two more oatcakes. (If you try this diet, you will never want to see another oatcake again.)

3pm: One boiled egg (either hard-boiled or runny, it doesn't matter).

4pm: Can you guess? Yes, it's two more oatcakes!

5pm: One Medjool date. (Marks & Spencer sell them in fancy cupcake cases for an extortionate amount. I didn't buy them from Marks & Spencer.)

6pm: One small apple.

7pm: A proper meal! Well, a piece of steamed fish, lots of vegetables (carrots, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, etc) and a small amount of good carbs (either sweet potato, wholewheat pasta or bulgur wheat). I didn't eat anything after 7.30pm.

DRINKS

Only water (and herbal tea, but mostly water).

EXERCISE

If you have a small baby, strap it to your front in a carrier and walk around with it for at least an hour a day. If you don't have a small baby, you can use a heavy doll but you may get some funny looks.

And that's how I did it. Next Sunday, I shall put up some before and after pictures to prove that the feet on the photos of scales have indeed been mine, and that I wasn't strategically holding onto a nearby object while standing on them. See you then, and do let me know if you decide to try the Oatcake Diet. Anyone? No one?

Baby Love

If you ever need proof of human kindness, spend a day outdoors with a baby. The baby is basically a conduit to all the goodwill in existence. If you're carrying it on your front in a carrier, people immediately give up their seats on buses for you, or in bus shelters, or on trains. If you're pushing it in a pram, they help lift the pram on and off public transport, give you their seat so you can sit near the baby, move out of the way for you.

Every time you go out, a stranger will strike up a conversation with you. "How old is she?" (Or 'he', if you've dressed her in blue or neutral colours.) "What's her name? Hasn't she got a lot of hair? Is she sleeping through the night? Does she have any teeth yet? What a smiley little thing." They'll coo at her, laugh at her, stroke her cheeks and hair, point her out to their friends. It's as though the baby gives them a reason to connect with you.

This is particularly prevalent with older ladies, perhaps women whose children have grown up but have yet to have grandchildren. I came across this babygro:



And though it's perhaps not the most classy pun, it's definitely true.

Last week, I was waiting at a bus stop and Lily was crying, so I took her out of the pram. Then the bus pulled up, so I was about to put her back in the pram, when the middle-aged woman next to me kindly said, "Don't do that - you take her on and I'll wheel your pram on for you." So I got on while holding Lily, and was immediately offered a seat at the front, while the nice lady held my pram at the back the whole way (it was laden down with shopping bags) and gave Lily a cuddle before we got off.

I wasn't expecting this at all when I was pregnant, but when you have a baby, it feels like the whole world's your friend. It's quite wonderful, and ample compensation for the sleepless nights. It's like you've somehow connected yourself to the rest of the human race - everyone's either had a baby, or knows someone who has one - and people suddenly want to be around you both. I used to think people in London weren't friendly or warm, but now I know that's not the case at all. At least, it isn't when you have a baby.

Feet First

I used to have tiny feet. They were size 3, and looked like little mouse paws. They weren't much bigger than Lily's. I liked them: they were feminine and dainty, even if they were so small I frequently fell over.

Then I put on five stone during pregnancy, and my feet grew too. They swelled up and morphed into giant hippo feet, till I could no longer get into any of my shoes and had to wear flip-flops everywhere.

"It's just water retention," friends and midwives reassured me. "They'll go back to their original size after you give birth."

Relieved, I plodded around in the flip-flops, certain they were only temporary. After giving birth, I waited for my feet to shrink, gazing hopefully at the swollen arches and bulbous toes. But they didn't.

When, two months after the birth, I was invited to a party on a rainy day, I knew flip-flops weren't appropriate. My feet were approximately twice the size of all my old shoes, so I went out to buy some new ones.

I reached the shop and found a pair of suitable shoes. "Would you like me to get those for you in your size?" the shop assistant asked.

"That'd be great," I replied. But what on earth was my size? "I'll try a size four," I said hopefully.

The fours came. I couldn't even get the tops of my feet into them.

"A size five?" I guessed.

The fives came. This time I could wedge the tops of my feet in, but my heels wouldn't fit inside.

"Sorry, I think I need a six," I apologised.

When the sixes came, I could just about get them on, but they were too tight.

And so, from a lifelong starting point of size three, I ended up taking a size seven. "How is that even possible?!" I hear you ask. (You may not be asking this at all. You may be thinking, "When is this woman going to stop banging on about her feet?!" (Not for a while yet, sorry.))

As I'm only five foot two, having huge feet felt all masculine and wrong. I tried to console myself with the thought "Now I can buy lots of new shoes,", but my brain retorted, "Yeah, transvestite-size shoes! Maybe you should get your feet bound instead?"

I did some research, and found a site which said (from memory): "Ligaments in your feet can often stretch during pregnancy, and if they haven't shrunk two months after giving birth, your feet will never go back to their original size."

So I went out and bought two pairs of black knee-high boots, feeling like Bigfoot. They were quite stylish, but they looked long and clompy on me. Knowing I would never again fit into my old dainty little shoes, I sold them all on eBay, feeling wistful and sad.

I clomped around in the boots for a few months, and all that walking might have contributed to my losing nearly three stone. During that time, a funny thing happened: the boots started to feel a bit loose.

Last week, I had a work meeting for which I didn't think boots were appropriate, so I went out to buy some court shoes. I found some I liked, then sighed to a sales assistant, "Could I have these in size seven, please?"

The shoes arrived, and I put them on... only to realise that my feet were slipping out of the heels as I walked.

"Could I try a six?" I asked.

The size sixes were tighter, but still a bit slippy.

"Maybe I'm a five?" I guessed.

Sadly, this story isn't heading back to "and then I tried size three, and like Cinderella, they fit!"

I was indeed a size five. I'm now left with lots of surplus size seven shoes, and a reluctance to buy any more shoes, in case my feet shrink further as my body does. I have no idea why my feet are being so erratic, but found this on a pregnancy site:

"Can my shoe size change permanently? The short answer is 'yes'. There are so many changes the body undergoes during pregnancy that it becomes easy to ignore the changes in your feet. Most women’s feet grow at least a half-size during the second half of pregnancy. After childbirth, it can take up to six months for changes in your feet to reverse themselves and for your feet to return to their normal size and shape. However, foot enlargement caused by looser ligaments can be permanent, and at least 15% of women permanently need a larger shoe."

So there you have it. Still, gigantic feet or no gigantic feet, it was all worth it:

Happy Snaps

My friend Graham is the best photographer I've ever met in real life, and I've met a few. He also happens to be my best mate, but that's an academic fact you shouldn't take into consideration when appraising my opinion. Just look at this beautiful photo:


(This also happens to be my daughter, but that's another academic fact you shouldn't take into consideration.)

Graham came down to London this weekend to take some photos of Lily. She turned six months last Tuesday, so I thought it would be nice to document her half-birthday. Graham made Lily feel so relaxed, she even showed him her favourite toy:


And, even though I haven't been feeling great about my baby weight, he made me feel so relaxed I was happy for him to take this photo:


I think he should turn professional, but he thinks I'm just saying that because I'm his friend. So if you agree, do leave a comment below.

Having Your Cake (And Eating It)

I spent Saturday making a cake. It was a birthday cake for a friend - she was having a dinner that night, and had invited myself and all her other friends along to celebrate with her. As she had sent us all an email, I emailed all the other guests and asked if anyone else had planned a surprise cake. One of her friends replied, saying "I'm making a carrot cake, but it's not a surprise, so if you make one, it'll surprise her."

I set to work making the best Victoria sponge I could think of. I followed this recipe, which promised "you can't go wrong" in the very first line of text, then filled the cake with rings of raspberries, jam and whipped cream. From the side, it looked like this:



I then iced the top, having created a 'guide' first and pricked the letters onto the cake through a piece of baking parchment. I slid the cake carefully into a box, placed a candle and matches inside, and set off for the restaurant, feeling pleased with myself. Once there, I surreptitiously asked the staff if they could bring the cake in after the main course.

An hour after the dinner started, the girl who was making the other cake arrived, dishevelled and apologetic, clutching a huge misshapen cake tin covered in foil. She put the cake down on the floor with a thud, saying that she thought the cake was too dry. I'm ashamed to admit that I felt a flicker of pleasure that my cake had turned out so well in comparison.

After the main course, we all sang happy birthday as the waitress brought in my cake with the candle sparkling on top. I was pleased that my friend said how lovely it looked. Then the other girl unveiled her cake, saying self-deprecatingly that it was terrible. It thudded down on the table with a splat, as a load of icing oozed out of the bottom. The whole table burst out laughing at the discrepancy between the two cakes.

You can't really see how funny the second cake looked in this photo:



Everyone praised the beauty of my cake, and made fun of the other one. But then - then, as the cakes were served up - I was jolted embarrassingly back down to earth.

Because my cake was dry. It was edible, just, but it certainly wasn't light and fluffy as the recipe had suggested. The raspberries were sour, there wasn't enough cream, and the whole thing was a huge disappointment, a bitter triumph of style over substance.

And the other cake? It was delicious. Moist, juicy, succulent and moreish. What it lacked in appearance, it more than made up for in taste. I could have eaten it all day, and asked for the recipe.

I'm not entirely sure what the moral of this story is. Something to do with "pride before a fall", or "don't judge a book by its cover", perhaps. Or that schadenfreude isn't appealing; or that sometimes, when you least expect them to, things that seem disappointing can surprise you.

Or perhaps it's that you should never trust a recipe that says "you can't go wrong". Because making a Victoria sponge isn't a piece of cake.

Girls Girls Girls

Over the past week, I have been looking at photos of very attractive women. The most attractive women I can find, in fact. Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Editions, FHM.com, AskMen.com, etc. Not overly thin women, just realistically curvy, sexy celebrities.

No, I haven't suddenly become a massive lesbian (though I can definitely see what lesbians see in women). Nor do I like men's magazines - I once described the genre as "If it were an animal, it would be a slobbering, lecherous dog with virulent rabies, just crying out to be put down."

I stand by that. So why the sudden interest in hot scantily-clad women?



It's simple: I have now been dieting for nearly six months, and as I get closer to my target weight, my motivation is waning. Dieting is very dull (and reading about it is probably quite dull too, hence the compensatory picture of Jessica Alba) and I would rather eat chocolate cake instead. However, I have a big bag of size 8 (US size 4) clothes in my wardrobe which I'd also very much like to get back into. If I can't, I'll have to buy new clothes, which seems a waste. Plus I look much better slimmer.

So, my theory is that if I bombard my brain cells with pictures of slim-but-curvy women I'd like to look like, I'll feel compelled to stick to the diet. I'm quite enjoying it...

My other motivational tool is this dress, which I wore on my first date with my boyfriend (photo taken in September 2009):



I dream of getting back into it for his birthday party at the end of November. Will it happen? I'll leave you on tenterhooks...

The Glamour

This was my To Do list for yesterday:

- Clean poo from babygros
- Iron [my boyfriend's] shirts
- Sweep and mop floors
- Make lemon drizzle cake
- Put washing away
- Take bins out
- Sort out wires and leads basket
- Put [my boyfriend's] beer in fridge
- Fry chicken in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, saute veg and mash sweet potato

It's all very surprising, as I never thought I'd be remotely interested in domesticity. Back in 2003, a friend memorably said to me, "Ariane, I'd like you so much more if you didn't leave all your clothes on the floor and eat pasta out of the pan", but I didn't see what was so wrong with doing those things. I used to adhere to the following homemaking rules:

CLOTHES

- If it smells, spray it with Comfort Refresh (Britain's answer to Febreze)
- If it really smells, put it in the laundry basket and keep it there until you decide you want to wear it again (at which point, grudgingly wash it)
- Never iron anything, just shake and pull it and hope it uncreases

FOOD

- Why use a plate when a pan will do? It saves on washing up
- Don't bother cooking when you can eat stuff out of a packet/microwave a ready meal
- If you do cook, use the most basic ingredients (cook pasta, bung sauce from a jar on it)

HOUSE

- If the floor gets dirty, use one wet wipe to clean all of it
- Don't change your sheets unless (a) they smell and (b) someone is coming round
- When the tiles in your bathroom go mouldy, shrug and leave the mould to spread

Contrast this with today, when I don't even like it if there's dust between the banisters or dirt on the skirting boards. I source out new recipes to cook, enjoy having friends round for dinner, and scrub the house spotless beforehand.

What's changed? I think it's a combination of age and circumstance. When I was in my twenties and single, I could think of nothing more boring than cleaning my tiny flat (and, to be fair, most of my flatmates were equally grubby). I spent most of my time either writing or out, didn't have many friends round, and cleaning and cooking seemed like a colossal waste of time.

But now I'm older, with a man and baby (two different people), I actively enjoy homemaking. I don't find it dull in the least. My younger self would no doubt scoff at my soppiness; and yes, there are days when I wish I could lie in bed all day (though perhaps not in smelly sheets).

Despite this, it's an unglamorous truth that I'm very contented these days. Yes, even when I'm wringing the poo out of babygros.

Four Of The Best Type Os

There's nothing like a good tpyo - I mean, a good typo - to cheer people up. Over the past few weeks, there seem to have been dozens doing the rounds, so here's a selection.

From The Guardian:

Bounty hunter Sam McKade is the new breed of hero. Tall? Undoubtedly. Handsome and chiselled? For sure. Incontinent? Erm – possibly. Author Susan Andersen was horrified to discover an unfortunate typo in the ebook edition of her new novel Baby, I'm Yours, which takes the novel out of the romance category and into something rather darker.

"I apologise to anyone who bought my on-sale ebook of Baby, I'm Yours and read on page 293: 'He stiffened for a moment but then she felt his muscles loosen as he shitted on the ground'," says Andersen. "Shifted - he SHIFTED! I just cringe when I think of the readers who have read this..."

From the comments on this article, here's a hilarious typo (if it's true).

Also from the comments, an excerpt from The Guardian's 'Corrections and Clarifications' column:

We misspelled the word misspelled twice, as mispelled, in the Corrections and clarifications column on September 26, page 30.

And lastly, here's one that's been doing the rounds on Twitter (see larger version here):



I love that they printed and distributed the leaflet without realising...

My Body Pal

I've lost another pound, and next week I'm aiming to be in the "8 stone something" bracket! I can't wait. I have a massive bag of size 8 clothes (that's size 4 if you're in the US) which I'm really looking forward to getting back into. I think it's going to take until the end of the year to reach my target weight of 8 stone though.

I've found two things helpful for weight loss in the past week. The first is a free iPhone app called My Fitness Pal, where you can list everything you're eating, track your weight and see the exact number of calories/fat/protein/carbs etc you've consumed. (If you're in the US, the app Fit Day does the same with US ingredients.) If you're completely honest about listing your food intake, you might find - as I did - that you're eating a bit more than you need to, and with this app it's easy to adjust your diet accordingly.

The other interesting thing I discovered was a site called MyBodyGallery.com. Unfortunately, when I went there this morning it appeared to have been hacked, but in its unhacked state it's basically a reassuring collection of photos. You input your height and weight, and it comes up with pictures of real women whose bodies fall into the same category. I put in '120lbs' and '5'2"', and was surprised to see that the women in the photos didn't look remotely overweight. I think it's hard to be subjective about your own weight, so this made me feel a lot better.

I barely worried about my weight at all for the first 30 years of my life, so it's odd focusing on it like this. But when I weighed over 11 stone (as I did after Lily was born) I found it hard to breathe, let alone walk around easily. Being lighter means I have far more energy - which I need to carry this little thing around:

Bargain! Buy Now!

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have something for an eye for a bargain, an undeniably handy skill in a credit crunch. Take, for instance, this simple and fetchingly plimsoll-like pair of shoes, which my delightful friend Wily Catkins is hand-modelling here:


Once, they were a whopping £70 - now, they're reduced to a mere £85!


And if that isn't enough of a bargain for you, I've found you a special deal on face mask sachets at Superdrug - 97p for one, but if you buy two, you only have to pay £3.99!


Truly, I am the new Robert Peston.

In other news, I have written a new Guardian piece on lying (and that's no lie):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009...

and also a Cif piece on a rather wry tale:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...

However, I am considering giving up writing to become an expert on hot deals. Next week, I hope to bring you a brassiere slashed from £18 to £37. Now, that's what I call a bragain!