Ariane Sherine's Blog, page 8

A diary entry from 2011

I was going through some old diaries and found this entry from when Lily was around ten weeks old. I was still suffering from serious mental health issues, and remember that the guilt and shame from this incident were terrible. I wish I could go back to then, put my arms around my 31-year-old self and get her some help.

Every new mum has, at some stage, dropped her baby or had them fall out of a sling or off a sofa, bed or high chair. If you know a new mother, please be kind to her, because a lot of new mums struggle just like this.


Weight: 11st 12.2lbs/166.2lbs/75.4kg  Waist: 35"

Try, try again - and this time, succeed

Going on holiday while sticking to a diet is like going to a pop concert while wearing earplugs: you're never going to enjoy yourself. So at Center Parcs, I visited a restaurant called The Pancake House, sat outside in the sunshine and ate glorious stacks of American pancakes topped with whipped cream, toffee sauce and chocolate.

Now I'm back home and am determined to get back on the wagon (not the Wagon Wheel). Blogging about diets is incredibly dull (sorry), so I'm literally just going to put my weight and waist size at the end of posts. I turn 38 a month tomorrow and would really like to have made some inroads into the diet before then.

When I went swimming at Center Parcs, I felt quite reassured by the fact that most women in the pool were at least a size 16. I'm definitely not the only one who struggles with my weight. 16 is the average UK clothes size, so no one's pointing at me and shouting 'Wow, look at the size of that woman!'

That said, I'm going to make the diet work this time.

Weight: 11st 10.5lbs; 164.5lbs; 74.6kg  Waist measurement: 34"

Goodbye Center Parcs (we'll miss you)

Center Parcs was so beautiful. Riding through a forest is incredibly calming (even on a wobbly tricycle!) and so is swimming. I hadn't done either for years, but I'm thinking of joining the gym back home so I can swim a few lengths of the pool after work each day.

Lily was in her element - she managed to fit 17 activities into the four days, including a pony ride, hair braiding and loads of outdoor activities! We've already booked our next Center Parcs holiday, and are looking forward to it already.

A selfie with a duck

I just saw the hilarious sight of a girl in her late teens trying to take a selfie with a duck. The duck wasn't having any of it! It was resolutely unimpressed, and kept quacking indignantly and running off, leaving the desperate girl to chase after it, pouting and brandishing her phone.

This would never have happened 20 years ago...

Holiday: Day 2

On Day 2 of our holiday, the seven-year-old had her face painted. The face painter gave her a folder full of different designs, and asked her to choose one.

'Ooh... the flowers or the princess or the butterfly! I can't decide,' she agonised.

Finally, she settled on the flowers.

'That's my favourite, I'm glad you chose that one,' said the face painter, who clearly said that to every child.

For the rest of the day, whenever anyone commented on her face paint, she beamed: 'The face painter said this was her favourite design!'

I love little kids. They believe everything, and it's adorable.

Holiday: Day 1

Day 1 of our holiday started with a train ride. The seven-year-old asked if we could find out how old a computer program thought we were on how-old.net. The program must have been a bit broken, as it thought she was older than me!




When we got off the train, the wildlife was amazing. We saw deer, a peacock and giant ducks (though they ran away when we tried to feed them). 

We then went cycling, though the seven-year-old can't ride a bike without stabilisers so she had to ride a tiny little bike with them - and, mortifyingly, I've FORGOTTEN how to ride a bike! (The old saying isn't true.) In my defence, it's been about 30 years since I've ridden one... so I rode around on a tricycle! I dread to think how ridiculous I must have looked, but it was great fun.

We went to play mini-golf, and then went to an amazing swimming pool with a steep water slide. The seven-year-old was scared, so I went down the slide first to catch her... and oh, my stomach flew up into my chest! Whoomph. I was lucky the water didn't fly up my nose when I landed, because I remember from years ago that the burning sensation is horrible. But the seven-year-old loved the water slide and wanted to go again and again!

She didn't want to get out of the pool after an hour, so I teased her:

Seven-year-old: I’m staying here forever!

Me: Your fingers will go all pruney

Her: So?

Me: They never turn back, and then the pruniness spreads to the rest of you

Her (horrified): No!

Me: Yeah. How do you think old people get old?

Seven-year-old leaps out of pool

After that, we went to a cafe for dinner, though the seven-year-old complained that the chips were 'too salty and peppery'. She wasn't complaining about the chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream for dessert, though! I had an elderflower and mint mocktail, which was delicious.





All in all, a ten-out-of-ten day.

Holiday! Celebrate!

It's half-term and I'm spending EIGHT DAYS with my lovely girl. That's eight days in which I won't have to miss her and wonder how she is. I've got a whole host of treats lined up for her, including a pony ride and a lesson full of science experiments. She's also going to come in to work with me on one of the days.

She's obsessed with Harry Potter at the moment, and has asked to go to Harry Potter World, but she hasn't seen the films yet: "Daddy says they're too scary, so can I watch them at yours instead?" (One of the few benefits of having separated parents is the ability to appeal to them separately!)

She's also dyed her hair with some coloured pens her friend gave her. Here's the result:


I love her so very much.

She's coming home, she's coming home...

My little girl is coming home today. Usually she comes home on a Friday and I listen to 'Friday I'm In Love' as my theme tune, but as it's a Sunday I'm singing 'She's coming home, she's coming home, she's coming, Lily's coming home!'

Here she is climbing up a door frame:



I always feel a bit depressed and bereft when she's not with me, so the knowledge that she'll be here in under six hours is cheering me up greatly. I'm going to clean the house and make it lovely for her, as well as charging her iPad.

Speaking of her iPad, someone taught her to do screenshots on it, and she takes about a thousand a week of her little girly iPad games! Because of iCloud, these all come up on my phone. Here are some examples:




I probably won't be fussed about this when she gets the Oscar for Best Cinematography, but for now, I have a lot of deleting to do.

Three doughnuts and a chocolate cupcake

Hello people of the internet,

I've had a special request from reader @alexbloor to talk more about the hypnosis. Given that my last two blogs were about the hypnosis, I promise never to talk about it again until I've reached my goal weight, but here goes...

I decided to try hypnosis because Charlie Brooker told me it helped him quit smoking. (You can read all about this in my book about therapy, Talk Yourself Better, out on 25th October.) Now, I was sceptical about hypnosis, but I have a lot of faith in Charlie - and if it helped him, I thought, it might just help me too, even though our problems are different.

So I googled 'does hypnosis help weight loss?' and came across a newspaper article about a woman who had lost five stone by listening to a £20 hypnosis app called Easy Loss. (I promise I'm not being paid to promote this app!). I started listening to this app on Wednesday morning, three days ago. This day was going to be a write-off diet day, because I was going out with the team at work. My plan was to eat fish and chips and a chocolate dessert.

Because it was a write-off diet day, I started it by eating three doughnuts and a chocolate cornflake cupcake for breakfast. I am not proud of this fact. It's appalling. But this alone should explain why I need to diet - I'm completely out of control around food.

I'm lucky enough to work in a relaxed environment where I can listen to my own music through headphones, so I listened to the Easy Loss app all morning at work. The American man on the recording has the most incredible voice - soft and rich and soothing - but I wasn't entirely convinced it would work. He was telling me that, instead of craving carbohydrates, I would just want to eat fruit and vegetables. I thought 'yeah yeah, whatever'.

But we went out for lunch at Dean Street Townhouse, and weirdly, I realised that I no longer wanted to eat the fish and chips or chocolate cake. I ordered the pea and mint soup, and the tomato salad. Everyone around me was eating the bread on the table, with soft salted butter, and ordinarily I would have been shovelling it into my face, but I didn't. I just sat there serenely, drinking my water.

When I was asked if I wanted some bread, I said something like 'No thanks, I don't eat bread anymore'. The same thing happened with dessert. It was very confusing, but somehow, I no longer craved these things.

I ate fruit for dinner. When I woke up, I weighed myself, and predictably, I weighed more than I had the day before (three doughnuts and a chocolate cornflake cupcake will do that to you).

Feeling miserable, I went to work. It was a busy day, and I listened to the recordings again at my desk. I realised I wasn't thinking about food much - it was like an afterthought, something I knew existed, but I didn't crave it like I did usually. I ate four diet sachets during the day, roughly 900 calories.

Now the weird thing is, I weighed myself again the next morning (aka today) - and I'd lost a whopping 3.8lbs and an inch off my waist in one day!

Sceptics might say 'oh, your scales are broken' or 'it's water weight' or 'you'll weigh more again tomorrow'. Fine.

I don't really care what the loss is down to - I'm just incredibly motivated by the fact that I lost almost 4lbs and one inch in a day! It spurs me on to keep listening to the recordings.

Like I say, I won't talk about this again until I've lost all the weight, but I'm super-happy with this preliminary loss - and I didn't have to pay an old man to swing a pocket watch in my face, either. Result.

The hypnosis is working

Guys, call me crazy but I went out for lunch yesterday with the team at work after listening to my weight loss hypnosis recordings all morning - and it was incredible.

There was the most delicious-looking loaf of bread on the table, more than enough for all of us, and soft salted butter. It looked amazing, but my mind just said 'I do not eat bread anymore'.

I had vegetable soup and a salad, and I didn't crave the bread at all.

Then I was asked if I wanted a dessert, and I said, parroting the recording: 'I do not eat dessert anymore'.

I didn't even want dessert. Some delectable-looking chocolate cake arrived, and everyone tucked in, but I sat there serenely drinking green tea.

I didn't worry, as I generally do, that I should be joining in with everyone else - that somehow I was lacking team spirit. I just enjoyed my soup, salad, water and tea and felt happy that at last I'd found a weight loss strategy that seems to work.

I've got four stone to lose, but I really think I can do it this time.