A few of the women made their way to the front. Ellie and I hung about at the back as usual.
‘Jane, I figured you’d run up there tonight,’ I said when she made no move. ‘Aren’t you curious to know how much you’ve crapped out this week?’
She shook her head. ‘I know the answer. It’s zero pounds. I stopped the pills.’
‘Good!’ Ellie and I said together.
‘You don’t need them. Tell her, Rob,’ Ellie said as he joined us.
‘Tell her what?’ He shrugged out of his heavy wool coat.
‘Tell Jane she doesn’t need diet pills.’
‘But I do need them,’ she said. ‘I just can’t stand the side effects any more. I’ll think of something else. What?’ she demanded when I rolled my eyes.
I did love her but sometimes I wanted to shake her. ‘Why don’t you try changing your mind set instead of your waistline? That seems healthier to me.’
‘What should I do, Katie? Tell me, please. Should I just give up and grow into a huge blob that Andy will eventually have to winch out of bed?’
‘God, you can be dramatic sometimes. You know you could stop starving yourself and going on these crazy diets without turning into a blob. You eat healthily most of the time. You do exercise. I just think we should all stop beating ourselves up because we’re not models.’
‘Katie’s right,’ said Ellie. ‘I’ve been thinking about what Pixie said. If I’m honest I’m tired of always worrying about my weight. These last couple of months have … I don’t know, they’ve made me see things a little differently.’
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it more important to be happy with ourselves than to constantly think we should be doing better? Every time I promise myself to do better, eat less, cut carbs, exercise more, that’s saying that I’m not good enough as I am. I don’t want to do that to myself any more.’
‘So you’re just going to give up, slob out and embrace your inner fattie?’ Jane asked, jutting out her chin. ‘That’s irresponsible. You have to take responsibility for your size, Katie … it’s lazy.’
Her judgement hurt. It wasn’t a surprising message – I’d heard it my whole life in one form or another, often as friendly advice, sometimes as a hostile declaration – but it still hurt. As if I hadn’t sadly wondered myself how it had come to this. A pound here, an extra few inches there. Over the years, gradual changes became the new norm. Who amongst us hadn’t grabbed handfuls of tummy just to feel its squidgy bulk? Or shimmied naked in the mirror to watch the seismic shifts happening below her waistline? I just didn’t want to let that define me any more.
‘I’m not saying I’m going to totally slob out, Jane. I’m just saying that while we may not be perfect, none of us is getting bigger, right? We packed these pounds on years ago, and we’re still punishing ourselves for them. You wouldn’t still blame Andy or the children for something they did years ago, would you?’
‘Of course not,’ Jane said.
‘Then why do you keep blaming yourself? We do eat a balanced diet and exercise and do all the things we’re supposed to. Our lifestyles are healthy now. We should respect ourselves as much as we do other people.’
The fight left Jane. ‘I do try.’
Ellie hugged her. ‘I know you do. But cutting three and a half thousand calories out of our diets just to lose a pound is hard! Katie is right. We need to stop beating ourselves up for what we aren’t doing and be happy with what we are.’
I drew myself up in my chair. ‘I’m quitting Slimming Zone. I joined to learn how to be healthier and to find support. Well, now I know how to be healthy, and you give me all the support I could ever want. And lately when we’re out together, I have so much fun that I don’t even think about my weight. I feel … well, not pretty, exactly. But normal. I don’t need to come to these meetings any more … and if you think about it, you might realise that you don’t either.’
I watched their faces for a reaction. Jane was the first to speak. ‘I can’t promise that I’ll ever love my fat, but I’m willing to try.’ Her hands reached for her knitting. ‘On one condition. The Curvy Girls Club has to continue. I’ve been happier these last few months than I have been for years.’
‘Me too,’ Ellie said. ‘And I do think we’re ready to go it alone. Together, I mean, but not here. What do you think, Jane?’
She smiled. ‘Well, it’ll be no fun coming here without you lot. And what Katie says is true … so yes, I’m ready. Besides, it’s not like we don’t all have scales at home.’
‘You’re missing the point a bit though, Jane,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to learn to be happy as we are instead of constantly worrying about how we’d like to be. That’s what I’m going to do from now on.’
Rob grinned at me. ‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ I said. ‘What about you? Want to quit with us?’
He shrugged. ‘I only come here for the women anyway. And I think it’s safe to say that the club will keep going, Jane, at least if demand is any factor. Take a guess at how many unique views you’ve had on the website and blog.’
We all shrugged. I had no idea what a good number might be.
‘You’re averaging nearly three hundred a week.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you’d better get some more events lined up. Your club is starting to get very popular.’
Two years earlier, when Nutritious pared back the whole company’s hours to four days a week, there was very little silver lining in that ominous thundercloud. But the company needed to save a lot of money or we wouldn’t have had any chance of keeping our jobs, and in the middle of a recession nobody felt much like arguing above a disgruntled whisper.
It didn’t actually have much of an impact on us salespeople, since most of our pay cheques came from commissions. So we just squeezed a bit more work into the remaining four days to keep the clients happy, and once again the company got more work out of us for less money.
Ellie survived a month of Jeremy Kyle before getting herself work at the café around the corner on her day off. She preferred getting paid to serve the down-and-outs to watching them for free on TV. Besides, she didn’t have sales commissions like the rest of us, so the cut in hours hurt.
I shared neither her urge to work nor her aversion to daytime telly, which, as the club business accelerated, was turning out to be a good thing. I started splitting my Tuesdays between the equally important tasks of napping, watching old films and club business. Invariably, though, I still had to make some calls from the office.
I’d just hung up with the river cruise people when Alex appeared beside my desk. ‘I’ve got something for you. Want to grab a coffee before my next meeting?’
Of course I did. Despite all my unsubtle hints, we hadn’t been to lunch again. Still, there was no doubt
