The Dark Hours

There is a time of day that I have come to dread.

The hours between I arrive home at 5pm and when the boyfriend arrives home at 7.30pm.
No this is not some sap about how I can’t bear to be in the house without him (to be honest I’m gagging for a weekend on my own in the house, doesn’t he have any plans to go away somewhere?!) but is instead about my other love.

Food.

I get dinner on the go to be more or less ready when the boyfriend comes in from work. This is less a picture of the domesticated housewife having dinner on the table when her man comes home and more about me getting the green light to shovel.

7.30pm is a long way away from lunch time.

I’ve tried to put things in place. My daily yoghurt I now have about 3.30pm, instead of with the rest of my lunch, but the second I step through the door at 5pm my stomach starts whinging,

“You should feed me now.”

No stomach. We must wait for 2 and a half hours.

“But I’m huuuuuuuuuuungryyyyyyyyyyy”

And so this battle rages on through those long dark hours. Sometimes I win and I can stave him off until the boyfriend comes through the door and is greeted by me saying “Hello yes lovely you’re here, aren’t you great, now change because I need to eat.” And other times I fall victim to his wily ways. “I’ll just have a nibble of this” I’ll tell myself, before devouring a block of cheese/packet of crisps/bar of chocolate.

And the stomach is satisfied. So satisfied that he appears to have grown to twice his acceptable size.

So I have officially entered battle with my stomach. During the day I can keep him at bay. I have a routine, I stick to it and I eat pretty well, but every night I enter the danger zone, when the fighting is at its most severe.

I am trying to develop coping strategies as I feel it’s all just a case of keeping busy.

If I go to the gym after work that’s a good hour or so taken care of. I can come in and start the dinner and once that’s on the go the stomach quietens down in eager anticipation of the meal ahead.


But let’s face it, that ‘if’ at the beginning of the sentence is a really big ‘if’ and any excuse I can find not to go to the gym I will take. “Oh sorry the clouds are in the wrong formation today, I couldn’t possibly go and sweat in a room full of strangers.”

And the stomach knows that it has won that battle.

So new coping strategies are in order and I have turned to who I hope will be my General in this long and lonely war.

Barbara Currie.

She of the yoga fame. I have dusted her off and stuck her in the dvd player. This is officially the new plan. If I cannot drag myself out of the house and walk the 10 minutes down the road to the gym (yes I really am that lazy) then I will push back the sofas, throw a blanket on the floor and I will try and stretch and bend my body into terrifying shapes for an hour or so.

And so far General Currie and I are doing well. Yesterday, not a morsel touched my lips from lunchtime until dinner time and yes I know we shouldn’t starve ourselves and we should eat little and often but I’m afraid I was not born with the power of willpower. My brain does not understand the notion of ‘little and often’ when it comes to food, or anything in life. I’m an all or nothing girl which is why I fling myself head first into projects, becoming all consumed by them and forgetting everything that went before. Life would be great if I could have just one crisp, or half the bag, but it is not to be for me. The bag must remain unopened or all the contents will be poured into my stomach in record time.

So off I trudge into battle once more with a leotarded pensioner by my side. I put my trust in her and if she fails me I have a back up keeping busy strategy....

Housework.