Eat less. Move more. Er, that’s it…

At the start of 2011 I made a rash declaration, that I would lose 25lbs by Easter. I failed.

Although I did lose 15lbs in the first few months of the year, it was as though I then plateaued, with no means or will to reach the summit. I felt healthier and happier, my clothes fitted better, what was the problem?

Then I had a health check at our local surgery, where they genuinely seemed quite impressed. My stats were much improved from the start of the year – more lean muscle mass, less fat, lower blood pressure, better aerobic capacity, and so on. But my cholesterol remained stubbornly high. If anything, it was higher than a couple of years ago. Apparently it’s not enough to put me into any kind of risk category, but it still concerned me. My Dad and indeed Rachel’s Dad both have a history of heart disease, and this figure of 7.1 was the slowly-increasing blot on an otherwise clean bill of health.

And all the while in recent times I’ve been feeling my age. First my Achilles and then this year my 42-year-old hip told me that any lingering ambitions towards running should be seriously reined in. My hamstrings and hips frequently ache, usually not much more than a dull background stiffness, but sometimes quite a bit more. Every time I see cosmetic ads about the visible signs of aging, I can only think that the invisible signs are the ones we need to worry about…

A couple of months ago, Rachel and a couple of friends decided they wanted to take collective charge of their own fitness and health. Rather than pouring money into clubs like Weight Watchers or Slimming World, they started using a free fitness/diet website. Multiple studies have indicated that the simple act of keeping an honest and comprehensive (admittedly two very crucial descriptors) food diary significantly improves weight loss over and above any other initiatives. This website and its very usable mobile version has kept them focused.

Record all your food (calories in) and your exercise/activity (calories out). And if you consistently eat fewer calories than your body burns off by just doing stuff, you will lose weight. Rachel and her friends meet every week for a chat and put a couple of pounds into their communal jar. They each know the others’ goals (weight loss, fitness etc) and as such can ‘reward’ themselves when they achieve their goals.

I’ve become a sort-of unofficial member of this club, and since October I’ve lost a further 10lbs. Portions have got smaller. I consciously park further from my office, so that I have a steep hill to climb when I go back to my car at the end of the day, and go to the gym two or three times each week. There’s no complicated diet plans involved, just eating less and moving more, most days. As 2o11 comes to an end, I have lost 25lbs, and it feels terrific. People have commented. I fasten my belts two notches tighter, shirts that hung loose are now tucked in, trousers that were uncomfortable now feel loose. I need some new clothes.

A visual history...

I’ll be honest, in the last week or so the inevitable Christmas period of gourmet family gatherings have taken their toll. I like cheese and spiced ham and bread sauce and cheese and roast potatoes and cheese, sometimes on the same plate with a large glass of three of wine. At the same time as this gluttony, I’ve been pretty inactive: the most challenging activity has been carrying piles of plates and food from the kitchen to the table.

But I’ve started this weight gain from a far lower base. I still weigh 2olbs lighter than 12 months ago, and I feel confident I can lose this additional Christmas weight. Importantly, I’ve put on weight through ‘abnormal’ behaviour, rather than the other way around. In 2011 my ‘normal’ lifestyle has evolved into something that includes regular exercise and smaller portions at mealtimes. Our everyday diet still includes cheese, eggs, meat and fish. It doesn’t feel like I’m depriving myself. I still enjoy a good blow-out dinner party, or a takeaway, or a few pints. I know that I have to make an effort to be healthy, because I’m worth it.

The visible signs of aging that matter aren’t wrinkles around the eyes. I can make some difference to them with a good diet, plenty of water, exercise and sleep. More important was my bulging waistline, the silent creep into larger sizes, a long-term acceptance that I can’t move like I used to.

Forgive me for shoe-horning the wonderful Matilda! musical into everything, but there are lines that make so much sense…

…just because you find that life’s not fair it doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it,
If you always take it on the chin and wear it nothing will change…

Don’t make a rubbish resolution next weekend that won’t make a difference. Last year I tried to be bold, and only partially succeeded. But because my resolution was about things that really matter, my health, well-being and self-esteem, I didn’t shrug off the failure.

 

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…until who knows where the trembling stops…

I’ve often reflected on the small things, the coincidences that may not seem important at the time, but can unutterably alter the future course of a life. Obviously this reflection tends to happen when I’m not quite as busy as I have been in recent weeks, as I’ve barely been able to keep up with this blog. I have themes and ideas backed up, if only I could work out when or how to commit time and energy to the writing.

When I was 13, my parents returned from a routine meeting with my teachers, with the suggestion from my music teacher that I might like to take up an instrument, for example, the French Horn. That conversation changed everything. I did take up the Horn, it did become a major part of my university social life, I do still play today, and I met Rachel in the university orchestra.

When I was 18 I failed to get into Oxford University. At a loss to know what to do next (I hadn’t failed very often up to that point) I ended up on an exchange scheme, on which I went to High School in Princeton in the US for a semester. There I truly blossomed, coming out of my intellectual, angst-ridden, insecure teenage self into a new environment where noone knew me except for who I was right there and then, with no baggage. This huge boost in confidence shaped me for my life at university and beyond.

Before I left for the US at the start of January, I was awaiting offers from other universities. My 2nd choice after Oxford was Durham, who wrote to say that they wanted to interview me (despite already having achieved 3 Grade ‘A’s). My 3rd choice was Exeter, who offered me a place without any interview. Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to schlep 450 miles round-trip to Durham, just days before leaving for America for 8 months. Almost on a petulant whim, I declined their ‘offer’ of an interview and accepted Exeter: job done.

In the first months of my final year at Exeter, I was feeling bad. I’d enjoyed and then suffered a very brief, fairly intense relationship (my first for 2 years), I was putting a good deal of pressure on myself in my studies, while Britain was entering a recession in which the job prospects for graduates were pretty bleak. And then my father’s mother died. She had been very ill following a stroke for a long time, but it still hit me a lot harder than I cared to admit. My housemates were all due to travel up to Oxford for a party with friends who had graduated the previous year, but because of the timing of the funeral, I didn’t go with them. I was in Exeter alone, and fed up. So I hosted a dinner party (my first) for friends from the orchestra. We ate and drank and went onto The Lemon Grove, semi-legendary and mostly tacky student night club on campus.

And it was there, on Saturday 23rd November 1991, 20 years ago last month, that I first met Rachel; on a night out that by all normal expectations would not have happened, but for the seemingly random event of my grandmother’s death. We talked and I walked her back to her rooms – she was a 1st Year. We drank coffee and laughed a long time about Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It wasn’t all completely plain sailing after that, but my life since that weekend has been different, in a very, very good way.

The title of this post was taken from the writings of Frederick Buechner, an American theologian.

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.

Every Christmas Rachel and I like to watch the Frank Capra / Jimmy Stewart classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Not because of the carol-singing at the end, not because Clarence gets his wings, but because of its wonderful life-affirming message. Good people who treat other people kindly matter. They do make a difference. The film goes through a lot of darkness before emerging into the light: don’t forget George Bailey tries to kill himself in the opening moments. There’s frustration and disappointment aplenty before the bell finally rings.

Some things, events, decisions in our lives barely register at the time but can have amazing consequences. Other things feel like the whole world has exploded or been ripped from under you (like almost everything when you’re 17), but in the end don’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, it all matters, but often in ways we cannot predict.

I try not to spend too much time reflecting on the what-might-have-beens, as I can’t change them now, and I’m glad of that. But I often remind myself to be grateful for the coincidences and chances that brought me here.

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Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty…

I fear I’m well past the tipping point of being annoying or a stuck record about how much I love the staged musical version of Roald Dahl’s timeless story Matilda. We saw it at the RSC in Stratford last Christmas and it wowed me completely. Now it’s wowing the London theatre crowds, has already won some awards and is lined up to win many more.

We went to see it again last weekend, and if anything I enjoyed it even more. The breathtaking surprise and excitement was of course slightly changed, but the exhiliration, joy and range of emotional reactions were (if anything) even more intense. We bought the soundtrack CD, and have listened to it pretty much every day since. Even my favourite podcasts have taken second place.

It seems that my reactions to Tim Minchin’s amazing songs, combined with the memories of the performance, are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. More than any film, this show triggers emotional responses in me: I laugh at Bertie Carvel’s astonishing Miss Trunchbull, I weep on cue to the opening bars of “When I Grow Up”, I try desperately to keep up with the wordplay in “The School Song” and “The Smell of Rebellion”. This reaction (I’d go again next week if I could) has been threatening to take over. I sing the songs out loud / under my breath at work.

Right now I can’t imagine not seeing it again, and it made me think last night that I would need to rewrite my entire selection for my Desert Island Discs… But I managed to extract myself from that thorny problem. Of course, I would make Matilda my luxury; a filmed version of the live performance with the original cast. This would make my life on the island much more bearable, as it would remind me of two of the best experiences I have had with my family, of the joy and innocence and wonder and naughtiness of being a child, of the importance of nurturing and inspiring children, and of the excitement and joy I share with my children as we all sing along to and re-enact the whole drama…

I’d love to post the whole show here, but as I’m urging you to see it, I am torn in not wanting to reveal spoilers, jokes and surprises. The opening song “Miracle” satirises the attitudes of many parents towards their own ‘miracle’ children, while at the same time wholly celebrating the wondrous miracle that life and children represent. And it throws us headlong into the intricate and brilliant wordplay of Tim Minchin and Roald Dahl, which keeps coming back, and is a constant source of pleasure throughout the show…

One can hardly move for beauty and brilliance these days,
It seems that there are millions of these one-in-a-millions these days.
“Specialness” seems de rigeur,
Above-average is average, go figeur.
Is it some modern miracle of calculus that such frequent miracles
don’t render each one unmiraculous?

Matilda’s first song is at once heart-rending and joyous. Despite the (mostly comic) horrors of her family life, she is defiant and positive…

We’re told we have to do what we’re told, but surely sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty…

And then we meet The Trunchbull, English Hammer-throwing Champion (1969).

If you want to throw the hammer for your country you have to stay inside the circle all the time.
And if you want to make the team, you don’t need happiness or self-esteem,
You just need to keep your feet inside the line.

Matilda’s parents are brilliantly realised by Josie Walker and Paul Kaye, who both get their own showpiece songs. Mrs Wormwood rebuffs the timid Miss Honey’s earnest intentions about Matilda’s academic talents…

What you know matters less than the volume with which what you don’t know’s expressed.
Content has never been less important, so you have got to be
LOUD …
…it really doesn’t matter if you don’t know nowt, as long as you don’t know it with a bit of clout.

…while Mr Wormwood, in a terrific ‘interval announcement’, celebrates his much-loved “Telly” and rejects Matilda’s books…

Jane Austen, in the compostin’!

The heart of the musical for me is the start of the second half, with the beautiful “When I Grow Up”, whose simple melodies and gorgeous words are complemented by the children swinging across the stage and over the audience.

When I grow up I will eat sweets every day on the way to work and I will go to bed late every night.
And I will wake up when the sun comes up and I will watch cartoons until my eyes go square
And I won’t care ‘cos I’ll be all grown up.

...I will be strong enough to carry all the heavy things you have to haul around with you when you're a grown-up...

I’ll avoid most of the rest of the second half, as the action and surprises are too important to give away. But as it all builds towards a triumphant ending, the oppressed children revolt against The Trunchbull in a riotous finale…

We’ll find out where the chalk is stored and draw rude pictures on the board!
It’s not insulting, we’re revolting!

I’ll try not to keep going on about how fabulous this show is. But I can scarcely remember having such a reaction to anything in a long, long time.

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