Age 41
Height 5ft 9in (1.75m)
Weight 11st (70kg)
I have always been slim. OK, I gained a bit after having three kids, but then I went on the only diet that really works. The divorce diet.
For months, the only thing that passed my lips were Marlboro Lights and, by the time the dust had settled, I disappeared if I turned sideways. Then, three and a half years ago, I met my second husband-to-be. After the initial adrenalin rush, happiness brought health. I quit smoking and, in 2004, ran a marathon and then I got pregnant and everything went a bit pear-shaped.
I lay awake at night worrying about the impact a new baby would have on my children. I panicked about my age and Down’s syndrome and whether we would all be able to squeeze into the house. The one thing I didn’t worry about was my weight. In fact, because I had had a difficult pregnancy with my twins, now 12, and the doctor had advised me to take it easy, I put my feet up and spent the next nine months eating for two — and even sometimes for three.
On my 41st birthday, I gave birth to seven and a half pounds of the three and a half stone that I had gained during pregnancy. When I came out of hospital, everyone assured me that the rest would “fall off” while I was breast-feeding. It didn’t.
After a couple of months I realised that my jelly rolls had no intention of “falling off” without a push. I couldn’t fit into the clothes I wore when I was six months’ pregnant and breast-feeding had increased my appetite to such gargantuan proportions that I was constantly starving.
I had very little energy because Velvet refused to sleep for longer than two hours at a time, day or night, so I lived on a diet of sugar and caffeine to keep myself awake. And my breasts were so enormous that I felt ridiculous whenever I tried to exercise. So I didn’t.
Being an Earth Mother
Instead of beating myself up about it I gave myself permission to play earth mother until I stopped breast-feeding, so, for at least six months, I hung around the house nibbling biscuits, feeding the baby and watching re-runs of 1970s American legal dramas while the kids were at school. It was blissful, though occasionally I made the mistake of buying celebrity gossip mags which, at the time, seemed to be plastered with pictures of stick insects at premieres, who had just given birth the night before.
The only real nuisance was that I couldn’t get any of my old jeans past my thighs. It was when I found myself contemplating a pair of XL trousers with an elasticated waistband that I knew the party was over. I was fed up with being a fattie. Fed up wearing DD bras. Fed up with LA Law. I wanted to get my life and my body back, so I began to wean the baby and I went on a diet.
Watching my weight
I was determined to lose weight and in the first week I lost 3lb. I was so pleased that I let my guard down slightly at the weekend and by Monday, I was back to where I started. The following week I lost the same 3lb again. And gained it back again at the weekend. The next week was the same and so was the next. I clearly wasn’t going to get anywhere on my own so I decided to join WeightWatchers.
When I wrote my book The Body Bible in 2004, it was the only weight-loss programme that the women I interviewed were unanimously positive about. However, I was too shy to go on my own so I asked my Spanish friend Concha if she would come with me. She had had a baby a few months before me and we spent a lot of time whingeing to each other about weight so I knew she would be keen.
We found a meeting near where we live in North London and set off in a state of nervous anticipation.
It was pretty much what we had imagined — a local hall with a queue of anxious women at one end and weighing scales at the other. The two elderly ladies who took our entry fee were not a terrific advert for a slimming programme but she-who-manned-the-scales certainly was. Possessing the kind of team-leader efficiency that I hadn’t encountered since boarding school, Angela lost 10st 14 years ago and has never eaten since. She encouraged me towards her weighing machine. Ouch. As is the case when you get weighed in a doctor’s surgery, at WeightWatchers you can expect to come out at least 5lb heavier than you do on your dodgy domestic weighing scales. She wrote down my goal figure (9st 13lb) and whispered to me that if I lost an impossible amount of weight — 11lb — she would make me a Gold Member. I live in hope.
What is the point?
Afterwards, at our new members’ chat, Angela explained how WeightWatchers works. The infamous “points system” measures food in terms of both calories and levels of saturated fat. The number of points you are allowed to eat each day is worked out according to your age, weight, and general levels of activity (I could eat 20) and to check that you are keeping within your limit you have to keep a record of absolutely everything that you consume.
If you have a special occasion coming up, you can bank points during the previous week so that you can have a blowout at the party, and you can eat absolutely anything as long as you stay within your limit. That flexibility meant that I could have a few squares of dark chocolate when I felt tired at 4 o’clock or a glass of wine with dinner to help me unwind. You can also earn points by exercising and each member is given a chart to help them work out how many points they can add to their daily total for mild, moderate or strenuous activity.
Getting back on the bike
Obviously, I needed to start exercising, so I got in touch with Lucy Sinclair at Newborn Fitness, a nationwide group of qualified instructors who specialise in “at home” postnatal fitness. I felt a bit embarrassed because my baby wasn’t exactly newborn — she was already on meat and two veg — but Lucy didn’t think that mattered.
When she came around we had a chat about what I felt I could realistically commit to. I had a gym membership, but getting there and back added an hour to any workout and it wasn’t feasible to do it regularly basis, so we decided to aim for a programme of exercises that I could do during the baby’s morning nap, plus lots of walking with her in the buggy.
After months in front of the telly, I was ready to haul my body back from the baby swamp and with Lucy’s programme and a scary weekly weigh-in at WeightWatchers, I had no excuse. And neither have you. Over the next few months you can follow my weight-loss diary and Lucy’s fitness programme with me, and if you have any fitness or diet tips, e-mail them to body&soul@thetimes.co.uk Good Luck!
Try Suzi's exercises now
Suzi Godson’s weight-loss diary returns in two weeks
