Detox: The aftermath

Well February is here and how exactly did I go in Jan? I managed to stick to the detox (until it was broken in spectacular fashion at the end of the month). Yes, true to my predictions, it was socialising which did it for me. Several guests were visiting Melbourne for the first time and really, when showing someone around your beloved city, are you going to take them home and make them eat steamed greens with you? Or are you going to take them out for some damn fine food and suffer the consequences?

Yes, well, you surmise correctly. A couple of restaurant visits, a few gorgeous home cooked meals and detox went right out the window. And even after they'd left, I continued to dabble on the dark side - an ice cream here and nibble of chocolate there. But, and here is the weird thing, it just didn't taste right anymore. Maybe the joys of Trampoline's Hazelnut gelato had ruined Conneisseur for me and I do suspect that the hot days wrecked the chocolate I'd left in the cupboards, it seems to have fat bloom or sugar bloom or something. But they don't deliver their old kick and I feel unsatisfied and yet still bloated afterwards. Blah.

On the upside, my clothing seems to have shifted down a size and while welcome, is not really enough. When pregnant with the Plumbaby, I holed up on the couch with 10 (yes you read correctly) 10 kilos of Valrhona (they were about to stop selling it here in 5 k bags and they were the last two in the shop, I had to buy them okay??) and some of that indulgence is still distinctly evident. So I think I will continue on some kind of modified eating plan for the near future. But, I still find this all rather tedious. I like food. and I like cooking it, buying it, seeking out new forms and buying ridiculous numbers of cookbooks. There are seven food memoirs next to my bed, four magazines and twenty-one cookbooks. I was in a bookshop yesterday and picked up Diana Henry's Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food To Warm The Soul. It amazed me, every picture, every dish, was of such heart-warming, life-affirming food. I bit my lip and fought back the tears (this reaction honestly stunned me, I do not like to cry in public and certainly not in Dymocks!). I looked at the pictures and thought this is how to eat, this is what life is about. And yet.

The answer, Figman would say, is exercise more. But I'm just not that motivated. My (soon to be ex) personal trainer says that I am the third least enthusiastic person he has ever worked with! This is not a compliment. It is symbolic of my stubborn will and my relunctance to force something I detest on me, for my greater good.

Because, at heart, I am happy in my own skin. I am comfortable being me. And I don't feel motivated at all to change me for anyone else's approval. But the health issues are pertinent and I am going to have to push on until I've finished making babies and can just slide into middle age disgracefully and let myself go entirely. Ahem. Anyway, I think that the solution for me is to buy a cross-trainer (I didn't mind these at the gym and at least I can read while on one) and commit to a daily session. And I'm going to buy Roast Figs, Sugar Snow as soon as I can.