An Irishman's Diet/Week three: Can the group effort ease the burden?
Joined a men-only self-help we're-going-to-help-you- shed-the-pounds club. I arrive on time. The room has all the hallmarks of a Stalinist waiting room with its bare stark walls, drafts, dilapidated lighting and overly painted posters from a Blue Peter convention.
The woman running the show welcomes me. I join up, pay my dues, take off my coat and stand on the scales. We've met before, a year ago when I joined for a week. It's Groundhog Day for fat people. I weigh in at 17 stone, nine and a half pounds. It's the heaviest I've ever been.
I'm probably the youngest bloke in the room of men, all with different heights, waists and egos.
The adage that fat people smell more than slim people is never more obvious. From under all those hidden little crevices, odours march out to play.
Immediately, the guy behind me starts to pong. I guess he could shed a pound and a half if he washed. The guy ahead also smells. Body odour with cabbage. A fat rash between my legs starts to itch.
Surrounded by blokes who hide their money under their bars of soap, I want to leave but I rationalise that if this is the price for losing weight, I'm committed.
Some of the men in the congregation look like they've slept in their clothes and are on day release from Guantanamo Bay, their orange jumpsuits at the cleaners.
I've been there myself, stuck with a minimalist wardrobe of clothes that wear out from overuse while enough threads to kit out a reserve army await the day when I shed the pounds.
I hear the guy behind me wheezing. He's out of breath. The gentle stroll up the stairs has nearly killed him. As I catch my own, two business-looking dudes arrive in suits. Blue suits, blue shirts and blue voices. They look like they're at the wrong convention.
Another well-dressed younger chap arrives with a butcher's pencil of a weight problem - it's obvious he's getting married and the wife-to-be wants him at his best for the wedding night.
The class begins. The slim well-dressed weight management guru tells us there are five types of eater: the nibbler, the muncher, the fast-foodie, the bulk-loader and sweet-tooth. I immediately think I'm all five.
She asks the class which are you? No one answers, not yet anyway. She offers a few hints and the feedback gathers momentum. Out of the woodwork storm the serial dieters.
The lads with life stories to tell who have presumably passed on the shrinks. The nibblers, the fast-foodies and sweet-tooths all have something to say. It's well-meaning chatter and mostly entertaining.
Everybody in the room is here because they share a common goal - to lose weight.
The numbers game begins. Success stories make themselves known with simple well-meaning modesty, and the two consultants get stars and rocks for losing a stone each for their endeavour. There are definite benefits to attending.
Eventually, the guru tries to wrestle back control of the class. The nibbler - he tells us he's a nibbler - tells us his three favourite restaurants and their historical significance, and how Iraq was once called Persia.
He talks so much I'm surprised he has time to eat. I want to lean over and tell him he could lose three stone in a week if he joined a debating society but the guy with the cabbage aftershave is too close.
The numbers game continues. To illustrate that fat people can eat cake, the guru holds up a gateaux and asks the class: "How many slices could you get out of this?"
The sweet-tooth suggests 17. The guru is impressed. She holds up another cake, it's the same size as the first, and repeats the question.
The sweet-tooth suggests 19. Again the guru is impressed. She holds up a third cake, the same size as the other two, and repeats the question. The sweet tooth suggests four. "Four?" she says. "Yes," he says, "that's my favourite."
It's bingo for fat people.
At the end of the class, we clap, say goodbye like kids leaving school and a favourite teacher after a lifetime of classwork. The serial dieters gather around the guru for private tuition. I leave as fast as I can, rejuvenated that education is no burden to carry, no matter how fat you are, and for the moment anyway, thoughts of food couldn't be further from my mind.