Week 6: Despite some chafing, all's well that ends well
It's at this time of year that I assess my annual underpants requirements and make the requisite purchases. Unfortunately, this year, I dived in much too early and before I had time to come to terms with any weight loss, foolishly bought trunk sizes.
So, I tried to do a bit of a Chelsea and get out of what you might call "my sponsorship deal" and brought back my 17 pairs of unused jockeys. However, the shop's "we don't accept back used or un-unused jockeys" policy meant that for the first week of my exercise campaign I was kitted out in long-decommissioned jockeys that are possibly a notch tighter than required.
Not that jockey size is the biggest bug-bear for anyone with a weight problem taking up exercise. Fact is, fat blokes aren't supposed to exercise.
As anyone who's ever bought a tracksuit will tell you, fat people, despite the advice from doctors, dentists or greyhounds, are perfectly within their rights to wear a tent, garden shed or a Joseph-coat of umbrellas, but just dare them don a pair of runners or dust down their old 1970s tracksuit.
But despite this well-worn proverb I'm dedicated and motivated, with the view that weight loss is the Machiavelli of every end justifying the means.
So, I left the house, my head set on a circuit of sorts. Within minutes it's a brisk walk. I get a bit excited. Using a pair of grandparents pushing a perambulator as a pacemaker, I set off like a pregnant Mick the Miller on steroids dressed head to toe in my white tracksuit that, having ran slightly in the wash, gives a slightly off-red glow, a little paler than a Teletubby but not as dark as the Ready-Break Kid.
People stare at me as I make my way up the road. I can see it in their eyes, nods and titters of laughter to their colleagues and friends: "look, there's a fat bloke in a tracksuit".
I swing my arms and try to get the breathing right. The stares continue and everyone seems to have a smile. However, as I build momentum and start to walk faster, I notice less the outside intrusions and start to focus.
This is easy I say to myself and break into a light jog. It's the over-enthusiasm of a first day and soon I'm bouncing up the road dreaming of Olympic success. In my mind, I'm the oldest athlete ever to compete in three events at the four-yearly games. Minutes later, I'm overtaking five athletic-looking Africans. Three of them are possibly Kenyans, one of them's definitely a Moroccan and is that really the great Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie?
I pass the bus stop, the chemist and cemetery. It's world-record pace. The Africans are nowhere to be seen. With every finishing post comes a medal. Soon, I've won gold in the 1,500m, 5,000m and the marathon. And there's talk among sports writers' corp that I'm to be named in Steve Staunton's squad for the forthcoming international. That is, until disaster strikes.
It's the bloody underpants.
My blabby over-stretched flesh starts to rub against itself and I can feel a rash doing altitude training in the Atlas mountain nether regions of my jockeys. The pain curbs my enthusiasm and I stop.
As the Africans catch and pass me, I struggle with the mother-of-all elastics, pulling it this way and that, desperate to find an equilibrium that will allow me finish the circuit. However, it's not to be.
I struggle home, my legs flung in front of me like I've just gotten off Red Rum without a saddle. I'm nearly crying with the pain and I curse the fact that although I bought the Vaseline, put it on the table before I left the house, and even opened the damn lid, I forgot to tool up - to cover my thighs in the jelly solution that I always plaster my legs with before I go for a walk.
Later, showered and my creases blanketed in a ton of Sudocreme, I reflect on the fact that immobilised for the afternoon, the weight is still shifting and I'm down another three pounds to the stable weight of 17 stone. Seeds, underpants and pain - leftovers in the march towards slim-imity.