MRS SOMEBODY: May 2007

"Mummy are you pregnant?" My four year old son asked me.

'No I'm not!?!?!, said I.

"Then why is your stomach so big?" He asked me.

"I don't know." I replied.

"Mummy is pregnant!" He said to himself running away immediately to share the news with his other siblings. Some days later, when I went after school to pick him and his siblings up, an interesting thing happened. His classmates all 4 to 5 year olds confronted me.

1st kid: (Smiling at me gleefully) Bobo's mummy is pregnant!

Me: (looking very puzzled) I'm Not!

2nd kid: (Giggling) But your stomach is big.

Me: I'm not pregnant!

3rd kid: There is a baby in bobo's mummy's stomick.

Me: There's no baby in my stomach.

1st kid: But bobo told us there is a baby in your stomick.

2nd kid: Are you FAT?

Me: I'm not fat, my stomach is not big, I'm not pregnant.

All 3 kids: Bobo's mummy is FAT! Hahahahaha.

This happened sometime in March this year. Hmmm........Children of these digital age no dey fear person at all. A few other things happened and I felt so bad I nearly lost my focus.

1) My sister-in-law came visiting. She took a good look at me and asked why I had not lost weight yet. I told her I recently lost 3kg. (My weight had indeed dropped from 114kg to 111kg). She hissed and told me how unserious I have been about weight loss .'But I have lost 3kg'. I told her again. She simply ignored me and said, 'You are not just serious at all.' 3kg?!?!?!?! What is that?!?!? I did not blame her for talking that way. You see, I had told everyone I saw last Christmas, that the next time they would see me, I'd be a size 14. She looked at me again, touched my belly, smiled and asked if I was pregnant. I told her I was not. She then said, "I know you are". I'm sure you are pregnant. You don't want to tell me yet'.

2) One of my neighbours saw me one morning and asked why he had not yet seen any change in my size despite all my "running around" every morning. (Point of correction Sir, I don't 'run around'. I jog, I exercise, I brisk-walk, I don't 'run around. 'My kids run around, you saying I run around makes me look unserious. I'm doing a serious thing here.) I was fuming on the inside as I could not say this out loud to his hearing. So I let it pass.

3) Mr Somebody's nephew saw me and said; 'Aunty, so if you had not been exercising you would have been bigger than this-o? 'How?' I asked him. He just went on talking, 'You go for jogging everyday but to me-o, you look the same. It's like you've even added small sef. (Chei! I don suffer.)

4) My other sister-in-law called me on the phone and said "Mkop nte ke ke okpokpon"( I heard that you are still fat). See how bad news spreads fast? I told her I'm still working on it. No need to bother telling her about the 3kg drop because it would not make any difference. 13kg would be noticeable and appreciated but 3kg in 5 months is like child's play.

5) I attended a wedding yesterday and I bumped into an old friend. The last time we saw ourselves was at our valedictory service in secondary school 1993 set. She said I looked 'very married'. Knowing what she meant by that, I smiled nicely and said; 'Yes I'm married'. "So because you are married you have to look like this ehn? How many kids do you have? She asked. 'Three', I replied. 'And is this the fourth'? She asked, pointing at my tummy. 'Yes'. I lied.

Truthfully speaking, I am tired of this whole thing. I'm tired of struggling everyday without getting visible results. I'm tired of being overweight. I'm tired of dieting by day and going off diet at night. I'm tired of going round in circles, I'm tired of being on a roller coaster ride. I'm tired of people thinking I'm pregnant. All the negative comments I got from people around really got to me. I then slipped into an all time high depression mode...................and ate.

Not one, not two not three but four fast food joints had opened in my neighbourhood within the space of two months. I had told myself that I would not go near them until I was comfortably slim. I would not even take my kids there to avoid getting tempted. But I visited them, one after the other, buying pizza, spring rolls, samosas, hot dogs, cake and every other forbidden thing. Then I ate.

I registered myself at another gym. The third gym in 6 months. This one has a swimming pool so I can swim after each aerobics session. I'm also adding weight training to my exercise schedule. There was a period in my married life I lost 10kg in three weeks. That was 5 years ago. I'm going to re -adopt that method because it worked pretty well for me back then. I was living solely on fruits, vegetables and water. I ate nothing more after 6pm. Talk of self discipline.

MESSAGE TO ME FROM ME:

"Fall down six times but stand up seven. The wagon will leave you behind but it's your job to keep chasing it down."- Dr Michael Lee.

I met my friend again, the one who got her jaws wired and MY! Has she lost weight! She said she had lost 2 dress sizes already and encouraged me to wire my teeth as well. Me? Wire my teeth again? Lie lie!!!! Never! The first and only time I wired my jaws, hunger dealt with me. I could not eat any solid thing because my jaws were jammed together so that nothing could pass through. I could not even open my mouth to talk. I was in the Choir and I completely forgot that I had to open my mouth to be able to sing. The Pastor kept asking what was wrong with me. I told him I was fat and needed to lose weight. He thought I was up to some kind of mischief and instructed me to remove the wirings. In the end, I had to free my mouth after two weeks of intense hunger. I can never try that technique again - or should I?!?!?!?

I must really apologise for another late update. I know I said I would update more regularly but NEPA/PHCN has been so mean. Right after my last update, NEPA cut us off from modern living, 12 whole days without electricity and as if that was not bad enough, our generator broke down. My service provider was also acting up. I lost more than five drafts because blogger.com could not connect. Was I frustrated? Living life in Nigeria as a Nigerian is a very big challenge.

Now back to my reason for being here. Brisk Walking and jogging are two ways of revving up one's metabolic engine. I used to enjoy my brisk walks mainly because I couldn't jog for 5 minutes without feeling tired, no matter how I tried. I would run out of breathe and pant heavily. Until I met a lady who suggested I join her in jogging everyday. I told her I couldn't jog and that I would rather walk fast to keep up with her pace. She replied by telling me it was all in my mind. All I needed to do was to make up my mind, build up my stamina gradually until I became strong enough to jog for longer stretches. She said: "Never say you cannot. Unless you try, you'll never know what you are capable of doing, if you only set your mind at it". Well,that helped.

The next day, I tried to go more than 5minutes, then a little above 10 minutes the day after. Gradually, I added more minutes (not without aches,pains and grumblings). I was tired and aching all over but I knew I had to challenge myself. I had to build up my stamina. Infact when Mr Somebody gave me some signals one night, I told him to cool down and relax. My excuse being that I needed all the stamina I could gather to help me jog the next morning. I was that serious. Did he listen? No! Did I give in? No......... yes.......eventually.

I really suprised myself last week when I jogged for 30 minutes, then 45minutes non-stop. It was unbelievable. I was so happy with myself. If I keep at it, I could join in the MTN marathon later this year.

Some of the comments I got from my last post were very flattering. I may not look big but I know I am big. I weighed over 114kg last month. My Body Mass Index is too high considering my age and height( 5' 10'). I know I need to get rid of at least 40kg. The doctor has warned me about the health risks associated with being overweight.

I saw a friend of mine today (We met at the gym last year). I noticed that she had lost so much weight already. On a closer look at her, I also observed that she was talking to me with her teeth tightly clenched together. She had 'tied her mouth' and was now on a forced liquid diet. I remember doing the same thing about 8 years ago. I went on a liquid diet but I was prompted (by extreme hunger) to remove the braces two weeks after. I remember being so hungry that I resorted to sucking indomie noodles through the gap between my two front teeth. I was a size 14 then and I thought I was fat.

Anyway, I'm still trying to adjust to my new program. Getting up at 5am to jog is not as groovy as I thought, but I'm sure I'll get used to it in no time.

Here are some more gym pics.: -