It's not always a good idea to take a bath if you're normally a person who takes showers. If a daily shower is the equivalent of a short jog in the park, then a long luxurious bath is like a slow, meandering, cross-country walk - one is brisk and practical whereas the other is leisurely, and a perfect time for indulging in an orgy of self-contemplation. A bath involves reclining fully naked, so unfortunately, any self-contemplation usually means there's rather a lot of your self on hand to contemplate.
As we only have a shower in the flat, I was enjoying a lazy soak at home, with the firm intention of musing on the implications of the brand new genome maps for the future of mankind, but instead, ended up musing on my own brand new flabby tummy. I had managed to overlook it while taking my daily shower because of haste, but with the evidence laid out in front of me, like a badly-made sand castle, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that somewhere along the line I had obviously invested in a spare tyre.
While I was never the type to think cropped tops were a good idea, I had always had a stomach that behaved itself fairly well. Now though, no amount of breath-holding would reduce my tummy to a flat plane; it looks less like a washboard and more like a week's washing in a laundry bag. I spent some time wondering how I was going to get rid of my extra inches. I could eat less, but as eating well is the only hobby which I have managed to keep up for several years now, I was loathe to abandon it. Anyway, my new-found tummy has that sad, juvenile delinquent, look about it that flesh gets when it has been given too much time to hang around doing nothing.
In other words, a stiff bout of exercise - the flab equivalent of boot camp - is probably the only thing that's going to shift it. There's any number of different ways to exercise these days, but fitness coaches always advise you to go for something that fits in with your lifestyle. All things considered, the form of exercise most suited to a soft-centred city-dweller with a phobia of team sports is a work-out in the gym; certainly, this is the activity of choice of most people I know.
The gym can be fitted in around working hours, doesn't involve any great level of expertise and doesn't need anybody else's participation; if it was a member of the opposite sex, you'd think you'd found your perfect partner. Sadly though, the gym and I had a brief fling some years ago, and have not been on speaking terms since.
I hated the gym for all the usual reasons people hate the gym. It was mind-numbingly boring; the exertion made me feel ill; I don't particularly like thumping techno at eight in the morning unless I've been up since the night before; and I swear I could smell verrucas growing in the changing rooms. But the thing that annoyed me most about the gym was the ridiculous perception that you're meant to enjoy going there.
In the same way that people who answer those "day in the life of" questionnaires always say they rise at 5.30 a.m. to do a spot of light meditation and read legal ethics books, so people who go to the gym always say they just love going there. They say it gives them a buzz, a sensation of calm and relaxation, a greater focus - everything short of the numbers for next week's Lotto, by all accounts. Now while I'm sure that some busy people do start their day with self-improvement at dawn and other people genuinely do love the gym, I'm also sure there are a lot of liars out there; people who rise at 8.30 a.m., scream at the kids and make it into the office by the skin of their teeth, and people who would rather sit at home and eat paper-clips than go to the gym, but who say they love it. I know because I was one of them.
Lying about loving the gym probably has something to do with vanity - we worry that the mere suggestion we're attending a gym will make people start eyeing our asses for lard, so we insist we're attending to get fit. But it all gets more interesting when you consider the implications of that - it's OK to say that you're going to the gym to get fit, but not that you're going because you want to lose weight.
Fitness is our new god, and who am I to argue with that? Fit people have a better quality of life, are less likely to be seriously ill and have a much better chance of survival if there's a huge tidal wave and we all have to start running for the MacGillycuddy Reeks. It's not going to the gym to get fit that I object to, it's the fact that a lot of the women and men you see at the gym are there to lose weight, but we're not allowed to say so.
The weight issue has got so knotty and complex that the mere suggestion of losing weight through dieting or exercise has turned into a taboo. Awareness of illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia is vital, as is the pursuit of a society in which rakeskinny models are seen as slightly weird clothes horses rather than role models. However, the reason these eating disorders are so dangerous is because they are illnesses, not just fads or fashions like Pokemon or body piercing.
To suggest that someone needs to lose weight, be it yourself, a friend or a relation, is to be greeted by cries of horror from people who claim it's all about being happy with your self-image and that dieting or exercising purely to lose weight only encourages an unhealthy attitude to food. This is political correctness taken to a ridiculous degree. An eating disorder is unhealthy; regulating how much you eat and how you want to look is a healthy level of self-respect.
When I was in school, one large friend grew sick of finding it difficult to get clothes she liked and being considered the plump, fun girl. But when she admitted she was cutting down on her fat and calorie intake, a couple of friends said to her that they were worried about her attitude to food. I met her some years later and she told me she had lost weight gradually, stopped at a healthy size 12 and, because she was happier with how she looked, noticeably gained confidence. Quite rightly, she felt that the slimmer friends who advised her to stop dieting were being rather patronising - they wouldn't have dreamt of putting on three stone themselves, but didn't feel she had the right to lose that amount in order to make herself feel better.
We've got ourselves into a terribly hypocritical situation where people want to look good - and there's nothing to beat the feeling of knowing you're looking your best - but are ashamed to admit that they're doing something about it. If you're going to the gym, you have to say you want to develop muscle tone; if you're on a diet, you say you have food allergies. It's time for some of us to come out of the closet and start saying we hate going to the gym but we're there because a stubborn 10lbs on our hips means we can't fit into our jeans any more. We don't adore exercise, we want to lose weight and if we're doing it in a healthy way, what's wrong with that? Personally speaking, I think I might start doing sit-ups so I can sweat 'n' swear in the comfort of my own home; either that, or I'll just stop taking baths.