I'm Not Anti Exercise, I'm Just Anti Doing Stuff I Don't Like!

There’s a line in “Sex and the City”, where Carrie says that shopping is her cardio. There’s a lot of things I like about Carrie Bradshaw, her fabulous shoes, her ability to wear clothes that would quite frankly make me look like a crazy bag lady and the fact that despite spending most of her evenings drinking Cosmopolitan’s in a fancy New York bar, she really doesn’t have a weight problem! (Weight Watchers fans, a Cosmo is 6 pro-points!)

  Alright, I’m sure there’s a wealth of personal trainers who would argue that shopping isn’t cardio, but they would be wrong. I can only assume they’ve never spent a proper day shopping, walking in and out of shops, up and down stairs, spending hours and hours traipsing around the streets of your favourite city, looking for that one bargain! Plus, sitting to enjoy a coffee / glass of wine on your trip is not only a chance to rehydrate, but is also sort of like doing squats….. I went too far didn’t I?

  I think the point Carrie is trying to make, is that whatever it is that gets your heart pumping and the blood racing around your body, should be something you like doing. P.E lessons for me as a child, were not fun, running around a school field in P.E knickers in the freezing cold, getting bashed with a hockey stick and trying to make head or tale of what the bloody hell lacrosse was. None of these things made me happy or indeed want to continue them in later life. In fact having an amenable music teacher meant that he was quite happy to schedule my flute lessons for then!

  As part of my “Happy Katie” plan, and knowing that eating less and moving more helps with the slinky mission, I have decided to only do things at the gym that I really like. The classes where I don’t notice the ticking of the clock and spend it wishing the teacher would get a phone call telling her that a heard of goats had attacked her car.

  So the last few weeks, I’ve been trampolining. Planet Bounce has opened in Nottingham and if you haven’t been, then I’d really recommend it. I went with my friends and godchildren and bouncing is for EVERYONE! Turns out an hour of bouncing is quite a lot, but it’s one of the most fun things I’ve done all year!

Bounce selfie!

Shooting hoops is far easier with the help of a trampoline!

  I’ve carried on with Burlesque dancing, because lets face it, if more exercise classes involved top hats and feather boas, gyms would be happier, feather-covered places.  I’m doing Just Jhoom (Bollywood inspired) and today I booked myself into a Zumba class that I had never done.

  Turns out I didn’t read the small print with the Zumba class because it was the hardest class I have ever done! I’m not really sure why.  I’ve done Zumba a lot in the past, but for some reason my feet and arms had declared war on each other and were refusing to work in perfect harmony. There was one routine that involved so much spinning around, that I think even Kylie would have refused to continue! Still my new 71 year old BZF (best Zumba friend) kept checking I was OK and we had a lovely discussion about “Strictly Come Dancing”, she’s rooting for Jay & Aliona, she doesn’t like Peter Andre and she thinks Jeremy Vine is very brave to take part, because he’s all arms and legs.

  By the end of the class, I was slightly dizzy, very sweaty and a crazy red face!

  However I loved it and I’ll be going again next week, although maybe, just MAYBE I’ll get my limbs to work together.

Turns out I’m not anti-exercise, I’m just anti doing stuff I don’t like!

Katie Has Been Extended Until Further Notice

I realised the other day as I got dressed to go to Zumba, that all my gym gear was basically stuff that I deemed not good enough to wear in polite society, but was too good to throw away. I’m not one of these women who thinks she has to wear a full face of makeup and have perfect hair when she goes to the gym, I pretty much figure I’m there to get hot and sweaty and having your make up running down your face a la Gene Simmons is not a great look. However last week, the slightly vain bit of me, thought it might be OK if I bought some nice gym clothes that I hadn’t owned for 5 years.

My sexy gym look!

 A shopping trip beckoned and as I flicked through the rails I realised that I was in the wrong bit of the shop. Nothing in the section I was looking went above a size 16. I realised I needed to be in the special “fatties” section. They don’t call it that obviously, because that might be offensive, instead they say “plus size” and do you know what it’s a term that really annoys me!

   What does it even mean? I’m a size plus what? Another size? An extra few stone? Who invented the term? At what point do you become “plus size”? Do you receive a letter through the post informing you’re no longer size acceptable?

If you watch something like “America’s Next Top Model”, then Tyra will deem anyone size 12 or over a plus size model. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Tyra, I admire her greatly, but when she says things like “you are a bootlicious curvy beauty doing it for the larger lady” I want to throw my shoe at the tele, Jerry Springer style and scream, she’s a size 12 you moron and has a far nicer body than the daughters of Skeletor you keep putting through!

  I get that the modelling industry has a slightly skewed version of beauty and that using fat people mean you’ll have to use more material in your dresses, which will cost you more, but and here’s something for you to consider…….. fat people like nice clothes too!

We buy them too, only we tend to just call them “clothes” I’ve never heard anyone say I went and bought myself a “plus size dress the other day”, they tend to say “I bought a dress the other day”

 A lingerie brand  recently announced they were dropping the term “plus size” (hurrah) instead they were replacing it with the term “Extended”. There are a few things in life I believe can be extended – holidays, your house, your mortgage or something on a stick so you can wash your windows. I’m not sure a person can be extended! It doesn’t mean anything!

  I don’t mind being called “curvy”, because that conjures up images of Marilyn Monroe, who still sells more magazines when she’s on the cover than any other woman!

  Ajay Rochester who is an author and host of  “Australia’s Biggest Loser” has launched a campaign on Instagram to #droptheplussize as she believes (and I agree) that using the term “plus size” is damaging for the minds of young people and I agree.

  Women come in different shapes and sizes, we’re different heights and weights. For example, someone who is 5ft 11 and weighs 12 stone is going to be a size 12. Another woman who also weighs 12 stone, but is 5ft 3, would probably be a size 16 / 18.

  It makes me laugh that even when I reach my Slinky goal, I’ll still technically have to shop in the “plus size” or “extended” section (if I decide to treat myself to some lingerie) So how’s about we just have clothes shops that sell clothes for women of all shapes and sizes, where you can go in, find what you want, buy it, wear it and feel good in it and not have to head to back of the store where they’ve put a section for fat people?

  I’d also be interested to hear from those who shop in the “petite” section, do you mind being referred to as “petite” or “tiny”?

PS – I lost another pound this week, that’s 6 over 3 weeks, I’ll take that and party!

"I Look Like a Pregnant Andy Pandy"

There’s an episode of “Sex and the City”, where Carrie proclaims she doesn’t like Internet shopping, because shopping is her cardio. Now don’t get me wrong, I too love shopping, but the type of shopping I enjoy these days is wandering around gift shops buying stuff for my house that I don’t really need.

Everyone needs a candle holder that lights up to show their name right?

  As I lose weight, I’m starting to like clothes shopping a bit more too, particularly as communal dressing rooms seem to have been banished. Did anyone actually like getting changed in them? I reckon even Victoria’s Secret Model’s who are a rare breed of woman, would have crinkled their perfectly formed noses and squiged themselves into the corner of the room so no one could look at them.

I have a love / hate relationship with trying clothes on, and the main reason is the assistants who stand as guardians of the door. I’m sure it’s in my head, but as a curvaceous beauty when I try something on, even if it fits perfectly, but I don’t like it as I hand it back, I feel as though she’s saying “I could have told you that size would never have fit YOU fatty bum-bum” I’m sure she isn’t, she’d probably thinking “bugger, now I’ve got to walk across the shop and put it back”

  There are two stock phrases I utter as I hand back clothes.

1. “I don’t like it”
2. “I’ll leave it thanks” (thrusting the item at the assistant and offering no further explanation)

I never tell them it doesn’t fit; it’s not their business, even if I think they’ve probably heard me wailing in the changing room and can see I now resemble a member of KISS.

  I have a number of “do’s” coming up; the UK Blog Awards (have I mentioned recently that Slinky By Tuesday” is up for an award? We are, thank you) and my friend’s wedding in May. (No I haven’t left it till the last minute I have plenty of time to sort an outfit, hat, shoes and bag!)

  I decided to order myself a navy blue jumpsuit, because I had an idea that it would be sophisticated and elegant.

I prefer online shopping for items I have no idea whether they’ll fit me or not, it saves embarrassment. So getting my jumpsuit and in my head the perfect wedding outfit home, I tried it on. It fit! I could zip it up, which is always a bonus. Heading to the mirror, I was horrified to see that rather than a sophisticated elegant wedding guest, I looked like a pregnant Andy Pandy! (minus the hat)

  The outfit may have zipped over my bootylicious booty, but it stretched over my tummy like I was a celebrity in “OK” magazine doing the obligatory “I’m 3 months pregnant, so will cuddle my partner and smile smugly pose” Taking it off and shoving it back in the bag, I put on my pyjamas because they have an elasticated waist!

 However this tale of woe has a happy ending. The very next day, a pair of skinny jeans I had ordered arrived, I very nearly just left them in the bag and sent them back without trying them on, but I didn’t! These jeans are a size less than I have been wearing and fit perfectly! I’ve also found dresses for the awards and my friends wedding both a size less than normal and both fit perfectly!

“You Can’t Go In There Unless You’re Going to Buy Something” My Gran and Other Tall Tales!

Firstly a massive thank you! On Monday morning, I woke up to this e-mail (well actually I saw it at 4.29am, but who can you share good news with at that time in a morning?)

  “Slinky By Tuesday” has made it to the shortlist in the Lifestyle category for the UK Blog Awards. As the first part of the process is being voted for by members of the public I am absolutely over the moon, I genuinely can’t thank the people who voted enough!

  It also means that we are off to a swanky award ceremony in London on the 25^th April and that means looking fabulous! It’s also given me a bit of a weight loss kick up the bottom. I’ve been struggling the last few weeks to shift my holiday weight; it’s been half a pound here, a pound there, but nothing that’s really been significant. However the arrival of the e-mail was just the boost I needed and even though it’s only Wednesday, I’ve already been to the gym twice this week and have worked out when I can go again, whilst still fitting in all the other things I need to! I think it’s called “planning”

  I’ve discovered that I like going to the gym first thing, mainly because it’s done for the day and it actually leaves me feeling smug! There’s something about taking 45 minutes out at the start of the day to do something for myself that seems to clear my mind and put me in a good mood. Although this video, looks more "Blair Witch" than Happy Katie!

  I noticed this morning, that rather than the usual mix of TOWIE-tanned muscle men lifting weights and grunting out of time to the music,  my gym is full of slightly older people. I reckon most of the people there were 60 plus. In fact I had a lovely conversation in the changing rom with two ladies in their 70’s who were off for their morning swim.

  I can’t tell you how much I admire this. It made me think about my Gran. My Grandma Mable was a weird contradiction, in many ways formidable and strong and in others afraid to try things, but ultimately she never did things by halves.

  She never went on an aeroplane until she was 56 and then she flew to Australia (as a passenger, she didn’t suddenly fulfil a lifelong ambition to become Amelia Earheart) She never had an operation until one day she fell and broke her hip, even then when the ambulance men came to fetch her she refused to sit in the wheelchair and she was carted off, with one of them saying “I bet you’re a rum old bugger Mable” Whilst she was in there, they discovered she had problems with her bowels and performed an emergency operation on Christmas Eve. We were told not to expect her to last the night (“Merry Christmas”) She did and lived another very happy 10 years complete with a Zimmer frame (or a zither as she called it), a dodgy heart and two colostomy bags! I always felt a lesser woman would have given up, but not her!

Gran and I, Christmas 2005

  For all her strength, she refused to try new things, and to get herself out of stuff, she would make up really weird excuses. Excuses so weird, that there was no way they couldn't be true, either that or maybe I was a REALLY gullible child! 

  For example, she would take Lucy and I on regular trips to Sutton. These trips would include getting the 345 bus, a visit to Fine Fare, fish and chips and a visit to the shops. If there was a shop Gran didn't want to go in, she would tell us that there were certain shops in the world, that you couldn't go in unless you bought something. Gran would tell us that they had people on the door making sure that you had a carrier bag with something in that you'd bought from there. We would stand outside the shop, hand on the doorknob and Gran would say "of course if you KNOW you want to buy something, then we'll go in, but I don't want you getting into trouble"  It never occurred to me and Lucy that these shops were mainly toy, sweet and pet shops! 

   She also never came swimming with us; I remember her telling me once that this was because people over 50 weren’t allowed to wear swimsuits. This scared me and as a result, I felt I should spend as much time in my swimsuit as possible! It made me  wonder what on earth happened to you if you did wear a swimsuit after the age of 50. Did you get sent to prison? Were you fined? How was it policed? Did David Hasselhoff roam the beaches of southern England demanding to see birth certificates and then carting off offenders to bared beach huts “to think about what they’ve done”

Gran and a weird blowy thing from a Christmas cracker!

  I think it’s because of this that whenever I see an older person taking part in an exercise class, pounding the treadmill or preparing for an early morning swim, it just makes me smile, because I think good on you! I also worry they’ll probably get arrested!

Gran, Grandpa, me as a baby and our dog Mitch