Losing it

 

I write this eating a bowl of pasta al ragu, lovingly cooked by Papà A. The best thing about living with Italians is that they can be relied upon at any time to prepare a spectacular dinner. The worst thing about living with Italians is also that they can be relied on at any time to prepare a spectacular dinner. They like refined white flour, biscuits for breakfast and spoonfuls of Nutella from the jar. They start talking about the next meal as soon as they’ve finished the one before. I am used to the classic lesbian fridge containing a half-empty tub of hummus, some sprouting pesto and a can of lager. Our super-sized American family fridge groans with the jars of foie gras and Belgian chocolates that Uncle F brings back from his work trips to Brussels.

This is not the best news for the post-partum physique. Since I moved in with Papà A, I have put on 15 kilos. Granted, this isn’t just due to his prowess in the kitchen. Two pregnancies in one year have taken their toll. An intricate network of stretch marks ranges over my belly like a shoal of silver fish. My bottom has expanded to proportions that can only be described as enormous. My cleavage is a deep chasm into which the Boy Child tucks his hand for comfort when feeding. My hips are ample. My thighs chafe when I walk.  I stopped measuring my waist when it became more than a metre round.

I have to face it - I am fat.

I’d like to blame it on hormones, or my polycystic ovaries, or the hyperstimulation that came with the IVF, but it wouldn’t be true. The simple truth is that during my two pregnancies, I ate. For the first time since puberty, I let off the brakes and allowed myself to go carb crazy. I gobbled down hot buttered toast in my morning breaks in the library, gorged on pasta salad for lunch, and munched sandwiches from Pret a Manger as afternoon snacks. I was pret a manger 24 hours a day, and told myself that it was fine, because the baby needed it.

Now, four months since the birth of the Boy Child, I remain, to my chagrin, Rubenesque. This is not what I expected. For some reason, I thought that as soon as the little chap popped out, I’d miraculously shrink back to a size 10. If Dannii Minogue could do it, so could I. And everyone said that breastfeeding would make the weight drop off. It was a lie. True, I dropped about 8 kilos after the birth but half of that was Boy Child and the rest various bits of bodily bloodiness, and now I seem to be stuck at 70kg.

Papà A likes to console me with promises of trips to Brazilian surgeons. Some months before the birth he hired a personal trainer, with the aim of fulfilling a long-held fantasy of recreating that Athena poster from the 1980s, the one with the half-naked man holding a baby.

 

I, however, am living on statutory maternity pay, which I suspect won’t stretch to surgery. And so, despite my better judgement, I have joined an exercise class called Pushy Mothers. Leaving to one side my memories of Prams in the Park, where I was outraged at being told to ‘clench for your husband’ during the floor exercises and was, in the end busted for attending with a child who was not my own, last week I swallowed my pride and made the call.

And thus it was that I found myself being barked at by a military-style instructor, part of a pack of yummy mummies sweating under the midday sun. This being Islington, the competition was, of course, intense. Everyone’s baby sleeps through the night. They are all enrolled on a tight schedule of Baby-Montessori, Baby-Sensory, Baby-Massage, Baby-Yoga and Baby-Splash. They are all expected to be bi-lingual. And the Mummies themselves are terrifyingly taut, clad in tight lycra from the Sweaty Betty shop on Upper Street. I sidled up to the only other fat one in the group and parked my buggy next to hers.

We swept through the park like the Ride of the Valkyries, speedwalking our buggies before being forced to perform gymnastics in the children’s playground with stretchy pieces of elastic. As I ran up and down the slide, sweat pouring down my face, I asked myself if it was more painful than childbirth. At least I had drugs to get through that particular physical challenge.

That evening at home, I told the boys what I’d been doing. Uncle F cackled and gave my bottom a resounding slap.

‘Mmmm, but we like you chubby, Mummy!’

I wriggled away. ‘You are not my target audience.’

I have unearthed the scales from the attic and put them in the middle of the bathroom. The diet starts tomorrow.