I AM officially too fat ...

... to shop in M&S. They go up to a size 24 – you know you’re EXTRA special when your size is the only one in the shop which is differentiated with a light blue hanger tag.
But it seems I’m not that special anymore. Just fat.
It made me wonder how I got from where I was two years ago – two and a half stone lighter and feeling like I was on the way to finding my better self, to say nothing about seeing my feet for the first time since 1971 – to where I am now.
And that’s a bit depressed if I’m being honest. But down that I may be, I’m still not doing much about it. And that’s the worst thing of all to consider.
Not even my disastrous, too big to look nice shopping spree wasn’t enough to shock me into activity. I kind of feel resigned. And I hate, hate, hate it.
The trouble with honesty, however, is that people either appreciate you for it or they think you could shut up and do something about why you’re blue in the first place.
My mother has a saying for it. She says you simply have to “pick yourself up and shake yourself down”.
I have a saying for it too. But I can’t repeat it in polite company.
Angelina Jolie doesn’t have a problem with being candid, and you never hear of anyone telling her to shut up.
People just coo: “It’s great that someone so beautiful should be so open. It’s amazing, with some of her past troubles, she is willing to share her darkest hours with the world so that people can learn from her mistakes.”
Me? Well, I just get letters from people telling me to either have more sex to burn up more calories (I had an offer from a pensioner with nice penmanship just the other week, Han fans), others banging (no pun intended) on about something to do with me shutting up and getting a life, or women (and some men, it has to be said) totally relating with my life’s dilemmas.
Sadly, I don’t get letters from personal trainers who live near Caerphilly or surgeons who want to practise gastric banding on a willing participant.
(I’d have it done in a heartbeat by the way. But my nearest and dearest won’t let me. And as much as I can cope with disappointing myself, I can’t bear putting them through the worry. Besides, isn’t it cheating? As if I’d care!)
But not Angelina. She doesn’t garner such derision.
She can admit to taking a rainbow of drugs – “I’ve done just about every drug possible. Coke, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, everything. The worst effect, for me, was pot. I felt silly and giggly, and I hate feeling like that. I remember taking LSD before I went to Disneyland. I started thinking about Mickey Mouse being a short, middle-aged man in a costume who hates his life. Those drugs can be dangerous if you don’t go into it positively” – and being a bit of a wild child, pre Brad Pitt and her mother earth look. But still people are forgiving.
It must be the lips.
The new mum of twins has said in the past that she’s happy to share the shape of her inner demons with the world as she thinks it’ll help others and she isn’t ashamed of being human and all that entails.
(Although she’s apparently asking for £5m for the first pictures of her twins, with the money going to charity.)
They’re not so understanding of a girl from the Rassau with “issues” though.
I’m no Jolie, it has to be said. Neither am I particularly jolly these days.
I am, however, still eating, still feeling ugly (there, I’ve said it) ... and still sharing.
And still wishing you could buy patience by the pound next to the pork pies in Tesco.