Well, I hope that you had a lovely weekend.

Here in the UK, we had a special Bank Holiday weekend and I took the opportunity to catch up with family and friends at various gatherings and reunions. I saw people that I had not seen in years.

One of the things that struck me – shocked me, actually, – was the extent to which our bodies so often becaame the subject of conversation at these gatherings. To give you an example, the husband of an old friend of mine said to me at one of the gatherings, ‘And you’ve put loads of weight on and got even uglier since I last saw you, haven’t you?’ whilst gesturing at some of the other women in the room who had, yes, I agree, put weight on since I last saw them. I am sure he intended his remark as a compliment, even as a kind of affection. But it made me a little bit cross.

Why do we do this to one other? Why, so often, does weight so quickly become a topic of conversation among people who haven’t seen one another for a while? Most of us wouldn’t dream of saying, ‘Gosh, I earn loads more than when I last saw you!’ but we often draw attention to our shape and size, perhaps hoping that, if we do, we’ll deflect any unkind comments or that people might even reassure us that, in fact, we don’t look too bad.

Most of us would not say ‘You are so much nicer than when I last saw you,’ but we might easily say, ‘You have lost so much weight!’

And why is there so often such a double-standard here for men and women? The gentleman in my example above had himself piled on the pounds in recent years – but he wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about his weight and shape. He was talking about his wife and, embarrassingly, comparing her to me. Well, that is behaviour designed to build someone’s confidence and help them to feel good about themselves, isn’t it?

I have just been reading the blog of Susie Orbach, psychotherapist and author of ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’ and what she says about the recent responses to the angel-voiced Susan Boyle:

‘Is Susan Boyle ugly? Or are we? On Saturday night she stood on the
stage in Britain’s Got Talent; small and rather chubby, with a squashed
face, unruly teeth and unkempt hair. She wore a gold lace dress, which
made her look like a piece of pork sitting on a doily. Interviewed by
Ant and Dec beforehand, she told them that she is unemployed, single,
lives with a cat called Pebbles and has never been kissed. Susan then
walked out to chatter, giggling, and a long and unpleasant wolf whistle.

Why are we so shocked when “ugly” women can do things, rather than
sitting at home weeping and wishing they were somebody else? Men are
allowed to be ugly and talented. Alan Sugar looks like a burst bag of
flour. Gordon Ramsay has a dried-up riverbed for a face. Justin Lee
Collins looks like Cousin It from The Addams Family. Graham Norton is a
baboon in mascara. I could go on. But a woman has to have the bright,
empty beauty of a toy – or get off the screen. We don’t want to look at
you. Except on the news, where you can weep because some awful personal
tragedy has befallen you.

Simon Cowell, now buffed to the sheen of an ornamental pebble, asked
this strange creature, this alien, how old she was. “I’m nearly 47,”
she said. Simon rolled his eyes until they threatened to roll out of
his head, down the aisle and out into street. “But that’s only one side
of me,” Susan added, and wiggled her hips. The camera cut to the other
male judge, Piers Morgan, who winced. Didn’t Susan know she was not
supposed to be sexual? The audience’s reaction was equally disgusting.
They giggled with embarrassment, and when Susan said she wanted to be a
professional singer, the camera spun to a young girl, who seemed to be
at least half mascara.’

Ha, ha! I do think there is a lot of truth in what Susie Orbach says.

As a therapist working with both women and men who want to change their weight and shape, I feel very strongly about these sorts of issues. In my teens, I trained professionally as a ballerina, an area where there is enormous pressure to have the ‘right’ body and obsessive dieting and exercise is very common. I have had my own struggles with eating and weight in the past. And quite frankly, I know what a living hell it can be.

Since my early twenties, I have been getting increasingly comfortable with my changing body. I know that it is possible to let go of years of subconscious programming, let go of unhelpful emotions and thoughts and associations and learn to love your own skin. I say to anyone who wants to make these kinds of changes,  do it from a place of compassion, from a place of love for yourself.

Learn to love your body right here and now and you will begin to be able to tune in much more successfully to your body’s own needs, rhythms and hungers and meet those needs in healthful ways.

We are coming up to the time of year when I get inundated with calls for help from women who want to drop a dress size or are so fed up with feeling like ‘failures’ because they do not look and feel as they want to look and feel. Yes, I can help people to make these kinds of changes. And my primary concern is to help you to make the changes you want to make from the inside out. Because I know that, even when you are three stone lighter, you won’t feel much happier if you’re still unhappy with yourself.

OK, now I have got that off my chest, I can start the week with a lighter step. Have a fabulous one, wherever you are.