Amuse bouche... October goals
Audrey had read somewhere that most people were at their thinnest around the end of October. Apparently, once everyone stopped tipping away at the
rose and the barbecues, it was a doddle to shed the summer pounds.
Audrey had read that this was only a temporary thinness for most people, however, before they launched into November and Christmas and started to pile it on again.
This information had Audrey worried. Audrey hadn’t lost the summer poundage at all, at all. She’d done a bit of research on diets once she got the headspace again after the children were back settled in school.
But then the activities had resumed, and she was an unpaid chauffeur again, and there was barely a minute to be sticking to regimes with meals that required preparation. Not to mention specialist shopping. Audrey didn’t own half the stuff these people recommended. What was matcha powder anyway?
There were many days when Audrey forgot to have lunch until it was time to dash out the door for the school pick-up. She’d be shaking with hunger before she realised this. Then she’d be down at the school gate, a bit high on that third coffee, jittery and jabbering to the exercise-gear mums.
Audrey would walk away from the school, pretending to listen to how the kids had got on for the day, silently berating herself for being so lazy, promising herself that she’d lay out her gym gear tonight and go for a run after school drop-off in the morning. Or a brisk walk, at least.
Then Audrey would eat the kids’ lunch leftovers during the drive home, just to stop the low-blood-sugar shakes.
Most days, Audrey picked and snacked and ate the remains of other people’s breakfasts and lunches until dinner time. She was a bit baffled how this didn’t add up to weight loss.
All her research told Audrey that she was putting her body through spikes and troughs that sent her metabolism haywire, but in terms of basic maths, she really wasn’t eating that much.
Even at dinner time, Audrey tried to stick to the ‘dine like a pauper’ rule, and never ate to stuffedness.
When Audrey had her nightly glass (and a half) of wine, it usually went straight to her head from her halfempty stomach. It wasn’t fair that the pounds wouldn’t shift, Audrey felt, but there were still a few weeks left until October’s end.