BELLY FLOP

Sarah-Kate puts a rosespin on waist management

There’s something in the water. Nearly every conversation I had over the course of one recent week with a woman of my own vintage involved belly fat. In particular, having too much of it and not being able to get rid of it.

Exhaustive contemplation of recent years brought us all to the same conclusion – it’s caused by rosé, even if you don’t drink much of it. That’s because we are pretty much all exercising and watching what we eat, most of which is healthy.

I mean, have all the belly fat you want if you’re a couch potato who doesn’t give a toss – all power to your elbow. May it shovel crisps and beers down your gullet around the clock as you binge-watch Scandi-noir TV shows.

But if you’re hitting the gym and counting your calories, and still those rolls creep around your middle and refuse to budge? Not fair.

And don’t give me that nonsense about “it’s only a few kilos” because I’ve been very fat and I’ve been a bit fat, and they are both annoying, no matter what the scale. Or scales. Because it’s not the amount of it at all – it’s the fact you’re already trying to lose it and not getting anywhere.

It’s kind of comforting, I guess, that a few of us are all in the same leaky boat, but also deeply disturbing and highly unsatisfactory.

And so I took myself off for a week-long health retreat to see if I could shift some podge by going meat, sugar, gluten, caffeine, salt and rosé-free while exercising vigorously.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the conversation at the retreat among women of my age revolved around, you guessed it, belly fat. That leaky boat just got a whole lot leakier.

But you couldn’t say “namaste” without spitting on a nutrition expert of some description and while some of the details were familiar – stay away from sugar, don’t binge-drink, eat lots of veges – some were more of a revelation.

Who knew that getting more sleep helps you control your weight? Adults are supposed to get between seven and nine hours a night. Well, I don’t think I know anyone who is getting that.

And it’s not that being tired makes you tubby because you eat more (even though you do). It’s because lack of sleep affects the levels of something called cortisol in your body. I know! I had no idea I was full of cortisol either. But cortisol is the stress hormone and I’m such a stress merchant that I could set up a stall in the local bazaar and make a fortune selling it.

Except that nobody wants more stress. So I wouldn’t be able to sell it at all. I would go broke. And guess what that would lead to? More stress.

So the key, then, is to lose stress, not weight. Okaaaay. Good luck with that.

I’m going to try getting more sleep and eating more veges, but I’m also going to revel in the wonderful news that as rosé wasn’t to blame in the first place, I won’t be losing that as well.