W.O.N! (Weight Off Now!) Member Forum
30+ to Lose
Spring Round – Update Page
User: Princess Jewels / Location: Melbourne / Rank: Old Hand
Monday September 7 2015
Shelley, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but sometimes your ‘advice’ is counter-productive. You don’t motivate people by making them feel like crap. Perhaps you should think before you type.
Jewels
User: Shrinking Shelley / Location: Sydney /Rank: Expert
Monday September 7 2015
Jewels, I am sorry you feel that way. I am only trying to help. I thought that’s what this forum was all about – those of us who have been successful advising people who are struggling. As you know I am a WON success story and am at goal, so I think I know a thing or two about the program.
To be honest I see a lot of whining and excuses in this group. Excuses don’t help you lose weight. I am not trying to be mean, but honest. If you can’t handle the truth I can’t see how you expect to be successful. Patting each other on the back and saying it’s okay to eat pizza or half a tray of biscuits isn’t helpful. That sort of behaviour makes people fat, not thin. Stop making excuses, follow the program and you’ll see results.
Shelley
User: Princess Jewels / Location: Melbourne / Rank: Old Hand
Monday September 7 2015
Shelley, if you got down off your high horse for just a minute, you’d realise you have no clue what you’re talking about. You’ve lost ten kilos IN TOTAL to be at goal. Most of us in this group need to lose three times that amount at least to be close to the top end of our recommended BMI. You have no idea what it’s like to be morbidly obese. It’s not as easy to stay motivated when a five kilo loss makes no difference to how you look or how you feel. It’s not easy to exercise when people look at you like you’re an alien if you dare to set foot inside a gym. It’s humiliating. But exercising outside is even worse, where you run the risk of random strangers hurling abuse at you as they whizz past in their cars so you have to turn your iPod up really loud to block out that ugliness. You don’t know what it’s like to weigh more than your husband or to be told your fatness is causing your infertility.
So excuse me, Shelley, for being a whinger. For not trying hard enough and for having the mistaken idea that this was a safe place to come for support.
I’ve put up with your superior attitude and snide remarks for over six months now without saying a word. But not anymore. You know what Shelley? You need to STFU.
Jewels
User: Shrinking Shelley / Location: Sydney / Rank: Expert
Monday September 7 2015
Jewels, I think you’re being extremely childish. I had to Google that acronym and frankly I’m disgusted. Don’t think for a minute that I won’t report your behaviour to the moderators. Just because you didn’t type out the words in full doesn’t mean you can get away with that type of abuse. You only have yourself to blame.
Shelley
Ellie put her rice paper roll back into its brown paper bag and sighed. It hadn’t taken long for this little support network to implode. And she’d had such high hopes that she’d make some real connections in this group.
Perhaps it was pathetic that she had to resort to the internet but after two years in Australia and not one friend to call her own she was prepared to try anything. It wasn’t as if she was completely unlikeable. She had loads of friends back home. Her friends in London were only an email or a phone call away. At least that was the theory. They’d all made promises to keep in touch, talked about Facebook, Skype and the phrase ‘global village’ had been touted freely. But they hadn’t counted on the reality of different time zones and lives no longer moving in the same direction.
Jenn’s friends were always insisting they were her friends, that she was ‘one of the crew’. But despite their assurances there was no one in that group she could call to come over for a wine or to see a movie, not unless Jenn was part of the deal. In any case, she had precious little in common with most of them. All they wanted to do was talk politics; boring nitty gritty departmental stuff. Half the time she had no idea what they were talking about.
Her friends back home would be shocked if they could see her now. On paper, and indeed on Facebook and Instagram, her life Down Under was all sunny days, delicious food and glittering parties. What wasn’t documented was her loneliness, her homesickness, and the very visible results of those emotions on her now obese body.
Ellie could still make her stomach flip by replaying the memory of meeting Jenn for the first time. How their eyes had held each other’s gaze just a fraction too long. How Jenn had reached out and touched her forearm as she recounted some funny story about life in the Antipodes.
They were at a party at the Natural History Museum. Ellie was working at the Tate Gallery at the time and had been invited by one of the organisers, who wanted ‘bright young things’ in attendance to impress the large Australian contingent. Ellie felt good about herself that night. She’d recently lost a substantial amount of weight thanks to a punishing twelve-week program her friend Emma had convinced her to join. She was wearing a brand new slinky black dress and heels to die for. Her hair was professionally styled and Emma had done her makeup for her. She looked pretty fit, even if she did say so herself.
The party had included the Australian Minister for Tourism and Jenn was one of his advisers. She was charismatic, magnetic even. Had all the major players eating out of her hand. It felt like Jenn could have had her pick of anyone in the room that night, male or female. But she chose Ellie to lavish her attention on. And Ellie couldn’t get enough of it.
Becoming Jenn’s girlfriend somehow made up for all the years before when she’d been ignored or worse. The relationship gave Ellie something she’d long denied she wanted, but in secret had lusted after since she was a misfit teenager. Jenn’s love made her popular by default. At last she was one of the cool kids.
After a year of conducting their relationship via phone, email and brief (albeit passionate) snatches of time spent in the same country, Ellie was thrilled when Jenn suggested she move out here so they could be together. She never once considered saying no.
The sight of her boss walking across the open plan office area towards her made Ellie snap back to the here and now. She quickly flicked to a more work appropriate browser tab. Looking at the WON forum at work was not a good idea. She’d have to try to restrain herself in future.
‘Ellie.’
‘Hi, Bridget.’
‘How’s the exhibition planning going? Have you heard back from Musée d’Orsay yet?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I’ve got a video conference scheduled with them for tomorrow. Did you want to sit in?’
‘Send me a calendar invite and I’ll let you know. I can’t remember what I’ve got booked for tomorrow.’
‘Sure. Not a problem. Anything else I can do for you?’
Bridget parked her bum on the edge of Ellie’s desk. ‘Yes, actually. I need a huge favour if you can do it. I promise I’ll make it up to you somehow.’
‘I’ll help if I can. What is it?’
‘Well, I’m on my way out to lunch with the new minister and I was just wondering . . .’
Ellie’s heart skipped a beat. Was she finally going to be invited to something important? Was Bridget actually going to acknowledge her expertise? ‘Yes?’
‘. . . if you could take the school group I’ve got booked at two? I know I said I was going to do one a week, but I’m finding it hard to fit them in. Maybe I should cut back to one a month? Anyway we can talk about that at the staff meeting on Friday. As far as today goes, I’m not entirely sure I’ll make it back here in time. So if I’m not, would you do it?’
‘Sure. Have you got notes?’
Bridget’s brow creased momentarily. ‘Yes, um . . . I will have. I think. I’ll email them to you.’
So there were either no notes or scant ones. Great. Bridget was first rate at giving talks ‘off the cuff’ but Ellie preferred to be thoroughly prepared. Not much she could do about the situation, though. Bridget was her boss so she could hardly complain. ‘Not to worry. I can manage without them.’
‘You’re a doll, Ellie. I’ll make it up to you I promise.’ She slid off the desk. ‘Don’t forget to send me that calendar invite.’
Ellie did as she was instructed and then set about reprioritising the tasks she had planned for the rest of the day to accommodate the unplanned school group session. When she’d taken on this job almost two years ago, she hadn’t cared that it was a big step down from her previous role. Despite Jenn’s assurances that there was no need for her to work, Ellie didn’t want to be a bludger. Besides, after almost two months in Canberra playing tourist, she was beginning to feel a wee bit bored. She’d taken the role as assistant curator thinking it would only be temporary. As soon as another more appropriate job opened up, she’d apply and with her experience she’d be a shoo-in. But this was Canberra, not London, Paris or New York. Jobs in the industry were scarce and there were plenty of qualified bodies to fill them. The National Gallery was fabulous, and really the only place she was interested in working in Australia, but moving up the tree was proving more difficult than she first imagined.
One of her fellow assistants, Gemma, approached and settled herself in the spot Bridget had just vacated. ‘Hey, Ellie. How was your weekend?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Short and sharp answers were best where Gemma was concerned, otherwise the conversation might go all day.
‘What did you get up to?’
‘Not much. Had a bit of a quiet one actually.’ Like every weekend lately. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Jenn had spent a full weekend together. Right now she was in Indonesia with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, which left Ellie at home snuggled up on the couch with the cat. No Jenn meant no human contact.
‘Huh. Thought I might have seen you at Nicole O’s opening on Friday night. It was huge. Good media turnout too.’
‘Free bubbly will do that.’
Gemma grinned. ‘Yeah, I s’pose. Anyway it was a good night and we all kicked on afterwards at Transit. You really should have come.’
Ellie’s mouth tightened. ‘I had work to do. The Vuillard exhibition is only six months away and with Bridget caught up in all this fundraising and lobbying, most of the finer details have fallen to me to take care of.’
Gemma raised her eyebrows slightly, as if to say, ‘whatever’.
It wasn’t Gemma’s fault, but her presence often grated on Ellie. Almost ten years Ellie’s junior and doing the same job, Gemma was a constant reminder that her own life had effectively stalled. It didn’t help that as well as being excessively friendly, Gemma was actually very good at her job.
‘Anyway, El, that’s what I came to talk to you about. I remembered you saying to Bridget that your French contact seemed a bit prickly. I ran into Jacinta Tunstall at the opening, you know she works at the Portrait Gallery? Anyway, turns out she did an internship under your French fellow. They’re apparently good buddies. She said she’d mention your name next time they speak. Shame you weren’t there as she could have taken a selfie with you and sent it to him as an icebreaker.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I don’t really think sending my French colleague a selfie is appropriate, Gemma. And we’re getting along just fine. We have a very appropriate, professional relationship, which is how it should be.’ Now she was living up to her reputation of being an uptight ‘Pom’. Gemma and the younger staff never said as much to her face but sometimes she caught them exchanging glances or even rolling their eyes slightly at her insistence on sticking to protocol.
Gemma shrugged and pushed herself off the desk. ‘Just trying to help,’ she said, as she walked away.
Ellie sighed. Jenn was right. She was totally rubbish in social situations. Gemma, for all her annoying ways, was the closest thing she had to a friend in this town. She was definitely her only real ally at the gallery and Ellie didn’t want to offend her.
‘Hey, Gem, wait a second.’
‘Yes?’
‘Love the shoes.’
A grin stretched across her colleague’s face as she swung around and headed back to Ellie’s workspace. ‘I know! They’re to die for, right? I bought them in Melbourne when I was there last week. Got them in this funky little arcade. And the best part is they were on sale. Fifty per cent off!’
Ellie smiled and nodded and tried not to appear impatient as Gemma prattled on about her Melbourne shopping spree. At this rate no work would be getting done today.
★
It was dark when Ellie left the gallery, so she decided to grab a taxi. The half-hour walk to the Kingston apartment she shared with Jenn was supposed to fill her exercise quota for the day, but she was tired and wasn’t going to risk being mugged on her way home for the sake of a few exercise tokens.
She could hear Leonard scratching and mewling on the other side of the door as she turned her key in the lock. He was clearly unimpressed at having to wait until after seven for his dinner. ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry.’ She hung her keys on the hook and dumped her laptop bag on the floor before scooping the grumpy ginger up into her arms. ‘I know. It’s late, isn’t it, puss?’
Leonard was having none of her apologies. He wriggled free, jumped to the floor and wound himself between her legs, all the time meowing furiously.
Once his lordship was dealt with Ellie set about feeding herself. She silently thanked her weekend self for having had the presence of mind to cook up a huge batch of WON meals. She selected a container of low-calorie chicken cacciatore from the freezer and popped it in the microwave. While the container of glug was thawing, Ellie switched on her computer and drummed her fingers as the machine went through its start-up process. She was itching to get back to the WON forum to see if there were any further developments since this morning’s big blow-up between Jewels and Shelley.
She entered her password and clicked the page open.
Nothing. There were no new posts at all.
She let out a long breath and slumped down in her chair. She’d expected Jewels to come back all guns firing, or for one of the others to speak up in her defence. She hadn’t expected complete silence.
It was stupid to be so disappointed over a lack of communication from people she barely knew, but she was. She wasn’t sure why she was so surprised. After all, she’d seen the posts and hadn’t responded. Not that she’d had time today but even if she’d been lazing about at home she probably wouldn’t have had the courage to stick up for Jewels. She abhorred confrontation and did her best to avoid it. Ellie had a fair bit of experience with bullies and she knew Shelley’s type well. First they lure you in with offers of friendship and then they systematically tear you apart with their ‘helpful’ advice, which is designed to make sure you know just how truly inadequate you are.
Ellie wished she could forget all about secondary school but sadly the memories were still painfully clear. Shy, bookish and two stone overweight, Ellie wasn’t exactly high up in the social pecking order. Her longing for friendship made her vulnerable and more than once she’d been lured into friendships that made her feel even less secure about her place in the world than she already did.
It had started with Millie, who’d been her best friend since primary school. Ellie had zeroed in on the shy, skinny new girl on the day she started at Haldon Primary School. Millie’s oversized glasses and unfashionable clothes marked her as a fellow misfit. They bonded over a shared love of books and the knowledge that nobody else would want to sit with either of them. They’d been inseparable for a few years, and Ellie found she no longer minded so much that kids moved away when she sat next to them or that sometimes she swore she could hear a mooing sound coming from behind her. Having Millie to walk to school with, to sit next to at lunch and to share all her secrets with made all of that bearable.
But then they’d moved on to the grammar school and Millie had developed hips, breasts and a sudden authority about what was cool and what wasn’t. At first she’d tried to drag Ellie along with her, tearing diet tips out of her mum’s magazines and imploring Ellie to try colouring her hair. But her efforts to make Ellie acceptable to the popular crowd failed dismally. Ellie’s weight remained unchanged and the attempts at blonde hair left her with a mop of orange coloured frizz that Mum had to pay thirty pounds to the hairdresser on the high street to fix.
The day Millie fronted up to school wearing cornflower blue coloured contact lenses, Ellie knew the end was in sight. It wasn’t long before Millie was too busy to go to the library after school or even to take Ellie’s calls.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Millie used her insider knowledge to give the others in her new group the ammunition to tear Ellie apart. The day she found ‘fat leso’ scrawled on her locker in permanent marker she thought she saw a flash of remorse behind the coloured lenses in Millie’s eyes, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Bloody hell, she wasn’t at school anymore. This was ridiculous. There were people in this group she felt a connection with. People she hoped she could talk to about how she felt and what it was like to be her. Was she really going to give up on the group, let the whole thing disintegrate because of one little incident that didn’t actually involve her?
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. What should she write? Maybe she should just ignore the posts from Shelley and Jewels and go on as if nothing had happened. But what if Jewels left or was banned? Ellie had hoped to confide in her about her dream of becoming a mother. She and Jewels were facing some of the same obstacles. They both needed to lose weight before conceiving and it was possible they would both need assistance to get pregnant. It would be really nice to have someone to share all that with. Jenn certainly wasn’t up for talking about it at this point.
Maybe she needed to stick up for Jewels and tell Shelley she was being a bully. How many times had she wished someone would stick up for her at school?
She remembered Laura had in the beginning. The Millie incident had brought the two of them together, and she’d thought Laura was the love of her life. She’d comforted Ellie and told her she deserved better. When they shared their first kiss in Laura’s black and red themed bedroom, Ellie had thought her heart would burst. She hadn’t realised she was just a tool in Laura’s eyes. A means to an end, if you like. She’d taken Ellie’s virginity and championed gay rights in the school as a means to gaining the attention of a much cooler girl in the class a year ahead of them. Laura was the second person that Ellie had trusted with her inner self and also the second who’d torn her apart. Ellie had vowed that one day she’d belong in the cool group, but at that point she hadn’t worked out how.
The ping of the microwave startled her. She left her desk and headed back to the kitchen to sort her meal. She tipped out the chicken cacciatore – or as WON called it, ‘Chicken Delight’ (more like ‘Chicken Disaster’ by the look of it) – into a bowl and went to pour herself a wine. It wasn’t until she started to pour that she remembered she didn’t have enough exercise tokens to allow for a wine indulgence.
Bollocks.
As she poured the half glass of Pinot Grigio down the sink her phone rang. Jenn’s name flashed on the screen. She smiled as she answered. ‘Hi, sweetie. How are things?’
‘Hot and hectic. Let’s just say things are not going as smoothly as we’d hoped. How are things there?’ Jenn’s voice faded in and out.
‘Fine. Leonard and I miss you, though. Can’t wait for Wednesday night.’
‘Oh, babe, I’m sorry. That’s what I’m ringing about. There’s been a change of plans.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. There’s a by-election coming up in Victoria in a couple of weeks. The party wants the big guns down there campaigning for a couple of days, so we’re going to fly straight into Melbourne.’
‘But . . . that’s not . . .’
‘My job? Yeah, I know. But the minister doesn’t want to waste the whole week on party hoopla. We’re going to work on some policy stuff in between her appearances.’
‘So when are you coming home?’
‘Friday night, hopefully, depending on how the schedule pans out. Saturday morning at the latest. I’ll let you know as soon as I know. Okay?’
‘Fine.’ Her tone was harsher than she intended. She didn’t want to play the part of the nagging girlfriend, but her disappointment was too great to conceal.
‘Ellie, don’t be like that. I’m sorry. You know I’d much rather be home with you.’
That was the thing. She didn’t know that. Jenn was away so often for work, and half the time she barely had time to call. At the moment their relationship was, for the most part, being conducted via text message.
‘Ellie? Are you still there?’
‘Yes. Look, sorry, but I’m just in the middle of serving up dinner. If you don’t mind terribly I think I’ll go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
She ended the call, grabbed her unappetising dinner and headed back to her desk. This really wasn’t the life she’d anticipated when she’d moved out here to be with Jenn.
There was no way she could give up on this fledgling little group of friends she’d made. There had to be some way to keep the group connected without letting a bully spoil all the fun.
Suddenly the answer came to her. Ellie pushed her bowl to one side and began to type.