Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

When I were a lass, I used to have a fast metabolism. This suited just fine, because I also have a penchant for dairy products. I could butter my bread thickly, eat lots of cheese and drink lots of milk. I went through a phase of buttering my chips (that was when I was about eight), and brought lots of cheese back to [boarding] school in my tuck box which I used to hang out my window in a net bag since I didn't have a fridge. In fact, I once escaped detention when caught red-handed by Matron in the middle of a midnight feast because we were eating crackers and cheese, not sweets, and we argued that this was good for our teeth. And I walked everywhere, which seems to have been enough to stay thin.

But then I spent two years sitting down at a desk, and I piled on two stone. I know this because I recently went to see a nurse, just to get my prescription renewed, but being a busybody she decided to weigh me too. When she put my weight into her magical computer programme (has anyone else noticed it seems to spend most of the time crashing?) she noticed that I was last weighed two years ago and since then I had gone from 9.5 stone to 11.5 stone.

She was measuring my blood pressure when she started nagging me about my weight. You'd have thought she'd stop when my blood pressure suddenly swooped upwards but no, she just decided to return to the blood pressure later to give me the chance to calm down. But she didn't let me calm down, she told me I was eating unhealthily and that I needed to eat 1600 calories per day and limit my portions and not eat cheese and all sorts of stuff like that. And that this was a forever thing, I will always have to watch what I eat forever and ever and ever because I'm old now and old people put on weight more easily. That's no way to calm a person down.

Thing is, I think she's stupid. As does the lady in the gym who I went to see after going to the nurse. Because I tried to tell her that I was exercising three times a week but she didn't take that into account at all. 1600 calories isn't enough if you're exercising, you will actually be unwell because each gym session uses up about another 400, and 1200 calories on gym days is simply not enough to get you through the day.

And also, I fully accept that I have grown outwards instead of upwards, but weighing me isn't a good way to judge whether I'm healthy or not. You need to measure body fat. And I've got three print outs, each four weeks apart, from the magical gym machine which tells me that while I've only lost about 3lbs in weight in two months of solid exercise, I've actually lost 13lbs (nearly a stone) in body fat in that time. Because muscle is heavier than fat.

What a stupid nurse. She actually upset me quite a lot, I felt very guilty for a few days and watched the calories in everything I ate. And I felt very unwell and got a nasty cold with one of the worst chesty coughs I've had for the past few years. So then I started ignoring that and going back to just exercising. Yes, I try to just eat enough instead of eating until I'm full, and I don't have wine every day, and yes, I am eating more fruit and vegetables but I like fruit and veg.

So there. I think I'm doing well, I've always weighed more than I look like I should weigh (heavy Goggin bones, you know), but I've been very disciplined the last few months and I wish she had encouraged me to keep up the good work instead of making me feel guilty, that's no way to encourage anyone.