Before I start – we’re having an interesting conversation over at the Facebook page about the lady who appeared on ‘This Morning’ this morning with her three young children.
She’s in amazing shape and was apparently saying that having kids is no excuse for not being healthy, slim and toned (I haven’t seen it yet BTW so apologies if I’ve miss quoted her).
There’s a link later in the email to the page, if you’d like to join the conversation, or just see what I and others have to say about it.
For those that don’t know me well, my opinion on this may surprise you.
I will try and watch it properly first too.
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So, yesterday I mentioned Adele.
If you missed that email (or are a recent addition to our little community), then I’ll link you to it later.
But, in brief, Adele is doing the October ’28 Day Body Transformation’ at Buxton.
Because having three kids has left her body not how she wants it.
And she’s taking action to gain the physique of the “wonderful marvel women” of her youth.
She’s 3 weeks in.
Early days, but she’s making great progress.
But she’s already encountering ‘enemies’.
She emailed me this weekend.
“alot of my work day is spent sat around doing well not very much just waiting. The room in which I wait is a wood cladded gloomy off shoot from the kitchen with a tv and a dining table. So you can imagine there is alot of bordome and looking at food and places where food is made and eaten….disaster for someone with no will power like me.
All of my collegues have put on weight since starting the job, apart from me. I have lost weight and to be fair alot of it. The others have noticed, and asked me what my secret is. I was honest about a healthy diet and exercise and even clanged guareenteed fitness’s name about. In the majority I’ve had congratulatory pats on the back and a few have even modified their eating habits. Two of my colleages even do exercises with me.
Two, however, do not. In fact they actively ‘rib’ me about food and exercise. They say things like,’what you need is to eat more sugar’, and ‘have you done your pressups yet?’ I can take a leg pull like anyone else so it’s brushed off with a smile. Then they started bringing in sweets and cakes and leaving them on the table. Right in full view….’For everyone to share’ they say. Everyone grumbles because they like me have no will power and can’t face twelve hours staring at a grab bag of malteasers.
So I put them in a cupboard and asked that they leave their sweets in there. I used RISE’s phrases like ‘can you help me…’However, next shift, there are the sweets again…now with added crisps! I put them away….again and get told ‘What happens when you go to the shops? Does the shopkeeper have to cover up all the sweets so you don’t eat them all?’ They actually said at the last team meeting that at the christmas party they would have to lock me in a cupboard so I wouldn’t get tempted by the food! Seriously! These people have far too much time on their hands….
Then came the last straw. I come in on shift, do some work and when cleaning I began to find bicuits and chocolate bars hidden strategically around the house. One infront of the tv, one hidden under the cushion of the chair, one by the washing machine. I got angry, really fookin pissed off. These people are not just teasing me they are actively trying to ruin my hard work. I could pity them for their childishness. I could have another talk with them, I could report them to senior staff.
No. Lee, my partner had a much better idea! Genius infact. Don’t get angry he said. Let them bring in sweets, let them pay for loads of the stuff. The more the merrier! Bring them home and give them to Lee and the kids, and their friends! I can’t stop my family eating sweets and I don’t want to. But I do now kill two birds with one stone. I no longer spend my hard earned cash on sweets for my family, they don’t badger me for them and the wicked witches at work are happy in their mistaken belief that they are making the rest of the team fat and miserable like they are!
I win!
Adele (sneaky sweet swiper) Murray”
Now, when I was reading this, part of me was super proud of Adele.
And how’s she’s dealt with this situation.
But a big part of me is mega pissed off.
What these people are doing is bullying, plain and simple.
I was bullied at school.
I was a fat kid and people let me know about it.
Would it be ok to mock a Jewish person for not eating pork?
Of course not!
A Muslim dude for refusing to eat non-halal beef?
No way Jose!
We have a member at Buxton called Jose – hey buddy J
Would waving coke or heroin under the nose of a recovering addict be seen as anything other than a truly horrible act?
Defo not.
It’s one thing for people to have private opinion of someone or what they’re doing.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
The excellently surnamed Evelyn Beatrice Hall famously wrote “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
It wasn’t Voltaire before any one corrects me.
If there’s one thing I know it’s my 18th century French enlightenment writers, historians and philosophers.
That, and how to google stuff.
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Back ‘on point’ as an X-Factor judge would say:
Stuff like this just mean though.
It’s why we’re selective of who we let into RISE.
No ‘dickheads’ basically.
Couldn’t really think of a more appropriate word than that.
One thing I’ve said to people a few times over the years in similar situations is “maybe you should concentrate on dealing with you own issues about why you feel the need to be mean to me, rather than worrying about what I’m doing.”
Or sometimes I won’t even say anything.
As Adele is finding, the best revenge is living well.
Rising above and improving your own life will annoy them a million times more than anything you could ever say back to them.
Much love,
Jon
P.S. The facebook conversation is here (please like the page while you’re there, if you haven’t alredy)
P.P.S. The original article on Adele is here
P.P.S. Re-reading that article has reminded me I never came back and covered my ‘Gladiator friends’ or Geoff Capes slapping me. Twice. The big hairy git. I’ll cover one of them tomorrow.
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