Heavenly Beverley : Pre-Dinner Pilates

I have spent my life as a desperately-wanting-to-be-thin-girl in a fat girl's body. I share my paternal grandmother's physique - she was short and plump her entire life. She lived until she was ninety years old and in spite of the suspected rheumatic fever she suffered as a child.

I have been on more diets in my life than I would care to remember. The Cabbage Soup diet, the High Protein/Low Carb diet, the Not Eating Before Lunchtime diet, the Starve Myself Until I fit Into The Dress I Want To Wear diet, the Grief diet and the Vino Only diet.

Of all of these, the Vino Only diet was the most successful. Eating very little indeed, I would drown myself in as much wine as I could in order to sleep dreamlessly. However, my liver was not particularly happy on this diet and I was Dried Out as one of my treatments at Perth Clinic after my breakdown in 2006.

Appalling at any exercise as a child - I tried the usual suspects such as ballet and tennis - I discovered the only team sport that I excelled, much to my surprise, was volleyball. My friend Sue Town and I would smack ourselves on the nose in order to be excused for PE. However, when thrown onto a volleyball team, Sue's and my services were almost unplayable. We couldn't defend for quids, but we won a few games through sheer brilliance at serving and not much else.

I tried swimming, aerobics (a comic disaster) and line dancing ( another side-splitting episode) as other forms of exercise as an adult. I loved Jive dancing but as soon as I was coerced into moving out of the Beginners class, I lost my confidence and stopped.

I ran for ten years. Holy shit. This is how I maintained a fairly low weight. I entered the City-to-Surf on several occasions and the Perth-Fremantle walk (eighteen kilometres) once. I ran around Lake Gwelup and Carine Open Space. I pounded the pavements in Karrinyup, where I lived for twenty years. After I moved to Marangaroo, I bought a cheap walking machine, which worked very well until the Beagle ate the electrics - twice.

After moving to Beverley, I lost twelve kilogrammes through exercise, Duromine ( medical speed) and Michael nearly dying. Walking up and down three flights of stairs at Joondalup Hospital several times a day served me well. I dropped under seventy kilogrammes for the first time in quite a while.

Since then, guilt was been my ever-present friend as I gained weight back again. Plus shoulder and knee surgeries tendered to slow me down as well. I was not a happy camper.

After I saw the Boy Wonder late in 2017, he prescribed rough treatment of my troublesome knee to shake it up. So I started walking laps in our local pool. Much to my surprise, I loved the activity and my pain load reduced significantly as a result. And because the Beagle needed to diet, His Majesty and I started walking again as well.

On Wednesday, I paid to attend Pilates at five-thirty with the delightful Janet Robertson, proprietor of Nourishabley in Beverley. Pre-dinner Pilates. I was concerned by two possible events - that I would die during or after the class and that I would fart very loudly and embarrass myself.

Neither occurred. Somebody else farted and we all chose not to comment. There were a couple of skinny fit women there but the rest of us - weren't. Excellent. I spent the entire class concentrating so hard on what I was supposed to do that I forgot to be thirsty or self-conscious.

Thursday I was a bit sore but as the day wore on, my lower back ached more and more. I had half-promised I would return to Pilates on Friday morning. Now I was really worried that I had pushed my body a bit too far. Yet, I recognised the pain was muscular, so I gravitated between Going or Not Going.

This morning I bit the bullet and arrived spot-on time at Pilates.To my astonishment, I found the stretching regime much easier and I could feel the various muscles I was supposed to be using. As the class progressed, my discomfort vanished. I was stoked to finish the class feeling more confident and pain-free. Extraordinary.

Last evening, we caught a programme on SBS by Tim Caulfield, a Canadian academic, on dieting and exercise myths. Two of his musing stuck in my mind - if I was dieting and exercising to look good, I was doing this for all the wrong reasons. And if I expected the scales to dip dramatically, I would be disappointed. However, following as healthy a diet as possible and exercising would aid my overall health and fitness.

I have waited for fifty-six years to hear this reassurance. Now I have the impetus to keep exercising and trying to eat well without feeling the crushing urge to lose weight.

So tomorrow I will walk with Michael and the dogs. Monday I expect to walk laps in the pool. Wednesday I hope to drag Michael to Pilates.

Thanks, Tim.

Kate with Vanessa (right) Janina Faulker with Michelle - early 1986