Katie Fforde Romantic Novelist

‘Witty and generous romance — Jilly Cooper for the grown-ups!’ Independent

October 2007

Confessional

My website articles do seem to have a confessional feel to them so let’s make it official. Here are Some Stupid Things I have agreed to:

The first, which is so stupid I can’t believe I’ve let myself say yes, is to agree to be part of the Society of Authors’ team for University Challenge, The Professionals. They may not let us go on the programme. We haven’t had the auditions yet. And I may completely let them down.

For the Millennium celebrations, we had a polite (ish) dinner party, and friends came to stay. I was feeling pretty rough. I had had flu over Christmas, (although I still had to get up to make the gravy) and I wasn’t over it by the New Year. I was, at the time, addicted to Tetris, which some of you will understand. My brain was in another place – a place where it has recently taken permanent residence.

During the post-party celebrations we played Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the chocolate edition. By some weird fluke, I got the million pound question. Or, as my son sweetly put it, I guessed the right answer. This has given my family the impression I’m good at general knowledge, and it convinced our non-techie friend that the Game Boy was giving the answers. It was a fluke! I am not that good at general knowledge. I should have said No! The only point in my favour is that I have never let the Society of Authors get the impression that I know anything. Why they picked me is a one of those mysteries that will never be explained.

The auditions are next week. If I totally let the team down, we won’t appear on the show. It will be my fault. The others Know Stuff. I know a few odd things but I won’t be able to retrieve the information when the time comes. That is the first stupid thing I have done recently.

The second thing is potentially more fun, only in reality it has even more likely to put egg on my face in a big, double-yolked way. I have agreed to appear in a charity fashion show.

Well, I would, wouldn’t I? I do have a secret, show-off side to my nature and love clothes, so when I was charmed into do it, and November seemed a long way away, I thought it was a chance not to be missed. After all, a charity fashion show is just the sort of thing I might write about. It is research! That makes it positively virtuous.

BUT – remember when I talked about my diet (see below)? Well, either it stopped working or I stopped doing it right. I am a big girl. There are less pleasant ways of expressing it, but I’m not prepared to go there. ‘Denial’ is a very comfortable place to live, trust me!

I have to choose two garments from two local shops. Today I went into one of them to say hello. As I was about to go to my Flamenco class I didn’t stay long, I just wanted to introduce myself to the owner, (in the hope that she would conjure some wonderfully flattering item out of somewhere where the clothes are always gorgeous. This kind and professional lady said to me, ‘I’m glad they’re having an older lady.’ Me? An older lady? Well, I suppose so. I mean, I’m not twenty. But older?

So, on the 11th of November, possibly having attended a service of some kind remembering the fallen, I will be walking down a catwalk, possibly wearing a hat. I just hope there won’t be another sort of fall that will stick in people’s minds. Naomi Campbell, you are not alone …

May 2007

Let’s not talk about my diet

Okay, I’ve done it, I’ve done what I always swore I’d never do – bought a diet book and gone on it. What is even more strange is that I’ve more or less stuck to it. (I have had alcohol during the first phase, but this is me – what is life without the odd glass of wine?)

So why now? Well, it started with the ‘inspirational photo’ I tucked into the corner of the mirror. It was of me, looking fat. This will be my before photo. A little while from now, I’ll look back at it and think, ‘How did I let that happen? Thank goodness I’ve got it all under control now.’

But no, healthy muesli or porridge breakfasts, more exercise, hardly any dairy, and I just got fatter. The photo stayed there, and is still inspirational, only now it’s ‘I can get back to that weight if I take myself in hand.’ Sad, isn’t it? A sort of photo-equivalent of ‘cup half full or cup half empty.’ My cups are nowhere near empty.

As a friend had reached a similar zenith of despair (I know this is an oxymoron, but you get my point.) She mentioned the book, (The Idiot Proof Diet if you’re remotely interested,) and I looked it up on the internet. A couple of clicks and a day later it was in my hands.

I read it and it made me laugh. Definitely a first for a diet book and a big tick in its favour. It is very like Atkins, which I’ve held out against for ever, so why was I even tempted? Well, it was the witty style of writing and the glowing testimonials on Amazon. (Testimonials always glow. May be they’re radioactive.)

So why this diet? Well, it seemed really easy to follow if you eat out. In the past all my diets have been scuppered by my eating out (sometimes I have to do this – it’s part of my job – obviously not my favourite part!!!!).

Did I lose any weight? Well, I DID, and I was very pleased. Big Mac the Scary Personal Trainer was very pleased. All the summer clothes I dragged out of a basket and tried on fitted better than they had last year – result!

But sad to say, since I started writing this article, (which was about a week ago, to be fair) I don’t seem to have lost any more. I’m sticking to it, sort of (made a mistake with tomatoes, apparently you can’t eat them by the pound) but have definitely stayed the same. I stayed the same last week too.

January 2007

Happy New Year!

You might notice that I’m writing this on the fifth day of the New Year, and when I consider how many times this week I’ve started my New Year’s resolutions, I wonder when the new year actually begins.

I have a really bad record with resolutions. The only one I’ve managed to keep so far is the one when I resolved to start writing a book. This was after I was given a writing kit for Christmas by my mother. It included everything you needed to write a book in pre-computer days; paper, pens and pencils, Tippex, (the paper kind) a pocket dictionary and a thesaurus. She was the ‘put up or shut up’ sort and wouldn’t have accepted the excuse of three small children for not writing a book.

Since then, nothing. But this year, I really am determined to take more exercise, lose a bit of weight and be a better person. But when to start? Should I wait until all the chocolates, cream, left-over pudding, etc etc are gone? Is it wise to try and be healthy when temptation is everywhere, including on the Christmas tree?

I feel I could go two ways. I am fed up with eating fattening food I’m not really enjoying, I do crave vegetables, and just now I feel I want to eat something with cabbage and baked potatoes every night.

On the other hand it is nice to have a little something after every meal, to have a cheeky glass of port in the evening (one might as well finish the bottle, after all and you need something to go with all that stilton.)

So here I am, in a dilemma. Scary Mac wants me to keep a food diary and I’m doing it, but I’m going husky racing next week. Can you run around after dogs all day and not eat heartily in the evening. Mm, what are my chances?

The other way of tackling this problem is postponement. I always keep my fairy lights up until Candlemas, which is February 2nd. May be this is a good date for New Year’s resolutions, too?

December 2006

The Things They Say That Are Not True

A couple of years ago I read a book that stated firmly that if you ate breakfast you’d be less likely to be fat. At the time I was very fat (obese, actually, but let’s not go into that now), so I started eating breakfast. Up until then, breakfast was a meal I had at about 10.30 in the morning.

What happened? Did the weight fall off me like magic? Of course not. I put on a stone – that’s fourteen pounds – because of all the extra calories. The worst part is, I now need breakfast, can’t manage without it, although don’t have it first thing.

Another thing they say, and doctors are fond of this one, is, ‘eat a little less and move around a little more. It’ll be slow, but the weight will come off.’ Well, not in my case! I ate loads less, changed my unhealthy grilled bacon and tomato breakfast (with a slice of wholemeal toast), made it porridge or Expensive-Dr. Strangelove’s Muesli and started going to Curves (which I do love) and a personal trainer who is known in my house as Scary Mac.

Well, you don’t need me to tell you the outcome. I lost a couple of inches in girth but I did not lose any weight. Scary Mac had no satisfactory explana-tion, poo-pooed my suggestion that some fat might have turned into muscle and left me swearing never to believe what anyone tells me ever again.

You will also have the heard the one ‘if you eat a chocolate bar, your energy levels shoot up and then drop right down again, and you want another chocolate bar.’ Well, I like chocolate as much as the next person but I have never, ever felt the need for another bar (if ever I ate a whole bar, which I never do) more than a day/week/month after the last one. I’m not saying that there is no truth in all that stuff about insulin levels and what have you, I’m just saying that in my experience, it isn’t true.

You’ll be pleased to hear that I haven’t given up all my healthy eating habits, (well, you might be) but I have given up weighing myself. Currently, Scary Mac weighs me and doesn’t tell me what I weigh, or what, if anything, I’ve lost or put on. Because the moment I’m weighed I plunge into a deep depression. I am much more toned than I was, albeit still obese and I do feel the regular exercise makes me feel better. I am happy to see my shape changing (which is probably just my stronger stomach muscles being able to pull me in further, and not a real shape change at all) but I do want Them (as in the Government, Gillian McKeith (of ‘You are what you Eat’ fame), probably even Scary Mac who I do go to of my own free will) to get off my case. You don’t have to be all that fat to be obese these days.

So, feeling as I do, why do I watch ‘You are what you Eat’? Well, part of it is incredulity. Those people eat hideously unhealthy amounts – I have never eaten anything like that amount of saturated fats etc etc and considering, they aren’t that fat. I am nearly as fat on my pumpkin-seed infested rabbit droppings and two slices of bread a day only diet. (I do eat other things but I only have two slices of bread …)

The other part is incredulity that Ms McKeith doesn’t get duffed up more often. She is so rude! And she makes people’s new diet and new life style so difficult! If they have a fear of water, she makes them go rowing. She wants them to eat oily fish, so she presents them with mackerel they have to gut and decapitate. I know this is supposedly to make ‘good telly’, but surely, one of the points of her programme is to encourage people to change their dreadful eating habits? Well no one in their right mind is going to give up take-away curries and McE-numbers for whole fish they have to spend an hour preparing. Doesn’t she want the viewers to eat better too? Or is it only about viewing figures for her? Surely she could make up healthy diets that include ready filleted oily fish, vegetables you don’t need a pick-axe to tackle, and forms of exercise people might actually enjoy?

I really don’t want anyone reading this to think I am against healthy eating, I am not! I’m just saying that eating a healthy breakfast, having a generally pretty healthy diet, and taking exercise at least three times a week won’t necessarily make you lose weight. If you’re me, that is. It might well work for you. But really, you can’t believe everything they tell you.

All views are, of course, Katie’s own! (And not necessarily those of her publisher, agent, website designer etc)