follows:
Exercise = 40 minutes a day
Reading = 2 hours a day
Television watching = 8 hours a day
Eating = 20 minutes a day
Sleeping = 10 hours a day
Thinking = 2 hours a day
Cleaning = 1 hour a day
I don’t like to be disturbed. I like to be in this place, at this time, that is how I like things. Please do not try to move me. My Cindy Crawford aerobics video keeps me sane, and yet I have to practise it while everyone is out of the house because they think it is damaging me. I alternate between the two forty-minute workouts. I know the entire sequence, every word that is said and every beat of the music:
‘This exercise is really great for this little muscle in here’ (model points to top of thigh, I point to top of my thigh), ‘and one, and two … and twenty.’
I think it must be one of the better videos, because you actually feel it deep in your muscles. I don’t dare try any other tapes in case they don’t work, and then I will have wasted my exercise time. I think that if it hurts, it means that it must have some impact. NO PAIN – NO GAIN (or weight loss, in my case). I feel such satisfaction when my muscles ache and pulse with pain, and when it feels as though I am tearing my heart out. It is the first thing I think of inthe morning and the last thing I think of at night. I think about it all day in between, too. I don’t understand why they try and stop me doing it. I am making myself fit. I sometimes wonder if they know that I start exercising the very second they leave me on my own. As I watch the car pull away, I jump into my cycling shorts and press ‘play’. Sometimes they seem to come back just to check on me. This is so frustrating. I have to stop the tape, pull off my trainers and hide them behind the sofa, run to the bathroom, wipe the sweat from my face and pretend I have been lying there on my bed (like the way they want me to be), doing nothing. They want me to do nothing, so that I don’t use up any energy. My bottom is hurting from the hours I have spent lying and sitting down. I need this workout to refresh me. I need this to make me feel something, otherwise I feel disgusting and heavy and flabby.
They prefer it when I read. ‘Reading is motionless,’ they tell me. ‘Reading can help you relax.’
I sit there, pen in hand, analysing the text. I do not relax when I read. I think of achieving. I think of how I need to be better, and know more and be more intelligent. I now have doubts about going to Bristol University where I should be right now. I was only going there because of its Olympicsized swimming pool and the gym’s easy access – all so I could make sure I got plenty of exercise. I know they say I won’t go to university anyway, not even next year, but I don’t think like that. I can’t think like that, like I can’t eat chicken and potatoes. I have been reading about Cambridge University. This seems like the ideal place for me. Now this illness has happened to me, it must be this way for a reason. If I have to be away from university for a year, missing out on all the things that my friends are doing, then when I go, I want to go to the best place possible. So I sent away for the prospectus. The college at Cambridge that I like has agym actually on site – it’s ideal! Of course, they are all speechless. Mouths drop. Eyes bulge. Tears form. They don’t even congratulate me on making such a brave decision. They almost refuse to take my application form to school to get a reference from my old sixth-form head of year.
‘Of course,’ they say, ‘we will have to ask him to mention your illness on the form.’
‘Of course!’ I say.
My form is perfect. I have typed and retyped and retyped and retyped it. It is neat and tidy and faultless. He can mention my illness if they want, but my perfect form to Cambridge is in the post.
I tell them not to interfere. When they start to meddle I just step up the pace. They can’t understand the way I order things. I like
Exercise = 40 minutes a day
Reading = 2 hours a day
Television watching = 8 hours a day
Eating = 20 minutes a day
Sleeping = 10 hours a day
Thinking = 2 hours a day
Cleaning = 1 hour a day
I don’t like to be disturbed. I like to be in this place, at this time, that is how I like things. Please do not try to move me. My Cindy Crawford aerobics video keeps me sane, and yet I have to practise it while everyone is out of the house because they think it is damaging me. I alternate between the two forty-minute workouts. I know the entire sequence, every word that is said and every beat of the music:
‘This exercise is really great for this little muscle in here’ (model points to top of thigh, I point to top of my thigh), ‘and one, and two … and twenty.’
I think it must be one of the better videos, because you actually feel it deep in your muscles. I don’t dare try any other tapes in case they don’t work, and then I will have wasted my exercise time. I think that if it hurts, it means that it must have some impact. NO PAIN – NO GAIN (or weight loss, in my case). I feel such satisfaction when my muscles ache and pulse with pain, and when it feels as though I am tearing my heart out. It is the first thing I think of inthe morning and the last thing I think of at night. I think about it all day in between, too. I don’t understand why they try and stop me doing it. I am making myself fit. I sometimes wonder if they know that I start exercising the very second they leave me on my own. As I watch the car pull away, I jump into my cycling shorts and press ‘play’. Sometimes they seem to come back just to check on me. This is so frustrating. I have to stop the tape, pull off my trainers and hide them behind the sofa, run to the bathroom, wipe the sweat from my face and pretend I have been lying there on my bed (like the way they want me to be), doing nothing. They want me to do nothing, so that I don’t use up any energy. My bottom is hurting from the hours I have spent lying and sitting down. I need this workout to refresh me. I need this to make me feel something, otherwise I feel disgusting and heavy and flabby.
They prefer it when I read. ‘Reading is motionless,’ they tell me. ‘Reading can help you relax.’
I sit there, pen in hand, analysing the text. I do not relax when I read. I think of achieving. I think of how I need to be better, and know more and be more intelligent. I now have doubts about going to Bristol University where I should be right now. I was only going there because of its Olympicsized swimming pool and the gym’s easy access – all so I could make sure I got plenty of exercise. I know they say I won’t go to university anyway, not even next year, but I don’t think like that. I can’t think like that, like I can’t eat chicken and potatoes. I have been reading about Cambridge University. This seems like the ideal place for me. Now this illness has happened to me, it must be this way for a reason. If I have to be away from university for a year, missing out on all the things that my friends are doing, then when I go, I want to go to the best place possible. So I sent away for the prospectus. The college at Cambridge that I like has agym actually on site – it’s ideal! Of course, they are all speechless. Mouths drop. Eyes bulge. Tears form. They don’t even congratulate me on making such a brave decision. They almost refuse to take my application form to school to get a reference from my old sixth-form head of year.
‘Of course,’ they say, ‘we will have to ask him to mention your illness on the form.’
‘Of course!’ I say.
My form is perfect. I have typed and retyped and retyped and retyped it. It is neat and tidy and faultless. He can mention my illness if they want, but my perfect form to Cambridge is in the post.
I tell them not to interfere. When they start to meddle I just step up the pace. They can’t understand the way I order things. I like
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