etc Columnist: Louise Margaret

Every year I swear to myself that I will actually sign up, participate in, and benefit from a ‘ready for summer’ body diet and fitness regime.

Every year, without fail, I have merely participated in ‘provide your own rubber ring for the pool’ diet and fitness regime which involves eating exactly the same as I’ve always done and being incredibly busy.

So needless to say, my rubber-ring flotation-stomach look is bang on trend for this year and, to be honest, I’m okay with that. You see, I have other means of dietary control and fitness in my life, like forgetting school trips, and by forgetting, I mean remembering as I drive home from work the day before.

Such mental stress, is enough for me to throw together something resembling a meal for the kids, gee-ing them up to eat it (completely forgetting to eat myself as I’m now ransacking every drawer in the house for a pair of evacuee-style shorts) and, as is usually the case with such things, a quick late-night trip to the local supermarket to buy a pair of suitable shorts that were 1) the right colour, 2) traditional looking; and 3) something my son would actually wear without a total meltdown of how ‘rubbish’ they look.

Talking of rubbish, I have also discovered there is a perfectly good exercise routine which involves jumping up and down, burns calories, and tightens core muscles to help improve balance. I stumbled upon this wonder exercise purely by chance last week.

It had been the usual week in my house, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary and just the usual suspects of me, the kids and the cats all week. No special parties, no friends over and yet, curiously, I had encountered the weird first-world phenomenon of accumulating a metric tonne of recycling.

Unable to wedge the last plastic milk cartons, cat food pouch boxes and a variety of other recycled goods into the bin, and definitely unable to close the lid, I had to drag the bin to the back garden and down a couple of steps to the patio so I could then run back up the steps, cling like a monkey to the back wall of the house, and stand tentatively on the contents. Becoming a human trash compactor is not a sight that needs to be witnessed by the public in general, or those walking or driving by my house.

Needless to say, with my weight bouncing on top of all the flotsam and jetsam of paper and plastic it compacted down to nearly half in volume. I was now sweating quite ungracefully, had used every muscle in my body trying to keep myself upright and not fall out of the bin, and then, after the joy of dragging the now-positively heaving bin back out to the front of my house, I deemed myself suitably ‘worked out’.

I think the Domestic Goddess diet and work-out could take off. You just need to eat more cakes so the packaging builds up in your recycling bin.

Perfect!

This first featured in the July edition of etc Magazine pick up your copy now.