“She can eat anything she wants and still look good!”

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel. 

“She can eat anything she wants and still look good!”

I remember thinking that about some women, usually prefaced with, 'It's not fair!'


I used to think that really slim women somehow managed to be slim effortlessly, and that they had the 'key' to some miracle something that meant they could eat whatever they wanted, all the time, and still remain so slim. I used to find it infuriating when I saw a really slim woman eating an icecream or a cake or a chocolate bar - how dare she! How dare she be so slim and still eat all those fattening things!!


And, to some extent, I still catch those thoughts from time to time - my Gremlin is good at hanging on to sticks with which to beat me whenever I let my guard down. It's all your fault (so says my Gremlin) that you're so fat, look at what you eat! Don't think you can get away with eating stuff like that, gloats my Gremlin, and think you can lose weight! If that Gillian McKeith woman put all the food you eat on a table, the nation would be sick and food sales would go into a downward spiral ... everyone would just be DISGUSTED because you are disgusting....


It's poisonous stuff and if I catch the Gremlin at it, I shut him pdq and do my very best to rid my mind of those slimy, poisonous, UNTRUE slanders.


And anyway, how do I know what those skinny women eat? I may have seen them eating icecream or a cream cake or a chocolate bar, but what if that was ALL THEY ATE ALL DAY?! I know from my own experience that if I want to eat icecream, cake and/or chocolate, other food has to go out the window - there simply isn't room for it all any more. At one time I would have eaten the icecream, cake and/or chocolate AND my meals and then more icecream, cake and/or chocolate because I was so disgusted with myself. And so it would go on, giving my Gremlin ample sources of sticks to beat me with.


So when Daughter Number 2 said, “Hey mum, you’re looking good and you eat anything you want,” I was quite shocked to hear those words applied to me ... Daughter Number 2 was being complimentary, rather than envious; she was noticing that I no longer restrict the foods I eat based on some diet or other. She was supporting me as I did my exercises by noticing that I have toned up and am looking pretty good considering my advanced years ;)


And so the tables have turned. I appear to turning into one of those women I used to envy, although I’m still having trouble convincing my Gremlin of that!