It’s a new year and it’s a new me! Well, that’s what I’m trying to convince myself of as I sit here bored off my tits at 35’000 feet. I definitely consumed too much food and drink over Christmas and I am severely bloated as a result. My uniform pants are feeling way tighter than they should and I’m starting to wish I caught the bug that my entire family seemed to embrace over Christmas.

 

Drastic times call for drastic measures so before we depart I decide I am going to do the coffee diet for the entire 4 days of this long-haul trip. This isn’t any Internet fad-diet bullshit that some model came up with to hide her eating disorder. It is of my own invention and I am going to play to win. Well I am going to try at the very least.

 

The basics of this diet are that I drink black coffee at will anytime that I want for 4 days. The hard part of all of this is probably not eating food but I’m pretty sure I can do it. Coffee is an appetite suppressant and I am going to use it to its maximum effect. I’m all in.

 

So far I have managed to drink at least 3 black coffees and we are less than halfway to destination (Buenos Aires). I expected to have no interest in food but as the guy beside me is jamming peanut butter sandwiches into his mildly overweight and aging face my resolve starts to break. I order another coffee from the cabin and do my best not to think about it.

 

I try to wreck his lunch by talking about how fatty peanut butter is and how unhealthy he is being which makes me feel way better, but it doesn’t do a thing to quell the hunger.

 

I am concentrating and visualising myself being super-lean and back in shape in no time; it doesn’t help that I have agreed to start doing yoga with Craig. Can’t be going into a yoga studio (I think that’s what it’s called) looking all bloated. On that note, is it okay for me to wear yoga pants or is that just for the ladies? I don’t know yoga etiquette and obviously can’t turn up looking squishy in yoga pants.

 

It has officially been 12 hours since I had anything to eat when I start to get dizzy. I’m not sure if it’s the caffeine coursing through my veins like Michael Schumacher on a ski-slope or the lack of nutrients but it ain’t pretty. I’m not blacking out but I am very happy that I am not the pilot flying.

 

I actually thought I would be pretty dehydrated as I’m also drinking zero water but my body begs to differ as I start to get the sweats. The dizziness and hunger I can handle but the sweats hits me hard as I fight to concentrate on his approach brief.

 

All I can hear is blah blah blah “autoland” and I just keep nodding my head. When we get to final approach I am just about holding on and it becomes obvious that I am struggling badly when he has to ask me for landing gear down three times.

 

I suspect without the coffee I would have been lights out so my reasoning for consuming so much coffee seems justified although my bowels now seem to be disagreeing.

 

I get a wave of euphoria as we apply the parking brakes on stand and everything seems okay until I feel a strange pressure on my chest and a smell of peanut butter. Waking up with a sweaty, overweight, middle-aged mans lips clamped on mine as he attempts to resuscitate may not be as horrific as turning up to yoga looking squishy but it’s pretty gross. As I push him off me and tell him he smells fat I realise what’s happened.

 

I am gutted it wasn’t one of the hot cabin crew that threw the lips on me but at the end of the day I reckon it’s better than not shaking off this extra weight. Remember, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”.

 

Happy New Year

 

LJ