Wide

I was really chuffed when one of my friends whom I had not seen for a couple of months exclaimed when he saw me, ‘Helen, what’s up? You look wider! You’re still small but you take up more space. Have you been mugging?’ (Mugging is Ugandan slang for weight lifting). I literally danced for joy. It’s been four months since I started my weight training and I have come a long way. I still do not like the gym (sorry coach Shao I have nothing against you personally but I hate the gym). I consider it a necessary evil but it has done wonders for me. Since the beginning of last year I have been struggling to gain weight - I weighed 51.5kgs then - and I set my end target at 60kgs. I hit 60kgs this month and no one can call me scrawny anymore. And the great thing is that I carry my weight comfortably although at first I found it hard going. Charlotte and Prossy are really pissed off because they have always been heavier than me but now I am ahead. They claim I rigged the weighing scale (ha ha ha – the truth hurts). I think all this is really funny. All over the world women punish themselves by missing out on meals, denying themselves chocolates, ice cream, wine etc, and other such schemes in a bid to lose weight (by the way I consider that worse torture than going to the gym – I love my food, chocs …). And here we are eating at least 4 meals a day and pumping that iron to become bigger and heavier. No wonder Ugandans say that women who play rugby are weird.