To my detriment, I’ve used the bleak Irish author Samuel Beckett as a life coach (blame it on an obsession with dark literature, developed doing a drama degree).

“Fail better,” he wrote in Worstward Ho. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.”

As I’ve searched for the holy grail of thinness, it’s been the mantra of my life. Diet. Lose weight. Fail. Eat addictively. Pile on the kilograms. Try again.

Round and round in ever more despairing circles. Always failing better.

I have been at war with my body since I was, oh, 12 years old? My poor body was blamed over and over again: it let me down during gym class; had me huff puffing across the volleyball court.

More importantly, my body made me feel self-conscious, ungainly and ugly: my heavy thighs and pendulous breasts (a double mastectomy sadly saw them go in 2013).

I blamed my body for my loveless solitariness: why boys (then men) showed no interest in me.

And now I am thin. At 66, I am finally really thin. Normal body weight thin.

A Medium, size 12 thin. 30kg lighter thin. A hard-won journey, begun a year ago and undertaken with a regimen that excludes carbohydrates, sugar, ultra-processed food, and, until recently, dairy.

Thin is magic. Marvelous, head-swirling, giggle-producing, deep-sigh-inducing magic. Just the word THIN invokes a Vivaldi Gloria praise and worship incantation.

But (sadly there’s a “and yet” component to this euphoria) the demon fear, like a limpet to a rock, stubbornly sticks.

There’s a mantra running through my head. What if the food noise in my head comes back?

If I’m tempted by a square of chocolate or a slice of bread (my nemesis), will my resolve dissolve?

If that happens, Heaven Forbid, will I revert, as I have done for 65 years, to being large, bloated, puffy…fat?

You’d think I’d look in the mirror and congratulate myself on my astonishing achievement. It is very, very hard to lose weight. But I’m repulsed by my sagging skin.

Muscle loss, a sad side effect of rapid weight loss, frightens me, as it’s listed as a high-risk factor in falling, older people’s number one dread.

Another gloomy Beckett quote expressed in his existential musings in The Unnameable: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

So, with resigned regret, and using myself as an example, I admit that all that’s been done to promote positive thinking about women’s bodies has yet to work.

Maybe Gen Z or Gen Alpha will get it, and place less emphasis on their physical shape. I hope so. Change is inevitable.

For the rest, after countless campaigns on media platforms repeatedly telling women that they’re beautiful whatever their size or shape, women remain plagued by body issues.

Even today, when fat shaming is universally frowned upon, we still have shaming terminology, used only for women! Plus-sized. Why?

Surely there are just clothes. And they come in sizes. Why do we need the added term plus?

Big women are pejoratively called Amazonian; Statuesque; Fleshy; Plump; Voluptuous; Rotund; Chubby; Full figured.

So many words to avoid using the word fat, which is implied anyway.

The western beauty standard has, for decades (centuries?), been thin. When it became unfashionable to make being pin thin the holy grail, terminology morphed into the Wellness concept and it became all about self-care and healthy choices.

But the end goal was the same: thin = good; fat = bad and shameful.

There’s a lack of confidence in women, which translates into self-criticism and manifests as extreme criticism of a body part, or the entire body. I hate my – fill in the blank (breasts, thighs, bum, waist, arms…)

By way of contrast, my body positive ex-husband shamelessly walked across a room butt naked, scratching said saggy butt without a hint of self-consciousness. I changed in the dark.

An intrigued health and wellness journalist friend is researching whether women’s brains are wired differently, whether we are predisposed to have a negative view of our physical selves.

Did Eve ruin it for women, creating “food-sin”, when she gave Adam the forbidden apple in the garden of Eden?

Did his eating it cause immediate shame – for her, not him? Far-fetched? Maybe. Someone has to take responsibility for this destructive self-loathing that women have embedded in their DNA.

Soap company Dove did a survey in 2018, interviewing 10 500 women of all ages in 13 countries about body confidence.

The results were regretful. Japan ranked lowest; just 8% of women reported body positivity.

Curiously, South Africa had the highest (not high enough) score with a 64% body confidence rating among women.

And yet, despite that, women my age – close enough to 81, which the UN says is the average life expectancy of financially comfortable women with access to good nutrition and health care – are embracing the change that comes with getting older.

I recently interviewed women living their best life in retirement, and was moved and inspired by how these retirees, comfortably off in their post-employment lives, are giving back.

They are sharing their resources, devoting their time and energy and generally working to improve the lives of the downtrodden and the poor.

I see their shining inner beauty and hope they have a sense of self-worth. At our late stage of life, we’ve earned it.

We’re facing the challenges that old age brings with fortitude and grace, and taking on new projects, switching to chair yoga out of respect for arthritic joints, getting fashionable eyewear to compensate for failing eyesight.

And we’re booking more holidays, remembering there are fewer years ahead than behind.

I find myself much changed from my younger self. I value my own opinion, and know which battles to fight. I find peace in silence and stillness, in nature and in a good book.

I still yell at taxi drivers, and am impatient when people don’t look at me when they talk to me; increasingly diminished hearing has me watching TV with subtitles and avoiding noisy restaurants.

But I have yet to learn how to incorporate body positivity into my life.

Maya Angelou wrote in her poem, Phenomenal Woman:

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.

Erm, that’s not me. Yet. But I have hope that I’ll get there, in this lifetime.