Monthly Archives: September 2015

So How Full is Full?

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

sk dog

It’s occurred to me more than once that maybe there’s a fundamental design fault with the human body you know? At least for some of us.  Take your car…it runs low on fuel, the fuel gauge tells you, you fill it up and when the fuel pump clicks, you know it’s full. You can’t squeeze more in, because it just takes what it takes. It doesn’t matter if you’d hoped to squeeze more in, if it’s full it’s full. You wouldn’t stand there and keep giving it large with the nozzle would you? No, of course you wouldn’t.

Now I don’t know about you, but somehow, no matter how much my head recognises that my belly is full, if I’m that way out and want to eat, I’ll find a way to eat. Case in point, Christmas dinner…you know that way where it’s just soooo good and there’s leftovers on the table winking at you and trying everything possible to attract your attention…eat me eat me eat me… you’ve already eaten everything on your plate, you’re stuffed more royally than the turkey ever was and you already suspect you’re going to need a winch to help you up from your chair.

And yet. That minxy little pig nestled in that crispy little blanket seduces you over the brussels sprouts and before you know it your jaws are off again. Your belly is already bursting, you look like you swallowed a beach ball and you’re bordering on a food coma and yet still you can’t resist.

My problem has always been that it isn’t just at Christmas…lots of people walk away from that special once-a-year dinner groaning and pledging not to eat for a week. Me included (although to be fair I’d usually only make it from the dining table as far as the sofa before I was in to the chocolates just because you know, it’s Christmas.) Trouble is, having grown up eating portions that wouldn’t have looked out of place at the top of Jack’s beanstalk, walking away from the table feeling fit to burst was almost the norm in our house.

Having survived the war years on ration coupons and food shortages,  my mum showed love by providing a constant stream of food…she loved to cook, and bake, and although there was only our small little family sitting down to eat, she may as well have been feeding the five thousand. There’d probably have been leftovers even then.  So her love of feeding her family combined with my love of feeding my face kind of created the perfect storm. My full-filter is broken, and I have no concept of what a normal portion looks like. I look at a TV dinner or a ready meal which might be labelled as a meal for one and think “are you kidding me..? “

It’s down to me now though – I get that. Eating till I’m not hungry is different from eating till I’m full, and I get that too. Eating till I’m overfull …I shouldn’t go there at all. There have been times in my life where I’ve felt overpowered by the desire to eat but equally there have been times when I’ve felt like I’m the one calling the shots, and right now I feel strong. In control…it feels good you know?

Even if I still look at a regular sized portion and think ‘great but where’s the rest of it…?!‘

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Hopes and Dreams

In the here & now, Reflections on past times,

bucket

Hands up if you’ve ever seen or heard or maybe read something which resonated with you, stayed with you…I mean really rung the bell deep down inside of you and made you think YEAH!! DAMN STRAIGHT!!  I have – this is the thing that I read, 25 years ago at least, and it never left me.

I believe that we are who we choose to be. Nobody is going to come and save you. You’ve got to save yourself. Nobody is going to give you anything. You’ve got to go out and fight for it. Nobody knows what you want except you, and nobody will be as sorry as you if you don’t get it. So don’t give up your dreams.

How awesome is that – by the way you score extra points if you can tell me who said it – and how awesome is it that after 25 years of cherishing those words, I can pretty much remember them word for word. That’s powerful isn’t it, that someone can put something out there and someone else sees it, and it stays with that person for the longest time. I think the reason it fired something up in me is because I believe the sentiment behind those words you know?  100%. I read them at a point in my life where I’d already picked up a couple of bruises and realisation was dawning that the charmed life I’d pictured for myself wasn’t going exactly to plan.

Fast-forward twenty five years – am I the person I choose to be? No.

I mean on some level of course, I’m happy with the person I am on the inside. I love my grown up son and my dog, I spoil my mum and I have lots of friends who mean the world to me, and whom I’d go to the ends of the earth for if they needed me.  They would for me too, which tells me I’m getting something right, right? I work hard, pay my taxes (ok through gritted teeth at times but it still counts) and I try to be kind and generous…I’m a good person. But have I chosen to live inside this body?  Are you serious? Unless they were accompanied by men in white coats carrying a syringe with bluebirds twittering around their head, nobody would choose to live inside this body. And yet, I haven’t chosen not to…or at least I haven’t chosen not to for ever.

Nobody is going to come and save me from 300lbs of wobble, I’ve got to save myself. I get it, I know that. Nobody is going to give me the answers of how I break this game of yo-yo madness that I’ve played with myself over the years, I have to figure it out in a way that works for me…I get that too, and I’m up for the fight – come on asshole, give it your best shot. And you know what’s really true? Nobody could ever know better than I do how much I want to be free of this fat suit which gets in the way of the person I really choose to be. Would anyone else be sorry if I didn’t?  Of course not – again, down to me.

I haven’t given up on my dreams…that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m on it 🙂

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Is Fat Catching?

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

friendsSo I read an interesting article the other day which made me think.  It seemed to suggest that if your friends are fat, you have an increased risk of becoming fat yourself. Hmm. Lets just think about that for a second…that’s like suggesting that being fat is contagious, like a disease you might get if you hug me then don’t immediately wash your hands…how bloody insulting.  If word of this gets out I’d best prepare for a mass exodus of friends, after all lets be honest, nobody’s going to want to risk  being around me if that’s the case 🙁

Having said that, after my initial flash-point reaction of thinking the article had clearly been written by some skinny fuckwit with fat issues, I calmed down a bit and thought about it for a while, and you know what, I can see a world in which there might be just a tiny element of truth buried in there somewhere. By definition, I guess the people you hang out with are into the kind of things you’re into. So if you’re into fitness and an active lifestyle, your friends probably are too. If you’re a foodie and your free time is spend hunting down new places to go eat, stands to reason your besties enjoy that too.

Pop quiz – when I get together with my friends, do we

a) Go to a step-class and work out for four hours burning 5000 calories each before going out for a salad washed down with iced water and vitamin pills, or

b) Go to a movie, eat Haagen Dazs and popcorn whilst we’re watching it and then go out for pizza, pudding and cocktails..?

Yes…it’s never going to be option A. We would probably burn off at least half the ice-cream laughing through the course of the evening but it’s not going to be a calorie conscious night out. Well, in pre-diet days anyway.  But still – none of my friends look like I do. They come in all shapes and sizes, as you might expect. But as far as I can see, nobody has caught fat from me yet, therefore that kind of begs the question, why do I look like this, and they don’t..?

I think I can answer that. After our night out, they’ll probably all step off the calories for a couple of days, because that’s what normal people do. It’s all about balance and that’s the bit I struggle with…when I’m not dieting, I eat all the wrong stuff, and portion control..? Doesn’t even occur to me, I mean portion control is what you do when you’re dieting, right?  Not when you’re off the leash.  So I can do dieting, and I can do not dieting, but woven together so I broadly style it out across the week..?  That I can’t do…it’s one (and I get fatter) or the other (and I get skinnier).

So, when the skinny girl breaks out and I get to a size that I feel happy with, that’s the time when I need to wake up and learn a whole new way of being. Old dog, new tricks? Yep, count me in…I’m ready to learn 🙂

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Skin in the Game

Diet update, Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

feeling good

I’m enjoying something of an easy ride at the moment – truth be told I feel almost guilty that I’m not providing you with more drama, like my diet blog won’t properly earn it’s stripes unless it’s chock-a-block with tales of struggles and overcoming adversity. All I’ve managed to do so far is to demonstrate that the asshole is…well, an asshole who spends his days just being annoying rather than effective. Which must be twisting his melon BIG TIME because I’ve been such a pushover in the past.

This sweet spot that I’ve landed in is providing me with a protective shell against the worst of him – that, and the company of our posse, obviously. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t gone away…he had a bit of a chew at me yesterday in fact. To cut a long story short I had a really early start and I’d taken breakfast with me (low carb muffins, see my foodie page) – the first opportunity to eat didn’t present itself until I was settled on the short flight over to Ireland (which I made with 7 minutes to spare due to heavy traffic, talk about squeaky bum time!) and as I thought about reaching into my bag to get one out,  I was acutely aware of him chuntering on in my ear about how everyone on the flight would look at me with contempt and think ‘trust the fat girl to bring a picnic for a 30 minute flight hahahaha‘ – his words did sting a bit and I decided not to eat. So he still has the ability to make me second-guess myself, but no real teeth to throw me off track, for now.

I’m fascinated as to the reason why – what is it that’s making this feel like a walk in the park? I’ve become gradually more aware over the last couple of weeks in particular that I’m nurturing a deep down core belief that this will be one of the times in my life where I’ve really managed to get a hold of myself and I’m going to complete the long march from fat to skinny, that’s how secure I feel right now. I’m scared to turn over too many stones in my desire to understand what makes this time different, in case it vanishes like a fart in the breeze – sharing my thoughts with the posse on a daily basis is definitely helping, and I suspect that having almost six weeks’ worth of skin in the game is also a factor.

In the first flush of resolve with a new diet it’s easy for him to justify a slip-up as a false start, and persuade me to get on board with his twisted thinking but the fact that I’ve managed not to let his barrage of chatter un-nerve me is turning down the volume of his voice ever so slightly. I wouldn’t say he’s on the ropes but he’s definitely spending more time in his corner.

One piece of exciting news that I have to share is that Crabby McSlacker from Cranky Fitness invited me to submit a guest blog to her website – I cannot begin to tell you how much I’ve chuckled at the prospect of me writing an article for a fitness website. I mean you almost have to have an epi-pen on standby whenever I so much as think about exercise! I’ll post a link when it goes live, in case you’d like to check it out.

So all in all a great week – I’m just going to keep on keeping on…as always, I appreciate your company, it’s helping more than you know. I hope things are going equally well for you guys 🙂

 

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