Monthly Archives: September 2015

Space Invader

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

FLS

Now, I’m guessing it depends where you sit on the fat to skinny spectrum as to whether you’ve really given the matter of space any serious consideration. I’m talking about personal space, and how much of it we take up as we go about our business. I say this because until I joined the realms of the super-obese I don’t recall really thinking too much about how much space I was taking up in this world, but once the penny dropped with me that I might be taking up too much of it to the point where it was pissing other people off, I became super-tuned in to the vibe, and it’s become a major pre-occupation.

We’ve all seen the debate raging about whether fat people should pay extra for flight seats and to be honest, count me in – my lard, my responsibility – just don’t make a fuss and for God’s sake don’t make me sit across two seats…that would be less about equity and more about treating me like livestock. They may as well run down the aisle blowing a bugle and shouting ‘Make way for the moose!!’

When I emerge from my chrysalis as a skinny string bean I’d welcome the chance to fly for peanuts if they want to just hitch up my seat space a little so it cradles my bony ass nicely and frees up a little more room for someone with a bit more padding – everybody’s happy. I’m sure in this age of technology it could be done. And if there does happen to be any aircraft seat designers reading my blog today, can you please sort your shit out with the seat belts whilst you’re at it?

I get it, I get that life is designed for Joe average.  And if you’re a fat person who genuinely believes that fat is as beautiful as skinny, or if you’re a skinny person who’s wandered in here by mistake (you’re very welcome but stop screwing your face up like that, you’ll get wrinkles) then you probably won’t be able to relate to what I’m saying. Which is fine, because we’re all different and if you’re happy, I’m happy. And a tiny bit envious.

You don’t know how lucky you are if you don’t feel the need to tiptoe through life trying to take up as little a space as possible. You won’t feel mortified if your arse or your chunky arms encroach onto someone else’s personal space when you sit beside them and pretend not to see FFS written right across their averagely proportioned face. You won’t feel the need to hold everything tucked in as tight as possible ’till your core muscles quiver, in the hope that you can prevent your body spilling over your quota of space and invading someone else’s. It’s not possible to pick up your body baggage and place it on the tray table in front of you to make room for someone to sit down like you can with your carry-on and I hate how apologetic that makes me feel, as though I’m being deliberately rude just for…being.

Writing it down really helps to focus the mind…you have no idea how much I can’t wait not to feel like that any more.

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Tapas, Anyone?

Freeform thoughts,

tapas

Friends are precious aren’t they – it’s almost the weekend and one of my favourite things to do when I’m in the mood to kick back and relax is to get together with a bunch of people I’m close to for relaxed chatter, a bite to eat and maybe the odd glass of wine or two. You just cannot beat an evening where you laugh till your belly aches, and I always find that good food and decent plonk is a great starter for ten.

So the question will always arise, unless we’re dining at home – what does everyone fancy to eat? Admittedly it’s one of the nicer dilemmas to have, even when I’m dieting and in the sweet spot there’s usually something on the menu wherever we end up which will allow me to keep at least a sheen on my dieting halo even if it’s not an out and out shine. But the consensus I dread..? Tapas.

For the uninitiated, it’s the informal Spanish style of eating where little dishes of food heaven arrive at the table in a steady stream and you choose a bit of this, and a bit of that…chat for a bit and then more dishes turn up, and repeat. Everybody dives in and helps themselves and the dishes keep on coming until you’ve had enough. For most people, it’s a lovely relaxing sociable way of eating which promotes conversation and sharing as you meander unhurriedly through the meal. Even as I sit typing this, I love the idea of it. In reality, it makes me bat shit crazy.

I’m in the Joey from Friends camp when it comes to sharing food. I like my food, on my plate under the sole control of my knife and fork. It messes with my head when all these little dishes hit the table and everyone just digs in. I can feel my palms getting sweaty when I see someone going in for the kill on something I fancied the look of and by the time I get to it, it’s all gone. So then I have a bit of something else but I hang onto the food envy.

If a second dish of it turns up a bit later on and I miss it again I swear I can feel the red mist descending. Best friends or no, I want to wrestle it from their hands. And if you strike gold and eat a bit of something you really enjoy, when you go back for more invariably you find that somebody else has eaten the rest of it, so all you can do it use a bit of fancy bread to mop up what’s left of the sauce and spend the rest of the meal watching the waitress like a hawk… poised, ready to pounce but with no guarantee that she’ll be back with more of the one you’re hoping for. And if you’re so busy watching for more of that one, you might miss something else that everyone starts raving about…and so it goes on.

Can you see my point? It’s stress central. And I always end up feeling a bit cheated, like everyone else got all the good stuff. Or got more of the good stuff than I did…I got olives. With so much table activity it’s impossible to tell. But how utterly ridiculous is it that I’d be so pre-occupied with a head full of stressy thoughts about whether I’m getting my fair share of the food – ‘Bitch ate the last meatball!’ – it’s not normal.

There goes the food yanking my chains again…

 

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Preparing to Negotiate.

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

LV

So I guess you could say that today marks the start of my countdown to holiday – exactly four weeks from now almost to the minute, five of my very best friends and I will be touching down thousands of miles away from home for a few days of girly time to celebrate my big birthday. The one that kicks off my next decade…you know, the decade where I’m going to be fifty and fabulous.  Fifty, fabulous and skinny. My friends and I have been exchanging giddy texts this afternoon along the lines of ‘Four weeks from today…’ and I’m grinning from ear to ear when I think about how much we are going to laugh.

Now, I have to hold my hands up and admit that I’m not really a big planner. I’m more of a ‘fly it as I’m building it’ kind of girl – in work I have to be uber organised which means that outside of work I lurk at the opposite end of the spectrum and I’m often caught with my pants down, metaphorically speaking.

I’m conscious that this holiday is my first milestone where the diet is concerned, and I’ve got a big red flag waiting in the wings to signal danger…I’m so happy that 5 weeks in it’s going so well, but it’s only the first in a long line of milestones, and I’m in this for the long game so it’s time to open negotiations with the asshole about what happens on holiday, and what happens when I get home. I need to have a plan.

He’s obviously been anticipating the conversation, and his opening gambit was to suggest that for the four days I’m away, I throw caution to the wind and eat everything that isn’t nailed down. Predictable, asshole. To be fair, it’s a strategy I’ve agreed to in the past, in fact I’m probably not exaggerating when I say I’ve been known to leap on it with indecent enthusiasm and sign on the dotted line without giving it a second thought. In the past, but not this time.

I’m not a big drinker – maybe because I’ve been on so many diets over the years where I’ve been mindful of restricting calories, or counting points, or adding up sins…whatever form the diet took, to me alcohol was a waste of whatever it was I was counting – but even when I’m not dieting, I can take it or leave it. If I’m with friends and we’re having a drink, you know I’ll have a drink, but between social occasions it doesn’t ever occur to me. Thing is, I suspect our little holiday will kind of be a four day social occasion…if you get my drift, wink wink. 

So lets examine the possible flash points.  The asshole is on my case, singing ‘Let it go’ …I’m likely to be flirting with tipsy for a good proportion of the holiday (my friends are wicked wicked people 🙂 ) and we’ll be loose in a city where there’s a buffet on every corner and mostly the drinks are free.

I think I need to work on my strategy before I return to the negotiating table.

 

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Don’t Ask Me That!

Biggest struggles, In the here & now, , ,

XXXL

So, how was your day? Mine was going great guns right up until the moment that a male colleague from a different department to the one I work in sent me an email asking me what size shirt I wear. Way to put a crimp in my day huh?

I should explain – I mean it wasn’t done for sport, you know like ‘I can’t help noticing you’re the size of a moose and I was just wondering how many X’s you need ahead of the L hahahaha’…or worse, ‘I’m looking around for an awning on the side of my RV and I just wondered where you buy your clothes from’ – he did have a reason to ask. I have to go to a conference next month, and everyone there representing the company will need a branded shirt. But still, you can picture my face when the email dropped in I’m sure. It was one of those moments where time stopped dead in the face of mortification and I just sat and stared at my screen.

Of course the asshole was off and away from the starting block like Ussain chuffing Bolt, diving through that open window of opportunity with a selection of carefully chosen comments designed to hammer home the humiliation. “I bet the rest of his department are gathered round his screen waiting for your answer…they’ve probably got a sweepstake going!  They’ve probably dared him to come and ask you face to face so they could hide around the corner and watch you squirm!! He’s probably moaning about the fact that you’re going to blow his whole shirt budget on that one cavernous garment, hahahaha!!!”

As the flush of horror made it’s leisurely ascent from my toes to my ears, I thought about lying. What if, I say I’m a size large because that’s big ish but it’s only kind of the big end of average…I could try and stretch it..? I mean lots of people wear a size large don’t they, so that would make me nearly normal right? And if it’s not stretchy fabric, I could go find another shirt from a fat-lady-shop and cut the branded bit off, and stitch it onto the fat-lady-shirt and nobody need ever know how many X’s are really in front of the L…that might work..?

By this time, the asshole had gone into overdrive. “Hahahaha I bet the shirt making company will have to call him and make sure he’s put the right number of X’s on the form, that can’t be right can it?  She’s really THAT big..? Crikey how many pies did SHE eat?!!!”

I didn’t lie. I styled it out. “Hi, I’ll need a size 26 please, if they make them that big (!) regards, Dee”.

Get the joke in first to let him know I don’t give a crap that he asked. Even though I do. Let him know I’m ok with it, because he probably felt horrible having to ask (I mean he’s a bloke, you guys take your lives in your hands when you mention any woman’s size, right?) so make it obvious that your size isn’t embarrassing for you. Even though it is. Note to self: Make damn sure next year you’ll actually fit into size L which by that point might even be too big on your scrawny-assed body.

By the way, no cake was consumed during this pretty shitty day therefore the scores on the doors remain Me: 1 – Asshole: 0 🙂

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Who’s Pulling My Strings?

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

brain

For those of you who’ve been following my blog for a while you’ve probably gathered that I have a day job, and writing my blog is a hobby – I get to indulge my love of words whilst keeping my hands occupied at the same time so they don’t let me down by feeding my face when I’m not paying attention. (By the way is that just me? I swear on occasion I’ve found myself munching on something without any recollection of putting it in my mouth – please tell me that happens to you too, I don’t need any more reasons to feel odd).

Anyway, through the course of my work, I’ve been lucky enough to do lots of self-development, and one thing that comes through time and again is the issue of control. Now I wouldn’t go as far as describing myself as a control freak, (although I would imagine my ex-husband might have a different view  *rolls on the floor laughing*) but I do like to control things that are happening around me, and I hate being controlled. In the context of my life generally, that presents me with no problems whatsoever. But it’s completely at odds when you look at it in the context of my relationship with food.

If it comes down to a stand-off between me, and food, trust me when I say I am not the one in control. For argument’s sake, let’s go with the dictionary definition of the word control – ‘to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command’. I could probably exercise restraint over a dish of tripe. And I’d definitely jump at the chance to dominate and command a plate of rocket or watercress (all the way to the opposite end of the earth if necessary, YAK ) but if we’re talking about chips, or cake, or Haagen Dazs…pretty much anything else that actually tastes good (!) I’m a lost cause. In the context of that relationship, I’m the Anastasia to chocolate cake’s Christian Grey…to put it another way, I’m not the one holding the whip.

Sure, right now I’m totally in the zone, standing firmly on the sweet spot so at this moment in time I’m doing ok.  But I’ve been here before and I know I can’t be complacent. I’m not dumb enough to think I’ve cracked it, sooner or later whether it’s a mid-diet fall from grace, or an end-of-diet victory lap, the control will shift from me, to whatever it is that gets hold of my strings and makes me eat cake. And yes, on a rational level I know it’s still me. It just doesn’t feel like it.

I wish I understood why. Trying to find the answer to that is like my own personal holy grail, you know? I can see the quest to understand it becoming my life’s work. The desire to be skinny is alive and well. I don’t lack motivation, I work really hard and like to make a success of stuff…I’m as stubborn as a mule if I set my mind to something and I usually get my own way. All my ducks seem to be lined up in a row but STILL food controls me, not the other way around.

Answers on a postcard please..?

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