Monthly Archives: October 2015

Reflections on the Week

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

weekI love Sunday mornings…it’s usually the day where I don’t need to wake to an alarm. Charlie the dog sleeps in my bedroom and he knows that when I’m awake and no alarm has sounded he’s in with the chance of a cuddle. Lately we’ve taken to reading the Sunday papers together on line with his little cold nose pressed into the crook of my arm, as well as the Skinny Girl messages that have come in overnight, since I usually post right before I go to sleep.

It’s been quite a week. My first week following the weight watchers food plan instead of a low-carb regime. It’s gone well – went a bit mad the first couple of days eating fruit which is a huge no-no on a carb free diet, and it’s fair to say that my insides reacted to this change of diet in fairly predictable fashion. Who knew a fat lass could move so fast eh?  Ussain Bolt might have felt a bit intimidated if he’d clocked my personal best somewhere around Tuesday as I sprinted to….ah ok, TMI, right?

Considering I had two days out at conference where the main hall was surrounded by food stalls, freebies, suppliers wanting to give away samples of goodies left right and centre, topped off by a gala dinner where I could only estimate points, I managed to ignore the asshole in my head and keep the faith. I had a brief encounter with the bastard in the bathroom this morning and I’m happy to report than another pound has melted away. Ten pounds would have been better but I’ll take a pound. I’m still in the game.

What else can I share…ah yes, I’ve done a little bit of development on the Skinny Girl website. I’ve tweaked the content on a few of the pages, and most exciting of all I’ve added a subscription facility – yey! This means that should you want a link sending to your inbox every time I make a new post, so you can read it hot off the press or get to the post with just one click, you can become a subscriber and that will happen as if by magic! You’ll see the little box underneath the top ten posts list, just to the right of where your eyes are now…I promise not to share your email address or bombard you with crap. Have a poke around, let me know what you think of the changes…any feedback welcome!

We’ve had visitors from 43 countries so far since the beginning of October – that’s pretty bloody awesome don’t you think?  And this week, somebody posted a comment on the Daily Mail website under an article about dieting where they gave a shout out to our blog…visitors went through the roof. You can imagine the excitement here at Skinny Towers, I was beside myself!

So for every single one of you who loves the blog and has shared posts and told people about it, thank you so much, I’m insanely in love with each and every one of you. As my support network grows, so does yours and I think what we’re building is really special.

Have a great week 🙂

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Big Hairy Audacious Goal

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

bhag1

Don’t you think it’s funny how you find inspiration in the most unlikely places? I recently had to attend a workshop on business strategy, and whilst it was all quite interesting, one bit in particular really captured my imagination – I was introduced to the concept of the ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goal’. Apparently the phrase has been kicking around in the business world for ages, and it’s all about creating a clear and compelling goal which serves as a focal point, no matter how unrealistic it might actually be – kind of a cheeky knacker statement of intent.

How I have existed in business up to now without crossing the path of a BHAG I don’t know, but now the cat’s out of the bag I’m all over it…I am busy working on my very own big hairy audacious skinny goal. To be fair, many of my goals over the years have been pretty bloody audacious, long before I discovered that someone had coined this phrase so whilst I can’t claim the idea as my own, I’m certainly going to say I’m a natural when it comes to shooting for the moon.

For example, I might say that my BHAG is to walk into Victoria Beckham’s boutique this time next year, only for the sales lady to shake her head sadly and apologise that all their dresses were too big for me. *Falls on the floor laughing* – well it’s definitely audacious, given that right now I’d more likely be wrestled to the floor by a gaggle of skinny string beans before I’d even crossed the threshold…God forbid that I actually make it inside and dare to be fat amongst the skinniness of it all.

How about this one then…I could say my BHAG is to stick to my food plan and point every single thing I eat and drink for the rest of my life. Hells teeth that’s a scary thought. That’s a more scary thought than the Victoria Beckham one to be honest, because it’s a BHAG that is completely within my gift.  I could actually do that one. Well, when I say I could do that one, I mean it’s do-able. I’ll have to park this one for a minute, I’m developing a nervous twitch. Lets go back to Victoria Beckham, it’s easier to be flippant when I’m talking about that one.

Can you imagine…I mean don’t get me wrong – I love Victoria Beckham, love her family, love her work ethic and I even like some of her clothes. But can you imagine the horror on her face if she had to design a dress to flatter a non-string beany kind of girl? I mean I fully intend to be skinny as well you know, but even when I am I’ll still have to tuck my belly into my big girl pants and disguise my bingo wings, my wrinkly knees and my turkey neck. Just the thought of all that fabric would drive her to go and have a lie down with a glass of extra strength coconut water.

Much as I hate to say it, and much as it scares me, I think my BHAG has to be number two. The one that scares me shitless. Would it stop this cycle of yo-yo madness that I’ve been on for at least the last thirty years..? Yes. It would. Am I likely to lose the will to live, get bored weighing and measuring and counting for the rest of my days..? Yes, I am. Till I scream. Do I have to face facts and realise that if I don’t plan for this, commit to it and JFDI I’m going to live out the rest of my days on that ever changing axis..? Yes.

Number two it is then.  Posse, meet my BHAG…

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Why Can’t I Stop at One?

Biggest struggles, Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

cakes

I can’t believe I’ve just spent 5 minutes searching for a nice colourful picture of some cupcakes on line, and my mouth is actually watering! That’s ridiculous but then I guess that’s what 6 weeks on a diet will do for you eh?!

So I’ve already talked a bit this week about my issue with portion control and not having a working full-filter. It goes beyond that though. Something in me hesitates to label myself as greedy because that word has so many negative connotations, in fact I can’t think of a single context in which it could be used positively. But lets imagine I was hauled in front of a judge who had to make a ruling on that very issue. I put it to you M’lud that this woman, (points at me) is greedy. I think I’d be on dodgy ground. “Having an excessive desire or appetite for food” is one definition of the word and shit, look already my defense is crumbling, I mean how can I argue with that? I do have an excessive desire for food, I can’t lie.

Now, whether it’s as a fat girl or a skinny girl, if you put that plate of cakes in front of me, I’m not stopping at one. One of my colleagues has just come back from holiday this week, and she brought cupcakes in for the team. How lovely. But seriously, you should have seen the size of these things…they were cupcakes the size of thimbles. Now obviously I passed, because I’m in a good place at the moment, both feet still planted firmly in the sweet spot and my face is a cake-free zone. But I’m here to tell you even I felt cheated and I wasn’t even having one.

I watched in fascination as one of my friends at work picked one out of the box carefully and popped it in her mouth, made all the right noises…apparently it was ‘melt-in-your-mouth gorgeous’ (kill me now) and then carried on with her work. Like that whole rest of the box of tiny cakes wasn’t still there in all their delicate melt-in-the-mouth gorgeousness, right next to her desk. I mean that’s not normal, right? It was tiny. And she just ate one. And then moved on and forgot about the box. Wtf..? WHO DOES THAT!!

Me, in the 3 milliseconds it took me to inhale the lemon one, I’d have been planning which one I was going for next. Wondering whether the colour of the frosting made a difference to the taste. If for some reason I wasn’t able to take a second one but there were cupcakes left in the box, they would have tortured me for as long as they remained in my eye line. Now, is that greedy, or is it something else? Greedy feels like a dirty word somehow, but is that what I am?

I don’t think so…but I’m…something. And I think it’s a question I need to answer before I can be confident that I’ve really got this down, you know?

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Dude Was Working It!

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

hair

So, at the risk of sounding very unkind I have to tell you about a haircut I saw last night whilst I was out of town. Yes, I know, each to their own, live and let live, we’re all entitled to our own sense of style…I get that but you know that way where sometimes something tickles you to the point where every time you think about it you get the urge to grin? Well this did it for me.

The evening had not started well. It had been a long day, a very early start and I’d been on my feet all afternoon manning a stand at the conference, so I had an achy back, my feet were killing me and the last thing I felt like doing was hosting a table at the gala dinner. I should further set the scene by telling you that having walked the 300 yards from the hotel to the venue rather more quickly than I would normally, due to a light drizzle of rain and no umbrella, I arrived feeling out of breath, sweaty from the exertion and with damp hair which had kinked a little more with every step I took and which I knew within an hour would look like I’d somehow managed to have a really bad perm between the appetiser and the main course. The asshole in my head was having a ball, as you might expect.

So it’s fair to say as I stood holding my glass of champagne at the drinks reception I may have been smiling on the outside but on the inside I was a woman on the edge. And then I saw it. That haircut. And in spite of myself I started to feel better.

If I had to describe it to you (which clearly I do since you weren’t there) all I can liken it to is one of those little plastic lego men – they always had thick immobile plastic hair plonked on top of their little plastic heads, do you remember..? Well, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a little plastic stalk fixing this hair to the bloke. It was really thick and dark with a full but very short fringe, sideburns which weren’t made of face fur but actual hair which had been grown down the sides of his face in front of his ears, and the whole thing had been finished off with a kind of wind tunnel/superglue effect.

Thing is, it didn’t get that way by accident you know?  It must have taken a serious investment of time and a mountain of hair gel, and that young guy genuinely thought he looked like the mutt’s nuts. Which led me to thinking.  It’s not really about what you look like – it’s about the way you feel. That hair, no word of a lie, was ridiculous. But that dude was working it! And I kind of had a light-bulb moment…an epiphany if you will.

If you believe the asshole in your mind when he tells you that you look ridiculous, even if you don’t, you will feel ridiculous, you’ll believe everyone else thinks you look ridiculous, and your confidence will be shattered.  But you can totally get away with actually looking ridiculous if you feel like a million dollars on the inside. Imagine being blessed with an asshole in your mind who tells you good things like his obviously did…Dude, you look awesome! That hairstyle is a babe-magnet for sure…they’ll be falling at your feet tonight, go on my son, work it…

Of course when the young guy has a few more years under his belt and looks back on the photos from last night he’ll cringe and wonder what on earth possessed him, but in his head, last night, he was the MAN.

Can anyone tell me how I swap my asshole for one who says good things..?

 

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Love, Love Me Do

Biggest struggles, Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

love_myself

So, I was chatting to someone I used to work with over the weekend and catching up with all his news – well, he calls it news. Me, I’d call it gossip but he’d deny that of course on the basis that ‘boys don’t gossip’ (yeah right that’s what I thought too).  Anyway, during the conversation he referred to the girl he was talking about as being ‘a classic people pleaser’ and for some reason the phrase stayed with me way after the conversation finished.  It annoyed me.

It’s not so much what this guy said, it’s they way he said it, like being a people pleaser is a really bad thing. He threw it out like some kind of insult you know? I almost felt like calling him back but then I thought he’d probably think I was some kind of nut job getting my knickers in a twist about nothing. So I didn’t, because he’d probably have a point.

I think the reason it felt like he’d poked me with a big stick was because I’ve spent quite a large portion of my life putting the desire to please other people before my own needs, and to think that people might stick a label on me in such a dismissive way was what set my teeth on edge. How bloody dare he. I suppose if you’re blessed with the confidence and wisdom to lead a life where you balance the desire to be a good all round human being with taking care of your own needs, it might seem a bit pathetic when you see someone whose need for acceptance drives them to a place where their own wants and needs are utterly overlooked. And what’s worse, they’re okay with that. But hearing the scorn in his voice rattled me more than I like to admit.

As my blog has taken shape I’ve referred a few times to the fact that I’ve been fat-skinny-fat-skinny on an almost continuous loop since my late teens. You want to know what I’ve realised as I’ve chewed on this over the last couple of days? My desire to take care of everybody else but myself is way, WAY more obvious when I’m fat than it ever is when I’m skinny. Isn’t that an interesting thought.

It’s as if subconsciously as a skinny girl, I feel free enough to be selfish when the occasion demands. I make demands of my own that – surprisingly – people meet without thinking too hard about it and even though I can be a proper diva, I still manage to be a decent person. But when I’m fat I almost feel the need to compensate by trying to be all things to all people…like the most I could hope for in terms of anyone’s opinion of me is yeah she’s fat but she’s really really nice. Which is ridiculous, because I’m the same person.

Jim Carrey – not someone you immediately think of as one of the world’s great philosophers – once said “Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory”

Wise words. Haven’t quite nailed it but I’m trying.

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