Monthly Archives: October 2015

Semi-Retired Disco Pants

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

dress

So today’s the day where I’m headed off to conference, complete with shirt that fits – yey. Before you all celebrate (I can hear sighs of relief and corks popping all around me) I’m here to tell you that in all honesty I think you could probably get the inhabitants of a small village into this shirt.  Clearly when the order form went off with my size on, the shirt maker erred on the side of caution having never needed a pattern so big, and used enough fabric to single-handedly power the Spanish Armada.

I’ve got to be honest, the starched collar doesn’t help the overall effect and I certainly won’t be winning any prizes for style. Still, I’d rather look like a ship in full sail than spend the day bursting out of something which is straining at the seams. I tell you what, I’m going to keep this shirt and when I’m skinny I’ll do one of those photos of me posing in one corner of it. But anyway, that’s day wear sorted out. I will also be required to host a table at the gala dinner, and the dress code requires me to wear a cocktail dress. Oh dear.

Now I’m here to tell you that’s not going to happen any time soon. No no no no no. For the avoidance of doubt, no. I’m not one of these busty-but-hour-glass shaped ladies who can look glorious with curves spilling out of artfully draped chiffon even if the serving size is a little too large. I’ve never been known for my glorious assets in the cleavage department and to be honest, after all these years going up and down the size spectrum, nowadays my boobs resemble a pair of old sports socks with a tennis ball in each end. Trying to hoist them up to look alluring in any kind of chiffon ensemble has disaster written all over it.

I shall choose instead to wear my trusty black palazzo pants which, whilst not exactly on point in terms of the dress code look as dressy as it’s ever going to get when teamed with a nice top. A nice black floaty shapeless hides-everything-displays-nothing kind of top. No dimpled flesh on display, nothing to offend the eye, nothing to make me stand out. Nothing to make the asshole in my head whisper you can put lipstick on a pig but… or you can cover a turd in glitter but… as I’m getting ready. He really earned his stripes over the years you know?  But I’m ready for him.

And as for the post-dinner dancing…I have to be honest and say my disco pants were put out to grass some time ago. I might have got a bit more mileage out of them had I been a skinny girl but as it stands, they’re currently buried somewhere in my skinny closet with nothing on their dance card. But activity is only suspended ’till I’m skinny, so they’re only semi-retired…even with my dodgy knee I still have moves like Jagger and can shake what my mama gave me with the best of ’em. Just for now, not in public 🙂

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Our First BOTSG Troll!

In the here & now,

troll

Well this was a turn up for the books…I’ve just had my first experience of being trolled! I’ve gotta be honest it took me by surprise, because I’ve had nothing but really lovely positive and supportive feedback since I started writing the blog. When I settle down to check email it’s usually with a wide smile and a mindset where I’m ready to fill up my tank with happy, which is definitely the best diet-fuel ever. And yet, here it was, an email choc full of sarcasm and negativity. I did a classic double-take and my first thought was “who taught the asshole in my head how to pick up a pen“!

Now, I have to say I might have taken it more seriously if the person writing it had  1) been able to spell the majority of those nasty words correctly, and 2) thought about the fact that submitting an email instead of a comment shows a return email address *DUH* but in actual fact it inspired a complete fit of the giggles…and I’m still laughing 🙂

Not that I wish in any way to dignify the email with a response but oh you SO know I’m going to…

Dear Anonymous (or, AKSteele1@…)

Thank you for your kind note which I received this morning. I realise that making me smile was not your intention, however congratulations on the unintended consequence of you being a dumbass.

I don’t happen to share your opinion that I’m insulting people of size by using the word ‘fat’ – I’m a down to earth Yorkshire girl and to be honest I call it as I see it. I don’t expect people to tiptoe around me and use expressions like ‘a lady of size’. There’s room for two normal people inside my pants and the last time I looked that qualified me as being fat. Being fat bothers me, a lot, but not as much as being patronised by folk using politically correct phrases designed to say the same thing but without using the ‘F’ word. I’m fat, not stupid and no matter how you dress it up, it is what it is. But I can appreciate how it may look to a stupid person, so whilst you took great pains to reassure me that you are in fact not fat in any way, I must therefore assume that you’re stupid and I apologise if you are offended.

In response to your comment about me thinking I’m so clever. Well, I am. I can touch the tip of my nose with the end of my tongue…bet you can’t do that. Bet you’re trying to right now though aren’t you?  

I’m a little unclear as to how I’m exploiting large people to make money. However, I must confess to a love of Chanel handbags, so if you know something that I don’t I’d be grateful for any tips you can give me in this regard.

In respect of you not being surprised that I’m single – well. I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.  I’m not sure either that ‘a damn good seeing to’ would assist my weight loss journey in any way, but just in case there was an offer to provide some kind of service hidden behind your comment, I fear I must decline. I’m appreciative obviously, we fat girls have to get it where we can, but I suspect it may be some time since you encountered soap, and I have an aversion to body odour – don’t take it personally, I’m just funny like that.

Anyway, much as I’d love to linger and chat, that life that you suggested I go and get? I’m heading off there now. It might not be perfect, but it gets nearer to perfect every day. Can’t wait to tell the posse about your email – they’ll be just as amused as I was. You’re a gift that keeps on giving my friend…keep up the good work, y’hear?

Fond regards, Dee x

What d’y’all think, posse? Reckon old AK’ll be back? 🙂

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Switching It Up

Diet update, In the here & now, , ,

hippo

Well it had to be done. You know my attitude to standing on the dreaded scales, and it’s probably what, five or six weeks since I did it? Diet is going well, or should I say my motivation level remains at an all time high thanks in no small measure to writing my blog, and to you lot in the posse for your lovely posts and emails. I’m still front and centre of the sweet spot…BUT. I don’t appear to be skinny yet. Which to be honest is pissing me right off. I mean it’s all relative isn’t it, I know I’m not going to break out the skinny girl in like 10 minutes, but I’d hoped to be at least one dress size smaller by now and I’m not feeling it. So this morning I had a face-off with the bitch in my bathroom.

(Please do excuse my fruity language especially if you’ve joined us for the first time…I don’t generally have a potty mouth but since I’ve named the asshole in my head his power to upset me has diminished quite considerably, so I’ve adopted it as a strategy. The scales have been duly re-named.)

AAARGH. It’s the good news/bad news thing. I’m 5lbs down since my last attempt to make friends with the number on the scale – cast your mind back to last time, I had a sour mood for days afterward. So 5lbs off is good on the one hand but I’ve gotta be honest, I’d expected more. Shit. No wonder my clothes aren’t hanging off me yet. Right then, well I refuse to be fed up about it, but I need to switch this up a bit and I know exactly how I’m going to do it. I’m going to change my diet of choice.

Whatever diet we all choose to follow, if we stick to it it’s going to show results, right? Low carb diets in the past have worked fairly quickly for me but this time I’m not getting there any faster than I would if I was following a broader food plan, therefore having given it a good go over the last couple of months, I’m going to ‘spend’ my food budget in a different way. I’ve been toying with the idea for a couple of weeks anyway – I’ve had to think about what’s going to happen on holiday, given that champagne is a no-no on a carb free diet and I need to feel in control but not limited. So, I’m going to fish out all my weight watchers paraphernalia and crack on with that and see how I go on. The next couple of days should be interesting as my body adjusts to a new regime.

It may make you smile to know that I’ve just had a very predictable dialogue with the asshole in my head…“why don’t you have the weekend off then, and start on Monday..new diet, new week? You could have a Chinese tonight, no need to go mad but how about some noodles? I know you can have those on weight watchers anyway, but if you start officially on Monday you can eat Chinese tonight without it coming out of your weekly points”…he thought he was going to score an easy victory there. No chance asshole, get back in your box. No chink in this armour buddy, better luck next time fu

Have a good week everyone and thanks for your continuing support…it makes a big wide world of difference 🙂

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Game Of Thongs

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, Reflections on past times,

holsI’m getting so excited about my forthcoming holiday – it’s going to be epic. Normally I’m a quiet vacationer – I have such a busy life full of work and other pulls on my time that my idea of holiday heaven amounts to utter relaxation when I’m away you know? On my last holiday I managed to read 8 books, get thoroughly pampered and I relaxed within an inch of my life. The plan is a little different this time – six giddy girlies heading off for a few days to celebrate my milestone birthday and looking at the itinerary, there won’t be much relaxing going on! There will however be lots of laughing, lots of shopping, and plenty of memories being made…I can’t wait.

There’s only one day in the four that we’re away where we’ve got time to chill around the pool – always makes me a bit wistful when I recall skinny trips where I didn’t need to worry about choosing a swimsuit with the type of engineering designed to contain and flatter quite so much body.  I use the word ‘flatter’ in it’s loosest possible term obviously – it’s black which is as good as it’s going to get. The asshole in my head is going to have a field day from the minute I put it on but you know what, he can stick it up his pipe…I’m totally going to style it out and give the impression that I’m one of those lucky people who don’t care what other people think.

There’s nowhere to hide in swimwear is there? I remember I took a trip a few years ago with a guy I’d been seeing for a few months – I was a big girl back then but not in the same way I am now. Even so, I’d spent the days and weeks leading up to the trip agonising over what I was going to look like on the beach. It didn’t even occur to me what he was going to look like – rookie mistake number one. Afterwards, when the trauma of seeing him in a thong for the first time had receded, I made a mental note to expand on the ‘no speedos’ rule which we’d discussed before the trip. He tried to justify it by insisting that we were in Brazil, and everybody in Brazil wears a thong.

I’m here to tell you that they don’t. And in any event, fifty-year-old butt cheeks flapping in the breeze like pillow cases on a washing line are N.E.V.E.R going to be a good look. It’s the one time I’ve felt confident that nobody was looking at my ass since the one next to me was the one putting people off their lunch. But kudos to him – he didn’t care. He was living his dream, and wearing a thong on Ipanema beach was it. Incidentally it was our first and last trip together, in case you were wondering…I’m all for live and let live, but I’ve got enough on worrying about what people will think about me without further complicating the equation.

With a bit of luck there might be a hairy-assed bloke in a mankini lounging around the pool at our hotel in a couple of weeks’  time to take the attention off this middle-aged fat girl in a swimsuit…I can live in hope 🙂

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Waiting to be Skinny

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

thin

Have you ever felt like your life is on hold, whilst you dream about all the things you’re going to do once you’re skinny? I have. There are places I really want to see, and experiences that I really want to have but somehow the prospect of doing them as a fat girl is nowhere near as appealing as the way I imagine they’d pan out if I experienced them as a skinny girl. And I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that way.

I can even articulate the reason why – being fat preoccupies me. With alarming regularity, the fact that I’m fat muscles in on everything I do. When I’m walking the dog and my ankles ache from the heroic effort they have to make with every step to transport all this timber, I nod and agree with the asshole in my head when he comments that if I were skinny they wouldn’t hurt. On holiday recently when I was reclining on my sun lounger reading my book and I fancied a drink, I decided to just stay thirsty because the thought of hauling myself off the sun lounger was just too much of an effort – it was low to the ground with arms at the mid point, and swinging my legs over the side and hopping up in an easy fluid movement would have been impossible. It would have been a ten point manoeuvre, and wholly inelegant, which people might have noticed and even laughed at…look at the moose, she could do with a hoist, has anyone got a crane hahaha…of course the asshole is front and centre of driving all these thoughts but still, they exist.

So I don’t want to experience the things that I’ve dreamed about, or the things that I aspire to as a fat girl – I want to experience them as a skinny girl and live in the moment, with nothing on my mind other than how much I’m wringing every ounce of enjoyment out of each and every one of those moments.  When I swim with the dolphins I don’t want to spend the run up to it worrying about what on God’s green earth I’m going to look like in a wetsuit. If I snorkel off the great barrier reef I don’t want to be preoccupied about what the person snorkelling behind me is thinking as my arse completely obliterates his view…imagine the postcards he might send, Shamu is alive and well and currently on holiday just off the coast of Australia. As I board the Orient Express in Paris or the Rocky Mountaineer train in Canada and realise a lifelong dream, I don’t want my experience ruined by a seat that’s too small, or feeling that I’m spilling over and spoiling someone else’s experience. And if I’m lucky enough to ever ride an elephant in Sri Lanka I’d like folk to be able to tell us apart 🙂

As a really fat person it’s so tempting to put your life on hold and just dream instead about the life you’ll live when you’re skinny. I know, I’ve done it…I’m not doing it any more and I’ll tell you what else, I’m not waiting till I’m skinny either. As soon as I have just one X in front of my L, I’ll be ticking things off my bucket list with gusto. So there!

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