Monthly Archives: February 2016

No Room For St Valentine

In the here & now

heart

So as expected I wasn’t exactly beating the crowds away this morning as I opened my eyes on St Valentine’s day. My letterbox remains decidedly empty (get your mind out of the gutter right now y’hear?) and there will be no cards displayed on my mantlepiece this year, along with no flowers and no heart-shaped chocolates.

But you know what, I’m kind of okay with that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be lovely to have someone to adore me and spoil me rotten…I lived for many years wishing and hoping that the one bloke who was one hundred percent right for me would hurry the fuck up and make himself known whilst I’ve still got all my own teeth.

Thing is, he didn’t. So I sort of checked out, you know? After three false starts and an endless stream of also-rans in between, I eventually decided I was safer on my own. With one or two notable exceptions, my relationship history is a car crash of the highest order and all the people in my life who give a damn just find it easier to sleep at night when I’m single.

If you read the blog post Magic Me Skinny Please you’ll know that for a while I saw a therapist who did her level best to poke around in the corners of my head. I was hoping she might hand me some answers to the question of why I couldn’t seem to get a grip on my lifelong habit of yo-yo dieting. And somehow in the middle of all that we took a detour to the subject of relationships and how they had affected, or been affected by my broken relationship with food.

What I realised for the first time ever, was that there is definitely a clear connection between those two things. With only a couple of minor deviations it sort of went like this: Single –> get skinny –> get a bloke –> stop dieting whoop whoop –> get fat –> relationship on skids –> single again –> get skinny…and repeat, on an endless loop.

Now, I’m not saying that all my relationships ended because I got fat, that’s not true. The fact that I have a habit of being attracted to blokes with…let’s just say ‘their own issues’ is a major factor, as is my tendency to believe everything in life has the potential to be a fairy tale despite glaringly obvious clues to the contrary.

But I don’t think I’ve ever exited a relationship wearing the same size clothes that I was wearing when cupid’s arrow first struck, so that tells me a lot. Mind you, hands up who’s ever hit Friday unable to get into the pants that fitted on Monday? Not just me then.

Days like this, when I wake up to an endless roll-call of Facebook updates showing off cards and flowers and quirky gestures from people who’ve nailed the whole spouseville thing make me wistful. But I also know I need to be fiercely protective of this food sobriety. It has to remain my utter focus until I reach Skinny Town and beyond...I can’t take my heart off the shelf until I’ve earned my staying there stripes. No room in my life for St Valentine, not this year and probably not next.

My dog loves me, and my boy and my mum and my friends love me. And I love them all back, in spades. I love you guys too. Best of all I’m starting to love me. That’s a lot of love. No hearts and flowers necessary, right? I’ve got the important stuff down 🙂

ps…have you noticed that we’ve had our first guest spot blog post..? You can read it here…

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Behind Closed Doors

Reflections on past times

inside

I had quite a few emails this morning, following the post I put up yesterday talking about someone struggling with sobriety in the public eye. One or two of them have really got to me, because I could one hundred percent identify with everything they said…the theme in pretty much all of them was about people in the posse being so ashamed of their fat life, that they are living it as much as possible behind closed doors and the horror of having their vulnerabilities exposed in public is unthinkable.

So many of you have been on the same journey that I have…up the scale and back down again, many many times. I have some amazing memories of my ‘big reveal’ moments over the years, you know the kind where the months of hard work are totally worth it because folk who haven’t seen you in a while almost keel over at your transformation, and you feel like a million dollars in that moment?

Equally, I’ve carried around the horror when I’ve been on my way back up the scale of bumping into one of those folk who’d been full of compliments on my weight loss last time we met. I totally get it, the temptation to shut yourself away from the world at large because you’re ashamed and embarrassed of the way you look.

I remember last year having a meeting with a lady that I’d worked with years ago. I’d joined that business as a skinny girl, and although I’d started to put weight on before I left, I wasn’t fat. In the intervening years I’d gained maybe 140lbs, so when she came to talk to us about a job in the business where I work now. I died a little bit inside from shame when she walked in…she knew she was meeting me, but if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have recognised me.

We’d kept loosely in touch over the years, but my life on social media changed radically once I started piling all the weight back on. When I joined Facebook I was a fully paid up string bean, and I would regularly post pictures of whatever I’d been up to, with me front and centre of it all. Outside of our BOTSG page, I don’t think I’ve posted a photo of myself on there for at least the last six years, and my friends will tell you I verge on hysteria if anyone tags me in a picture. So she had no idea that since we last met I’d eaten all the pies, and I was mortified.

That said, despite weighing in at well over three hundred pounds at my heaviest, I never got to the point where I withdrew from proper life. Sure, I was miserable, self conscious and living in fear of being outed as a here-we-are-again fatty, but I didn’t stop going about my life. My social life slowed right down, and I came to enjoy nights out less and less. Fancy a night out at the weekend Dee? Tell you what, why don’t you come here instead and I’ll cook something..? I can’t begin to tell you how many invitations I’ve turned down over the last few years.

It makes me feel really sad to think that there are people reading this who have stared at the same four walls all day because they feel too fat to go out. Who do their shopping on-line, or time their outings so they don’t see anyone who might know them. One of the ladies who emailed me said she drives to a town around ten miles away to do her grocery shopping because she’s put all her weight back on and more after a really amazing weight loss, and now she’s too embarrassed to let anyone see that she’s checked out of Skinny Town.

To those lovely people in the posse who prefer a quiet chat on the sidelines rather than through the thought threads, and who shared their stories with me yesterday, I’d say this. At the end of the day, what other people think is their business. It’s hard for me to say that without feeling like a proper hypocrite, because I know how aware you are of the space you’re taking up in this world, and how that affects the way you think. I’ve been there. My asshole voice has taken a sledgehammer to my self-confidence over the years too by saying all the same things that yours is telling you right now.

He’s wrong though.  It’s just taken me a while to figure that out 🙂

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A Hug For Mr Bates

Reflections on past times

bears

I was sad to read in the paper earlier about Brendan Coyle, the man who plays Mr Bates in Downton Abbey. He’d just spent four weeks in a rehab facility in Thailand dealing with the fact that he drinks too much, and it seems he checked out and then got loaded on the flight on the way home. I couldn’t help thinking how he must feel, knowing that not only has the month he invested in his recovery gone to shit as soon as he stepped back into his real life, but now his problems are splashed all over the tabloids too.

It must be excruciating to have your demons laid bare for all the world to see. I know that people who choose a career in the public eye have to accept a certain amount of scrutiny as par for the course, but he’s a person first before he’s an actor and I think the papers are a bit cruel picking over the bones when the wheels fall off someone’s life.

It’s hard enough dealing with addiction in private. I can remember back in the day, whenever the binge monster would rear it’s ugly head I’d easily consume five or six thousand calories without batting an eyelid, in my big fat leather recliner with the dog drooling by my side. Incidentally, he rarely got anything, because I didn’t want him to get fat…how ironic is it, that I’d consider the welfare of his waistline but ignore the fact that mine was on the ropes.

The morning after was aways horrible. I’d wake up feeling not sick exactly, it just used to feel like I had a brick lodged in my chest. My mouth used to taste like I’d licked the sole of Ghandi’s flip flop and I felt sluggish, like I had no energy at all. There was rarely evidence when I went downstairs that I’d gone for it in a big way the night before, because most of the time all the packaging would be in the bin outside. That way, I was never forced to confront the reality of how much I’d actually packed away.

The worst thing though was the utter self-loathing, followed closely by a full-blown self-pity party. It’s not a combination designed to bolster your self-esteem, you know? And the thing is, it didn’t matter that I felt like shit, I would always wake up with food on my mind. Not thinking about what I’d eaten the night before, but what I was going to eat next.

They seem like very dark days, when I look back. Thing is, I know I’m one cheese ball away from being back there you know? I mean, yes I’m in the sweet spot and I’m not letting go of that for anybody, but my food sobriety feels fragile. I want to swaddle it in bubble-wrap and keep it away from harm.

I know, when I do things like eating five Ferrero Rocher chocolates on the bounce, one after the other that I’m tearing off the bubble-wrap and throwing my sobriety near the wheels of the bus, and it’s only Lady Luck who’s saved it from going under. I need to be more careful. I didn’t go over points, but I’m flirting with the monster and one day that’s not going to end well.

Which kind of brings me back to the man we all know and love as Mr Bates. His addiction is different to mine, and it’s been played out in a very public arena so I reckon that the self-loathing and shame which follows a binge must surely be magnified…at the end of the day you’re not just judging yourself are you, it must feel like the whole world is picking over your issues and forming a view.

I’d like to put my arm around him today. I reckon he’d need it.

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The Second Promise

In the here & now

face

So, I was skeptical, I must admit when my friend threw her suggestion into the mix a few days ago about always putting her face on because it made her feel better. I thought long and hard about whether I could really be arsed. First thing in the morning I’m always pushed for time anyway, and these days it’s more than a two minute job you know? But hey, it was my second promise to myself, and I’m a woman of my word, right?

It’s been a bit of an eye opener. I mean first things first, it’s done sod all from an eating point of view – it’s been a challenging week actually in that respect, brought on yesterday by me accidentally eating 15 points’ worth of Ferrero Rocher dark chocolates that someone had left in the office.

Picture the scene, right? I’m sat at my desk minding my own business when one of our colleagues from another department waltzes in with some fancy new chocolates. Don’t you just hate it when that happens, someone always seems to bring out a new chocolate treat when I’m on a diet. But anyway, I’d behaved myself up to that point, fruit for breakfast and some low-ish points soup at lunchtime so I had plenty of good girl in the bank. I took the packaging, and pointed them up…3 smart points each, oh hell go on then, don’t mind if I do.

You know when something just doesn’t live up to expectations..? It wasn’t nice. I ate the half I’d bitten into and threw the rest in the bin. Yes, you did just read that right…me, throwing chocolate away…that’s how bad it was. But then I spotted the Ferrero Rocher chocolates on top of the filing cabinet, and thought what a fabulous idea, I’ll have one of those to take the taste away. It worked too, at least the first one did. I’m not sure whether numbers two, three, four and five served much of a purpose if I’m being honest.

So clearly putting my slap on didn’t have any effect at all on the asshole voice, but genuinely, it has made me feel better about myself, and I’d go so far as to say that it felt like some of the people in the building looked at me yesterday for the first time. Let’s keep it in perspective here for a minute, I’m still carrying 118lbs’ worth of extra arse that has no right to be in my pants, so I’m not saying I’m transformed but I’ve sort of hit them with a bit of a triple whammy this week.

New clothes, two sizes down now that are fitting me for the first time, wrapped around a work-in-progress shrinking silhouette. I’ve put my face on every day to go to work, and the third thing that I’ve not mentioned are my new glasses. Normally I wear contacts but my prescription has changed recently and the new ones haven’t come yet. However, the glasses I ordered at the same time have, and I’ve been wearing them which has added to the general confusion…who is that woman in the HR office who looks a bit like Dee?

It’s a good feeling, I’m not gonna lie 🙂

And by the way, thank you so much for your lovely emails about the pictures I put on the ‘about me’ page, and the Facebook page. Now I’m 50lbs+ down, I’m more confident about sharing the ‘before’ photos…I’m somehow able to divorce who I am now from who I was then. Funny isn’t it, I think the fact that I don’t ever remember that face looking back at me shows how much I avoided mirrors in recent times.

Our old friend Mr Steele took the time to email again, yes that Mr Steele, he of BOTSG troll infamy. It appears he still reads along, which is surprising since his last note seemed to suggest that he didn’t care much for what we do around here. I think there might have been an attempt at a compliment buried somewhere in his email, however he didn’t quite pull it off…why am I not surprised…

If you’re reading this, Sir, pointing out that my face used to look like a dinner plate isn’t helpful. Yes, I’ve lost weight and I’m flattered that you noticed, however I am still the same person. And you are clearly still a nob.

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Good News, Bad News

In the here & now

everything hurtsYou might remember, I made a promise to myself at the weekend that I’d finally get around to making an appointment this week to see someone about my dodgy knee. After digging out my health insurance pamphlet to get the telephone number, I’d kind of imagined an unhurried consultation with a handsome looking bloke, with a smattering of very distinguished silver at his temple that I couldn’t help noticing as he spoke to me with a deep and reassuring – some might even say sexy – voice.

That’s what the picture on the pamphlet led me to believe was going to happen. He’d gently feel my leg whilst I admired his bedside manner, and if luck and a strong headwind was on my side I might even get to go back to get my leg felt again, on a regular basis.

So, we all know it was never going to work out like that, right?

Having made the call and limped through all the appropriate hoops I was offered a telephone consultation with a physiotherapist. They call it a triage service, and it’s designed to establish whether or not you need to actually see someone, or whether you’re just old and fat and need to shut up and get used to snarky joints.

I took the call in a little meeting room at work next to our communal office, and if anyone had walked past and glanced through the glass window whilst I was occupied on the phone, well let’s just say eyebrows would have been raised. During the course of the thirty minute consultation I bent, stretched, squatted and lunged my way though a hundred questions whilst Mystic Meg on the other end of the phone tried to make a diagnosis.

Which, it turned out, was that I’m old and fat, and better get used to the odd ache and pain because it’s not leaving any time soon.

On the one hand I’m relieved that there’s nothing actually wrong with my knee. On the other hand it’s devastating to know that this red-hot poker has taken up residence under my kneecap for no other reason than the years of body abuse I’ve inflicted upon it, driven by the broken relationship I have with food. It’s resulted in me having the joints of someone way older than my actual age, and it seems I should be thinking more along the lines of managing the discomfort than getting it fixed.

Shit. Well, there we are then.

She’s happy for me to keep walking, and the hurt machine is fine too. She didn’t even miss a beat when I told her about the mountains in Cuba, although she did say I might want to pack enough ibuprofen to knock out a hippo, which would no doubt come in handy. On a brighter note she reckons it might hurt less if I lost some weight. Oh yes, and avoid running…that was a blow, obviously.

I didn’t bore her with the details, or tell her that I was already in the zone. But that’s at least something to hang my hat on. And it doesn’t hurt all the time, that’s the thing. It’s just when I’ve walked a fair distance and then I sit down, the first steps after getting up again are agony, like it all locks up or something. 

Well, fine. If that’s the deck I’m playing with, I’ll just crack on. I never had much sympathy for folk with a self-induced hangover, and this is no different at the end of the day…I made my bed and all that.

C’est la vie 🙂

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