Monthly Archives: May 2016

Adjusting To My New Normal

In the here & now, , , , ,

adjustI didn’t really know what to expect this week as I shuffled into the bathroom for my weekly encounter with the bitch. The asshole voice was trying to engage me in conversation right off the bat, before I’d even got out of bed in fact, by pointing out that unless I’d dropped at least ten pounds this week I should resign from the fitness studio with immediate effect and admit that this body was not built for the kind of things I’ve been asking it to do.

I didn’t lose ten pounds, but I did lose two, and I’ll happily take that. I’ve only got five pounds to go until I hit the five stones mark and then in just one more stone’s time I’ll be able to say that I’m officially halfway to Skinny Town. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a long old slog to get this far but with your company and a few laughs along the way it’s not proving to be as bad as it otherwise might have been, you know?

Writing less often feels very strange. I’m not sure that I like it, but some of the pressure has definitely gone. You lot have been brilliant, in fact I’m blessed with an extraordinary amount of support and I think my fears about not blogging every day having an impact on the strength of the glue holding my feet in the sweet spot have proved to be unfounded. So far, at least.

I waved goodbye to a lot of my favourite fat-girl clothes last week too, after I sold them on eBay…man that felt good. As I handed them over at the Post Office parcel by parcel and waved them off to start a new life on someone else’s curves, I swear I felt lighter by the minute. The Asshole voice had an opinion, obviously. No no no nooooo…not the blue daisy top, that was your favourite!! What if you ever need it again, you’re bound to put the weight back on at some point and you’ll never find anything that you liked as much as that…

Maybe that’s true, you know? Not the re-gain, I mean I have no intention of going back there but maybe I wouldn’t ever find a fat-girl top that I liked as much as I liked that one. I felt nice in that top, I thought it hid a multitude of sins. Looking back on the photographs, it did not. What I actually looked like was a moose in a blue daisy top, so somewhere along the way, someone was getting fooled.

Anyway, as I slowly adjust to wearing clothes four sizes down from where I started, even my old favourites are no longer welcome. No emergency fatter-girl clothes needed in reserve because my new normal won’t be requiring a fallback position thank you very much.

I’m adjusting to a bunch of other stuff too…waking up and counting the number of body parts which provoke an ouch whenever I move them, then feeling happy because I remember why they’re aching…I’m working hard. Fitting at least one fitness session into my schedule every day. Saving stuff up in my head to chatter about with you guys instead of spending quite so much time at my keyboard…it all counts, and it’s all moving me to a better place, it just takes a bit of getting used to that’s all.

So, my thoughts have turned to my next goal – I’m only just nicely in a size 20, but I’m pitching to be in a comfortable size 18 by the time I go on holiday, in the middle of August. That’s do-able in 3 months, right? I might even get there more quickly, especially now I have the God of Pain on my side…by rights I should be a size 10 by next Sunday.

I did try cracking a joke in that general direction during my last session and he just nailed me with the stare, which on that occasion I interpreted to mean don’t be so fucking ridiculous. Fair enough 🙂

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What I Didn’t Realise Was…

In the here & now, , , , ,

image

…that Body Blast was simply an amuse bouche…it seems the real action goes on in Fat Furnace. Which is where I found myself at 06h30 yesterday morning. There’s definitely an air of expectation from God of Pain that you’ll pull yourself back from the brink, and be ready to go again at your first opportunity. He looks like the kind of bloke who chews sore muscles up for breakfast and I’m acutely aware that he’s still sussing me out, so I thought I’d better show willing. I’d like to get at least a week under my belt before he writes me off as a wimp.

Strangely, when I woke up yesterday, I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I might. Charlie dog looked on with interest as I limped around the bedroom trying to find a second exercise outfit, and he only learned one new word when I pressed on my knees to see if they still hurt. (FYI, they did.)

God of Pain had asked me to get there ten minutes early for the morning session, so he could walk me through what was what. I’ve got to be honest, once I clocked the way he’d set the room out all I wanted to do was go back to bed. For the rest of my life. I’ve never actually seen a kettle bell in real life but I know they regularly make people cry on Biggest Loser, so seeing them dotted liberally around the room didn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling, you know?

In Body Blast I’d had my own little corner of the room, with my own mat so I could quietly get on with the business of hurting. Fat Furnace is basically circuit training in disguise, with the whole class working their way around a series of torture stations. Given that I’m a newbie and he’s breaking me in gently (yeh what fucking ever) some of the harder stuff was reserved for the proper people.

It was more of the same from the night before, just harder. Much harder. Lots of jogging on the spot, lots of getting up and getting down again to do more stuff that hurt, and those kettle bells lived right up to their advance publicity. He gave me the baby size which were still heavier than a fully loaded suitcase and my arms were expected to swing them all over the place whilst my legs burned in a squat position…a double helping of hell, especially since those legs had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours.

At one point, God of Pain (who was quietly following me around to make sure that I was hurting enough) (without hurting myself, if you know what I mean) leaned in as he surveyed the room and whispered I run a tight ship…I’m not sure he meant it to sound like a threat but it definitely dissuaded the asshole voice from even trying to suggest it was time to go home and have a lie down with a cup of tea and a ginger nut.

I’ve got to be honest…doing all this in front of a wall of mirrors, is a torture all of its own. Being confronted with the reality of watching my whole body quiver as my arms valiantly tried to raise what felt like a ton weight up and away from my body, whilst my legs wobbled and my face got redder and redder was not attractive. My hair was dripping wet and my bingo wings were flapping around underneath the short sleeves that I rarely wear, with a momentum all of their own.

The very last torture station saw me rolling an exercise ball down the wall behind my back to a sitting position without a chair, on legs that wondered just what the fuck was going on…yes, those same legs that had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours. I swear I could almost hear them screaming we don’t do this!! This body doesn’t do this!!! Bring back our old life, bitch!!!

We had to go round twice. Not three times. I could have kissed the feet of the lady who told me that after the second klaxon sounded we’d actually finished finished. And you know what, for the second time in two days, I survived.

It was interesting, you have an opportunity to feed back on your training session when you get your summary afterwards on email…I was going to suggest Barry Manilow, mood lighting and scatter cushions for the next session, but I have a feeling that the God of Pain would disapprove…

 

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Dear Body…I’m Sorry.

In the here & now, , ,

crime scene

So on Tuesday after work I went down to the fitness studio to meet the God of Pain. I was ready to be impressed, after all he came highly recommended and he certainly seemed like a really nice man. He was interested in my goals, and didn’t even flinch when I told him that I’m planning to drag this arse up a mountain in a few months’ time, although he did nail me with a stare and tell me I was going to have to work hard. No shit, right? I can work hard.

He followed our meeting up with an email outlining his recommendations in terms of my training schedule…I’ve had to sign up to a minimum of four sessions a week but between you and me, I can tell he thinks four times a week is for fannies. That stare told me don’t even think about wimping out and doing the minimum…oh crap, it really is the end of life as I know it.

We’re going to work on stamina and strength. Or should I say I’m going to work on stamina and strength under his very close supervision…I’ve already sussed that the majority of his input comes from the stare, which he’s very good at. I think I actually want to cry.

So, let me tell you about my first training session. I’d wrestled my head into acceptance that it was going to have to talk my body into moving a bit, and I arrived complete with water bottle, and towel. Unfortunately, I’d taken my contact lenses out because it felt like the right thing to do, so the towel I grabbed on the way out turned out to be one of the ones I use for the dog. Anyway, despite a few questionable stains it did come off the clean washing pile so it was all good, if a little embarrassing. I was ready. And everyone was lovely so I felt very welcome.

So, the good news is I now know what the difference is between a fitness studio and a gym. A gym is somewhere you go to sweat, and a fitness studio is where you go to hurt. I got off to a bit of a ropey start, to be honest…the stretches were all going fine until we got to the one where you have to bend your knee and grab your foot from behind to stretch your quads – oh yes, I’ve so got this lingo – well, that’s all very well unless you’ve got a fat leg with a rogue foot that refuses to be caught.

I had about three attempts, in fact I must’ve looked like I was trying to fucking Riverdance as I waved my leg around and desperately grabbed in the general direction of my foot whilst balancing on the other leg. By some miracle I managed to hook my finger down the back of my trainer and pull my leg up so it was a minor drama and I don’t think anyone noticed. Well, except the God of Pain, who notices everything.

The session was called Body Blast, which was all about building core strength. I haven’t got too much of that so I knew it was going to hurt. Call me Mystic Meg if you must, but I wasn’t wrong. Let me paint a picture of exactly what I demanded from this knackered fat old body. Jog-on-the spot and then get down on a yoga mat to do the plank (ouch), stand up and do some lunges, get down again and do some press-ups (ouch), get up again and do some star jumps, get down again and do some side-planks (ouch), get up again and do some squats, get down again and do some bum stuff (I’d started to lose cognitive thought at this point so can’t remember what they were called) get up again and have another jog, get down again and do some arm stuff (I’m actually dying by now so didn’t care what they were called).

That all took about twenty minutes, and I’ve never been as relieved to hear a klaxon in my whole life. Except he then made us do it again. And then again. Three fucking times.

The bit I found the hardest was all the getting up and down, you know? It’s hard enough, still, to haul this body out of a chair, never mind getting down to ground level. I can’t remember the last time my knees saw that much action, I mean come on, I’m a single girl…not much call to get down on all fours in my life, wink wink. My knees are very pissed off today but to honest they just need to join the chuffing queue.

I couldn’t help looking at my yoga mat as I punch-drunkenly jogged on the spot towards the end of the hour in a kind of out-of-body experience way, and I noticed how the memory foam retains the shape of your body for a while after you get up. Well, mine did anyway. I also couldn’t help thinking that all that was missing was a chalk outline to confirm that this was in fact a crime scene. The God of Pain was attempting to murder me and what’s more, I was paying him to do so.

But you know what? I survived it. And by the end, when we did the cool down I was astonished to discover that I still had the power of movement and speech. Who knew!

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Doing My Typical Thing

In the here & now, , ,

trainers

I found myself shopping on line last night for new trainers in anticipation of this new exercise-filled life I’m going to be living. That’s so typical of me, I mean at that point I hadn’t even spoken to the bloke, you know? I had no idea what kind of footwear I might need, because it’s a fitness studio not a gym, and in any event I’m hardly lacking in the trainers department, given that I bought a new pair back in January in honour of the hurt machine moving in.

Turns out that me and the hurt machine get on better when I’m barefoot so I don’t even use them for that. To be fair I have worn them a lot…mainly for dog walking. They’ve lost that just out of the box look, but they’re not exactly battered, in fact I would imagine that Nike designed them to withstand far more rigorous activity than they’ve ever seen on my feet.

I suspect my need to accessorise is driven by the fact that somewhere in my head lurks the conviction that if I look the part, I’ll be able to pull it off, in a sort of fake it till you make it kind of way. I’ve always been the same. I remember once in my later teenage years having the hots for a bloke who I knew was really into playing squash, so I tried to pretend I was too. I even bought a squash racquet so it could lean casually in the hallway when he popped round for a coffee.

My ruse worked, right up to the point where I ran out of excuses not to join him in a game, which unsurprisingly didn’t go well. He more or less stayed in the same spot on the squash court for a full hour whilst my chunky legs made a heroic effort to propel me around, chasing a ball I was never going to catch…by the end of the session I couldn’t even speak, in fact I was on the verge of needing an iron lung. It wasn’t the biggest surprise in the world when I never heard from him again. But despite the epic failure, throughout the nightmare I dripped Slazenger from head to toe.

I’m not quite sure what a fitness studio does if I’m honest..? I just know this bloke comes highly recommended as a trainer. Let’s not forget I’m a child of the eighties, so I’m seriously having to put the brakes on and stop myself running out to buy a headband and legwarmers which in my head is what everyone will be wearing. I’ve got my feet sorted out but I’m feeling slightly nervous that I’ll stick out like a sore thumb because I don’t have the right uniform.

Logic tells me it shouldn’t matter a monkey’s chuff what I’m wearing, as long as it covers the flesh and holds in a bit of the wobble. But then, if my life was remotely governed by logic I wouldn’t have gotten myself into this pickle in the first place, would I..?

So, I’m going for my assessment tonight, and tomorrow it starts. And you know how I’ve struggled with the thought of fitting everything in..? My weekend away with its enforced technology withdrawal demonstrated perfectly that it’s not all going to turn to ratshit if I don’t post every single day.

I’m going to force myself to cut back a bit and post four times a week, instead of daily…that’s going to feel very weird especially at first. But freeing up time to get serious about my fitness supports my longer term goal and I’ve got to be honest with myself… it’s the only way I can juggle all the things I need to do.

I’m thinking I’ll try and post on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Seems to make sense,  the blog is quieter over the weekend anyway. I hope that works for you guys.

You won’t all desert me, will you?

Promise..?

I can’t do this without ya 🙂

 

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So Go On, Ask Me..!

In the here & now, , ,

FUF

I can’t believe that just over a week ago I was skipping out of the office with a whole week’s worth of lovely things stretching out ahead of me and as of around 5.15am this morning when the alarm went off I came right back down to earth with a bump. I love my job, but I’ve got to be honest, I’ve loved pottering around at home even more. Sigh…I guess all good things have to come to an end.

Still, when I set off for the office this morning I was wearing a new top, and that’s always nice, right? I felt good, and even better still…go on, ask me what size it was..? Only a size twenty…I KNOW!! That’s a size sixteen to my friends over the pond I think, and I’m here to tell you I felt positively slinky as I got into the car, even with my one pound gain this week.

So that’s now four dress sizes lower than when I started. Let me hear you say YEAH! I seem to have been stuck in a size twenty two for ages, and I’ve kept on trying the next size down but you know what I mean when I say it fastened but it didn’t feel quite right..? Today, it did. Today, I was all over that bad boy. So the twenty is hard won and very satisfying, especially when people noticed, and commented…you don’t need me to tell you how wide my grin was every time someone did 🙂

It’s come just at the right time. I’m still a bit raw from being outsmarted by the Asshole voice before the weekend but there’s nothing quite like going down a dress size to give you a boost, right? I suspect my efforts this week will be turbo charged, and you know what, so they should be. I fully intend to make up lost ground, and this is the week that I’m going to pull my big girl pants on and join a gym.

I’m not looking forward to it, in fact I’m already wearing my not-impressed face at the thought of taking that first step. And all the steps that come next, as it goes. Even so, I’m doing it. A friend of mine has made a recommendation and I’m speaking to the guy tomorrow, but if for any reason it doesn’t pan out, I’ve already got a plan B…that’s how serious I am.

Tomorrow marks nine months since I started my diet. That’s a lot of skin in the game, you know? And it hasn’t all been perfect like it was in the early days. I spent a lot of time worrying that if I slipped and spoiled my perfect record it would all turn to shit but you know what, life’s not perfect. The life skill of being able to pick myself up again when things don’t go my way applies every bit as much to my journey to Skinny Town as it does to life in general. That’s what makes me a survivor in life, and that’s what’s going to get me over the Skinny Town county line.

If I pull my sensible head on for a minute, I can see it clear as day. The bumps in the road that I’ve encountered are giving me the opportunity to practise the things I need to be able to do easily if I’m going to make this stick. They’re not nice when they’re happening but without them, I’m missing an important bit of the learning. It’d be a bit like learning to drive without reverse parking being part of the test, right? I might get my license but if I ever needed to get out of a tight spot, I wouldn’t know how if I hadn’t learned that bit.

So I guess my wobbles left and right are serving a purpose, even if they don’t feel like it at the time. It’s good to know that when the fuck-up fairy visits she leaves a nugget of wisdom behind for me to find in the aftermath, and they all help to move me forward 🙂

 

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