Monthly Archives: May 2016

The World Didn’t End At Foxy Lodge

In the here & now, ,

cabin

So I’m safely home after a weekend of utter awesomeness, in fact if I were forced to pick, I think I’d have to say this has been one of my very favourite girly weekends ever, and we’ve been doing this a long time so there are a lot to choose from. I’m not sure I could put my finger on exactly why, except maybe because I thought this one might be hard and it turned out not to be at all…I worried for nothing.

Wednesday night, when I slipped on that dieting banana skin, it knocked the wind out of my sails a bit. Maybe the Asshole voice thought I was getting a bit cocky, you know? Anyway, whatever, I greeted Thursday feeling thoroughly pissed off but resigned to the fact that I’d have to be far stricter with my food budget over the weekend than I’d been anticipating.

I knocked that one right out of the park, I mean I’ve had one or two tastes of naughty but it would barely even qualify as a dabble, and my best estimate is that I’ve stayed entirely within points.

And get this, every single one of my friends turned up for the weekend complete with exercise gear in a full show of solidarity, and we’ve made a respectable dink in the nature trails around the lodge. If I tell you that under normal circumstances we never make it further than the hot tub with just an occasional foray up to the reception area to try and get a phone signal, or *ahem* the recycling area with all our empties you’ll understand how much of a departure from the norm that really is.

I was totally surrounded by support, and it made getting back on solid footing over the weekend totally effortless. I’m so lucky 🙂

And you know what else I realised..? I didn’t post for two days, and the world didn’t end. I feel slightly ridiculous for panicking about it so much. When I arrived there on Thursday it took me about twenty laps of the car park, on foot and waving my iPad in the air before I got enough signal to post the one I’d already teed up. The cabins are buried in woodland and there was no chance of getting enough signal to write, so I gave myself up to a world without technology and you know what, it was fine.

I missed talking to you guys of course, but I actually realised that if for whatever reason I can’t manage to write a post every single day it’s not going to make the wheels come off my diet. Who knew! That in itself is a massive pressure lifted off my shoulders, and we’ve already established that pressure doesn’t do me any favours, right?

Anyway, the bitch in the bathroom greeted me like an old friend when I got home earlier, and then delivered the news with a flourish that I’d put on a pound. Shit. Still, my mid-week wobble says I deserve it, so I’ve taken it on both of my chins, and it’s all good. It’ll come off this week, no doubt in my mind at all.

It’s been lovely having a week off work, and both my weekends away…I’m rested and raring to go. I’m ready to embrace normal again, and crack on with the business in hand. This week is the week I get serious with this bloody fitness malarkey…watch this space 🙂

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Autopsy Of A Binge

In the here & now, , , , ,

spring cleaning

When I’m not in the grip of a binge, I find it really hard to get my head around the concept that an Asshole voice inside my head has the ability to take over every thought, and for that brief moment in time completely rule the roost. I mean, I can talk about it, and even report it as fact but the truth is I’m detached when it’s not happening right now. Being in a position where I’m not the one calling the shots seems unlikely, from my current vantage point of control.

On an intellectual level I get it of course – in the same way that I understand that some people feel the need to drink their way into oblivion, and other people are driven to get high…what I can’t do, outside the moment is to call up how it feels as I lose my grip and tumble head first into a binge. I can only feel that in the moment, and I can’t comprehend it when I’m not feeling it.

Last night, it got me. Head on. I’ll tell you about it in a minute but before I do, I want to try and unpick why. I’d had a great sorting out kind of day. In some respects. What I didn’t do, was the walking I’d intended to do, nor did I make the call about joining a gym…I was too busy. I did have a chat with my boy last night as he was cooking dinner, about how I was thinking about not front-loading my blog posts for this weekend and having a couple of days off instead as I kicked back with my girls…he was horrified.

He knows how much this means to me in terms of accountability and support. He also understands that the creative outlet of writing is the anchor which has kept me in the sweet spot over the last nine months, you know? That, and the love that I get from you lot. He was worried that if I didn’t post, I’d go completely off the rails…he’s seen it, and lived through it too many times over the years. Not blogging, obviously, I’ve never done this before but if I’ve ever stepped away just for a second from whatever thing was working for me at the time, I’ve gone under the wheels and it’s pretty much been game over.

To be fair, I worry about that too…when I started this journey I said I would post every single day, and I have. One hundred and eighty thousand words so far, that’s like two whole books’ worth of words in a little less than nine months. I spend at least a couple of hours writing every day, and when I’m time poor that’s a big commitment. If I join a gym and have to find time to fit that in too, something’s going to have to give.

So that scares me anyway and his reaction reinforced my own worries you know? My boy is right…I need this outlet. I also need to join a gym and build up my stamina to honour the commitment I’ve made to do this trek because I’m not getting enough traction on my own. I have to do stuff with my mum, and I have to work a full time job and run a house…I’m a bit freaked out that I’m not going to be able to fit it all in. And after our conversation brought it all to the surface last night I watched the TV and chewed it all over in my mind.

Then I chewed a bunch of other stuff. For fuck’s sake. The extra weekly points that I’d so carefully saved for this coming weekend away…gone. The additional exercise points that I’d built up, also gone. Twenty points that I haven’t even earned yet have gone before they’ve even fucking arrived.

And in that food fug last night, which by the way was entirely sugar-related, the Asshole voice talked me into believing that I couldn’t over-flex my food budget at the weekend anyway since five of my closest friends were going to act like the chuffing diet police so I may as well get all my chocolate in whilst I had the chance, and live on dust until Sunday.

It seemed like a very plausible argument, right up until it didn’t. Then I cried, and washed the kitchen floor. I have no idea why, it wasn’t dirty and in any event my cleaning lady was coming today, but I think I just needed to scrub something, because I felt dirty.

On the up-side, talking about it has at least opened the window on why it happened. I’m not reacting well to the pressure I’m putting on myself to do it all. And I still don’t know how I’m going to pull it off if I’m honest, but in the cold light of day as I sit and survey the damage I’m fed up, but a lot less freaked out. I’m back in control. I’m okay. I’ve still got this.

So, I need to be more careful this weekend than I thought, right? We’re planning healthy food anyway, and I’ll have some fizz, but none of the edible goodies I was saving up for can feature in my weekend. And you know what, I’m okay with that…it is what it is. I’m just happy I’ve made it out of the other side and I still have my eye on the prize.

It’s all good, if a little too close for comfort 🙂

By the way, if the posts are a little sporadic over the next couple of days, bear with me…we are staying in a forest and based on past experience there’s next to no phone signal and no wi-fi!

 

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Weeding Out The Fat

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

struggle

So much for having a relaxing time of it whilst I’m off work this week…I’m skidding sideways into today’s post in a very last minute dot com kind of way because I got busy this morning having a bit of a sort out and I’ve only just nicely come up for air.

I have to hold my hands up and admit that having surveyed pretty much every fashion choice I have made over the last, I dunno maybe four or five years, I need locking up and the key needs to be thrown away. Immediately.

On the face of it, I had a clear out not that long ago, and it’s not that I’ve gone down another size since then or anything exciting like that…I just had a nagging feeling that I didn’t quite do it properly the first time. I sort of scratched the surface, but I knew if I looked there would be more stuff to go through and sure enough, today I not only did a second lap of the wardrobe but I went through all my drawers and the under-the-bed storage too.

I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count all the items I’ve unearthed where I’d bought  something without trying it on, in the hope that whatever I’d brought home would make me look nice, only to ball it up in disgust and shove it in the bottom of my wardrobe or the back of a drawer when it actually made me look like the back end of a bus. The thing is, what I really wanted to look was skinny. That’s what I mean when I said nice…I meant skinny. There’s no wonder nothing much lived up to my expectations.

I never try stuff on in the shop. I think my aversion to changing rooms stems right back to my teenage years where it was all the rage to have communal ones. They’d be filled with skinny girls, looking effortlessly chic in whatever they tried on, and I’d be the fat one in the corner avoiding eye contact with anyone whilst I tried to force my spare tyre into whatever I’d managed to find in size large. Please God let something fit…I just want to carry a bag that says Top Shop…

I vividly remember getting so hot and bothered that no matter how much I’d managed to tame my unruly mop of hair before hitting town with my friends, by the time I emerged from the fitting room it would be wild and curly, sitting on top of a chubby red face which would never really recover for the rest of the afternoon. It was traumatic.

I struggled to find my groove, you know? I found it really hard to carve out my style as a fat girl, and desperate as I was to follow fashion and copy the kind of looks I saw in Jackie and the other teenage mags, it was nigh-on impossible. Other than the asymmetric layering styles that I’m fairly fond of nowadays, I still think that very few people can design great clothes for fat bodies. Scaling up skinny clothes doesn’t work. And most designed-for-fat clothes tend to be created with my mother in mind.

As I see it, shopping as a fat girl is sort of a Hobson’s choice situation…it’s on that basis that I’m prepared to overlook some of the very questionable purchases I’ve made and then buried over the last few years. It wasn’t my fault m’lud. I wonder how many folk will get their garment of choice home from the charity shop when I’ve dropped this lot off in the hope that it will make them look nice, and then ball it up in disgust and shove it in a drawer…

I’ve got to say though, all in all it’s been a good day. I’m feeling really organised, I’ve got a fair number of auctions running on eBay and about ten massive bags for the charity shop. Best of all, I’ve uncovered some old friends, in fact I’m wearing a shirt right now that I’ve not been able to get into for at least three years, and that’s a good feeling 🙂

 

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The One In Charge Of Me

In the here & now, , , ,

PT

My weekly appointment with the Bitch in the bathroom was banjaxed slightly this week given that I wasn’t here. I have to admit, in the past my Asshole voice would have immediately latched onto the fact that there was going to be a longer-than-normal interval between weigh-ins, and positioned it as a reason why I should take my foot off the gas, you know? Cut myself a bit of slack…I’m happy to report that this time I was having none of it.

I weighed myself a day early on Saturday, and I’d lost one pound. This morning I went for the pincer movement and got weighed again and I’m delighted to report that another of the little blighters has melted away at some point over the weekend, so despite the treats I’ve allowed myself, the balanced approach of earning the right to indulge and managing it within my food plan has paid off. I need to be a bit careful, I mean come on, I’m in danger of behaving like I’m actually the one in charge here. Oh…wait a minute…that’s right, I am 🙂

I was thinking you know, that I should probably try and get a couple of gym sessions in this week whilst I’m off work. I’m still a long way from being fit, and my Cuba Trek is now only 5 months away. That’s twenty weeks…sweet Jesus that’s hurtling towards me like a freight train. I know I have the elliptical here at home and I’m walking a fair bit, but I’m starting to realise that it’s not enough. In fact, it’s nowhere near enough.

When I was in the gym at the hotel yesterday, I wouldn’t exactly say I was pacing myself  against the proper people who looked like they belonged there but I couldn’t help comparing their pace to mine, and it dawned on me that in fitness terms I’m still more of a sloth than a cheetah. And whilst I know I don’t necessarily need to be a cheetah to conquer that mountain range, I do need some of the key ingredients that I’m missing, like stamina and strength.

I have neither. Which is kind of a flaw in my plan, right? In comparison to where I was, I’m a rock star. And mentally, I’ve got it all going on, but in terms of being where I need to be physically, I’m barely off the blocks.

I think this has got to be my reality check. The gravitas of what I’ve committed to has finally made it as far as ringing the bell in my head. Over five days I need to trek 90km of rough terrain, in heat and humidity, and as of right now I still weigh 257lbs. What the actual fuck have I done.

I’m going to have to join a gym aren’t I? I’m looking at it every which way up, and without a proper plan – and someone to push me – there’s no way I’m pulling this off. And there’s no way I’m backing out either, so much as I hate the idea and God knows how I’m going to find time, I think I’m going to have to. It’s time to dig in and start really fucking hurting. I need a Jillian or a Bob in my life. Someone who’s going to make me throw up in a bucket without allowing me break my stride on the treadmill.

To be honest, the very thought of it terrifies me, in fact it makes me want to bungee jump into a river of cheese balls and stay there until the world goes dark. My hamstring is still sore from doing the splits five weeks ago, my knee still hurts a bit and whilst I can walk for maybe five miles or so before I need a breather, that’s an awfully long way from match-fit. However. The responsibility of being the one in charge of me means I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. The longer term benefits outweigh the fact that in the short term I just about want to shit my pants at the thought. I just need to man up and go for it.

Rightio. Best find a gym then.

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Safely Delivered From Old Ladyville

In the here & now, , ,

old ladies

Well we’re home after a scorchio weekend…for fat flesh which hasn’t seen the sun for years it’s all been a bit traumatic. It’s a good job I went and bought a couple of pairs of lightweight pants before the weekend, I mean I’ve wilted in the heat even with my backside wrapped in linen so I don’t even want to think how bad it would have been swaddled head to toe in black.

We’ve had a great time, despite the whole weekend being geared towards entertaining a pair of octogenarians.  We went to the Beamish museum yesterday which is like the ultimate theme park for wrinklies. The whole place is set up like it’s one hundred years ago, and of course being in their eighties the pair of them spent the whole day reminiscing as we rode around on trams and poked about in  shops and houses and a school straight out of Georgian times.

I couldn’t help reflecting as we trundled around how being really fat is mostly a 21st century luxury. I mean I know I’ve dropped some weight and all, but crap, no way could I have coped with being even this size back then. As the golden girls were prompted at every turn to talk about how life was, back in the day, I looked at how physical the chores were, and how restrictive the clothing was – no elastane woven into fat-girl clothes back then – and thought how thoroughly bloody awful it must have been if you were carrying an extra arse in the early nineteen hundreds, especially on a hot day like yesterday.

There were quite a lot of pictures of ‘stout’ women dotted about the houses and they all looked as miserable as sin…I’m not surprised.

So the weekend passed with the integrity of my food budget 100% intact – don’t get me wrong I did have one or two naughties but I tracked every single one, and I earned them too which meant I enjoyed them even more. And today, which was the day I was most worried about, passed uneventfully due to a little bit of divine intervention. Well, you could call it that…that, or just plain old lady contrariness.

There are some world-famous tea rooms not too far from where we were staying, and we’d more or less decided to have a late lunch there before heading home. It’s mega expensive so it was going to be a real treat, kind of like the cherry on top of a perfect weekend.  I was a bit worried, I mean their cakes are the stuff of legend and I’d mentally worked my way through every one of the Asshole voice’s possible tactics to get me to fall over and face plant into a plate of fondant fancies.

We arrived in the town, which is gorgeous, with plenty of time to have a look around and work up an appetite for lunch, and all was going to plan until one of our gloriously bonkers wrinklies insisted on going in straight away to get a table before the lunchtime rush. I mean, the day was only just nudging its way out of mid morning. It seemed easier not to argue, but as we all sat and looked at each other over the menu, our breakfasts still weighing heavy on our collective stomachs,  it became apparent that nobody actually wanted to eat anything so we literally just had tea. No lunch, and no cakes.

On the face of it it’s a shame that we all missed out on what would have been a real treat, but the reality is it saved me a monumental battle with myself, so in the grand scheme of things, old-lady foibles saved the day. Mission accomplished, with points in the bank for next weekend.

Happy days 🙂

 

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