Monthly Archives: December 2016

One Whole Week

In the here & now, , ,

When I stepped aboard the Shitbird Scale last week and the number forced me to acknowledge exactly how rebellious I’d allowed myself to become, I took it on the chin. As the week went on, I resisted the temptation to check in every day, so between you and me I approached yesterday’s weigh-in with not a little bit of trepidation…lets be honest, there hasn’t been much good news coming out of my bathroom of late.

I’d had a good week, so I was confident that the needle wouldn’t have moved up. Given my recent trajectory that’s progress in itself, right? I was hoping for a solid two pounds off. I felt like I deserved two pounds, because I’ve tried really hard to kick the Asshole voice into the long grass and focus on my input this week. One of the biggest revelations for me over the last year or so has been that taking care of the input is my job, and actually all the scale needs to do is report the output. It’s less about the number, and more about my side of the deal.

Except the bitch in my bathroom used to toy with me…she seemed to get off on messing with my mojo by giving me a different reading within seconds of the last depending on which tile in the bathroom she happened to be sitting on when I hopped aboard. and I played right into her hands…best of three. No, hang on a minute, let’s make it best of five. Or ten, or fifteen…maybe I should take an average…? No wonder it twisted my melon.

Although initially I baulked at the price, I think choosing this particular Shitbird Scale when the old bitch hit the skids was one of my better ideas. I mean obviously we did the customary weigh-day waltz around the bathroom to get the best possible reading, but unlike the last one, Shitbird scale held the line – it didn’t matter which tile it stood on, the number was the same. There was a definite air of it is what it is, fool…take it or leave it, you know? And since the number was three pounds lower than last week, I’ll take it thank you very much.

Three pounds. That has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?  And it feel like a solid three, because it wasn’t a one, then a four and a two before it landed on three. Times past, when I’ve been awarded a good loss and I’ve declared a successful week, the bitch has been known to snatch it back the following day and revert to something less impressive. Rarely did it happen the other way around, although to be fair I wasn’t kidding when I hinted at the best of fifteen…it’s not unheard of, as rituals go.

The thing is, even before I clocked the number, I felt calm and self-assured on the inside. I’ve stopped bouncing from feast to famine, you know? This week, I managed to get a grip. And it’s fragile, I know that, but it’s there and it’s holding. I’ve been the one behind the wheel this last week, and the Asshole voice wasn’t even holding the map.

Seven good days. Seven days’ worth of skin in the game through a week that was as challenging as it gets – I’ve had two Christmas-related social events, two off-site meetings where lunch was out of my direct control and one night out with my boy where I selected carefully from the menu based on what I could have rather than what I wanted, and immediately followed up one sensible choice with another as I avoided the Ben & Jerry’s concession in the cinema. I didn’t even try and lick the counter as I walked past.

That’s progress folks  🙂

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Nailed On

In the here & now,

I looked like I’d swallowed a beach ball when I went to bed last night, but at least I hit the mattress knowing that I have five days’ worth of self-control safely over the line. I felt fat, but actually that was more to do with the mountain of vegetables (and the resulting alchemy) that I had eaten for supper with my chicken. I still feel bloated this morning and it’s a bit of a nudge in the ribs – there are some in here somewhere, I swear – to remind me that eating late isn’t such a good idea.

Thing is, I didn’t get home from work until way after seven, and I was knackered and starving in equal measure. What I should have done was to have a light supper and an early night, but having failed to talk me into being naughty with all the free cookies available during our meetings yesterday, no way was the Asshole going to be talked out of the planned dinner. Not when a light snack would have been higher in points than the huge chicken and veggie plate…it was never going to happen. Hence me retiring last night feeling like Shamu.

I’m properly going for it this week, and knowing that I was going to wake up skinnier today than I did yesterday meant I wasn’t remotely offended when I caught sight of my Buddha belly as it led the way past my mirror. Once upon a time, catching sight of that reflection would’ve made me want to gauge my eyes out with a spoon, but I’m a bit less offended by it these days…now it just feels like I’m wearing my body like a fat suit on top of the real me. The picture I posted on Wednesday – and your reaction to it – has given me exactly the boost I needed. That skinny girl is in there somewhere, trying to break out.

I’ve even treated myself to a couple of new tops for the festive season – I did good this week so far, you know? I figured I deserved a reward 🙂 I mean I know it’s only five days but this run of five days have been hard-won and I’m celebrating it, so there. It’s been a while since I did five days on the bounce.

I mentioned the free cookies yesterday…there were dozens of twin-packs of cookies thrown in with the cost of our meeting room at an off-site venue, and once upon a time, any we had left at the end of the day would have come home with me ‘for my boy’. After all we’d paid for them, right? The reality is they probably wouldn’t have made it home at all, in fact by the time I’d left the car park the mobile cookie party would have been in full swing. I dodged that bullet yesterday, and it feels great.

How I’ve missed that feeling 🙂

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Hey! That Used To Be Me!

In the here & now, ,

Well, this is day four of my fledgling food sobriety, and days one two and three passed without drama. I’m doing okay. I ate more crumpets last night than I’d intended after my fat furnace workout – four, not two – and yes I know that’s a lot of crumpets but I stayed within points, and on both Sunday and Monday I left points unused on the table, so we’re all good.

See that picture? That used to be me. I reckon the Gods of Skinny are rooting for me…I suspect they realised that I needed a helpful nugget of resolve lobbing in my direction this week to help nail my colours to the skinny mast and keep them there, so this little gem appeared in my Facebook memories feed. It was nine years ago yesterday, at my work’s Christmas doo. I barely remember even looking like that, although to be fair I think I only fitted into that frock for about ten minutes which is probably why my memories are a bit hazy. It was fleeting, you know? A moment in time.

That night, well…I felt great. From March 2007 to November of the same year, I’d existed on protein shakes and soups. Not a single morsel of food had passed my lips, for eight months. I drank four litres of water every day and ate four meal replacements – I think I was on about six hundred calories daily and apart from the fact that my hair was falling out in clumps, I felt amazing.

That picture was taken on the first night out I’d had in my new skinny body, and far from being the reclusive anti-social old bat that I’ve morphed into these days, I never left the dance floor all night. It helped that everyone was full of compliments and I felt like a million dollars but the thing I remember most of all was feeling completely free, you know?

I didn’t worry once about whether my arse looked like blancmange inside my frock, or whether my bingo wings were on display. I checked myself out in the mirror before I left home and felt very happy with what I saw looking back at me, and then I got on with the business of having a ball.

It seemed like I’d found the holy grail of diets – I was able to completely break the habit of leaning on food as a crutch. I never once felt hungry and I lost steadily, around 15lbs every month. I never stuck, and I never gained…it was a poker-straight route from Mooseville to Skinny Town. The thing is, as soon as I started eating again and un-pressed pause on my fucked-up relationship with food, the weight all came back again at warp speed, and then some.

I’ve got to be honest, I’ve seriously considered whether I might try that again. Especially coming off the back of a really screwed up couple of months, where I’ve massively struggled to play with a straight bat. I just don’t think I could stomach any more of those chalky soups though, you know? I could hurl at the thought of going back there. But maybe if I make a deal with myself…behave, or else!!! Eat clean, or else 2017 is the year of soup that tastes of feet all the way until the moment you can zip up that frock. Sort of a suspended sentence, if you like.

I’ve completed day three of three. This is day four of four and I’m going for it again today. I’m going to eat well, and move a bit, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I intend to say goodnight to this day later with a smile on my face, knowing it’s another good day in the bag 🙂

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Knowing Where I’m At

In the here & now, , , , ,

So, Friday night was work’s Christmas doo – if you’ve been reading along for a while you’ll know that the prospect of a big night out generally makes me want to run at warp speed in the opposite direction, but for once I decided not to be an antisocial old git, and I went along. As it turns out, I had an awesome time, in fact I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much.

We’d arranged to have a pre-party face make-over, so by the time we got there I didn’t really look like me at all. We all sort of ended up with a similar version of the same thing, dark smoky eyes and a ton of face paint which I’ve got to say didn’t look half bad, right up until I got a bit warm halfway through the evening and my face started melting…it was nice whilst it lasted though. Except, I looked a bit like a panda. There were two girls doing make-up, and I think I got the rookie, you know?

Saturday afternoon was a low point. I’d woken up with renewed determination that I could kick the Asshole voice into the long grass if he started being a twat, and by 2pm I still had a full house of smart points left. Eating nothing seems to be the safest option for me, you know? I can hold out for ages, it’s stopping once I’ve started that gives me a problem. Anyway I ran a few errands, went for my nails and eyelashes done and then walked Charlie dog before I turned my attention to food.

That’s the point at which it went horribly wrong. I had a full-on binge, having decided that (wait for it, Asshole logic at its finest) since Sunday was my weigh day, and I’d actually given up trying to programme my new scales with the fancy stuff and just taken them upstairs, midnight Saturday was my line in the sand. Sunday I was back on it.

So best buy a Daim cake now because from Sunday when I woke up I wouldn’t be eating anything like that, right? So I actually went to the supermarket and bought the offending article, together with a family sized moussaka. And a large bag of crisps to eat whilst the moussaka was cooking. Not cheese balls, I wouldn’t let myself go there and strangely I didn’t even try.

Having vaporised the moussaka and the crisps, I cut myself a quarter of the Daim cake. It was gone in sixty seconds and oh my days it tasted amazing. So I cut another quarter and ate that too. I was starting to feel a bit sick at this point, but I had that now or never logic going round and round in my head…if you don’t eat it now you won’t be able to eat it at all, you’re back on the diet tomorrow…

The third quarter took a bit of getting down to be honest, but having eaten it I had to go hard for the fourth and final quarter, otherwise my boy would know I’d eaten three quarters of a Daim cake when he got in from work and I’d be too ashamed to look him in the eye. So I ate the lot, and got rid of the packaging in the outside bin before falling into a food coma and dozing in my armchair for a good couple of hours. I woke up feeling bloated and bilious with rampant indigestion.

Does that sound familiar..? It does to me. That was my life, once upon a time and I think I shocked myself at how comfortably I was able to just step back into the bad old days. And I brooded about it for the rest of the day, and into the evening. I felt so sick, which was hardly a fucking surprise.

Sunday dawned, and I didn’t feel any better. And then I stood on my new scale – which by the way will be known hereafter as the shitbird scale – and felt even worse. I wanted to know where I was at…well, let me tell you exactly where I’m at. I’m fifteen pounds heavier than I was when I set off for Cuba, that’s where. 

Knowing the damage I’ve done drove it home to me how broken my thinking has become of late…I thought I’d moved way past all that head spam, but I’m clearly not as free and clear of it as I’d thought. Mary made an interesting point on Friday when she said

…as a side note… it seems like at first naming the Asshole voice gave you power over him. Because you named him and separated him from who you were and what you want, you could say no. But lately… it feels like when you do something you didn’t want to do, it’s because you felt like you couldn’t say no to the Asshole voice. You don’t seem to have that power over him any more, the confidence that you can overrule him, that you can achieve your goal. It seems like you feel like you’ll inevitably give in, so you might as well get it over with…

Mary, you are spot on. I can’t pinpoint the moment in time where I started hearing my own voice instead of his but I’d lost sight of how quickly I can turn a deaf ear and close him down when I feel like I’m the one in control. So, that’s my homework for this week.

Back to basics. Listen for the Asshole voice, recognise him, and give him a big fat kick in the ging gang goolies every time he tries it on. One day at a time. Yesterday was a good day, once I’d got over the horror of the shitbird scale and I even went to bed last night with points in the bank. Not because it was easy, he was chewing my ear all evening as it happens…but I tuned him out.

I’ve forgiven myself for the fifteen pounds…it is what it is, and at least I know what I’m dealing with now, right? It’s time to get this show on the road 🙂

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It Was The Mince Pie That Did It

In the here & now, ,

You know, don’t you, when you wake up brimming with determination that today’s the day you’re going to tip your world the right way up again, but then you go downstairs and eat a mince pie for breakfast that the day is going to be one of those days, where the diet turns to shit before you’ve even left the house.

That mince pie totally set me off on the wrong path this morning. Thirty seconds of heaven, followed by an hour in the car on my morning commute where I sat and sulked at my stupidity, and sang along to no songs on the radio. Not even the Mariah Carey All I Want For Christmas song, during which I normally am Mariah Carey for that brief moment in time, usually at the very top of my lungs.

To add insult to injury, I lifted said mince pie out of its foil jacket on the kitchen counter, right next to my new bathroom scales which are sitting on the counter top impassively – we haven’t eyeballed each other yet – waiting to be programmed. Oh yes that’s right, programmed. User one, name ‘fat knacker’. When I figure out which buttons to press I have to enter my height and my age so it can ruin my day in a bells and whistles kind of way by reporting not only my weight but also my BMI and my water content, although how it knows that is anybody’s guess. I already know we’re not going to see eye to eye.

For the first time today, the Asshole voice tested the water by suggesting that I start again on the first Monday in the New Year. I closed him down immediately of course, good grief if it becomes open season between now and then, I’ll be lumbering into January with some serious regained poundage clinging to my arse. No doubt about it. So I’ll just carry on having these exhausting daily negotiations inside my own head about whether I should/shouldn’t/can/can’t/will/won’t eat whatever the fuck I want.

I know I’ve put more weight on. I can feel it on my body. I just don’t know how much because although my new scales arrived last Wednesday they remain in virgin un-stood-on condition. I tried to programme my details in but it didn’t do what the booklet said it would do when I pressed whatever I was supposed to press, so I gave up immediately and decided to try again later. It’s now eight days later and I’ve just not quite worked my way around to having another go.

Avoidance tactics…self-sabotage…mince pies for breakfast. I’m being a pillock.

But I’m still trying. I’m not giving up, and I’m definitely not starting over on the first Monday after New Year. I’m starting again today.

 

Have a great weekend folks…before you go, I’m delighted to share a new guest post on my Thoughts From The Posse page…thank you Jamie for sharing your story, and I’m sure you guys will pitch in with your support like you always do… 🙂

 

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