Tag Archives: Asshole

Wrinkle Patrol

In the here & now, ,

Isn’t it a bloody lovely feeling, when everything just works?  I get a real sense of life slowly returning to normal, helped by the fact that I went back to work yesterday. It’s like I’ve stepped back into my own life, after wandering into someone else’s for a bit. Seriously, it’s great to be back…there’s a rhythm to my life that I rather like these days, and I missed it.

I’d almost forgotten what it was like to move through the day without a barrage of unhelpful suggestions from the Asshole between my ears. I’m not entirely out of the woods, in fact there was an incident last night where I spent an hour debating with myself whether or not I could be bothered to get changed and go for a late swim. It was only the fact that I’d actually eaten my exercise calories on the promise of going that swung my ass out of the chair, and of course I loved it once I was in the water. But the key thing is, I closed down the voice and that felt very satisfying. Powerful, even.

I’ve got seven days of food sobriety in the bank, and it’s a good feeling. I’ve treated myself to a handful of non-edible rewards and that seems to be working…I’ve always been open to bribery. So far this week I’ve acquired a new gym bag and yesterday I splashed out on an outrageously-priced face mask that comes with the promise of winding the clock back to a time when my face didn’t look like a deflating balloon. I have high hopes that by the time I go on my writer’s workshop next weekend I’ll look a bit less baggy.

It’s funny you know, I can remember my Grandma getting upset once about the fact that she had a really wrinkly face, and at the time I was baffled. I mean, she was my Grandma and it was sort of in the job description, right? Except now the man-child is almost thirty, technically I’m old enough to be a Grandma myself so I find myself on wrinkle patrol whenever I’m close to a mirror.

There’s definitely shit going south in the face department. And eye bags, what the actual fuck are they all about? I’ve never had bags under my eyes in my life, but these days there’s definitely baggage there especially first thing in the morning. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when, if I’m not smiling, my face started arranging itself into miserable as the default setting, but I swear it’s got something to do with the fat marching its way downwards.

I’ve always been envious of girls with smooth golden limbs because mine have always been a bit lumpy, with corned beef colouring to boot which really hasn’t helped my cause. Let’s be honest, tanned fat is prettier, right? I’ve never really coveted anyone else’s face though, because I’ve always been happy with my own. Well, not counting my nose, which bizarrely seems to get bigger whenever my cheeks get smaller. It’s annoying that none of the red flags which are now screaming that middle age is upon me seemed noticeable when I looked like I’d swallowed the moon.

Just to be clear, if it comes down to face versus figure, I’m still going for figure. And I’m not going to bitch about the loose skin or the saggy boobs when I get to Skinny Town. I’m well used to tucking my belly into my pants so not a single shit will be given.

I definitely hope the face mask delivers though…that’s a bit harder to swallow 🙂

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Nearer To Good Than Bad

In the here & now, ,

Well, I’m in a much better frame of mind today, and to the blessed relief of everyone I’ve been driving round the bend, I’ve stopped being a muppet. It’s taken me a week to get my head around the fact that I’m not going to feel better straight away. I’ve also come to realise that not every twinge means it’s all gone wrong. It’s normal to have good days and bad days after surgery, right? Wednesday was the worst day, but yesterday was better.

Stressing about my food plan hasn’t been especially helpful. After my prolonged dalliance with the binge demons, getting back on track would have been hard enough in itself, but doing it in a week where enforced inactivity has ruled out any opportunity to boost my pitiful calorie quota…well. I’ve narrowly avoided eating my own fucking arm.

And I’m still obsessing about Daim cake. I mean, in my repertoire of go to foods it’s up there towards the top of the list anyway but for some reason my head has stalled at the crossroads where I choose to walk either towards it or away from it. So I’m still standing there having the same conversation. I shit you not, it’s like Groundhog Day.

The Asshole voice is lobbying hard.  Look, just go get it out of your system, then you can move on. I’m not going to quit reminding you how that buttery taste will melt on your tongue and make you feel better, and sooner or later you’re going to cave. You know it, and I know it. Why don’t you save us both the trouble and go buy the cake.

I thought it would be easier because I’m stuck in the house, you know? My ability to nip out to the shops has been severely compromised by my not being able to drive. I know better than to ask the fun police to bring me a Daim cake, and in any event he’s been working so I didn’t even try. I did think about calling a cab to the place that sells them, and I also considered doing a full on-line shop just so I could get some contraband delivered and eat it whilst there’s only me in the house. Thankfully I haven’t done any of those things.

But I’m still thinking about doing all of those things because my head is refusing to play nicely.

The thing is, I’m clinging on. My food plan has not been the stuff that skinny dreams are made of this week, and there’s been a couple of days where I’ve gone a bit over my calorie budget but the upshot is, I haven’t eaten Daim cake. Whether I’ve coloured inside the lines or not, it’s been nearer to good than bad and that’s something to celebrate. I doubt very much that the Shitbird Scale will award me a loss on Sunday but to be honest this non-scale victory matters far more. It’s been one hell of a battle.

I don’t think it’s over yet. But it will pass, eventually. The non-Asshole side of my brain knows that, and I’m riding out the storm 🙂

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The Polar Opposite Of Easy

In the here & now, ,

I don’t know about you, but in that moment where I desperately want to eat something I shouldn’t,  the Asshole voice spits out reassurance after reassurance about how easy it’ll be to pick up the pieces pretty much straight away afterwards. My head totally gets on board with the whole concept and works in tandem to erase any old memories which may tell a different story, and right up until the chewing is over I remain convinced that getting back in the game is going to be a walk in the park.

I fall for it every fucking time.

Before you start throwing things at the screen out of sheer frustration that I’m still fannying around, I’m not. I’ve got five days’ worth of skin in the  game but honestly, pulling myself back out of that hole has been a full-on stinking turd of a task. I’m wrung out by the relentless assault on my willpower to the point where it feels like my week has been directed by Quentin Tarantino.

The reality of getting back on plan after a ten day hiatus is the polar opposite of easy. It’s compounded by the sheer boredom of not being able to do much else apart from sit in the chair with my leg elevated and have the occasional potter about. It seems that dragging my mind out of the refrigerator is much easier if I can take Charlie-dog out for a long walk, or go work up a sweat at the Kingdom of Pain.

I’m tetchy from the sugar withdrawal and my mind and body are not occupied with anything other than how much I want to eat whilst I’m sitting around doing nothing. There’s no unsuitable food in the house, so my options are deliberately limited but that doesn’t stop the steady stream of help and advice from the Asshole voice as to how I might engineer a situation whereby I’m left to my own devices and therefore free to order take-out pizza.

Fair to say then that it hasn’t been a textbook week so far. I had some ice-cream on Sunday that I haven’t paid back into the calorie pot yet, but that was my very last sugar-related transgression and other than that I’m doing okay as I claw my way back to clean eating. There might have been an incident with some out-of-budget sprouts and a battered haddock fillet yesterday but I was due to take pain meds and I needed to eat something. It could have been worse.

The big bandage came off yesterday, to be replaced by a full length elasticated support stocking. This didn’t improve my mood any, since my knee blew up like a football and I realised that said support stockings are just not built for fat legs.

Getting it on was easy so I was lulled into a false sense of security, but to stop the dratted thing rolling down from the top every time I moved, I had to make a sort of cuff with the top of it which then proceeded to cut the circulation off in my leg. Drama queen that I am, I convinced myself that I was having a DVT until it dawned on me that the stocking was just too damn tight.

On medical advice when I couldn’t stand it any longer, the support stocking went in the bin and I’m once again swaddled in bandages. Two steps forward, one step back. I’m sore, and my cranky pants are pulled all the way up to my armpits. Surely three family bags of cheese balls and a Daim cake would make me feel better right now..? Except I know they really wouldn’t, beyond a brief moment in time. So it’s a no from me.

It doesn’t stop the image of them playing on a constant loop in my head though 🙁

 

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Falling Down The Hole

In the here & now, ,

I’m having a proper bare-knuckle fight with myself at the moment, as I wake up to day five of pure anarchy. What is it that tips you out of the sweet spot and forces you under the wheels? I can’t even sit here and tell you that I feel out of control, because actually I feel completely, dispassionately in control except I’m doing all the wrong things.

As I was ordering my lunch yesterday from the deli, having deliberately walked out of the house without fixing lunch,  my adopted mantra was running through my head – if I eat any of that I am choosing to wake up weighing more tomorrow than I do today…

The words I’ll have a piece of quiche please with some potato salad, oh and a slab of chocolate cake found their way out of my mouth anyway. And as I looked at my reflection in the shiny glass dome of the food display I was definitely flipping the bird to myself. I mean come on. The chocolate cake wasn’t even that good, but I ate it anyway, along with a kit-kat and two fingers of shortbread.

Where the actual fuck has this come from? Last week I fought the good fight every day, and although every mealtime felt like a battleground and my calorie allocation was a feat of engineering, I pretty much managed to make it add up. Well, more or less. But I definitely came out of last week feeling like I was still in the fight, even though I was on the ropes.

Right now, I’m not even counting. And I know I should be. Even as I’m dancing with the devil I should be logging, tracking and facing the reality of what’s going into my mouth but the Asshole is behind the wheel, and in the euphoria of this food fug I’m confused about how it’s making me feel. I should feel guilty, right? Bad. What I actually feel is sweet blessed relief that I’ve relinquished control and fuck the consequences.

I laid there last night trying to find some words for today’s post, and no words came. So I shut my laptop and went to sleep…I never do that. This is my safe place, you know? It’s where I can tip out the contents of my head and work through what’s going on no matter how tired I feel or how reluctant the words are to arrange themselves on the page. But I didn’t even put up a fight last night when my own head shut me out. I just gave into it and checked out, in fact I was asleep by 8.30pm.

I feel quite calm, actually. And I don’t know how today’s going to be, but I do know that I need to do everything in my power to dig myself out of this hole I seem to have fallen into. I’ve done it before, and I know I can do it again. I just need to summon up enough will to pick up the shovel  🙂

 

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The Killer Question

In the here & now, , ,

Do you ever shake your head in wonder at the food-related situations you find yourself in?  I do. I found myself in a face-off with a freezer full of ice-cream lollies on Saturday. My feet ground to a halt in the middle of the supermarket in what felt like an act of betrayal, and I probably stood and stared at that freezer for a good ten minutes.

Earlier in the week my friend had included a picture of a raspberry magnum amongst the holiday pictures she’d shared on social media, and I’d made a jokey comment underneath the photo about how I’d once eaten six of them in one sitting. That was true, in fact it happened during my last four day binge and if I close my eyes I can still taste them.

Now, you’ve got to remember that my head was up my arse for a significant chunk of last week, and that perfectly innocuous picture seemed to fire the starting pistol for my tastebuds. Every day since, I’ve been lusting after a raspberry magnum like a dog on heat, and fantasising about beating my personal best by going for seven, or maybe even eight. It was just one in a long line of assaults that the Asshole voice made towards my food sobriety at the back end of last week…it was relentless.

The thing is, when I’m in the grip of an urge to binge, it’s very easy to convince myself that as soon as I’ve eaten whatever it is that I’m fantasising about I’ll be okay, you know? You’re going to cave at some point, so quit with the pathetic attempts at resistance. Just get it out of the way. Fill your boots now and then you can move on…

It never works out like that though, does it? I don’t know about you, but once I’ve got the taste for something, I’m screwed. That’s why I very rarely have a one-incident binge.

How can I even describe what the urge to binge feels like, to a regular person? It’s like a massive build-up of pressure, which in that moment I am utterly convinced can only be relieved by shutting myself away and pushing all the things I shouldn’t be eating into my face. I’ve heard people who self-harm talk about how slicing into their skin with a blade somehow relieves the pressure which is building up inside, and I guess binge-eating is different but the same. It’s certainly followed by all the same emotions…guilt, shame, the whole fucking nine yards. I might not carry self-harm scars on my body per se, but I do have a double arse inside my pants for remarkably similar reasons.

In the ten minutes I stood rooted to the floor in front of that freezer, with the pressure of the last few days threatening to blow like a volcano out of my ears, I literally clung on to food sobriety by my fingertips. I even had hold of the freezer door at one point.

Is this me making a conscious decision then, to choose fat over skinny? That’s the killer question, because if I reach for that box, whether I admit it or not, I’m choosing to wake up heavier tomorrow than I am today. 

That argument swung it, in the end because…well, it’s true isn’t it? Nobody ever ate seven raspberry magnums and woke up skinny the next day. So I didn’t go there. Somehow, I let go of the freezer door. My feet started moving again, and I walked away. Isn’t it evil, the way your mind can manipulate a memory…in the grip of it, I didn’t recall the bilious bloated day-after effect because I was mentally blinkered and could only focus in glorious technicolour on how they tasted.

I did buy a box of peanut bars from the healthy snacks section, and ate every last one of them. But they weren’t raspberry magnums…they weren’t even close to being that naughty. And yesterday I rebooted, and had a textbook day without incident.

One more pound gone this week despite everything, and I can live with that… especially after an obscene amount of healthy peanut bars which, in those numbers probably weren’t that healthy at all.

I’m back at work today, and I’d be really grateful if we could all just keep our fingers crossed that this week passes without incident 🙂

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