Tag Archives: asshole voice

Stepping Off, Chilling Ma Boots

In the here & now, ,

I didn’t mean to worry y’all by going AWOL on Friday. I’m touched by the number of emails I had over the weekend asking if I was okay…I’m fine thanks, I promise. I spent the whole of last week feeling knackered and slightly disorientated after immersing myself in the writer’s workshop over a long weekend, before going right back to work on Monday, and then having to co-facilitate a two-day workshop which required me to stay away from home mid-week.

I staggered home on Thursday and cobbled together a post for Friday which didn’t pass muster at all when I read it back the next morning, so I had a mini-meltdown and binned it. I can give you a brief summary if you like…I was mainly trying to justify an unfortunate incident with a plate of garlic bread which one of my colleagues had ordered ‘for the table’ during a working dinner last Wednesday evening, and most of it ended up being eaten by yours truly…yeah I know. Don’t say a word. 

I was trying to justify it to all of you and myself on the basis that I’d been away last weekend and therefore hadn’t had time to go do a food shop, so I’d already ruined my dieting day by eating the stodgy catered lunch instead of taking stuff with me.

Then at dinner, the garlic bread got plonked in front of me without a rightful owner, and it smelled all kinds of awesome. And because I’d had a dodgy lunch – not to mention the three glasses of Rioja I’d drunk before dinner which were undoubtedly influencing my decision-making – I decided I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. So I ate the garlic bread followed by a juicy rib-eye steak..uhuh.

Now, I was pushed for time last week, my schedule was crazy. However, we all know that the whole fucking supermarket is just a click away these days, and judging by the number of parcels Amazon deliver to my door  I clearly know my way around an on-line shopping cart, so not having the time to do a food shop and using that as the reason for my wobble was a totally made up bollocksy excuse.

On reflection, I think I was just tired. And I know my thought process can turn to shit and my willpower can take a direct hit when I’m tired. I looked around the table and saw everyone tucking into garlic bread and I got an earful of the Asshole voice with his puffed-up outraged sense of entitlement that every fucker else was having it so why couldn’t I, you know?

Apart from that one incident last week I put in a textbook performance, but the garlic bread cost me dear when I crossed paths with the Shitbird Scale yesterday…just one pound off. I deserved it, and there is no excuse. It might’ve been a two pound plus week if I’d not eaten my own bodyweight in something I shouldn’t have gone anywhere near.

Still, I parked it the very next day and I’ve been on it like a car bonnet again ever since. Thankfully, garlic bread isn’t a trigger food for me, it just happened to be delicious and there. Sometimes it feels a lot like I’m taking two steps forward and one step backwards, but I guess that’s just life, right?

I didn’t have the energy – or the time – to start from scratch on Friday, so I had to step off. This weekend has mainly been spent chilling ma boots and recharging my batteries, in between walking a bit and swimming. I even hit the gym – not the Kingdom of Pain, I’m not signed back there yet by the physio – to do some hardcore physio on my knee, which is getting stronger all the time.

This week, I shall mainly be staying away from garlic bread 🙂

 

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Putting The Asshole Voice on Mute

In the here & now,

It occurred to me as I went to bed last night that yesterday had passed without any fat incidents whatsoever. Not a single one. No dark thoughts about what I wanted to eat but couldn’t because I was on a diet. No pre-occupation at the mid afternoon point as to where I might source a handful of inappropriate snacks, and no debating with myself when I got home from my swim as to whether I should or shouldn’t spend the calories I’d earned.

I wonder if that’s what life feels like for a normal person? Someone whose life doesn’t actually revolve around food. I mean generally, if I’m not eating I’m at least thinking about where my next food opportunity is coming from. Yesterday I even passed up a decent supper in favour of boiled eggs and toast because I was heading to the pool and I just wanted something light. Hello??  That’s a first.

I reckon it’s because I’ve gotten past those first few days of re-booted focus, where the feeling of being deprived all over again makes me hyper-likely to be lured into an ambush by the Asshole voice, you know? We all know that once he’s got me cornered the odds of me being led by the nose directly into the path of trouble increase tenfold.

As day one reduces to a pin-prick in my rear-view mirror, it’s much harder for him to present me with a decent argument as to why starting again tomorrow is a good idea. It’s not. And without my sugar-goggles, I can see that with much more clarity. Today marks fifteen days of food sobriety, and I’ve gone the whole hog by cutting out refined sugar altogether.

That’s such a killer for the first few days. My head deploys every trick in the book to convince me that it’s not necessary. That I can manage perfectly well and lose weight just as effectively with sugar in my life and you know what, for the first eighteen months of my journey towards Skinny Town I did. The difference isn’t in the number on the scale, it’s about how easily I’m able to put the Asshole voice on mute.

You know how in winter, when you wake up and it’s been snowing overnight? You open the door and the world feels quieter somehow, like the blanket of snow has muted all the noise. Well, when I stop eating refined sugar it feels exactly the same. Once I’m over the initial panic and my head accepts that sugar has left the building, it seems to get behind the idea completely and throws a blanket over all the noise about food. Inside my head, after two weeks without refined sugar it’s quiet enough to hear a mouse fart in the next county.

I’m past the hard bit now, and free to focus on the important stuff. I’m determined to hit 215lbs by Christmas and I feel like I have a fighting chance. My mail bag tells me that more than a few of you have already got your eyes on Christmas and you’re on a mission to hit the next size down, just like me…come on, we can totally do this!

 

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