Tag Archives: Asshole

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

In the here & now, ,

image

So I wasn’t feeling quite so accomplished by the time dawn broke….walk the route on day one and survive, tick. Get a good night’s kip ready for day two, which if the rumours were to be believed was harder than the day before…epic fail.

It didn’t help that after dispensing antibiotics for my chest infection (the diagnosis of which involved me saying I think I’ve got a chest infection and the lady doctor who was accompanying our trek nodding wisely and saying ok I geev you peels) the group leader had decreed me and my roomie should have the tent nearest to the camp buildings. I suspect when I made it into camp at the end of day one they thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to stagger any further up the field.

And it was fine, you know being near to everything. Except maybe the chicken coop, which was right next door. And when I say next door, I mean had I been so inclined I could have reached under the tent and strangled that fucking cockerel, which set off cock-a-doodle-doing at about 3am. I’d like to say just after I’d fallen asleep, but I’m not entirely sure when that was. I must have fallen asleep, in fact judging by the number of times I woke up in the night I’d clearly been very effective at falling asleep. I don’t really remember the sleeping bits….just the waking up bits.

And every time I did wake up, my body sort of had this sort of Mexican wave of pain vibe going on. Turning over from one position to another with my body in shock from everything I’d thrown at it the day before would’ve been a challenge in itself if I’d been sleeping on a pocket sprung mattress with feather pillows. Sleeping on a ground mat in a two man tent with no pillow and nothing sqishy underneath me except for my own arse magnified every ache and pain several times over.

Still, by the time I crawled out of bed and stretched out my bones, my fellow campers were at various stages of stretching and limbering up after an equally uncomfortable night, and spirits were high. Whilst I’d stayed in camp in the early evening as we’d arrived the day before due to feeling as rough as toast, most of the group had gone on an optional walk out of camp to a waterfall before dinner, and had been caught on the hop when the heavens opened.

Dinner had been a very damp affair but with lots of laughing…the beer was cold and despite the rain we were still all very hot, and euphoric from getting through a really tough day. I wasn’t the only one who’d been a bit shocked at how hard it was, you know?

I’m sure my asshole voice was in very good company that night, I know for a fact that at that point, at least a couple of the others were wondering whether they’d get through the week.

So morning of day two saw the field littered with wet boots and damp clothes in the hope that whilst we breakfasted on more of what we’d affectionately nicknamed prison bread and green beans – yes, really – everything would start to dry out as the heat caught hold of the day.

We were excited. Yesterday we’d walked along jeep tracks, and flirted with the rainforest as we stood at the top of hills and look out across it all. Today…well, today we were going in ?

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Slowly Slowly Catchee Monkey…

In the here & now, , , ,

impatience

So I had a bulging mailbag on Friday following my post about getting stuck on the same number, and as with all things diet-related there’s safety in numbers. It was a massive comfort to know it’s not just me, you know? Although I’ve got to say, some of the posse are blessed with far more patience than me. For two weeks now my number hasn’t moved, and I think that’s bad…one of our lot has just four pounds left to lose after shedding almost a hundred, and her number hasn’t budged for five weeks. Christ on a bike, I’d be a basket case if the needle hadn’t moved after five weeks.

Nobody mentions the patience needed in this game do they? Determination, yes…willpower, yes…motivation, yes that too. All those qualities get bandied about as the cornerstone of dieting success and when I’m in the sweet spot I have all of those in abundance. Patience, not so much so. Impatience is one of my things in fact. I honestly think it came free with my vagina in sort of a buy one get one free kind of deal…I’m just not very good at waiting. For anything.

And the thing is, it’s when impatience turns to frustration that my Asshole voice sits up and starts rattling his chains. I’m dangerously close to the edge, so I spent a chunk of time this weekend scouring the world wide web for as many perspectives on weight-loss plateaus as possible. I figured if I can at least understand why my needle isn’t moving, it might help.

According to her website, Jillian Michaels (who I’ve often observed from the comfort of my big fat leather recliner whooping ass on The Biggest Loser as I vaporised a family bag of cheese balls) reckons that a weight loss plateau will typically last for around three weeks. Which made me feel a bit better, I mean she’s da man, right? Professor of making fat folk fit strong and skinny. Except then she went on to say that in her experience, a plateau usually means that you’re not paying enough attention to what you’re doing.

Which pissed me off a bit, I’m not going to lie. It kind of feels like she’s saying I’m not trying hard enough, but I shit you not I am consumed with trying. I have never worked this hard in my entire life. Mainly down to the fact that Cuba and its mountain range is now less than four months away and I’ve still got the equivalent of two arses inside my pants.

I’ll give you yesterday morning as an example…I went for the double whammy again, circuit training followed by boxing. Three quarters of the way through the circuit training as I got to the second set of one of the kettle bell exercises that nearly wipes me out, I was so tempted to feign some kind of cardiac arrest to get out of doing it. My shoulder was hurting, my chest felt like it was going to explode and it took every bit of backbone I could summon to keep going. But I did keep going. I turn up and work hard every day…trust me, even if I wasn’t a fully-paid-up wuss I couldn’t work any harder than I am.

But I did take a long hard look at what I’m eating, just in case. And looking back over three weeks’ worth of food plans, although I’m following the principles that God of Pain outlined and I’m eating within points, I have to admit it’s a bit samey. I’m sticking to the same things, at roughly the same time of day. There’s a definite order, which is something I’ve worked really hard to achieve because it goes against my nature, but it seems that routine in what you eat is a no-no.

Loads of you told me about switching up my food budget for a couple days and then reducing my points back down – apparently it’s a thing, and Jillian Michaels offers the same advice. So I’m going to give that a whirl this week. I’m also going to drink more water…yeah, that old chestnut. I know I always say that, but in practice I seem to run out of steam after a day or two, and I find myself back in the place where I really only actually drink water whilst I’m in the fitness studio sweating my cahoonies off. Outside of that, I don’t touch it, even though I know I should.

So this week I’m going to drink like a camel, and fool my body with an eating plan that is less predictable. Whatever not takes, right? I refuse to be passive whilst the bitch in the bathroom decides whether she’ll grant me a lower number. I hold the power, not her and I’ve so got this 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Dog Spit And Other Disasters

In the here & now, , , ,

late

Have you ever had one of those days where your hands disobey every instruction handed down the chain of command from your head? In the hotel we were using yesterday for interviews, I swear I was sending all the right instructions down my arm, like for example move hand over fruit bowl and pluck a grape from the bunch, only to find that it grabbed a muffin instead from the complimentary plate right next to the fruit bowl.

The even bigger buggeration factor was that the Asshole immediately hit the override switch which could have prevented said muffin passing my lips. Well you’ve touched it now…nobody else can eat it. You can’t put it back on the plate so unless you want to walk around with it in your hand all day you’d better eat it, and quickly.

Today didn’t get off to a much better start, to be honest. Things I learned today would include the fact that it doesn’t matter how diligently you set your phone’s very loud and extremely annoying alarm, if you forget to put it on charge and it runs out of juice in the wee small hours, it’s not going to go off.

I’d left my bedroom window open overnight and I woke to the sound of the dustbin lorry outside my house. I sort of laid there for a minute before the penny dropped that my wake-up call had come courtesy of something other than my loud and extremely annoying alarm, so I felt rather smug for a moment, as I realised I could probably go back to sleep for a bit, until it went off. Out of interest I reached for my phone to establish just exactly how much longer I could sleep, to be greeted with a blank screen.

Oh dear. As the clock on the wall slowly came into focus, it confirmed that I had in fact overslept. It was ten past six, and I had an appointment in the Kingdom of Pain at six thirty…in the next town. Shit.

Now, I have a lot of respect for the God of Pain, and also fear. Mainly fear. It’s the stare, you know? No fucking chance was I walking in late.

It’s the first time I’ve got out of bed in a long time without doing the ooh ahh morning shuffle, mainly because I didn’t have time to notice anything hurting as I flung myself across the room like an exorcet missile. Charlie-dog opened one eyelid from his vantage point on the bed, confused.

Running around the bedroom first thing in the morning, usually with my underwear in his mouth, or a stray slipper is kind of in his job description, not mine and the role reversal momentarily baffled him. He was clearly up for a game though, with warp speed he joined in, helpfully licking my face, glasses and all as I bent down to tie my trainers, which just added to the confusion.

I just about made it, screeching into the car park like Starsky and Hutch, all the time cussing the dog – I was looking at the world with blurry vision due to dog-spit on my glasses which I hadn’t had time to clean. As I took them off to give them a quick wipe on my teeshirt everything suddenly became much clearer and I realised that actually, I must have gone to bed last night with one of my contact lenses still in, which is why nothing was in focus with my specs on. Oh, and I had my pants on backwards.

Honestly, sometimes it’s really hard to be me 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

The Drawback Of Being A Mathematical Genius

In the here & now, , , ,

dog

So, last weekend Charlie dog was booked into the puppy scrub for a bath and haircut. He goes out with his dog-walker and a gang of pups every day whilst I’m at work, including his bezzie mates Dave the Labrador and Kevin the Vizsla, and he’s a regular little mud-magnet. I swear down he could find a muddy puddle in the middle of the desert, you know? His favourite thing is to lower himself down into a patch of mud, whilst maintaining eye contact as if to say I know this drives you bat-shit crazy but I like the way it feels so I’m gonna do it anyway…I tend to keep his coat really short for that very reason, it’s just easier to keep him clean. So he has more cut and blow dries than I do, if we’re keeping count.

I dropped him off with a promise to return a couple of hours later, and the thought struck me that seeing it was such a pretty day, maybe it would be nice to leave the car at home when I went to collect him, so we could both enjoy the walk home. I clocked the mileage and it was a little over four miles – perfect, I could manage that…I had a plan.

Except, it was a blonde plan, right? Genius here in the stupid corner only realised three quarters of the way back to pick him up, on foot, that whilst Charlie’s walk would indeed be just over four miles, mine wouldn’t. Mine would be eight miles and then some. I’m so embarrassed even saying that out loud, I mean seriously? 

As soon as the penny dropped I felt like dropping to my knees and indulging myself with a full-blown tony bear tantrum, but in the end, what was the point? If I’d turned around I’d have walked six miles by the time I got home and then I would’ve had to walk the dog after I collected him anyway, so I didn’t have much choice other than to to suck it up and keep walking. My boy was at work, so there was nobody I could call and beg for help, and in any event I’m not sure I was ready to admit that I’d totally lost the plot. So on I trundled, muttering bad words under my breath with every step.

I’d been enjoying the walk up until that point. Once I realised that I’d done about three miles, with just over another mile to go before I was reunited with the pooch and then I had to do it all again in reverse, all of a sudden it stopped looking like fun. And for the next mile I felt like I was wearing lead boots, you know? I didn’t think I could do it, I’ve never even come close to walking that far before.

The Asshole voice immediately started chipping away at my head, obsessing over the fact that I was going to get blisters and insisted on doing a pain review every five minutes. He was also on high alert for any sign of protest from my dodgy knee…if the Asshole voice was to be believed, I was going to start falling apart very soon. Seemingly, fat old ladies have no right to believe they are capable of walking that far and it was bound to end in tears.

In case you’re wondering, eight miles and change equates to sixteen thousand seven hundred and twenty two steps. And it turns out that this fat old lady is more than capable of walking that far. Once I was a mile or so in to the return leg, following one very happy dog, I started to relax and give myself up to the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other. That was probably around the time that I also started to believe that I could probably do it after all. And once that happened, even with tired legs I enjoyed it.

My anxiety slowly turned to glee as I mentally calculated how many exercise points I was accumulating. I passed the time by imagining bits of my arse melting away with every step. By the time we reached home, I felt euphoric. And once again I was forced to acknowledge the link between self belief and capability. That’s important. And it goes right back to one of my favourite quotes ever…

“If you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you’re right.”

I know I’ve mentioned it before but honestly, never a truer word was spoken 🙂

 

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Eating My Efforts

In the here & now, , ,

veggies

So I’ve got about a week and a half of exercise classes under my belt, and despite continuing to fantasise about my old life in the armchair, the asshole voice in my head hasn’t really made any significant dink in my determination to drag this fat old body to a better place. Between you and me, I reckon we’re both a bit scared of pissing off the God of Pain. Who, by the way critiqued my food diary before the weekend and made it clear I had to do better…it didn’t pass muster.

Which made me think. I’d stayed within points. Sort of. Well I had, it’s just that I’d used up all my exercise points too, of which I’d earned loads because I did loads. So I ate loads. God forbid that all that effort should go unrewarded, right? God forbid that so much as one point to which I’m entitled might sneak by uneaten…not on my watch.

And, dammit, I realised that the asshole voice had sneaked in through the back door and presented a very compelling argument that since I was working so hard, all those extra points I’d earned could be spent on whatever I liked.

Which is how come my food diary was peppered with two sticks of chocolate here, and a handful of Pringles there…looking from the outside in, I can see why I deserved harsh words. It probably didn’t read like the food diary of someone who was determined to lose weight, you know? Viewed from an athlete’s perspective, my fat-girl thinking stuck out like a sore thumb.

And hands up, it’s a fair cop – the needle didn’t move on the scale this week. I ate within points starts to sound a bit hollow when I’m faced with the reality that I’m in exactly the same place that I was in last week – all that effort, and all those sore muscles just to stand still.

Even as I’m writing this, the asshole voice is busy being all outraged and trying to convince me that muscle weighs heavier than fat, and that I’ve actually lost weight and gained muscle…yeah, nice try dickhead, technically that may be the case but after one week and change I’m not buying it. I just ate my efforts, is the long and short of it.

The additional points that all my hard work brought home should’ve been points in the bank, but in exactly the same way that I’m hopeless at saving money, there were available food funds which burned a hole right through my pocket and I pretty much ate them as soon as I’d earned them, on the basis that I was allowed. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Hmm…innocent face my arse, I wasn’t doing it right either.

So, lesson learned… time to regroup. God of Pain gave me a suggested diet plan which is all around clean eating and to be fair, it’s not a million miles away from what I’ve been eating, just without the crap that wormed its way in through the back door. I’m not going to stop counting Weight Watchers Smart Points, even though he doesn’t approve of diets…but, I take his point about when I’m eating and more importantly when I’m not eating. I can do better.

I’m going to go for a turbo-charged week. I’m going to eat well, space it out properly, carbs before a workout, protein after, and no crap…I refuse to tread water for another week because of what I’m putting in my mouth when I’m sweating my cahoonies off on a daily basis to support my journey. This week, I’m going to make every bead of sweat count 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!