Tag Archives: Asshole

What I Didn’t Realise Was…

In the here & now, , , , ,

image

…that Body Blast was simply an amuse bouche…it seems the real action goes on in Fat Furnace. Which is where I found myself at 06h30 yesterday morning. There’s definitely an air of expectation from God of Pain that you’ll pull yourself back from the brink, and be ready to go again at your first opportunity. He looks like the kind of bloke who chews sore muscles up for breakfast and I’m acutely aware that he’s still sussing me out, so I thought I’d better show willing. I’d like to get at least a week under my belt before he writes me off as a wimp.

Strangely, when I woke up yesterday, I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I might. Charlie dog looked on with interest as I limped around the bedroom trying to find a second exercise outfit, and he only learned one new word when I pressed on my knees to see if they still hurt. (FYI, they did.)

God of Pain had asked me to get there ten minutes early for the morning session, so he could walk me through what was what. I’ve got to be honest, once I clocked the way he’d set the room out all I wanted to do was go back to bed. For the rest of my life. I’ve never actually seen a kettle bell in real life but I know they regularly make people cry on Biggest Loser, so seeing them dotted liberally around the room didn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling, you know?

In Body Blast I’d had my own little corner of the room, with my own mat so I could quietly get on with the business of hurting. Fat Furnace is basically circuit training in disguise, with the whole class working their way around a series of torture stations. Given that I’m a newbie and he’s breaking me in gently (yeh what fucking ever) some of the harder stuff was reserved for the proper people.

It was more of the same from the night before, just harder. Much harder. Lots of jogging on the spot, lots of getting up and getting down again to do more stuff that hurt, and those kettle bells lived right up to their advance publicity. He gave me the baby size which were still heavier than a fully loaded suitcase and my arms were expected to swing them all over the place whilst my legs burned in a squat position…a double helping of hell, especially since those legs had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours.

At one point, God of Pain (who was quietly following me around to make sure that I was hurting enough) (without hurting myself, if you know what I mean) leaned in as he surveyed the room and whispered I run a tight ship…I’m not sure he meant it to sound like a threat but it definitely dissuaded the asshole voice from even trying to suggest it was time to go home and have a lie down with a cup of tea and a ginger nut.

I’ve got to be honest…doing all this in front of a wall of mirrors, is a torture all of its own. Being confronted with the reality of watching my whole body quiver as my arms valiantly tried to raise what felt like a ton weight up and away from my body, whilst my legs wobbled and my face got redder and redder was not attractive. My hair was dripping wet and my bingo wings were flapping around underneath the short sleeves that I rarely wear, with a momentum all of their own.

The very last torture station saw me rolling an exercise ball down the wall behind my back to a sitting position without a chair, on legs that wondered just what the fuck was going on…yes, those same legs that had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours. I swear I could almost hear them screaming we don’t do this!! This body doesn’t do this!!! Bring back our old life, bitch!!!

We had to go round twice. Not three times. I could have kissed the feet of the lady who told me that after the second klaxon sounded we’d actually finished finished. And you know what, for the second time in two days, I survived.

It was interesting, you have an opportunity to feed back on your training session when you get your summary afterwards on email…I was going to suggest Barry Manilow, mood lighting and scatter cushions for the next session, but I have a feeling that the God of Pain would disapprove…

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

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 🙂

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Resisting Assholio’s Agenda

In the here & now, , ,

no to cake

So after a very busy four day working week I’m like a dog with nine tails at the prospect of logging off from work-related matters for a whole week. My downtime is rolled out in front of me and some of it’s already filled with awesomeness, although I’ve got to be honest there are more than a few challenges too. I’m going to need to be really really wary of the Asshole voice, whose agenda will undoubtedly be a bit different to mine.

I’m setting off in the morning for a lovely two night break in a swanky hotel with one of my best friends, and our mums.

My agenda; relax and laugh a lot. Make full use of the hotel gym and spa, get a little bit of walking in and a mooch around the local towns, and have some really nice meals within my food budget.

The Asshole’s agenda; relax and forget the diet. Ignore the gym, enter the spa only if you don’t have to lift a finger and someone is going to deliver you to the edge of heaven. Eat a full breakfast every day followed by lunch, afternoon tea and a nine course meal washed down by several bottles of decent plonk. Get hammered with your friend both nights because you’re on holiday.

We get home on Monday afternoon and I’m just kicking back at home until Thursday, when I’m due to drive down to meet my favourite bunch of girlies for our bi-annual get-together…I haven’t seen them since Vegas in October, and I’m too giddy for words. We’re staying at our favourite log cabin complete with hot tub in the middle of nowhere, for three nights.

My agenda; relax and laugh a lot. Have a nice long walk in the surrounding countryside every day, pace myself with the Prosecco and ignore most of the chocolate and other Scooby snacks. The weekend is about the company, not the food. Gossip, watch movies and share my deepest darkest secrets but never take my eye off my food budget. Remember I have an appointment with the bitch in the bathroom when I get home on Sunday.

The Asshole’s agenda; screw that, of course it’s about the food, don’t be ridiculous. It’s a fine tradition carved out over the last ten years that you get there, get hammered, peak by 8pm on the first night and apart from hot tub time never make it out of pyjamas all weekend. Eat maltesers, onion rings and cheese balls till your eyes pop out and hang your head in shame if one drop of Prosecco remains undrunk. Forget about the bitch and let her do her worst…you can start again Monday.

See what I’m up against..?

I’m not as worried about this weekend, I’m fairly confident that I can make good choices and have a great time. I’ll definitely use the gym to counteract some of the things which might tempt me and I’m looking forward to that as a bit of a change. I’m planning to over-walk on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday to build up a little buffer for my Smart Points because next weekend is going to be the killer, you know?  It’s the first time since I started the diet that we’ve had one of our girly weekends, and seriously, we usually eat our own bodyweight in crap.

Focus, Focus, Focus. I can do this…

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Because, Because, Because

In the here & now, ,



lazy

Today’s been one of those days where I’ve got on my own nerves. I woke up at around 7am and cussed myself for waking too early on a day when I didn’t need to be at work. After practically frog-marching my head back to sleep, it was well after 10am before my eyelids dared to try again, at which time I cussed myself a second time for sleeping too long. Of course it didn’t occur to me that I could have set my alarm for the time I was hoping to wake up…that would have been too simple, right?

After grumbling to myself that I’d wasted a chunk of the day, I proceeded to make myself some breakfast and waste a chunk more of it by watching TV and mooching on-line. Then I fixed some lunch and burned another couple of hours. It was only when Charlie’s dog stare became so uncomfortably persistent that I forced myself to get dressed and go out and walk him. It was the very last thing I wanted to do, to the point where I almost didn’t.

To be honest, I’ve got an issue with that. I’m mad. All the way around our usual three mile circuit I’ve been battling the Asshole voice who is in fine fettle today. I feel really frustrated that some days, despite being eight and a half months into this regime it still doesn’t feel like my new normal. My head seems very quick to forget that I’ve taken a big step away from the life I was living before and still tries every trick in the book to throw that rusty nail under my wheels.

In times gone by my Bank Holiday Monday would have been spent in the armchair, and the Asshole voice has been busy trying to stir up resentment that today it wasn’t possible. And a few of the barbs have hit home, you know? For God’s sake woman you’re not a machine…it’s the only day you’ve had completely to yourself and there’s no good reason why you can’t just relax and kick back…

Listening to that, and buying into it is what allowed me to languish in my big fat leather recliner until well after 2pm. Shaking myself out of that reverie was tough, and had it not been for the doggy death stare I might have still been there now. That same voice followed me all the way around our eventual walk, pointing out just exactly how much my knee was hurting today where it hasn’t so much recently. Take an early left and head for home, this isn’t doing you any good.

Of course it was doing me good, you fucking ejit. This whole thing is doing me good. It’s a shame that my head doesn’t always get with the programme but seriously, dude, the only reason I used to spend so much time in that armchair is because it was the only place in the world that I could get comfortable. Because I was so fat. Because outside of working hours I practically lived in the armchair. Because I couldn’t get up and walk the dog for three yards without hurting, never mind three miles.

Today, I could. And I might have had the Asshole voice playing on a loop in my head, and my knee might have randomly started aching a bit but in the grand scheme of things it hardly matters that it took me a bit longer than usual to get my motor running today…the fact is I did, eventually, because I can.

Remembering things I couldn’t do before, and the fact that now I have choices where before I didn’t…that helps, on days like this 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Here We Go…

In the here & now, , ,

dog

Well as my Grandma used to say, there’s no getting any sense out of  me now. It’s that time…me and my boy are almost ready. As we speak he’s pacing the floor and getting used to the feel of his tux – his first black tie event – whilst throwing furtive admiring glances at the mirror. I don’t blame him, he looks incredibly handsome (even though I’m not allowed to tell him that 🙂 )

I’m all ready underneath but still in pyjamas. It’s strange, my nerves have gone and I’m ready to throw myself headlong into the evening. I’ve been practising my losing face, you know so I can look as happy for the winners as those movie stars who don’t bag the Oscar. I’m in that place where one minute I think OMG IMAGINE if we WON!! and then next minute Assholio chips in with don’t be ridiculous there are people here who actually know what they’re doing, you’ve got no chance, you’re just not good enough…at least I won’t have a TV camera in my face to beam a thumbnail of my disappointment around the world if one of the proper bloggers knocks it out of the park.

You know what, it’s academic at this point, right? It’s the first time something good has come of me being fat, and whilst I won’t be content until I’m living in an average-sized body inside the Skinny Town county line, being fat and being on this journey is what’s presented me with this amazing opportunity, so in your face Asshole, I’m in a good place. Where this love of writing came from I have no idea, but when I needed it the most, there it was and I’m grateful. Who knew!

It’s funny, there have been a couple of moments in the last couple of days where I’ve bumped into the fact that I’m very much still work in progress. Driving home from the office on Wednesday evening and feeling very happy at the prospect of five days off work and all the exciting things to come, I was acutely aware of the Asshole voice encouraging me to unplug the diet for the next few days…you’re on holiday! Just take your foot off ’til after the weekend…that’s always what I did before, you know?

Same thing yesterday when James and I were talking about the train. We travelled in the posh bit since it’s a special weekend, and they give you free food, so he was thinking out loud about what might be on the menu. Let me tell you how much I would have exploited that in the past, I would have chewed all the way way to London. My boy did, in the way that you can when you stand six feet three inches in your socks and have hollow legs.

The Asshole was jumping up and down like Rumplestiltskin at the fact that I wasn’t over-indulging on free stuff. I wanted to of course and I felt the familiar blend of resentment that I couldn’t and satisfaction that I wasn’t. But I didn’t, and that tells me that whatever I’m doing is working…I’m slowly replacing those old habits.

So here we are then, it’s time…I must go get dressed. I promise pictures tomorrow but if you follow me on Twitter you may just get pictures and hot-off-the-press updates as we go…

Giddy!!!

Like it..? Tell your friends!