Tag Archives: bitch in the bathroom

Degrees Of Light And Shade

Diet update, In the here & now, , ,

whoops

I think I hit the 60lbs milestone last weekend. At least that’s my best guess…I’m still kicking myself for not getting weighed right at the start of this journey, but let’s just say back then my relationship with the bitch in the bathroom wasn’t in a good place. If you’ve been reading along you’ll know I’ve encountered a buggeration factor or two in recent weeks, so I ended up treading water for a bit. Annoying but hey, if you’re treading water at least you’re not sinking, right? But, I’m on the move again and 60lbs off is pretty awesome, if you’ll forgive me a big fat happy dance.

When I started this diet, like every one before it my intention was to hit it completely straight – no weeks where my weight stuck, no weeks where one of those minxy little pounds snuck back into my pants when my back was turned, and certainly no close encounters with my trigger foods. Hmm. I am at least having the good grace to look a bit sheepish but you know what, life just isn’t like that is it? And I’m actually starting to appreciate the degrees of light and shade that I’m encountering on this journey.

Every time I’ve stumbled, I’ve done a bit of a post-FUBAR debrief, and what I’ve realised is that most times where I’ve struggled a bit, I’ve gained a soupçon of insight that maybe I didn’t have before. That’s helping me. And more importantly that that, I’ve come to understand that struggling is different than failing. Now all of you might know that already, but it’s taken me a while to catch on.

It used to baffle me when folk talked about enjoying something more if they’d sweated their cahoonies off to get it. It always struck me as far too much like unnecessary hard work, you know? Working overtime for six straight months with no treats and no new handbags in order to pay for your holiday didn’t mean you’d enjoy it more than if you’d banged it on a credit card and saved the bill for Ron, surely?

Similarly I’ve fantasised often about what it would be like to just wake up one day in a gorgeous skinny body. I mean like go to bed fat and wake up skinny. Instant skinniness…it’s every fat girl’s dream. But I can tell you exactly how that fantasy would have played out…by the end of week one my skinny pants would be a bit on the snug side and within weeks those sleek smooth limbs would start to resemble a lumpy old pillow. Because that’s what would’ve happened if you’d attached this head to a perfect body…they wouldn’t match.

So, my journey so far has been about as straight as a dog’s hind leg. It doesn’t look like I intended it to when I set out but you know what, the degrees of light and shade are making it stick. Instead of perfect-perfect-perfect-fail-the end, it looks more like try-try-succeed-whoops-yes!-celebrate-scratch head- try-try-happy-pissed off-try-lightbulb-try-succeed-try-shit-happy…not straight, but beautiful in its own way.

That’s why I feel sure that eventually, when I do wake up in my skinny body – my hard-won long awaited skinny body – all these learning opportunities mean it’ll be attached to a wise old head who cherishes it and treats it well, and no matter how hard the asshole voice nags, deprives it of cheese balls until the end of time.

Here’s to the next 60lbs…onwards! 🙂

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Ta Daaah!

Diet update, In the here & now, , ,

three

Today is a good day, in fact it has all the hallmarks of being one of my favourite days in the last seven and a half months. I’m occupying less space than I was this time last week, to the tune of three pounds 🙂 Three pounds of fat, according to geeks on the internet who know stuff, equates to roughly the size of a cantaloupe melon, and if you melted it all down it would fill three coffee cups. Who knew!

It feels all the sweeter, because I’ve sort of been treading water a bit for the last few weeks, as well you know because it’s all played out right under your watchful gaze. I had a great weight loss in the few weeks after Christmas but then it kind of went a bit wonky. I put a pound on, then it stuck for a couple more weeks, then I shook off that extra pound and geared up for a go-for-it week which ended up dragging its heels and crimping off half of one pound which didn’t exactly invoke my happy dance. My head needed a good loss this week more than my arse did, to be fair.

It makes the hard work worth it, especially days like yesterday, where the Asshole voice gave me hell pretty much all day. I just kept thinking about how determined I felt last week after my measly half a pound loss, and what I wrote down this time last week…I’m going for a 100% clean eating week with exercise every day and I’m going to resist any asshole suggestions that don’t support the cause. It worked, even in the face of moussaka-gate, and I feel epic.

So, the other thing that happened this week was a little bit of self-encouragement. Oh, is that what we’re calling it these days, huh? *Ahem* 

Yes, whatever, there’s a new addition to my handbag collection, come on I’ve been beyond restrained over the last few months. She’s an elephant grey cross body chain-around messenger bag, and I’m very giddy. Pre-loved of course, I can’t afford champagne prices on my prosecco income, but like most of my carefully chosen collection, you wouldn’t know…she’s been very well looked after. I have the same one in black, and she’ll fit in beautifully.

And, I went back to Marks and Sparks, and bought the shirt! Just my luck, they had sold out of my size so I had two choices…order one in, or buy it in the next size down…yep, I bought the size 20 because whilst I’m not quite there, I will be soon. I could wear it, over a tee-shirt you know, unfastened? I won’t though. It’s hanging on the outside of my wardrobe so I can admire it’s rich turquoisy green every time I look over, and I shall try it on weekly until it fits properly.

That was a milestone purchase you know? I bought it because I loved it, not because it would fit. And it’s from a non fat-girl collection, which officially makes me normal. I had a moment, in the shop which was almost emotional…it meant a lot. It’s another thing that I can now do, which seven months ago would have felt so far out of reach I wouldn’t have even allowed myself to hope.

So I’m hoping you’ve all had a great week too, and that you’re doing a happy dance of your own. Here, the sun’s shining, and Charlie dog is waiting by the front door…in his clumsy doggy hint-dropping fashion he’s making it clear that all this dancing and grinning and writing is all very well but it’s not getting him outside. It’s not getting me out either so it’s time to skedaddle.

Lots of love to all, and thanks as always for your awesome company…your thoughts and notes and support and encouragement make a difference every single day 🙂

 

 

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Until Today

Biggest struggles, In the here & now, , , ,

temptedI’ve had a really good week this week – you know that way where you just know. I’m not scraping by on a wing and a prayer, in fact I’m very happy with how it’s all gone. I’d even go so far as to say the bitch in the bathroom was flirting with me this morning as I went about my daily routine…come on, come and step aboard a day early, your buns look skinny today…I didn’t, even though I was really tempted…I want to get a run at seven full days  so I get the full benefit tomorrow 🙂

Seriously, she’d better give me a good number…I’ve kept my eating clean, I’m well within smart points and I’ve even put my foot down and made this fat old body produce the occasional burst of speed. I’ve noticed that the Asshole voice has been conspicuous by his absence too…until today. Today he came back with a vengeance, and now he won’t leave me alone.

So, in the supermarket this morning I happened to linger by the bargain corner. Nothing wrong with that, you know how I love a bargain. Except there were two large packs of Tesco finest moussaka on the shelf, marked down in price to lower than the one-person meals. Now, I’ve got to be honest, they are my absolute favourite. They have always been one of my go-to foods, you know?

Many a food coma has been brought on by me sitting in my big leather recliner, enjoying a three course meal comprising two family bags of cheese balls as an appetiser, a large moussaka for the main event, and a litre drum of Haagen Dazs to finish with. About four and a half thousand calories, right there, in that one sitting. Crap, I mean when I look back, there’s no wonder my arse took on a life of its own. And that wasn’t an isolated incident, you know?

Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time to buy both the reduced packs. I still buy a single pack from time to time – it’s hardly worth bothering, I think the serves one guide notes refer to folk who have stomachs the size of walnuts, but if I eat it with a mountain of vegetables I at least feel like I’ve had a treat. And even the small pack is 21 smart points, out of a daily allowance of 38. The family packs, the ones which are sitting in the fridge behind me right now, are 42 points.

So obviously, the conversation I had with the Asshole voice at the intersection of aisles twelve and thirteen revolved around buying the reduced packs, getting them home and then splitting them in half before freezing them for future use. Because that’s what normal people would do, right?

From the minute I unpacked my shopping and for the rest of the afternoon, all I’ve heard is Why don’t you eat a whole one..? I mean I know they’re supposed to be for two people but we all know that they’e not, really, and you haven’t used any of your exercise points this week, so you could if you wanted to, without even breaking the rules…you deserve a treat, you’ve been so good this week…yadder yadder yadder…

As I was getting my nails done earlier, I was chatting with the girls in the salon about this and that, but I was thinking about moussaka. Walking Charlie dog this afternoon, with every step the Asshole reminded me that I was accruing fit points, and I could swap them for moussaka. As I’m typing this blog post, I’m thinking about fucking moussaka to the point where my mouth is actually watering.

It’s ridiculous that out of the blue, after a really solid week I get assaulted by thoughts of trigger food. Maybe because it’s one of the things which belonged in my old life with no limits, and now I can eat it but only if it’s propped up either side with terms and conditions.

I am going to eat moussaka for tea, but I’m eating half, and freezing half. Like normal people would. It would be so much easier to not have it at all, but I’ve clearly got some kind of masochistic vibe going on today.

But you know what, boil it down to brass tacks and there’s no real argument to be had. I’ve got an appointment in the morning with the bitch in the bathroom – no way am I tarnishing this outstanding week. Too much care went into it, and I don’t want to wake up tomorrow feeling afraid of the number. I’m accountable for the input, right? I refuse to hand the balance of power to something whose only job is to report the number.

It’d better be a chuffing impressive number, that’s all I can say 🙂

 

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What Goes In One End…

In the here & now, , ,

ideas

It’s funny you know, there are so many things that we’ve chatted about over the last few months where I’ve come to realise that life and diet kind of mirror each other, you know? It’s almost like there’s a set of life rules which apply to all situations including food and lifestyle choices, which I always regarded as something completely separate.

I’m going through the process of applying tags to all my posts at the moment so they feed into the tag cloud I made last week, and reading some of the older posts reminded me of some of the moments where things started to fall into place for me. Unpicking the flawed thought patterns in my head is an ongoing process which has been utterly priceless on this journey so far, and I find myself drawing comparisons all over the place now, often subconsciously which goes to show just how determined my head is to weed out all the crap.

This week, out of nowhere, I found myself staring one of my more familiar mantras square between the eyes and wondering how I’d never drawn the parallel before between life and diet. I bang on about it all the time, and yet I’ve never joined the dots.

So one of the things that I live and breathe in my day job is leadership development. When people first start cutting their teeth in leadership roles, one of the things which sometimes trips them up is where they start holding people accountable for the results they get without giving any thought to the input which was at the root of someone’s success or failure in any given project.

Of course you have to measure and evaluate whether someone is achieving results, but you can’t coach and develop their output, can you? What you can do as a leader is coach and support someone in how they do their job, so the quality of their input is better. In turn that has a direct effect on their results, which get better. Every time.

My mantra therefore is that you manage the input, and measure the output. Don’t hold people accountable for just the results, right? The results are what they are, actually they’re just a by-product of what someone has put in at the front end…accountability starts and ends with the behaviours which feed those results at the business end. And I was listening to one of our senior managers playing that back to someone in his team, and the penny dropped…how is that different in the context of our efforts to lose weight? It’s not! Of course it’s not, in fact saying it out loud makes me feel like Queen of stating the bleeding obvious.

I should worry less about what the bitch in the bathroom is going to tell me, and focus all my energies instead on what I’m bringing to the party. The number I drop at the end of the week is a direct result of my input over the last seven days, right? With the odd blip here and there, but by and large there’s a direct correlation. The number is what it is, the bits that I’m accountable for are the choices I’ve made around what I’m putting in my mouth and how far and how fast and how regularly I’m moving my body.

I take care of the input, and the bitch in the bathroom’s only job is to report back on the number. Providing she’s on the correct tile, obviously.

Of course it’s never just that simple is it…if it was I’d have earned my string bean stripes donkey’s years ago. It’s complicated by the Asshole voice who’s on a mission to derail the input and my own occasional willingness to listen to him over holding the line and getting it right every time. However. Instead of saying I’m going for three pounds down this week, what I should be saying is I’m going for a 100% clean eating week with exercise every day and I’m going to resist any asshole suggestions that don’t support the cause.

So…I’m going for a 100% clean eating week with exercise every day and I’m going to resist any asshole suggestions that don’t support the cause.

Watch this space 🙂

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A Tank Full Of Ooomph

In the here & now, , , ,

joy

Yesterday was a brilliant day. You know how every so often you just get one of those days where everything hangs together perfectly, and you feel chock full to the brim with wellbeing? I woke up feeling refreshed – my friend and I had spent three hours getting wrinkly in the hot tub the night before, catching up with each others’ news on what was a gorgeous cold clear night – perfect hot tub weather. So I was relaxed when I went to bed, and I slept like a log.

I did worry, as I walked the green mile towards the bitch in the bathroom yesterday morning that I might be a bit waterlogged from the night before and therefore weighing heavy – yes I know it’s a ridiculous thought but by now you ought to know the kind of places my head tries to take me to. Anyway, I worried for nothing, and once I’d moved the scale to the third tile on the right, next to the bath (her most compliant spot) and kind of tested the water with just one eye open, I jumped on and off happily three more times just to keep reading the number 🙂

As I walked Charlie dog later in the morning, I decided not to wear a coat. The sun was shining, I was just in shirtsleeves, and there was nothing covering my backside. I mean, don’t take that literally…pants, obviously…but there was no jacket shielding the world from the rear view of my arse end as it wobbled its way up the hill, looking for all the world I’m sure like puppies fighting in a sack. And what’s more, I didn’t even give it a thought. That, my friends, is progress.

I couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit excited, as I got to the top of the mile-long hill on our walk with breath in my lungs to spare, at the thought that this year I might not be facing another miserable summer like the last few. I haven’t graduated from black pants yet, which have been my wardrobe staple for the last five years at least, even on the hottest of summer days. But this year I just might, you know?

I can’t wait to feel cool and together on a warm day instead of sweating like a stuck pig, with chafing thighs and swollen feet whilst everyone else sashays around enjoying the feeling of the sun and a light breeze on their skin. And I know it’s going to be next summer before I get the full benefit of a skinny body, but I’m already more than fifty pounds down on last year…in a couple more months I hope to be touching seventy. I’m one third of the way through my journey and by the time we hit holidays in August I’m hoping to be way past the halfway point.

I still have to keep pinching myself, you know? I’m actually doing this! Cue massive cheesy grin!

I don’t know whether it’s the affirmation that I’m back on track, or the lovely spring-like weather over the weekend but something has filled my tank with oomph, and I feel full of the joys of spring. Full of hope…yes, that’s the word. Hope.

I’m still trying it on for size but early indications are that it’s a bloody awesome feeling 🙂

 

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