Tag Archives: blowing the budget

To Me, With Love From Me

In the here & now, , ,

willpower

I’ve been working from home today – I’m very lucky in that respect, when I have no face to face meetings in my diary the type of work I do means I can be just as productive sitting at the little desk in my kitchen as I am in the office. More so, sometimes – I am blessed with more than my fair share of curiosity and I’m very easily distracted. The minute a juicy conversation unfolds in our office my ears tune in of their own accord and drag me away from whatever I’m working on.

So anyway, I’ve just switched off, and I’ve had a much better day than I’d expected to have. When I came down into the kitchen this morning, I took one look at the table and immediately groaned…I might have even said a bad word under my breath. The first thing that greeted me were ten boxes of chocolate biscuits in a big stack, right next to my desk. Recalling times past, I immediately made the assumption that I’d be fighting all day with the asshole in my mind.

Do you want to know how much time I’ve spent resisting temptation..? None. Not a single minute of my day. I mean, I didn’t even really need to flex my willpower muscle you know? It’s like they weren’t even there. I’m more than a little bit baffled. I mean I know that technically they’re not mine, I’ve bought them for my mum to give to the lovely ladies who take such good care of her. But lets be honest, that’s never stopped me in the past.

For example, there have been times when I’ve gone through my boy’s Easter Egg stash like a swarm of locusts and then replaced them all before he noticed, and times when I’ve had to make a nifty detour go buy another Daim cake because I’ve vaporised the one in the fridge that I bought for ‘the family’ during a particularly traumatic episode of Grey’s Anatomy and I didn’t want to have to explain where it’d all gone.

My willpower is an elusive frankly quite strange and bloody annoying phenomenon. Some days it’s completely locked and loaded, and nothing’s getting through. It’s like the fun police you know?  Other days it lets me down big time and without warning by throwing open the door and letting every temptation through without a fight. Take yesterday for example. Epic fail on the willpower front, massive.

Don’t get me wrong, my food choices were all fine, my diet integrity is all intact. The same can’t be said however about resisting the urge to indulge in a little bit of leather love. I made a promise to myself about not buying any more handbags until I’d saved up enough for the new bathroom I am desperate to get installed. Six months I’ve held out with no impulse buys, SIX MONTHS! I fancied a quick mooch on my favourite re-sale site, you know just to have a look…yes, well that never ends well does it? I was still trying to kid myself I was window shopping as I completed checkout. Hello???

Still. If I’ve only got so much willpower to use up equally on all the areas of my life where I need to behave, I’d rather spend it resisting a hob-nob over a handbag any day…and it is Christmas after all. A little bit of birthday money went towards it, and you know what, I’ve been a good girl this year.

Happy Christmas to me, with love from me…I deserve it, right?

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Willpower Testing Lab

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

cat

So I’m heading out of town again this weekend, just for a couple of days – one of my closest friends lives a couple of hours north of here, and this same weekend every year there’s a large craft fair near to where she lives – it marks start of the run up to Christmas for me, since it’s chock full of Christmassy things. We go every year, and have a really lovely day out. You know the type of thing…there are some really unusual gifts, everything from hand finished cashmere shawls, beautiful statement jewellery, clothing and accessories to unique art works and beautiful house things. Oh yes, and the food hall.

What can I tell you about the food hall..?  I’m salivating at the thought. Most of it is home-made produce from local artisans who come and proudly display their wares…it’s an aladdin’s cave of speciality breads, cupcakes, flavoured vodka and gin, fudge, brownies, pies, sausages…olive oils, handmade chocolates, unique cheeses and amazing homemade chutneys. To be fair, that barely scratches the surface – it’s beyond awesome. And all the vendors give away free samples to tempt your palette and entice you into buying.

On a scale of 1-10, just exactly how much enticing do you reckon it’s taken in the past, to get this fat girl to stagger away at the end of the day under the weight of a dozen or more carrier bags..? “Would you like to try a…” “YES PLEASE!”  Yeah, that’s about how much. This time of year has invariably also coincided with the start of the pre-Christmas diet (which has been just as successful as the New Year diet, the Pre-Easter diet, the Post-Easter diet, the summer holiday diet, and the post-summer holiday diet) and as traditions go, the Living North Fair has also been the undoing of the pre-Christmas diet on pretty much an annual basis ever since we started going.

So it’s with a certain amount of trepidation that I’m looking forward to the weekend, because genuinely, it’s going to be a real test of my willpower. Here’s what usually happens. My friend, who by nature is one of life’s most nurturing people will ask me as we head towards the weekend what I would like to eat when I arrive on Friday. Am I dieting? Does a bear shit in the woods?  “Yes, I’m dieting but don’t put yourself to any trouble, I’ll eat what you eat, as long as I can point it”. And I usually do, after downing two large gin and tonics and the majority of the pre-dinner nachos and dip which I always say I’m not going to eat, but which I eat anyway.

Saturday morning usually starts with my friend cooking bacon sandwiches, which I accept with enthusiasm because this year – whichever year it’s been – I’m not going to eat anything from the food hall, I’m just going to look, so best have a decent breakfast. Did you know you can look with the inside of your mouth? It seems you can, I have perfected the skill over the last 5 or so years. By the time I’ve worked my way around all the stalls and sampled every scrap of whatever’s on offer, not to mention tasting the outputs from the cookery demonstrations I am groaning with food, having gained 10lbs over the course of one afternoon, and having left with enough food to last until the New Year diet starts. I mean I’ve blown the pre-Christmas one now, right?

This year, it’s going to be different. I’m telling you about it, and I’m accountable to you guys. I shall plan ahead, check in about dinner plans, agree there will be no nachos within spitting distance of me, and on Saturday I am going to have some samples…but I shall eat fruit for breakfast, and I’ll allocate myself a generous points budget for freebies so I don’t feel deprived. Then a light dinner will see me right.

I wonder whether any of the stands will have luxury polishing cloths so I can touch up my halo on Sunday morning.. 🙂

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So How Full is Full?

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

sk dog

It’s occurred to me more than once that maybe there’s a fundamental design fault with the human body you know? At least for some of us.  Take your car…it runs low on fuel, the fuel gauge tells you, you fill it up and when the fuel pump clicks, you know it’s full. You can’t squeeze more in, because it just takes what it takes. It doesn’t matter if you’d hoped to squeeze more in, if it’s full it’s full. You wouldn’t stand there and keep giving it large with the nozzle would you? No, of course you wouldn’t.

Now I don’t know about you, but somehow, no matter how much my head recognises that my belly is full, if I’m that way out and want to eat, I’ll find a way to eat. Case in point, Christmas dinner…you know that way where it’s just soooo good and there’s leftovers on the table winking at you and trying everything possible to attract your attention…eat me eat me eat me… you’ve already eaten everything on your plate, you’re stuffed more royally than the turkey ever was and you already suspect you’re going to need a winch to help you up from your chair.

And yet. That minxy little pig nestled in that crispy little blanket seduces you over the brussels sprouts and before you know it your jaws are off again. Your belly is already bursting, you look like you swallowed a beach ball and you’re bordering on a food coma and yet still you can’t resist.

My problem has always been that it isn’t just at Christmas…lots of people walk away from that special once-a-year dinner groaning and pledging not to eat for a week. Me included (although to be fair I’d usually only make it from the dining table as far as the sofa before I was in to the chocolates just because you know, it’s Christmas.) Trouble is, having grown up eating portions that wouldn’t have looked out of place at the top of Jack’s beanstalk, walking away from the table feeling fit to burst was almost the norm in our house.

Having survived the war years on ration coupons and food shortages,  my mum showed love by providing a constant stream of food…she loved to cook, and bake, and although there was only our small little family sitting down to eat, she may as well have been feeding the five thousand. There’d probably have been leftovers even then.  So her love of feeding her family combined with my love of feeding my face kind of created the perfect storm. My full-filter is broken, and I have no concept of what a normal portion looks like. I look at a TV dinner or a ready meal which might be labelled as a meal for one and think “are you kidding me..? “

It’s down to me now though – I get that. Eating till I’m not hungry is different from eating till I’m full, and I get that too. Eating till I’m overfull …I shouldn’t go there at all. There have been times in my life where I’ve felt overpowered by the desire to eat but equally there have been times when I’ve felt like I’m the one calling the shots, and right now I feel strong. In control…it feels good you know?

Even if I still look at a regular sized portion and think ‘great but where’s the rest of it…?!‘

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