Tag Archives: fat

Wanted: One Fairy Godmother

Diet update, In the here & now, , , ,

cinders

I’ve had such an awesome weekend. The biggest wow factor for me was that I left yesterday’s spring fair having done exactly what I’d set out to do, in spite of all those temptations. I did it. In your face Asshole…oh, and you don’t need me to tell you that as soon as I got home, I headed straight upstairs for my weekly weigh in, and guess what…two more pounds off this week 🙂 I’m chuffed to bits.

So, I followed up on my promise to myself and treated myself to a gorgeous piece of costume jewellery yesterday…fair’s fair after all, that was the deal providing my mouth behaved itself in the food hall, right? My favourite jewellery lady was there and as usual she didn’t let me down…I bought a stunning necklace to wear on the night of the UK Blog Awards, which is coming up in just under two weeks’ time. I’m not sure what I’m accessorising yet, but whatever it is it’ll be black.

I’m in an agony of indecision about my outfit – thoughts welcome of course, but I genuinely don’t know what to do. First of all, I’m still too near the wrong end on the scale of fatness to wear heels. I mean I could, if I was happy to totter into the venue hanging onto the arm of my boy and then sit in a corner all night because my feet hurt, but I don’t want to do that. 62lbs ago, the old me would have done exactly that but it’s different now. I’m different now. I want to sparkle, you know?

I’ve been looking for inspiration on the evening dress front but seriously, fat-girl frocks are just awful. Nobody makes evening dresses with sleeves…trust me I’ve looked. Well, nobody except the kind of folk that would successfully dress my great aunt Maud.

I’m not a classic curvy girl. I don’t have big boobs, and a waist. I’ve got shoulders like a linebacker and small boobs with a big belly and an even bigger arse. Not exactly a designer’s wet dream. And I don’t have a good track record with Spanx…what it hold in here it tends to spit out there and so I end up with the same amount of lumps, just redistributed. Smooth thighs with poodle-cut knees…you get the picture.

And I can’t do sleeveless, not with these bingo wings. I’ve already ruled out sleeveless with a shrug because only fat girls and old ladies wear shrugs, and whilst I happen to be both, I refuse to wear a garment that draws attention to the fact that I’m too fat and old to carry the frock off without covering bits of it up. I’ve tried a few on, just in case I could be persuaded but whilst they might do the trick where my upper arms are concerned, they totally throw my midriff under the bus to prove a point. No no no no no.

So that probably means my outfit of choice will end up being flatties with a pair of black palazzo pants, and a plain black floaty top. I think the very sparkly necklace I bought yesterday will dress the black up enough for me not to look like Widow Twanky. But I’m still all kinds of stressed about it, you know? The most annoying thing is that four dress sizes ago I would have worn the same thing, just bigger. I mean, I didn’t think I’d be attending in something bright red, backless and split to the thigh…I just thought I might have graduated from palazzo pants.

Still, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be knocking on the door of size twenty…it’s exactly where I thought I would be at this point. I’m bang on track, and I wake up every day feeling grateful to be on the way down the numbers. It’s just that I’d give anything to have Cinderella’s fairy Godmother rock up on the 29th to wave her magic wand and make me skinny. Just for one night.

Ah well…fat and sparkly it is then 🙂

 

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In The Company Of My Thoughts

In the here & now, , ,

thinkOne of the things I’ve come to value the most from my time spent walking Charlie dog is the time and space it gives me to think. Those of you who’ve followed my journey from the early days won’t be surprised when I say that some of the ways in which my mind connects the dots can be a bit random, but you know time spent on musing even seemingly random stuff occasionally leads to a nugget of insight.

So we’ve just returned from one of our usual circuits of the town. On the way up the hill there were no insights worth a mention, my mind entertained itself quite happily with a succession of interesting topics to ponder, for example if sweat is what it looks like when your fat starts to cry, then my fat is very clearly very upset today because despite it being much cooler outdoors, by the time I got to the top of the hill I was glowing.

Then I got to thinking about where does your fat actually go, when you lose it? I mean, I was looking at a picture on-line this week about what one pound of fat actually looks like, and its big, you know? So if you lose like two pounds a week…where is it now? It’s like it melts away by magic. One week those two pounds of fat are inside my skin, and the next week they’re not.

They just disappear, sneak away like thieves in the night. I go to bed weighing one number, and I wake up weighing a smaller number but nothing went anywhere, right? I must have spend a good ten minutes on that one, in fact I was so absorbed that I’d reached the top of the hill before the Asshole voice had even chipped in with his usual helpful suggestions about the shortcuts we could take every time we passed an opportunity to avoid having to walk right to the top.

And that’s the bit that provided the key to help me unlock today’s useful stuff. It’s the first time that I’ve actually put two and two together and realised that when my mind is occupied, I’m far less open to an approach or a suggestion from the Asshole. Which sounds really obvious but don’t you often find that things stare us in the face and we’re still blind to it?

I have a really low boredom threshold, you know? It’s one of those things that goes hand in hand with an inquisitive mind. When I’m bored I get destructive and my mind leads me into mischief. I’ll give you an example – on Thursday I was involved in doing some recruitment, and one of the candidates lost me in the first five minutes. By the time we’d completed the interview I couldn’t have told you how he’d answered the majority of our questions, even though I’d written down his answers on autopilot.

What I could have told you, was how many times he said the words in terms of during his one hour interview. I was bored, and my mind started fixating on the wrong thing. My in-terms-of ometer leapt into action and I counted them all, with a mental ker-CHING every time he said it. Seventeen in-terms-ofs, if you’re interested. And, don’t even get me started on the four little hairs sprouting from the top of his nose, which I’d have paid good money to tweeze out.

So that’s what I mean…because what he was saying wasn’t holding my attention, my mind wandered off and started poking at stuff it had no business with. And I think the Asshole voice recognises those moments where my mind is suggestible, and that’s when he moves in for the kill.

It’s hardly breaking news, I get that. I’m sure some of you are thinking well yes, so what – eating because you’re bored is a well known thing and you’d be right, it is. I’ve heard plenty of people say that, in fact I’ve more than likely said it myself. But only in the context of doing, and not thinking, right?

I can be completely knocking it out of the park being busy doing stuff, but if my head isn’t similarly engaged, that’s the chink in my armour, right there.

Just another little post-it note to self, to add to my collection. Knowledge is power, right?

 

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The Sorry See-Saw

Freeform thoughts, ,

soz

After I’d written the ‘unsubscribe’ post a couple of days ago, several of you reached out and offered words of reassurance that if people had unsubscribed from our mailing list, it wasn’t because of anything I’d done, or said. And I love that you wanted to reassure me – I promise I get it…really I do. Much as I love to imagine that the world revolves around me, of course I know it doesn’t. On a rational level I can recognise that I was looking for a reason to accept responsibility for someone else’s choices, and even I can appreciate that’s bonkers. And yet. It’s not the first time I’ve done it – and it’s much more likely to happen when I’m fat.

The subscriber list wasn’t a ‘thing’…but it did serve as a classic example of me assuming that someone was leaving town because of something I did. Jumping to the conclusion that I’d done something wrong, that it was somehow my fault. But don’t you think, when your self esteem is quite low, the opinion you have of yourself sort of clouds the way you look at stuff..? Lots of stuff.

Believing that someone has chosen a course of action because of something I’ve done is bad enough. What’s even worse is when something really goes wrong, and I immediately assume that it’s my fault. I’d hazard a guess I’m not the only one who does that too, right? I’m sometimes hit right between the eyes with the need to apologise but to be honest it’s more like a weird kind of reflex, because often I’m not actually sure what I’m apologising for.

The two opposite ends of the apology spectrum seem to be; those people who never say sorry, ever. Even when they’ve got both feet planted firmly in stoopid. Cemented into place, underneath a neon sign flashing the words ‘in the wrong’ but ready to deny it till their last breath. And then there are those people who aren’t in the wrong at all. They are bang on the money but will freely apologise to anyone who’ll listen because somebody, somewhere was in the wrong, and their default setting is to assume that they’re probably it. Normal well-adjusted people sit somewhere in the middle because..well, they’re normal.

Imagine it as a see-saw…where do you sit? Me, I tend to balance somewhere between the middle and the apologetic end. However, not unusually for a fat girl, I dominate the see-saw completely when I’m at my heaviest. Weighing down the apologetic end of the plank, leaving my opposite number high and dry, watching the need to apologise for being in the wrong cascade down the see-saw towards me. They’re happy, I’m happy. They’re absolved from being sorry, because all the sorry’s at my end, with me, even though by rights it should be theirs.

What I should be doing, is a nifty ninja roll off the sorry see-saw. I’m better than that you know? If I screw up, of course the sorry sits with me and it’s a fair cop. But otherwise..? No, you muppet.

And I’ve tried to think of legitimate reasons why I should apologise for the choices I make, that other people don’t like, or approve of. And weirdly, I can’t think of a single reason why I should. If it’s an opinion I have, a turn of phrase that I use or a bit of over-ripe language that pops out to drive home a point, as long as it’s authentic and real, it’s okay. I mean it’s really okay. People who appreciate me would more than likely pick authentic over vanilla every time, at least I think they would.

And if they don’t, well I don’t need to worry about it. Because what I do and say is my responsibility, and my choice to make, and what other people think about it is theirs, right?

Another little bit of the jigsaw just fell into place for me 🙂

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Fat Flirting

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

flirting3
You’ve often heard me refer to flirting, although granted it’s usually been in the context of flirting with food. I’ve got an honorary  black belt in that, in the way that only a fat girl who’s spent the majority of her adult life on one diet or another could begin to understand.

All those teenage magazines that I read back in the seventies and eighties..? I paid attention, and they taught me everything I know about holding that gaze for just a beat too long, looking away with a coy smile and then looking back again…conveying I want you with my eyes whilst the rest of my body adopts an I couldn’t care less stance…whether it’s with a bloke or a sausage roll, the principle is the same, right?

I admit it…if I’m feeling mischievous I’m an outrageous flirt. I love the innuendo and the banter, and I’m here to tell you it’s possible to get away with far more as a fat girl than you ever could as a skinny girl. The reason for that? Nobody takes you seriously when you’re fat. Your banter is pretty much guaranteed to be taken as a joke..nobody’s going to believe that you mean it, you know that they’re actually being chatted up. By you.

More accurately the object of your banter would never in a month of Sundays think that you’d imagine they were remotely interested in you…I mean come on, you’re the fat girl. It’s a laugh. I’m not imparting this from a place of bitterness, heaven help me don’t think that for a minute…I’m a single girl by choice these days for the reasons I’ve already shared. But I still like to flex my flirting muscle from time to time, from the safety of my fully paid-for fat suit.

Some of my more risqué conversations have volleyed back and forth for hours, ending in a good laugh, a bear hug and all around agreement that it’s been a top night. If I’d turned serious and acted like I expected it to go somewhere the poor bloke in question would have almost certainly broken the land speed record getting the hell out of dodge, and spent the next few weeks afraid to leave the safety of his front room.

There are exceptions to that rule of course, I came horribly unstuck on a holiday once in the land of camels and hookah pipes…my attempts to secure a good price for a terracotta tagine almost ended in disaster when I found myself practically engaged to a man with funny eyes and something stuck in his beard. I mean how was I to know that buxom blonde women are highly prized in certain parts of the world.

If not for the quick thinking of my taxi driver who – thank God – had clearly watched Starsky and Hutch far too many times, my life could have turned out very differently indeed. I might have been tending goats now instead of writing my blog, imagine that.

So yes, I think I’ve found the one thing to talk about that perhaps I might miss about being fat. In Skinny Town I won’t even be able to flex my pulling muscle with a sausage roll but you know what…I’ll adapt. After all, nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels, right?

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Oh No, Five Oh!

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, Reflections on past times, , ,

chanel cake

So, that’s it then…I have officially reached the point where my age starts with a five, not a four. I wasn’t sure how I’d wake up feeling today…at forty I was fine, I embraced it. At thirty, I thought my life was over, seriously I think I cried for a week. At twenty…crap, that’s a lifetime away, I don’t even remember how I felt back then. I’m Fifty. I need to try it on for size you know? See how it fits. I could deny it of course…cling to forty nine like a drowning man would cling to a life raft? The flaw in that plan is that I’ve told you all now…me and my big mouth.

I wonder what my fifties will bring? My twenties were all about my boy – he was little, I was first and foremost a mum. I’d pressed the ejector seat on a really bad choice of husband and it was me and kiddo against the world. In my thirties – once I’d gotten over the trauma of actually being thirty  – they were all about being a mum, going back to school and getting some smarts, building my career…oh and winning a fairly gruelling battle with the Big C.  Husband number two came…and went…watch closely, there’s a theme.

In my forties I was more in control. I still made some bad choices but I was getting better at recognising the fuck-ups and dealing with them quickly, so that’s a bonus at least, right? Husband number three was despatched almost before he’d arrived although not before wiping out my bank account and teaching me some very thorny life lessons. But that was at the very top of the decade…I’ve enjoyed my forties on the whole. I stopped chasing the fairy tale and I got to know me.

As I turn fifty, I’m in control you know? Apart from needing the odd tena-lady obviously if someone makes me laugh till the tears run down my leg. I know what I want, having spent a lot of time over the years experiencing what I don’t want. I love my family, my friends, my career, and now I’m writing too, and the more I write the more I want to write…I suspect I’ve unleashed the beast. Putting yourself out there is daunting but to discover that like-minded people enjoy your stuff fills me with a joy I can’t describe.

It’s a shame I’m still fat, but you know what? Whilst I would have loved to have sashayed into my sixth decade as a skinny string bean, I know this is my time. Time to break out of this life-limiting fat suit once and for all, but exactly when is just semantics…I will be fifty and fabulous, even if it’s technically the day before I’m fifty one. And what’s more, I’m planning to stay there – I already know I’m going to need to mortgage my skinny soul against the commitment of counting a food budget for the rest of my life but hey, if that’s what it takes to prevent my home in Skinny Town being repossessed then bring it on…once I’m there, this time I’m there to stay.

So all in all, early indications are that hitting my big birthday isn’t going to trigger any kind of nervous collapse…we live to march another day, posse! 🙂

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