Tag Archives: food addiction

Landing On The Wrong Square

In the here & now, , , , ,

snake

I woke up early yesterday, having failed to fool my body into sleeping an extra hour as the clocks did their thing and rebooted ready for the dark winter months. I did however make good use of the extra hour, laying in bed for ages and contemplating the fact that I’ve been back from Cuba for two whole weeks – two fairly shit weeks in the grand scheme of things, with the last week in particular being a truly platinum-plated turd.

My general willingness to remember that I’m not that armchair-hogging food addict any more seems to have disappeared like a fart on a breeze, and I’m doing that thing where I’m refusing to look myself straight in the eye because I’m afraid of what I might see. For the few days leading up to the trek I was acutely aware that I’d taken my foot off the gas and made some dodgy choices, and whilst I was away my food plan went out of the window altogether. Neither of those two things would have been a massive issue. However. The two weeks since I came home have been a dieting car crash.

And you know what, I’d be the first to admit that I’m not very good with sums, but if I do a few quick calculations on the back of a fag packet I can’t avoid the reality of the situation I’m in…this isn’t just a bad few days. In the way that fuck-ups can run away with you like a freight train in a bad movie, this has morphed into a bad month.

I’ve been trying to think of ways in which to position it with myself so it doesn’t sound so bad and the most positive spin I can come up with is that I’m currently in hiatus between season one and season two. Season one was the start of this journey…begin the diet, find a voice, make some friends and build this awesome support forum. Find an adventure requiring focus and commitment, nail the plan and walk towards it as one big posse with the season finale featuring a finish line in Cuba. Season two picks up where season one left off, and it’ll take us right up to the point where the rest of my life can begin in a pair of size twelve skinny jeans.

The thing is, it’s not really a hiatus is it? The word hiatus suggests I’m pressing pause, kind of like a way to gather my thoughts and shape what I’m walking towards. Except that’s not what’s happening here, is it? I’ve fallen out of the naughty tree and I’ve put weight on…I’m struggling with my food plan and my head is refusing to play nicely. There’s a whole sub-story going on off-camera and that’s definitely not what’s supposed to happen when we’re taking a hiatus, at least it never did on Grey’s Anatomy.

It’s more accurate to imagine I’m living in a giant game of snakes and ladders, and right now I’m sliding down the back of the biggest fucking anaconda on the board. You know that one that always lurks right in the middle, and everyone in the game blows on the dice before they roll it when they’re in the general vicinity in the hope that it might prevent them from landing on that square..?

Well, guess who landed on the square. For fuck’s sake.

I didn’t see it coming but the more I reflect on the last few weeks, the more I think perhaps I should have, you know? Think about it. The trek was never supposed to be a thing in its own right…it was always a means to an end, something I signed up for as a way of staying on the path to Skinny Town.

And the fact that I brought it home was always going to be cause for celebration, given the amount of preparation I’d done to get ready for it. My mistake was allowing the Asshole voice to lead me directly to the I can relax now, it’s over! school of thinking, which was never going to end well. I could have prepared better for the fact that that might happen, and been ready for it. Note to self, that will ALWAYS happen because you have an Asshole who lives inside your head. It’s not rocket science, is it?

What I need to do now is figure out how to not let my bad month turn into two bad months, and then three. I can’t – won’t – go there.

First things first. I’m going to go to the Kingdom of Pain every day providing my work schedule allows me to get there…this week it does (although I’m away for the weekend which given the fragility of my food sobriety will throw up a new set of challenges but one step at a time, right?).

I had my eating under control last week between Sunday and Wednesday…it was the latter part of the week where it all went tits up. I was stressed, I couldn’t fit a work-out in and before I knew it the Asshole voice had snuck some all or nothing thinking into the equation…you can’t do THIS so don’t worry about THAT either.

Yesterday was better, in fact it was a good day. I worked hard in my circuit training class yesterday morning, I ate healthily, and I went to bed not having listened to any of the suggestions about popcorn or maltesers which were helpfully put forward by the Asshole voice as I was watching TV last night. Today I’m going to use yesterday as a blueprint and do the same again.

One foot in front of the other, and repeat, right? 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Not Even Close

In the here & now, , , ,

fall-off-the-wagon

Well…where do I start. I think I mentioned didn’t I that I was anticipating the odd challenge towards the back end of last week, but I had a plan, right? I was working away Thursday and Friday, but I had it all figured out. The hotel I was staying in had a gym, blah blah blah…sadly I was accompanied on my trip by the fuck-up fairy, and it’s safe to say things didn’t go according to plan. Not even close.

But let me rewind. The week was going great, right up until Thursday morning when I left for my two-day trip. I’d completed all my planned sessions in the Kingdom of Pain, and I’d walked pretty much every day…I was on track food wise, in fact it was shaping up to be another textbook week.

The two-day meeting was a big conference-type get-together for a sixty strong team that I support and there were a few things which I knew straight off the bat I was going to struggle with. For example, there was an outdoor hog roast planned for dinner on the Thursday evening, and no word of a lie, I’d dreamed more than once in the early part of the week about that crispy salty pork crackling, and how many kinds of awesome it was going to be.

I knew how much I’d struggle to say no. I thought about how many different ways I could avoid even being within sniffing distance and I couldn’t quite figure it out so I set off knowing it was going to test me. What I hadn’t anticipated was all the other stuff.

I got to the hotel well before nine on the first morning after a couple of hours in the car, to be greeted by a massive tray of hot bacon sandwiches in the coffee area. I went through the motions of saying no, before driving myself bat shit crazy for ten minutes walking around the room chatting to colleagues, all the time furiously calculating and re-calculating the effect a bacon sandwich might have on my daily food budget. I came to the conclusion that it would make a big hole in it, as I caved in and helped myself to a plate. I estimated about twelve points out of my thirty five point daily budget. Ouch.

As soon as I walked into the conference room, my Asshole voice started doing his happy dance. There were goodies on every table…dishes of bite-size chocolate bars, chocolate-covered raisins and even bags of candy-floss to support the seaside theme. Whichever seat I’d taken I would’ve been within touching distance of all things naughty. So, did I sit and ignore it all because I’d just eaten a third of my daily food budget and I shouldn’t be even thinking about chocolate..? No, of course I fucking didn’t. I dived right in.

I started off with the intention of counting the points for everything I ate. I made a deal with the fuck-up fairy, brokered of course by the Asshole voice which meant I could take my foot off a little and have a few treats on the basis that I had some exercise points I could dip into, you know? I even wrote down what I ate so I could tot it up later on. Shall I share the list..? One toffee. Then two malteser chocolates, closely followed by two mini galaxy caramels. Then one more of those, one mini mars bar and a handful of chocolate raisins followed by seven mint humbugs.

At the first coffee break there were giant cookies on offer so of course I had one of those, followed by three mini bounties and a jaffa cake. I’d already run out of my food budget by this point although for some bizarre reason I carried on writing things down. Lunch was a buffet and trust me when I say…well, I don’t need to say it do I..? I was out of control. The hog roast didn’t live up to expectations but to be fair I felt so sick by the time  evening came, even if it had I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. But I ate it anyway. Followed by a dirty great piece of chocolate fudge cake.

I laid in bed on Thursday evening and felt like shit. I’d taken my iPad so I could write Friday’s blog post but you know what, I simply couldn’t summon any words…I was transported right back to those dark dark days of binge/food coma/self-loathing/guilt/remorse and repeat. I’d almost forgotten what it was like but hell’s teeth that was a sharp reminder.

I’d love to say that Friday was better, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t as bad but I was way off track. I ate things I shouldn’t, and I didn’t even write them down. I got home and finished the day off by eating chow mein and prawn toast from the Chinese takeaway. I mean, I’d already blown it, right?

Saturday…Saturday was better. But not brilliant. I still made some dodgy food choices but I exercised. I walked with some friends and it felt good. The Asshole voice was busy screaming start again Monday of course but actually, my weigh day is Sunday. So I picked myself up and started again Sunday.

I’ve written the last three days of my last dieting week off, and the bitch served up a three pound gain with a smile yesterday morning. I could weep, but I did it to myself, and I take responsibility for it. I deserve those three pounds.

So I’m a bit shaken if I’m honest, about how quickly I descended into anarchy. I thought I’d cracked it but clearly not. And it remains as ever incredibly hard to climb back on the wagon when I’ve taken a tumble and gone under the wheels…this morning I feel stronger, with a very good day under my belt yesterday…today it almost feels like the binge never happened. With a headwind behind me and the Gods of Skinny on my side I’ve somehow managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and I’m back on track.

This week, I’m not going to step a toe out of line. I’ve got three pounds to lose, right?

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Autopsy Of A Binge

In the here & now, , , , ,

spring cleaning

When I’m not in the grip of a binge, I find it really hard to get my head around the concept that an Asshole voice inside my head has the ability to take over every thought, and for that brief moment in time completely rule the roost. I mean, I can talk about it, and even report it as fact but the truth is I’m detached when it’s not happening right now. Being in a position where I’m not the one calling the shots seems unlikely, from my current vantage point of control.

On an intellectual level I get it of course – in the same way that I understand that some people feel the need to drink their way into oblivion, and other people are driven to get high…what I can’t do, outside the moment is to call up how it feels as I lose my grip and tumble head first into a binge. I can only feel that in the moment, and I can’t comprehend it when I’m not feeling it.

Last night, it got me. Head on. I’ll tell you about it in a minute but before I do, I want to try and unpick why. I’d had a great sorting out kind of day. In some respects. What I didn’t do, was the walking I’d intended to do, nor did I make the call about joining a gym…I was too busy. I did have a chat with my boy last night as he was cooking dinner, about how I was thinking about not front-loading my blog posts for this weekend and having a couple of days off instead as I kicked back with my girls…he was horrified.

He knows how much this means to me in terms of accountability and support. He also understands that the creative outlet of writing is the anchor which has kept me in the sweet spot over the last nine months, you know? That, and the love that I get from you lot. He was worried that if I didn’t post, I’d go completely off the rails…he’s seen it, and lived through it too many times over the years. Not blogging, obviously, I’ve never done this before but if I’ve ever stepped away just for a second from whatever thing was working for me at the time, I’ve gone under the wheels and it’s pretty much been game over.

To be fair, I worry about that too…when I started this journey I said I would post every single day, and I have. One hundred and eighty thousand words so far, that’s like two whole books’ worth of words in a little less than nine months. I spend at least a couple of hours writing every day, and when I’m time poor that’s a big commitment. If I join a gym and have to find time to fit that in too, something’s going to have to give.

So that scares me anyway and his reaction reinforced my own worries you know? My boy is right…I need this outlet. I also need to join a gym and build up my stamina to honour the commitment I’ve made to do this trek because I’m not getting enough traction on my own. I have to do stuff with my mum, and I have to work a full time job and run a house…I’m a bit freaked out that I’m not going to be able to fit it all in. And after our conversation brought it all to the surface last night I watched the TV and chewed it all over in my mind.

Then I chewed a bunch of other stuff. For fuck’s sake. The extra weekly points that I’d so carefully saved for this coming weekend away…gone. The additional exercise points that I’d built up, also gone. Twenty points that I haven’t even earned yet have gone before they’ve even fucking arrived.

And in that food fug last night, which by the way was entirely sugar-related, the Asshole voice talked me into believing that I couldn’t over-flex my food budget at the weekend anyway since five of my closest friends were going to act like the chuffing diet police so I may as well get all my chocolate in whilst I had the chance, and live on dust until Sunday.

It seemed like a very plausible argument, right up until it didn’t. Then I cried, and washed the kitchen floor. I have no idea why, it wasn’t dirty and in any event my cleaning lady was coming today, but I think I just needed to scrub something, because I felt dirty.

On the up-side, talking about it has at least opened the window on why it happened. I’m not reacting well to the pressure I’m putting on myself to do it all. And I still don’t know how I’m going to pull it off if I’m honest, but in the cold light of day as I sit and survey the damage I’m fed up, but a lot less freaked out. I’m back in control. I’m okay. I’ve still got this.

So, I need to be more careful this weekend than I thought, right? We’re planning healthy food anyway, and I’ll have some fizz, but none of the edible goodies I was saving up for can feature in my weekend. And you know what, I’m okay with that…it is what it is. I’m just happy I’ve made it out of the other side and I still have my eye on the prize.

It’s all good, if a little too close for comfort 🙂

By the way, if the posts are a little sporadic over the next couple of days, bear with me…we are staying in a forest and based on past experience there’s next to no phone signal and no wi-fi!

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

In Search Of Magic Beans

Reflections on past times, , , ,

beans

I felt a bit embarrassed today when I got a visual wake-up-call about how my pre-occupation with food might look to other people. Yesterday I forgot to bring the containers home that I’d taken my lunch to work in, so today my feet were fighting for space under the desk with a double helping of airtight boxes. There were six altogether, plus two large plastic cups which I use to chug my blended smoothie of the day on my morning commute.

On top of my desk, nestled amongst actual work stuff you would have found a punnet of plums, a bottle of salad cream, some emergency crackers and a tin of soup. In the bin behind me were a couple of banana skins and an apple core. It must have looked like I’d been under siege for a month, for God’s sake.

I did do a quick recce on everyone else’s desk and I was slightly reassured to find that there was the odd snack or two kicking around other corners of the office but put it this way, if the entire HR team had been kidnapped by aliens, when Mulder and Scully rocked up to investigate they would have known immediately which desk belonged to the fat girl.

It puts me in mind of a conversation I had with my doctor twenty odd years ago. A friend of mine had been to her doctor because she wanted to lose weight, and he’d handed her a prescription for pills to supress her appetite. I wanted to get me a piece of that action so I made an appointment to see someone at my own surgery with the intention of getting my hands on some of these magic beans. It seemed like the perfect answer.

It transpired that my doctor was a little less accommodating. Actually, he was a twat. He sent me off with a flea in my ear and a long lecture about how fat people were unnaturally preoccupied with food and basically I needed to get over myself. He even illustrated said lecture with a story about his own fat friend, who had joined him recently on a skiing holiday and had taken sandwiches ‘for the journey’, which he used as an example of how fat people were different to normal people, and couldn’t bear not to have food within touching distance. Judging by the way he said it he didn’t mean different in a good way.

I’d give anything to have that same conversation with him now, with my additional twenty five years’ worth of life experience and a slightly lower tolerance for being mugged off. I doubt I’d be able to resist commenting on how lucky his fat friend was to have such a supportive chum, you know? I mean, with the 20/20 vision of hindsight I was trying to go about it the wrong way, but I was reaching out, you know? He could have helped me, if he hadn’t been so busy judging me.

It’s the first and last time I ever talked to anyone about how much I was bothered by being fat. Well, until you lot of course. And I’d like to think that I’d get a more supportive response if I went to chat to a healthcare professional about it these days. I wouldn’t, of course…I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than have that conversation. But still, I hope they’d at least give me some leaflets and a bit of advice.

All joking aside, my jaws have barely stopped moving today – I’ve only grazed on low point healthy stuff but I know I need to give some attention to this phobia of hunger pangs. God forbid one might sneak up on me, right?

******************************************************************************************

Before I go, I have some hugely exciting news, and I need your help please! Break Out The Skinny Girl is now available on Kindle Blogs, I mean come on!! We have arrived! It’s become available today in the Kindle Store through Amazon…if you read and enjoy Break Out The Skinny Girl, would you do me the honour of leaving a review on your thoughts about the blog? You can find it HERE  It can’t be done on mobile devices only computers or Kindles (no idea why) but thank you, your support as usual means the world to me 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Everything I’m Not

In the here & now, , , , ,

eyes-belly

I woke up with a familiar sickly feeling this morning, and I have to say it served as a sharp reminder about both how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to travel on this journey to Skinny Town. It’s my own fault for handing over the control of all food-related decisions to the Asshole voice after I got in from work yesterday…he was on form, as always and I can’t even pretend that I put up a fight.

I’d been very organized before I left in the morning, throwing liver and onions in the crock-pot to slow cook all day, so by the time I got home there was a divine smell. My boy, who would rather stick pins in his eyes than go anywhere near liver and onions threw a dirty look at the crock pot and fixed himself a pizza. Obviously I wasn’t going to fall out with that…more for me, right?

So I’d worked out the Smart Points value in the morning and there was only ten in the whole thing. Which to be fair would have comfortably fed three people…three normal people. People who didn’t eat as though their food supply was about to be turned off for a month. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I lifted the lid.

The Asshole voice was all over it. There’s only ten points in the whole thing so you’ve got more than enough to cover it. And it’s liver…you can’t re-heat liver and it’s too awesome to go to waste. Yes, I know the dog’s almost having a heart attack trying to let you know he’d be happy to share but it’ll give him gas and then we’ll ALL suffer. You can manage that, come on you’re hardcore! It’s only ten points!!

I’ve got to admit, it was a challenge fitting it all on the plate, along with the mountain of vegetables, but purleease…as a fat girl who’s built many a salad bowl in a dish the size of a thimble at pizza hut over the years, I know how to build a plate so nothing escapes. And I ate it…all of it. It was only ten points at the end of the day.

I was fit to pop, so stopping there might have been a smart move, right? Ahhh…isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing. I just fancied something to finish with, and there he was again. Yes I know it’s true that you’re practically about to burst, but chocolate cherries hardly take up any space at all, and you’ve got eight points left! You can’t keep them in the bank, use them or lose them, you know the rules…

So I ate eight points’ worth of chocolate covered cherries.

Then, having got the taste for them I finished the bag using exercise points accrued and some of my additional weekly points for good measure. The last three that I put in my mouth took some effort…I was starting to feel a bit sick to be honest. And yet. I had points to cover them, and I was on one.

This morning when I woke up, I knew I’d over-stepped the boundary. I just felt bilious and that familiar prickle of guilt was there, even though technically I was within points, if you don’t mind a bit of creative accounting. But I wasn’t within normal. Normal folk wouldn’t have done that.

For some reason, I was thought about my Grandma. I have no idea why, but something she used to say started rattling around in my head. Don’t apologise for the things that you’re not…instead, shout about the things that you are. Okay then.

I AM A MUPPET.

Like it..? Tell your friends!