Tag Archives: happy

I’d Rather Be Dodgy…

In the here & now, , , , ,

dodgy

It’s weird you know, I’m fifty years old and I’d like to think I’ve learned a few valuable life lessons along the way. I’m still learning, in fact this journey in particular over the last few months has peeled away a lot of layers and revealed things about me to myself that I don’t think I ever knew. If someone had told me at the very start of this journey that that would happen it might have spooked me a bit, I mean it could have had disaster written all over it, right? We all know about Pandora’s box.

Happily, as I’ve uncovered stuff, talking it through with you lot has helped me to work through it, in fact it’s been like six hundred words of therapy every day. I’m more grateful than I can tell you for the fact that you all listen to whatever comes out of my head, and then empathise, and relate, and chip in with your own perspective.

I must admit, I’m totally unguarded on here, and I’m sure occasionally I’ve been guilty of over-sharing, but I’d hope my words come across to you as authentic. It’s my journey, as seen through my own eyes, and whilst I might crack a joke or two, those of you who’ve sussed me out will understand that’s my default way of dealing with difficult, you know?

So I had an email yesterday morning from one of my most loyal supporters who was absolutely outraged that someone had awarded a ‘poor’ rating to something I wrote a couple of days ago. And bless her, she even felt the need to apologise on their behalf. I was so touched at the way she had my back, but to be honest until she pointed it out, I hadn’t actually noticed.

See, I don’t think too much about the star ratings widget…it’s useful in the way it allows me to see which posts you enjoy the most, and I love that it generates a favourite posts list – new folk who wander into the blog tend to poke around in there, and it gives them a good flavour of what we’re all about. I’ve never really thought about it in the context of people passing judgement on my writing, daft as that might sound.

I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t like the fact that someone thought my words weren’t up to scratch, but I wasn’t especially worried about it. And this little storm in a teacup demonstrated perfectly to me just how far I’ve grown in the last few months. At one time I would’ve been absolutely gutted.

I would have read, and re-read the post, trying to pinpoint the exact bit which sent someone’s opinion of me plummeting downwards. I would’ve chewed myself up about it and then probably headed straight to the Hobnobs. I wasn’t good enough, look it’s there in black and white, I’m officially rubbish. POOR!! I need a hobnob immediately to make me feel better.

This time, I re-read it once and thought you know what, it’s probably not the most entertaining post I’ve written but actually, it helped me. And let’s not forget, I write for me. Writing my thoughts down on that day in the way that I did helped me to find a link. And the links I’ve gathered over the past ten or so months are the reason I’m still here, sashaying along on this road to Skinny Town.

So I’m happy with those words even if they weren’t to someone else’s taste…they served me well. They had a purpose. And if I tried to be funny when I wasn’t feeling funny, that’s when I stop being authentic, right?

I don’t much fancy getting another ‘poor’ though. Ever. So I changed the descriptions, ‘cos I can do that. ‘Poor’ is now a bit dodgy, and ‘awful’ is now a steaming pile of shite. I sincerely hope nobody ever thinks that, but at least if they do it’ll make me chuckle, and I’d rather be dodgy than poor any day of the week..!

Have a great weekend everyone…see you on the other side 🙂

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The World Didn’t End At Foxy Lodge

In the here & now, ,

cabin

So I’m safely home after a weekend of utter awesomeness, in fact if I were forced to pick, I think I’d have to say this has been one of my very favourite girly weekends ever, and we’ve been doing this a long time so there are a lot to choose from. I’m not sure I could put my finger on exactly why, except maybe because I thought this one might be hard and it turned out not to be at all…I worried for nothing.

Wednesday night, when I slipped on that dieting banana skin, it knocked the wind out of my sails a bit. Maybe the Asshole voice thought I was getting a bit cocky, you know? Anyway, whatever, I greeted Thursday feeling thoroughly pissed off but resigned to the fact that I’d have to be far stricter with my food budget over the weekend than I’d been anticipating.

I knocked that one right out of the park, I mean I’ve had one or two tastes of naughty but it would barely even qualify as a dabble, and my best estimate is that I’ve stayed entirely within points.

And get this, every single one of my friends turned up for the weekend complete with exercise gear in a full show of solidarity, and we’ve made a respectable dink in the nature trails around the lodge. If I tell you that under normal circumstances we never make it further than the hot tub with just an occasional foray up to the reception area to try and get a phone signal, or *ahem* the recycling area with all our empties you’ll understand how much of a departure from the norm that really is.

I was totally surrounded by support, and it made getting back on solid footing over the weekend totally effortless. I’m so lucky 🙂

And you know what else I realised..? I didn’t post for two days, and the world didn’t end. I feel slightly ridiculous for panicking about it so much. When I arrived there on Thursday it took me about twenty laps of the car park, on foot and waving my iPad in the air before I got enough signal to post the one I’d already teed up. The cabins are buried in woodland and there was no chance of getting enough signal to write, so I gave myself up to a world without technology and you know what, it was fine.

I missed talking to you guys of course, but I actually realised that if for whatever reason I can’t manage to write a post every single day it’s not going to make the wheels come off my diet. Who knew! That in itself is a massive pressure lifted off my shoulders, and we’ve already established that pressure doesn’t do me any favours, right?

Anyway, the bitch in the bathroom greeted me like an old friend when I got home earlier, and then delivered the news with a flourish that I’d put on a pound. Shit. Still, my mid-week wobble says I deserve it, so I’ve taken it on both of my chins, and it’s all good. It’ll come off this week, no doubt in my mind at all.

It’s been lovely having a week off work, and both my weekends away…I’m rested and raring to go. I’m ready to embrace normal again, and crack on with the business in hand. This week is the week I get serious with this bloody fitness malarkey…watch this space 🙂

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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 🙂

 

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Happy Fat Girl

In the here & now, ,

image

It’s so lovely to get away from it all…the reality is we are only an hour away from home but the hotel has acres and acres of grounds and it’s a bit off the beaten track so now we’ve unpacked and had a couple of Pinot Grigios in the wood-panelled bar, home feels a million miles away.

This is a treat for our mums, both of whom are less independent than they used to be. As we speak, the wrinklies are having a little siesta and my friend has his nose in a book so I’m just going to grab ten minutes with you guys before going for a nice long walk around the grounds, then maybe a swim. Heaven.

We stopped and had lunch in a gorgeous little market town on the way here. The cafe was rustic and quite small, and as we walked in my heart sank when I realised the only free table was tucked right away in the far corner. As the skinny string bean in an apron grabbed the menus and indicated I should follow her as she glided in and out of the tables (which were packed in as tightly as sardines in a tin) I stood rooted to the spot, desperately trying to think of a reason why we couldn’t possibly eat there. No way was there room for me in that corner. I couldn’t even get to the table.

And yet, I did. And there was room for me. I didn’t knock anyone’s lunch off on the way either, and nobody had to move their chair so the fat girl could get through…who knew. And then, get this…as we had a post-lunch poke around the lovely little town, I saw the most gorgeous sweater in the window of a boutique.

Im not sure why I went in, I mean I’m used to my eyes not even bothering to linger on clothes in non fat-girl shops. Little independent boutiques, forget it, I mean seriously. They had a lot of layered look stuff which tends to be free size anyway, but there’s free size and free size you know? Not usually my size.

But today I was lucky, both the sweater and a pair of co-ordinating pants were up to the challenge! I think the lady in the shop was a bit taken aback when I hugged her, but I was just so bloody happy I couldn’t quite help it.

I’m reminded daily how awesome it feels to be plain fat, rather than the kind of fat that I was before. Everything I’ve done this perfect day wouldn’t have happened just a few months ago, and remembering little fist-bump moments like this on days where I’m struggling is what’s going to get me over the line, you know?

Right, I’m off for my walk…have a great weekend all ?

 

 

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A Flurry Of Activity

In the here & now,

feet

I’ve just had the best afternoon ever, and I’m feeling very pampered. You’ll be glad to know that in preparation for tomorrow night there are now definite green shoots of sparkliness…my fingers and toes are a lovely shade of steel grey with a touch of silver shimmer, which will match my posh necklace. Get me, being all co-ordinated. It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago I…ah feck it let’s not go there, not today…I’m too giddy.

I don’t think the gorgeous skinny string bean who painted my toes so beautifully this afternoon quite knew what to make of me. We had some general chit-chat you know about this and that, and then she asked me what I was getting all poshed up for.

When I told her I was going to a posh doo because I write a blog about dieting she was a bit baffled, and I suppose I might have been too, in her shoes. I mean if you’re painting the toenails of a very fat lady who appears to think that she’s some kind of authority on dieting you’re bound to think what the fuck could you possibly know about that, right? To be fair she’d have a point, I don’t look like I know my way around a salad…not yet anyway.

And you know, I could probably have folded this young lady up and tucked her into my knicker drawer, so clearly if I’d tried to explain about the Asshole voice and the bitch in the bathroom I would have just dug myself deeper into weirdo territory…obviously she’s clearly never had to fight tooth and nail to stay away from the hobnobs. But she was perfectly lovely, and she perked my feet up no end.

To be honest, I’m still debating about the shoe situation for tomorrow – I did buy a pair of strappy flatties with sparkles on, but they’re about as comfortable as I imagine cheese wire wrapped around my toes might be…three toes on each foot cop for it in particular and after a few test walks they were all on the verge of turning blue. On the basis that I don’t want to leave the event with fewer toes than I had when I arrived, I might need to rethink my choice of footwear.

My boy collected his tux this morning and I’m under strict instructions not to do that dewy-eyed proud mum thing where I spend all night telling him how handsome he looks…it’ll be hard but I promised. So he’s sorted, and in all but the shoe department, so am I.

Between you and me I’m starting to feel a bit nervous. I mean it’s hugely exciting but a bit daunting at the same time you know? I was contacted by a PR company this afternoon who’ve picked out some quotes from the blog and it reads as though I’ve actually given them an interview, which felt very strange. Like, who’d want to interview me?! I’ve lived in the shadows for the last few years and I can feel a definite breeze around my ears now I’ve stuck my head above ground…it’s going to take a bit of getting used to.

Am I ready for tomorrow..? You bet your sweet ass I am 🙂

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