Tag Archives: shitbird scale

Full Of Good Intentions

In the here & now, , ,

So the Shitbird scale pulled a mean trick on me yesterday morning by declaring pretty much a 3lb gain. I don’t think I deserved it, and to be honest I’m not even sure I believe it but what I do know is that I’m not obsessing about it. At one point it would have ruined my whole day, but thankfully my fuck you yesterday was directed towards the scale, and not the diet.

As it happens, I didn’t have a textbook week. I set off with the intention of being above reproach after the creative accounting shenanigans of the week before. We’ve all been there, right? Sunday dawned and my intentions were whiter than white but it felt like a proper uphill slog all week. It’s not like I didn’t know trouble was coming…I even stood up and told you how niftily I was going to sidestep The Afters but I guess it’s not the first time that my intentions have been a bit more impressive than my execution.

That said, although I was at the top end of my calorie budget most days – and some days I pinched calories from Peter to pay Paul – at worst I should have maybe stayed the same. I didn’t deserve to get shunted three steps in the wrong direction so I’m writing it off as water retention or hormones or something. Stupid shitbird scale. It hasn’t dinted my determination but back-sliding does make everything feel just a tiny harder, don’t you think?

Life is slowly turning the right way up again after all the upset of the last couple of weeks. My Godmother’s funeral is taking place next Monday, which has felt like an awfully long time to wait. I’m on at least draft number ten of the eulogy that I’ll read on the day but you know what, it’s been very cathartic delving into all the memories I have of her and deciding which ones I’d like to share. It’s helped, but I’ll still be glad when it’s over.

On Friday I got the results from the MRI scan I had to have on my dodgy knee. I don’t even think I mentioned it to you, there’s been so much else going on and seriously, it feels like all I’ve done over the last few weeks is moan about one thing or another. To cut a long story short, after three months of physio I knew my knee still wasn’t right, and the MRI scan confirmed it. I have a complex tear in the cartilage which is going to need surgery, and I think it’ll be scheduled for the end of next week.

What a royal fucking pain in the ass that is. It’s the very last thing I need at the moment, but the problem is I’m not allowed to fly for eight weeks after the surgery and I have a holiday coming up in October, so the surgeon has a bee in his bonnet about it having to be done in the next couple of weeks.

I’m a bit freaked out about it if I’m honest. On Saturday I had the best time, out cycling with friends and I had no pain in my knee at all so I started questioning whether it was even necessary. But then there are so many days where it gives me hell, and there are at least a couple of classes down at the Kingdom of Pain that I’m not allowed to do because my knee isn’t strong enough, so I don’t think I have a choice really. C’est la vie. Better done and out of the way I guess, although I am shitting myself. I admit it, I’m a wuss.

I’m determined to hit this week hard. She says, having woken up this morning with two of yesterday’s nut bars pre-loaded onto today’s food budget…here we go again, with the good intentions.

Whoops 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Buckled In And Ready For The Ride

In the here & now, , ,

So we’re officially in the second half of 2017. I mean really, how is that even possible? It doesn’t seem two minutes since I kicked off the year with a renewed determination to get back on track and stop throwing the door wide open for the fuck-up fairy to waltz right in and make herself at home. I’m happy to say that with the exception of one four-day visit, her open invitation remains suspended and I’m doing fine.

It’s good to take stock. I’m 29lbs down so far this year, which averages out at a cock-hair over 1lb a week. I’m not gonna lie, I’d prefer the average to be a bit more impressive, but the momentum from switching up my food plan to calorie counting through My Fitness Pal is going to carry me forward a bit faster, I can already see that. I’ve had another cracking loss this week which I’m  so excited about especially after our holiday, and the Shitbird scale is definitely losing the upper hand.

I would never diss Weight Watchers, right? It’s been my travelling companion for a good 18 months and it’s served me well. That said, it was the right time for me to move away from counting points, which I suspect is built around normal people who don’t have a tendency to eat their own bodyweight in anything positioned as ‘free’. I mean come on, some folk just take liberties, and I’d be the first to admit I’m one of them.

Hooking up the technology on my wrist with the MFP app means I’ve been forced to compare the exact number of calories in whatever I’m eating versus the exact number of calories that I’m burning, and shit, there’s no wonder some weeks I’ve lost the equivalent of a gnat’s ass. I know I’m fairly active these days but on the other hand so are my jaws, right? Most weeks I’ve felt a bit aggrieved at my snail’s pace progress because to all intents and purposes I’ve been sticking to the plan, but the reality is the plan I was following was probably just giving me too much rope.

Now, I feel like I have insight and complete control, and it’s a game-changer. I’m excited to see what I can do with this over the next few months, you know? It took me the first five months of this year to lose twenty two pounds, but I’ve lost another seven in the last three weeks, which says it all really. Honeymoon period..? Possibly, but I’m happy to see where it takes me. I’m buckled in and ready for the ride.

How weird is it, that I’m embracing this level of discipline? I don’t ever do too well with rules and rigidity in fact I’ve made it my life’s work to push back against anything that feels like it’s tying my hands, and yet right now I appear to be living in an Asshole voice-free zone. I suspect that at the deepest level I recognise this as the silver bullet that could free me from this fucking fat suit once and for all 🙂

 

On another note altogether, may I ask for five minutes of your time to answer a couple of questions for me? I’d be so grateful for your help. When I started this blog as a way of supporting my own weight-loss journey, I discovered a love of writing that I never knew I had, and as we’ve walked this path together over the last couple of years, many of you have reached out and suggested that I should think about writing a book.

Now, I’m not daft enough to let a few bits of nice feedback turn my head, but you know what, I get the biggest kick out of knowing that what goes on in these pages helps  some of you guys too, and I’ve got almost three hundred thousand words’ worth of blog posts in the bag…imagine if I could turn them into something resembling a book?

I feel a tiny bit dizzy at the thought of it…I’m not a writer, I’m just a fat girl who loves to write but if this journey has taught me anything, it’s that dreams are worth chasing, so I’m doing a little bit of market research to test the water and I’d really value your thoughts. You can help by clicking HERE and it’s completely anonymous so please be honest!

Before I go, I just want to wish Nicola well with her goal this week…if you follow her Shitbird page you’ll see that she’s incredibly close to kissing the hallowed turf of one-derland and I’m excited for her weigh-in on Thursday!

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

The Currency Of Calories

In the here & now, , ,

So, three days in to the new regime and I think it’s fair to say that I’m on a rather steep learning curve…I’m having to kick my handbrake on with every step to save me rolling backwards whilst I fanny about logging everything I eat and drink into My Fitness Pal. This land of calories is a whole new world and I feel a bit like a tourist, you know? After counting points for the last eighteen months, it’s like having a pocket full of pennies when everything’s priced in cents.

Friday, which was day one of my new regime, was the hardest.  I got busy logging my breakfast, and made and logged some lunch to take to work, and then almost had a panic attack when I realised that I’d accounted for roughly two thirds of my daily allowance already.  Whaaa..?  I wanted to hammer down the door of Weight Watchers and beg them to let me back in so I could cling to the tried and tested like a drowning man would cling to a life vest. I didn’t, and in any event I’d forgotten they don’t actually know I’ve gone anywhere yet.

Seriously..? There’s no wonder I haven’t lost any weight recently if this is what a calorie budget buys you. Talk about a wake-up call..!

There’s no such thing as free food when you’re counting calories, is there? Even when you’re talking about foods with a negative calorie value. I distinctly remember someone telling me once that your body expends more calories digesting a tomato than the number of calories contained in the tomato which strikes me as a bloody good deal but even so, according to MFP they have to be counted.

I’m missing the free shit. Grapes are a great example, right? When I eat grapes, which I do all the time, what I actually eat is a punnet of grapes, and before you tell me that’s not normal just like eating a whole melon at one sitting isn’t normal, it’s normal for me. And Weight Watchers used to let me do it.

The Asshole voice went into overdrive on Friday and tried to persuade me that I was actually going to starve. I was fretting as I put my work bag in the car along with my small boxed chicken salad and my one hundred and sixty grams of grapes, to the point where I had to run back into the house for a stress poo, so convinced was I that the world as I knew it was about to end. I felt nervous and a bit twitchy, like an addict with a restricted supply chain…oh, wait a minute…

Thing is, I’d put it out there hadn’t I..? I’d told the whole fucking world that I was going to count calories on My Fitness Pal and as I’ve said a million times before, the only thing bigger than my arse is my pride, which would never allow me to quit on day one no matter how quickly I was fading away.

I’d also committed to drinking at least two litres of water, so for the last three days by lunchtime my eyeballs have been bobbing around above the fill level, and I’ve spent every afternoon peeing like a racehorse.

All that said, I’m starting to get into the swing of things. The weekend has gone really well, you know? God of Pain cast his eyes over my plan on Saturday and gave it the thumbs up, and I didn’t even flinch when the Shitbird Scale took a pot shot at me yesterday morning by declaring a small gain. I suspected that was coming after all the No Count carbs in the early part of last week so I made a jaunty exit from the bathroom without dwelling on it, and imagined instead what the number would be next Sunday. That’s one I’m excited to see.

I have a really good feeling about this. And listen, if any of you do MFP and want to come knocking and add me as a friend, I’m logged as BOTSG_Dee and I’d love to hook up with you. We’re all in this together after all 🙂

By the way, one or two people have asked me why they weren’t able to leave comments on Nicola’s Shitbird page, and I hadn’t realised that the comments bit wasn’t enabled – all fixed now if you want to chat to Nic directly.

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Throw Me A Bone

In the here & now, ,

I’m in a philosophical mood today. As I see it, the only good thing about not moving forwards at a rate of knots is that I’m not going backwards at a rate of knots. Well, the odd whoopsie excepted of course. I had to work hard at getting to philosophical, from a starting position of pissed off, and I’ve been reflecting all weekend on how I could do better. I was convinced that yesterday’s weigh-in was going to be a disaster. Lets be honest most weigh-ins just recently haven’t exactly been the stuff that dreams are made of, have they?  I didn’t feel skinny either as I walked the Shitbird mile, and that’s never a good sign.

I am trying so hard to get it right. The top of the year got off to a cracking start but despite working out as much as I’ve been able with my busted knee, and counting, weighing, in fact obsessing over everything that goes in my mouth – and let’s be honest, plenty of stuff that doesn’t – I’ve barely moved the needle from where it was in early April and I don’t know about you, but to me that feels like a lot of effort for sweet bugger-all progress.  I’m grateful for my solid 2lbs loss this week and I’m feeling more in control, but that’s still two whole months’ worth of trying hard without really going anywhere.

And yes, I know the fuck-up fairy paid a four day visit in the mix but really, two months?

I feel like I’ve been treading water, and it’s so much harder to try and stay motivated when the needle is barely moving, don’t you think?  With north of one hundred pounds left to lose, surely they should be shifting more quickly than this? Come on you Gods of Skinny, throw me a bone here. I’m not even pitching for fireworks when I step on the scale, I just want to see steady progress. I don’t want to be sitting here two months from now trying to justify to myself why the number on the scale is the same as it was in early June.

My head panicked and jumped around all over the place last week, especially after my mid-week Shitbird check-in when it looked like the number might have gone higher still. I mentally rifled through all the fad diets I’ve ever done, desperately trying to recall the one that had helped me drop loads of weight really quickly and then keep it off. Oh yes that’s right, silly me…there wasn’t one. There’s no such thing as a quick fix, and that’s why my arse would still give your average moose a run for its money.

On the upside, the No Count plan seemed to work okay for me last week, and my 2lbs loss made me feel a lot more positive so I’m going to keep it going. I dropped a few balls in the first couple of days as I was navigating my way around it, but I feel better prepared this week, and I shopped yesterday like I knew what I was doing. Time will tell, right?

The Asshole voice has piped down now I’ve kicked sugar to the kerb and cut off his oxygen. My meals are planned and I’m not working away this week so all my stars are aligned…I just need to deliver. Come on, lets go for two more 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Stepping Back From The Ledge

In the here & now, ,

Three full days under my belt without going rogue, check. Get me. And you know it’s been okay, despite a couple of curve balls. Yesterday morning I took two shredded wheat and a banana to work for my breakfast, along with a drizzle of honey (I’m sorry but even hardcore dieting days require a drizzle of honey on shredded wheat, right? It tastes like a stale bird’s nest otherwise). It was all going really well until I doused the contents of my bowl in skimmed milk which, as it turned out, was 10 days out of date, and rancid.

I rest my case. Nobody likes the skinny stuff. We must get through five hundred litres of semi-skimmed milk on a daily basis in our office, and yet the skimmed milk had clearly been hanging around on the bottom shelf like Billy-no-mates since God was a lad.

Anyway, after I’d finished ranting about my spoiled breakfast – never have two shredded wheat been quite so publicly mourned – I resisted the temptation to dip instead into my stash of emergency porridge. On Sunday, I’d swapped out my food plan to the No Count version of weight watchers, and instant porridge isn’t on the list, so it stayed in the drawer whilst I ate a couple of plums instead. Without grumbling, which is always a good indication that I’ve dragged my sorry ass away from the ledge. The crisis has definitely passed.

Dont you think it’s harder though, to step away from the ledge when you’ve had a blow out blow out, as opposed to just a blow out? Despite the three solid days that I’ve got in the bag since I rebooted my attitude on Sunday, I still feel like I’m carrying more than just guilt about the four days I spent eating off-piste. I swear I can feel my arse following me as I walk. It’s like a bad spy movie, where I turn around quickly and nobody’s there but as soon as I start walking again I know I’ve picked up a tail.

It’s reflected on the scales too. To my horror, I had a cheeky mid-week step-on this morning and the needle had continued to go in the wrong direction. Like five pounds on wasn’t enough to prove the point that off-piste eating was a bad idea, the Shitbird scale messed with my head by suggesting another three of the fuckers had joined the party in my pants.

Now, at the time I was rushing around trying to get out of the house to catch an early train, so I didn’t have the luxury of following Shitbird protocol (which demands an immediate recount on every tile in the bathroom followed by best of fifteen on the most favourable spot) so it might not be accurate.

However. When you feel skinny, it’s easier to act skinny. When you feel fat on the other hand…well it’s harder somehow. Standing on the platform this morning with my skinny latte and my banana, the desire to throw my banana at the first skinny girl I saw and go get a bacon butty from one of the food carts was overwhelming. Happily, I resisted which is the reason I didn’t get arrested, and I made my train without incident.

But I’m still having a fat day, which stacks the odds in favour of broken thinking, right? I’ve got the wind behind me though and I’m feeling mardy, so bring it on, I say.  I’m up for a fight ?

Like it..? Tell your friends!