Tag Archives: skinny

On The Hook At Hello

In the here & now, , ,

So I spent another few hours at the hospital yesterday with my mum, who’s having a really shitty time with this broken shoulder. She already takes a bunch of meds every day to control heart-related stuff and some of the pain relief she’s had over the last few days seems to have created a weird kind of alchemy. The bruising down the right hand side of her body is like nothing I’ve ever seen, I mean it’s out of control. Her whole arm has turned black, even the palm of her hand and it’s swollen to almost double it’s usual size. She’s being very stoic but I know she’s in a lot of pain and I feel completely helpless, you know? It’s pushing my buttons off the chart.

Which might explain why, when I was sitting in the cubicle with her yesterday waiting for the results of some blood work and reading her snippets of stuff from the newspaper to keep her mind occupied, my eyes latched onto an article about the latest miracle get-skinny-quick product. By the time I’d skim-read it, I was in.

Now, I like to think I’m the proud owner of at least half a dozen decent brain cells. The kind of brain cells that are unlikely to be taken in by news of an unexpected inheritance from Nigeria for example, if I could just be so kind as to provide my bank details on email to the nice gentleman. I’m the kind of person who might read about someone getting scammed with a shake of my head and a dismissive how could they be so stupid? Seriously, how could anyone fall for that baloney?

(Says the woman who married a fucking con artist, but let’s move swiftly past that one, eh?)

However. Show me a good fat-to-skinny-in-one-leap-with-no-effort story, and I’m on the hook at hello. I’m also likely to have my credit card in my hand before the ink’s even dried on the page, especially when I’m at a low ebb…which is exactly what happened yesterday.

It took my fingers about ten seconds to jump onto Amazon and source these miracle sachets which you dissolve in water and drink before a meal. I have it on good authority that they taste like heaven, chop your appetite in half and you lose like forty pounds in a week. Honestly, it said it in the paper so it MUST be true, right? I’m not even kidding.

Dee, seriously? As IF it could ever be that easy. But by the time the blood had returned to my head, I’d already parted with my twenty quid and organised delivery for this afternoon.

What an ejit.

As I reflected on my purchase, this time without a woody in my pants for a quick fix, I realised that this miracle drink probably wasn’t the silver bullet my mind had latched on to, and it probably wasn’t going to deflate this fat suit overnight either. The blinkers came off and the brain cells kicked in...effective only as part of a calorie-controlled diet…ah, like the calorie-controlled diet I’m already doing anyway…?

I have no words.

 

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Size Matters!

In the here & now, ,

I bought a lovely new top a couple of weeks ago, one size smaller than I’ve worn of late and my intention was to lose enough weight to be able to wear it on my holidays. I was feeling very confident as I fished it out of the wardrobe last night and tried it on. I started to sense it might be a bit too snug as I pulled it over my head and realised it didn’t contain as much elastic as I’d thought it did. I wasn’t wrong, but driven by the desire to get into something the next size down I pushed on regardless.

So, I concluded that it will look lovely when I’m another fifteen pounds down, but right now there’s not a hope in hell of me wearing it. Not if I want to move around. Or in fact breathe.

That said, at one point I thought I was going to have to wear it between now and when I’ve lost those fifteen pounds because I couldn’t actually wriggle my way out of it. The fabric had my arms in a vice-like grip and I couldn’t move them enough to reach around and pull it over my head. I  flapped around the bedroom busting moves for a good fifteen minutes before I finally managed to escape and put the offending article back on its hanger.

Now, I love the top and I’ll keep it of course…at some point over the next couple of months it’ll definitely fit me. But it dawned on me as I shoved it back in the wardrobe that I felt really fat. Which is ironic, because the only reason I tried the top on in the first place was because climbing the stairs to bed I’d felt really skinny and I was convinced my turbo-charged January meant I’d done enough to get into it.  Bugger.

I reckon it’s because I didn’t buy it from a fat girl shop. I’m wearing a size twenty now, which for my friends Stateside is a sixteen…the stuff I’ve bought in that size from fat girl shops is comfortable on me, you know? This one came from a regular store for regular girls, and as I stomped around the bedroom  last night trying to get the circulation back in my arms I hold my hands up and admit to using a few choice words about the skinny pattern-cutters who clearly want girls with bingo wings to stay the hell out of Dodge.

Having had experience of being fat through the ages, it’s definitely easier now to walk into a regular store and find stuff in bigger sizes, but it sort of defeats the object if they begrudge every extra inch of fabric. It’s like they want to tap into the fat-girl market without having to actually make them feel welcome. I imagine a gaggle of skinny designers sat around the table looking mardy with their herbal calorie-free tea debating whether they could even get away with charging more for fat-girl sizes, after all people who can afford to eat so many hob-nobs can clearly afford to pay extra, right?

Logic tells me that it shouldn’t matter what it says on the label as long as something fits and it looks nice, but I have a skinny friend who refuses to shop in a certain store because she has to pick up a ten when she’s really an eight. See, contrary to that wicked rumour, size matters… 🙂

 

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Now You See It, Now You Don’t

In the here & now,

bony

There were a handful of milestones that I actually dreamed about, way back at the beginning of this journey and the thought of hitting them really spurred me on during some of the more memorable battles with the Asshole voice, you know? You might even remember me talking about a few of them at one point or another, like being able to get out of a chair without rocking myself back and forth until I had enough momentum to shift my bulk, or simply being able to cross my legs again…man, that was a special one when I managed it for the first time.

I still get a little thrill when I throw one leg over the other as if I’ve always been able to do that, it’s sort of normal now. What I’m waiting for next is a glimpse of what lies beneath the skin I live in. I’m talking about a hint of bones.

Now, logic tells me that it’s not anatomically possible for folk to function properly without a full compliment of bones in their skeleton, but you know what, I’d be tempted to argue that point. Let’s take hip bones for example. I’ve never ever laid eyes on mine, in fact I’ve never even felt them. If I didn’t know better I’d think maybe I was born without any.

We’ve all seen those images of bikini bodies with their concave stomachs, beautifully framed either side by a hint of hip bone…not me, even in my string bean years. Whenever I laid flat and breathed in, I could poke around as much as I liked but all I ever felt was padding. Nothing angular at all. Cheekbones, hip bones, wrist bones…the list of bones missing in action goes on.

Except, when I’m resident in Skinny Town, I do have a collar bone. And when it’s there, I’m just a little bit in love with it. I mean don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t stick out much, but there’s definitely an outline if you look hard enough. And when you’ve spent years looking like your head and your shoulders are attached to each other without even a neck in between, a collar bone is a thing of beauty.

I’d love to have one of those little hollows at the base of my neck, just in case Prince Charming stopped by one day with a desire to fill it with champagne and lick it off. It could happen, right? The only place he could fill with champagne right now would be my navel which is all well and good but to be fair he’d need a magnum and then some.

Anyway, dragging my mind out of the gutter, the other day as I was hoiking a kettle bell around in the Kingdom of Pain, I was forced to look at myself in the long mirrored wall and I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of collar bone. But then it disappeared again…there seemed to be a hint of it every time I lifted the weight, but no sign of it on the downward stroke. When I got home I must’ve stood and stared in the general shoulder area for a good five minutes from just about every angle…nothing. Bugger.

I know it’s in there…I reckon maybe another couple of dress sizes down and we’ll be re-acquainted, which is almost as exciting as the crossing the legs thing…it might be the only noticeable bone I ever have so it’s a big thing, you know? Real tangible evidence that the skinny girl really is breaking out of the fat suit.

I’ll maintain a watching brief, and keep you posted 🙂

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Thanks…Enough Now!

In the here & now, , , ,



compliment

I could get used to this…having packed such a lot in to the last few days I feel like I’ve already had my weekend, and yet it’s only Sunday with a Bank Holiday tomorrow...get in. I just had my weekly encounter with the bitch in the bathroom and the number hasn’t moved this week, which is annoying, but all it drew from me was a Paddington stare and a silent fuck you. To be honest, it hasn’t put a dink in my Sunday at all – I’m still riding the euphoria of the last couple of days.

On that though…whilst I sincerely appreciate all the love and the compliments which have come my way, I’d like to point out that it would have been much more helpful if you’d all emailed and said you didn’t look bad but Christ on a bike look at the size of your arse...I’ve got the Asshole on my case now with a full blown campaign designed to persuade me that enough is enough.

In the past, it’s sometimes taken just one compliment for me to down tools. Such-a-body said I’m looking good so I think I can leave it there, well done me, I’m done. And when I actually think about it, a compliment combined with me feeling better generally has pretty much guaranteed that me and whatever diet I was doing would head directly to splitzville. Dee and the diet remain the best of friends and wish each other well for the future but are now consciously uncoupling and will be seeing other people…

I need to shut the Asshole down immediately…I’m still eight stones too heavy for my frame and whilst I’m able to do far more now than I could at my heaviest I’m a million miles away from the person I see in the daydreams which I’ve hugged to myself for the last few months, you know? Me, sashaying down the road in skinny jeans without a care in the world. Me, whizzing up that mountain in Cuba without breaking a sweat. Me, enjoying myself doing whatever without giving a monkey’s chuff about what I might look like.

I can pretty much write the script of how it would go if I took my foot off the gas now…I’d be careful for ten minutes and then lose the plot altogether, which is basically what I’ve done my whole life. I think it was Dr. Phil who used to say that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour…he’s got a point, right?

Even when I did the VLC liquid diet and got to my skinniest weight I still stopped a bit short of the goal weight I’d set myself when I started because I’d reached the point where one more chalky soup would have tipped me over the edge. I mean, I might have actually even killed someone. As soon as that BMI number nudged point nought nought nought one inside the boundary of normal that was it. Finito.

What I’ve come to realise is that the number you moot as your ideal number at the start of your journey is an important psychological milestone. Actually mine isn’t a number, it’s a dress size. UK 12…that’s my holy grail. If I stop at a 14 or a 16, I’ll just continue to bounce around because I’ve set size 12 as my anchor. My cornerstone. So if I stop short, essentially I’m buggered.

I love how you all jumped in to make me feel a million dollars, you knew instinctively that I needed that confidence boost and good Lord did you ever come through for me. But I’m going to tuck those lovely words away for a while now, okay? I might wheel them out once in a while if I’m having a down day, or if the Asshole’s chewing my ear and eroding my confidence. But for now, I need to gently shut the door on them and get on with the business of getting skinny!

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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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