Tag Archives: sweet spot

Fairy Tale Lite

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

bunting-clip-art-622216.

One of my biggest flaws over the years has been my tendency to look at life in a ‘Once upon a time’ kind of way – I’ve always been blessed with a really positive optimistic outlook, and whilst that’s great, I’ve learned to my cost that it’s best not to cross the line and expect life to mirror a full-on fairly tale…very rarely does that charmed life exist. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times – really really dark times – where fixating on a positive outcome has prevented my mind from wandering to places it might otherwise not have entirely recovered from, and that has served me well. But marry the optimism with naivety and blind faith that things will work out ok and that’s where things have occasionally descended into farce.

My problem has always been that I just don’t see the big red flags waving at me as I breeze through a given situation. Actually that’s not strictly true…I see them, I just don’t recognise them for what they are. To you and the rest of the world they would look like red flags spelling danger…to me, they look like bunting. They may as well have balloons attached. The only way I can describe it, is that sometimes the line between wanting something to be a certain way, and believing that it is that way gets really blurred.

The best examples I have are nothing to do with dieting…it’s a pity that my blog relates to dieting rather than dating because for every dieting anecdote I could share with you, I have ten which involve my quest to find Mr Perfect, many of which would make your toes curl and your hair stand on end. Following the incident in Brazil with the thong, which I covered in a previous post, I called off the search and have remained contentedly single ever since.

Much as a life companion is an appealing thought, my wish-list is fairly demanding and I’ve kissed more frogs than I care to admit. Hell I even married a couple of ’em. I have one of the best track records E.V.E.R for being drawn to fantasists, winos and weirdos, all of whom appear utterly charming to me so that’s definitely an area of my life which should remain undisturbed for now.

I’m trying really hard to anticipate the bumps in the road that I might encounter on the way to Skinny Town, so I don’t have to worry about failing to see them until the very moment I’ve face-planted and everything’s gone to shit. To be fair, whilst the question of relationships doesn’t directly relate to my weight loss journey, as anyone who identifies as an emotional eater would agree, often the force-field surrounding them can have a massive knock-on effect on the speed at which you can fall off the wagon.

I’d be very confident that should the opportunity present itself to remain locked in a room for the next 18 months, or alternatively be swathed in relationship-free bubble wrap, nothing will shake the dieting resolve or knock me out of the sweet spot. Therefore, that’s what has to happen…it’s part of my strategy.

Whilst I appreciate that’s a bit like someone who doesn’t eat chocolate saying they’re not going to eat chocolate, I’m nailing my colours to the mast on this one anyway.  My life will remain a Prince Charming free zone. As you peel away the dress sizes there’s no getting away from the fact that your stock value rises on the relationship front. The smaller you become, ironically the less invisible you are – you’ll have to trust me on this one, having skittered up and down the size continuum several times I’ve experienced it first hand.

My fairy tale, on this occasion is the lite version, no Prince Charming required 🙂

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Skinny on Purpose

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

bulb

I can’t remember which blog post it was, but a few days ago I alluded to some of the homework I’d done when I was seeing my hookie spooky magic lady, and it prompted me to look back through some of the sessions we did and the reflections she always encouraged me to write down afterwards.  I was fairly self-aware even before I started talking to her, but I genuinely had some real light-bulb moments during the times that we sat and chatted back and forth about…well, stuff.

One of the biggest revelations to me was that skinny people weren’t generally skinny by accident. I mean yes of course you always get the odd smug string bean here and there who takes great delight in telling you that they can eat what they like without putting on a pound…I don’t know about you but I always want to enquire whether they’d like to chew on my fist, that being the case. But generally skinny people are skinny because they choose to be skinny.

Which basically means that if they eat out in a restaurant, they might look at the menu (just like I do), and immediately start salivating over the calorie-tastic menu options (just like I do) but after mentally calculating how many calories are in the dish they most like the look of (I don’t do that) they decide against it in favour of a skinny girl option (I don’t do that either 🙁 ). Up to that point, I hadn’t given much thought to how the mind of a skinny person operated, because even at the points in my life where I qualified as a string bean, I wasn’t there long enough to really settle into the mindset of being a skinny person.

I mean yes, for swathes of my life I’ve been in the sweet spot and almost evangelical about the food choices I made because I was on my way down the sizes, but in terms of it just being something I did naturally, unbidden when I wasn’t actually on a diet…no. It would never have even occurred to me to participate in such madness.

It was a revelation, genuinely a light switching on in my head. It made me accept that I had to be accountable for my choices, be they good or bad you know? Every choice has consequences and being a grown up means understanding and accepting the consequences before you make the choice. I could no longer bemoan the fact that I put weight on easily when all these people *sweeping motion of fat arm* could eat what they liked without getting fat. The light bulb switching on made me realise that the reason they didn’t get fat was because making the choice to be skinny was a constant in their life where it never had been in mine. Who knew!

I’d love to say that following that realisation I immediately started making all the right choices and from there it’s been plain sailing…of course it hasn’t.  I’ve talked a lot over the last few weeks about finding the sweet spot, and if you’re not there, you’re not there. Knowledge doesn’t even come close to equalling power if your head’s not in the right place. Ask any fat girl about the theory of losing weight and they can almost certainly reel off more info than your average skinny string bean expert. Putting it into practise is something entirely different though mm?

But I’m there now. I’m making those choices now. And per my BHAG, when I arrive into skinny town, instead of throwing caution to the wind, I’m going to carry on making grown-up-accept-the-consequences skinny choices, because now I get it. I know have to.

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The Sandwich Dance

Biggest Triumphs, In the here & now, , , ,

sanger

It was all going so well. Don’t panic, it still is, I’m just being a drama queen.  Today…plain food sailing from the minute I opened my eyes. Porridge, pointed, tick. Lunch, prepared at home and taken to work, pointed, tick. I even ate lunch at lunchtime, not mid morning, that’s how much I was on my game today. Over-ripe banana masquerading inside a greenish banana skin, cheeky knacker can’t fool me – bin – so no mid afternoon snack, but that’s ok. I wasn’t hungry. Until someone offered me a free sandwich and suddenly I was starving. And I said yes, to the sandwich. Well strictly speaking I didn’t, I opened my mouth and actually formed the word ‘no’, but somehow yes came out instead. Along with my hand, to take the sandwich. Judas!

Lunch, for a big meeting going on down the corridor had been catered apparently, and there was stuff left over. They must have been fairly important visitors, I mean this wasn’t just your ordinary sandwich, this was an epic sandwich. And somehow it was now sitting on my desk. Staring at me. Being all….seductive.

It was a large round soft brown bread roll, with double cheese, spring onion and mayo inside, all wrapped up in a little cellophane bag. It could at least have had the good grace to be a sandwich I wasn’t struck on, but that sandwich just happened to be my favourite.  I love cheese. And you know what else..? It was as heavy as a brick. I mean that sandwich was made by someone who knows how to make a sandwich…bursting at the seams, chock full of filling, not some mean-fisted measured spoon’s worth. I picked it up and when I felt the weight of it, I felt proud of the guy who’d made that sandwich, in a fat-girl-strikes-gold kind of way, he’d knocked it right out of the park.

The asshole in my head sprang into action immediately. Go on…it’s your favourite. And you’re practically on holiday now, so it’s ok. You’ve done really well but you can take your foot off for a few days, you don’t want to be worrying about points. You’ve probably got enough points left anyway and if you did eat it, you could go without dinner later, it’s six and two threes…go on, it’ll be fine…it’s cheese! Mmmmm….cheeeeeeese….

That sodding sandwich flirted with me for the rest of the afternoon. You know the score…every time I looked at it, it was looking right back at me. I moved it off to the side, next to my bag, but I could still see it out of the corner of my eye where it seemed to be almost dancing to get my attention. I tried and better tried to concentrate on the piece of work I was doing but all I could think about was how that double cheese and spring onion combo would taste as it burst onto  my tongue and how my taste buds would explode at the sharpness of the cheese.

But I didn’t eat it. I brought it home. It was a helluva fight…me and the asshole in my mind both battered bloody and bruised. But now it’s like I’ve stuck the pin back in the grenade…it’s lost it’s power. I brought the sandwich home so my boy can take it to work for his lunch tomorrow.  It’s sitting in the fridge right behind me as I type this, still soft and brown and heavy and very very cheesy…but I’m over it.  The craving passed.

Me: 1 – Asshole: 0. Again.  Let me hear you say YEAH!

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The asshole inside my head.

In the here & now, , , ,

thoughtSo we’re getting to know each other a little bit now, right? I think it’s probably about time I introduced you to the asshole who lives inside my head. Think of it like I’m inviting you home to meet the folks. Now, I don’t think this is unique to me – I suspect not, I think perhaps everyone has a member of his extended family who muscles in on their thought process from time to time – but my guy has a black belt in mind games and he’s pretty much carved out a permanent home in a corner of my head.  He doesn’t really have a name, so I just call him Asshole.

Now you might think that’s a bit rude, but it’s a name that suits him. The first dictionary I looked at defines the word ‘asshole’ as ‘a stupid, mean or contemptible person’ and I’ve gotta be honest, it suits him perfectly. Occasionally he’s thrown me the odd crumb of a compliment but knowing him as I do it’s nothing more than reverse psychology…he’s clever like that. Strangely, since I named him, it’s been easier to separate his voice from my own, and I’m here to tell you that’s been a big help. Strangely enough he’s been very quiet over the last couple of weeks – I suspect he’s just observing these blog shenanigans from the sidelines and lulling me into a false sense of security until he’s decided on a strategy.

His is the voice I hear when one of my insecurities bubbles near to the surface. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fairly confident person and I’m very comfortable around people, but when he spots a loose thread he’s in there like a ninja, grabbing every opportunity to blow a big hole in my self esteem. His words are like barbed wire. ‘You look really fat in that’. ‘Yeh your hair looks ok but OMG who’s gonna look at your hair with so many chins clamouring for attention’. ‘I don’t know why you’re even bothering to look at the new winter collection, you’re going to look like a sack of spanners in whatever you put on anyway’…you get the gist. ‘Did you see the way that skinny woman looked at you when she walked past? You’ve probably put her off hob nobs for life’.

And he’s armed with a thousand ways to poke holes in my willpower. His was the handiwork you saw first hand when I poked fun at the suggestion that booking a block of gym classes would keep me motivated. He’s the absolute daddy when it comes to talking me into something I shouldn’t do, and talking me out of doing something I should. He tries his best to derail me whenever I’m motoring down the right track, and his impressive success rate over the years has turned him into a right smug little bastard.

He HATES it when I find the sweet spot. That place where I am right now makes it much harder for him to get at my willpower but he still walks beside me wherever I go, looking for his window of opportunity…I might be on top of things just now but I feel him, waiting. He’ll focus his energy on  my mood as a back door entry to my willpower because that’s worked well for him in the past.

I’m happy to report that for now, that door is locked and bolted.

 

 

 

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Motivation theories (Part 1)

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now

motivation

So I’m in that sweet spot right now – call it the honeymoon period, or whatever else you like but that shield that protects a girl from cake is fully locked and loaded, seriously, nothing’s getting through this bad boy. But I can’t take it for granted, you know? I’ve been here before – so many times – and it terrifies me that tomorrow, or the next day or the day after that, it will disappear like it never existed in the first place and you’ll find me in a corner somewhere looking sheepish, high on sugar having had a break and vaporised three kit-kat chunkys and a packet of hobnobs.

As a back-up plan, I thought it might be interesting to Google what motivates other people to lose weight, or should I say what keeps them motivated when they’re losing weight. The two things are of course completely different. I’ve often been motivated to lose weight when I’ve seen a dodgy photo of myself for example which couldn’t be explained away by poor lighting or a bad angle. But as the fresh horror of the photo fades, and you’ve un-tagged yourself from it on Facebook (or better still you’ve blackmailed/bribed/threatened the friend who posted it and made them remove it altogether), often so does the resolve to lose a few pounds. Keeping the motivation going when you’re past that first flush of willpower and the weight loss has settled down to slow and steady, is a different thing altogether.

Not surprisingly, there are a number of people who profess to be experts on that very topic, who are practically falling over themselves on Google to show you the way. Very helpfully they’ve even compiled lists of things which are sure fire winners.  Let’s look at the first suggestions that I came across shall we, you know, to just kind of kick a few ideas around a bit. Apparently, one great way to maintain your motivation is to have lots of sex.

So…I’m a single girl. Which immediately throws something of a spanner in the works. Sadly I don’t think I can include that one in my toolkit. I don’t fall out with the theory per se, but exactly who am I meant to be having lots of sex with? I know that allegedly a lot of blokes admire the fuller female form, but lets be honest, a) where the fuck are they all and b) generally speaking have you seen the type?  Enough said.

The second suggestion is to weigh yourself every day. I’m clear on this point- the scales are not my friend. Just this week they put a massive crimp in my Sunday, and I cannot face the prospect of starting every day with a big fat tony bear tantrum if they deliver bad news, so they don’t make it into my contingency plan either.

Number three on the list was to look in the mirror regularly – apparently fat people avoid mirrors? No shit Sherlock.

I think I need to do more research.

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