Tag Archives: weight loss

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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Degrees Of Light And Shade

Diet update, In the here & now, , ,

whoops

I think I hit the 60lbs milestone last weekend. At least that’s my best guess…I’m still kicking myself for not getting weighed right at the start of this journey, but let’s just say back then my relationship with the bitch in the bathroom wasn’t in a good place. If you’ve been reading along you’ll know I’ve encountered a buggeration factor or two in recent weeks, so I ended up treading water for a bit. Annoying but hey, if you’re treading water at least you’re not sinking, right? But, I’m on the move again and 60lbs off is pretty awesome, if you’ll forgive me a big fat happy dance.

When I started this diet, like every one before it my intention was to hit it completely straight – no weeks where my weight stuck, no weeks where one of those minxy little pounds snuck back into my pants when my back was turned, and certainly no close encounters with my trigger foods. Hmm. I am at least having the good grace to look a bit sheepish but you know what, life just isn’t like that is it? And I’m actually starting to appreciate the degrees of light and shade that I’m encountering on this journey.

Every time I’ve stumbled, I’ve done a bit of a post-FUBAR debrief, and what I’ve realised is that most times where I’ve struggled a bit, I’ve gained a soupçon of insight that maybe I didn’t have before. That’s helping me. And more importantly that that, I’ve come to understand that struggling is different than failing. Now all of you might know that already, but it’s taken me a while to catch on.

It used to baffle me when folk talked about enjoying something more if they’d sweated their cahoonies off to get it. It always struck me as far too much like unnecessary hard work, you know? Working overtime for six straight months with no treats and no new handbags in order to pay for your holiday didn’t mean you’d enjoy it more than if you’d banged it on a credit card and saved the bill for Ron, surely?

Similarly I’ve fantasised often about what it would be like to just wake up one day in a gorgeous skinny body. I mean like go to bed fat and wake up skinny. Instant skinniness…it’s every fat girl’s dream. But I can tell you exactly how that fantasy would have played out…by the end of week one my skinny pants would be a bit on the snug side and within weeks those sleek smooth limbs would start to resemble a lumpy old pillow. Because that’s what would’ve happened if you’d attached this head to a perfect body…they wouldn’t match.

So, my journey so far has been about as straight as a dog’s hind leg. It doesn’t look like I intended it to when I set out but you know what, the degrees of light and shade are making it stick. Instead of perfect-perfect-perfect-fail-the end, it looks more like try-try-succeed-whoops-yes!-celebrate-scratch head- try-try-happy-pissed off-try-lightbulb-try-succeed-try-shit-happy…not straight, but beautiful in its own way.

That’s why I feel sure that eventually, when I do wake up in my skinny body – my hard-won long awaited skinny body – all these learning opportunities mean it’ll be attached to a wise old head who cherishes it and treats it well, and no matter how hard the asshole voice nags, deprives it of cheese balls until the end of time.

Here’s to the next 60lbs…onwards! 🙂

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Ta Daaah!

Diet update, In the here & now, , ,

three

Today is a good day, in fact it has all the hallmarks of being one of my favourite days in the last seven and a half months. I’m occupying less space than I was this time last week, to the tune of three pounds 🙂 Three pounds of fat, according to geeks on the internet who know stuff, equates to roughly the size of a cantaloupe melon, and if you melted it all down it would fill three coffee cups. Who knew!

It feels all the sweeter, because I’ve sort of been treading water a bit for the last few weeks, as well you know because it’s all played out right under your watchful gaze. I had a great weight loss in the few weeks after Christmas but then it kind of went a bit wonky. I put a pound on, then it stuck for a couple more weeks, then I shook off that extra pound and geared up for a go-for-it week which ended up dragging its heels and crimping off half of one pound which didn’t exactly invoke my happy dance. My head needed a good loss this week more than my arse did, to be fair.

It makes the hard work worth it, especially days like yesterday, where the Asshole voice gave me hell pretty much all day. I just kept thinking about how determined I felt last week after my measly half a pound loss, and what I wrote down this time last week…I’m going for a 100% clean eating week with exercise every day and I’m going to resist any asshole suggestions that don’t support the cause. It worked, even in the face of moussaka-gate, and I feel epic.

So, the other thing that happened this week was a little bit of self-encouragement. Oh, is that what we’re calling it these days, huh? *Ahem* 

Yes, whatever, there’s a new addition to my handbag collection, come on I’ve been beyond restrained over the last few months. She’s an elephant grey cross body chain-around messenger bag, and I’m very giddy. Pre-loved of course, I can’t afford champagne prices on my prosecco income, but like most of my carefully chosen collection, you wouldn’t know…she’s been very well looked after. I have the same one in black, and she’ll fit in beautifully.

And, I went back to Marks and Sparks, and bought the shirt! Just my luck, they had sold out of my size so I had two choices…order one in, or buy it in the next size down…yep, I bought the size 20 because whilst I’m not quite there, I will be soon. I could wear it, over a tee-shirt you know, unfastened? I won’t though. It’s hanging on the outside of my wardrobe so I can admire it’s rich turquoisy green every time I look over, and I shall try it on weekly until it fits properly.

That was a milestone purchase you know? I bought it because I loved it, not because it would fit. And it’s from a non fat-girl collection, which officially makes me normal. I had a moment, in the shop which was almost emotional…it meant a lot. It’s another thing that I can now do, which seven months ago would have felt so far out of reach I wouldn’t have even allowed myself to hope.

So I’m hoping you’ve all had a great week too, and that you’re doing a happy dance of your own. Here, the sun’s shining, and Charlie dog is waiting by the front door…in his clumsy doggy hint-dropping fashion he’s making it clear that all this dancing and grinning and writing is all very well but it’s not getting him outside. It’s not getting me out either so it’s time to skedaddle.

Lots of love to all, and thanks as always for your awesome company…your thoughts and notes and support and encouragement make a difference every single day 🙂

 

 

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Tea For The Posse

In the here & now, ,

rating

I woke up today to a message from a company who want to send me a freebie, in exchange for me doing a review of their product on our website – how exciting! Well, that was my first thought. Let me wind back a few steps…do you remember when I went to meet all my fellow UK Blog Awards finalists one evening a few weeks ago in London? Quite a few people mentioned back then that they regularly got offered free stuff, and I remember thinking then that maybe I should muscle in and start blogging about holidays, or fashion or something where lots of interesting free stuff might come my way…I love a bargain, me.

So there was much giddiness at Skinny Towers this morning, I kind of feel like I’ve arrived. Except there seems to be so many rules about how to manage stuff like that, that I immediately started stressing and my biggest worry of all of course, was what if I didn’t like the product? What if it tastes like feet?

It’s a range of teas, which allegedly help you detox and lose weight, and that all sounds really amazing but I’m not sure it’s something I’d get on with. I mean I can’t imagine that I could add a dash of milk and one sugar and drink it as I’m doing the washing up, you know? I think I’d need a yoga mat and a strappy top and a clear complexion with no wrinkles. And a serene expression, which has never been my forte.

I’ve never been very good at funny teas. I have a friend at work who’s really into fruit teas. They always smell amazing, and there are no calories in them at all so you could drink them all day long. But they confuse my senses, which kind of makes me suspicious you know?  They smell like guava, or blackberry or some other exotic thing, but they never actually taste like they smell, and that messes with my mojo. Invariably when I’ve tried them, I find they just taste of feet.

I think I’m going to have to decline their offer, right? It doesn’t feel right to accept something that I’m fairly certain I’m not going to like, and quite apart from that, this isn’t really the kind of blog where I’m bringing you the latest trends in this or that anyway, is it? You’re not used to me saying do this, or try that and it makes me feel a bit weird imagining myself in that space.

If I’d set myself up as some kind of expert, or had set my stall out as the blogging guru of weight loss, you know, someone who dispensed advice and guidance left and right then it might be different. But all I really do is share with you the inner workings of my head, which I’m constantly trying to wrestle into the sensible zone, whilst simultaneously squashing the asshole voice and doing the best I can on my own journey down the scale. It’s about what turns lights on for me, rather than what might work for you, and that’s a subtle but important difference.

I do know that you listen carefully to the words I throw out there, and I’m regularly touched by the messages I get where you tell me that you’re relating and finding it helpful as you navigate your own journey. I love it when that happens, it honestly gives me the biggest buzz ever. So I’m really conscious that everything I write or talk about has to come from my heart, like it always has, otherwise it won’t be authentic.

That said, I’d just like to make it absolutely clear that if anyone from Chanel is poking around the blog, the same rules wouldn’t apply to your handbags, right? If you want a review writing about how a fat lass from Yorkshire feels carrying a piece from your latest collection, I’m very happy to oblige. I’ll say whatever you like, and it’ll be the best review you’ve ever had, I guarantee it 🙂

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What Goes In One End…

In the here & now, , ,

ideas

It’s funny you know, there are so many things that we’ve chatted about over the last few months where I’ve come to realise that life and diet kind of mirror each other, you know? It’s almost like there’s a set of life rules which apply to all situations including food and lifestyle choices, which I always regarded as something completely separate.

I’m going through the process of applying tags to all my posts at the moment so they feed into the tag cloud I made last week, and reading some of the older posts reminded me of some of the moments where things started to fall into place for me. Unpicking the flawed thought patterns in my head is an ongoing process which has been utterly priceless on this journey so far, and I find myself drawing comparisons all over the place now, often subconsciously which goes to show just how determined my head is to weed out all the crap.

This week, out of nowhere, I found myself staring one of my more familiar mantras square between the eyes and wondering how I’d never drawn the parallel before between life and diet. I bang on about it all the time, and yet I’ve never joined the dots.

So one of the things that I live and breathe in my day job is leadership development. When people first start cutting their teeth in leadership roles, one of the things which sometimes trips them up is where they start holding people accountable for the results they get without giving any thought to the input which was at the root of someone’s success or failure in any given project.

Of course you have to measure and evaluate whether someone is achieving results, but you can’t coach and develop their output, can you? What you can do as a leader is coach and support someone in how they do their job, so the quality of their input is better. In turn that has a direct effect on their results, which get better. Every time.

My mantra therefore is that you manage the input, and measure the output. Don’t hold people accountable for just the results, right? The results are what they are, actually they’re just a by-product of what someone has put in at the front end…accountability starts and ends with the behaviours which feed those results at the business end. And I was listening to one of our senior managers playing that back to someone in his team, and the penny dropped…how is that different in the context of our efforts to lose weight? It’s not! Of course it’s not, in fact saying it out loud makes me feel like Queen of stating the bleeding obvious.

I should worry less about what the bitch in the bathroom is going to tell me, and focus all my energies instead on what I’m bringing to the party. The number I drop at the end of the week is a direct result of my input over the last seven days, right? With the odd blip here and there, but by and large there’s a direct correlation. The number is what it is, the bits that I’m accountable for are the choices I’ve made around what I’m putting in my mouth and how far and how fast and how regularly I’m moving my body.

I take care of the input, and the bitch in the bathroom’s only job is to report back on the number. Providing she’s on the correct tile, obviously.

Of course it’s never just that simple is it…if it was I’d have earned my string bean stripes donkey’s years ago. It’s complicated by the Asshole voice who’s on a mission to derail the input and my own occasional willingness to listen to him over holding the line and getting it right every time. However. Instead of saying I’m going for three pounds down this week, what I should be saying is I’m going for a 100% clean eating week with exercise every day and I’m going to resist any asshole suggestions that don’t support the cause.

So…I’m going for a 100% clean eating week with exercise every day and I’m going to resist any asshole suggestions that don’t support the cause.

Watch this space 🙂

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