Tag Archives: willpower

Willpower Testing Lab

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

cat

So I’m heading out of town again this weekend, just for a couple of days – one of my closest friends lives a couple of hours north of here, and this same weekend every year there’s a large craft fair near to where she lives – it marks start of the run up to Christmas for me, since it’s chock full of Christmassy things. We go every year, and have a really lovely day out. You know the type of thing…there are some really unusual gifts, everything from hand finished cashmere shawls, beautiful statement jewellery, clothing and accessories to unique art works and beautiful house things. Oh yes, and the food hall.

What can I tell you about the food hall..?  I’m salivating at the thought. Most of it is home-made produce from local artisans who come and proudly display their wares…it’s an aladdin’s cave of speciality breads, cupcakes, flavoured vodka and gin, fudge, brownies, pies, sausages…olive oils, handmade chocolates, unique cheeses and amazing homemade chutneys. To be fair, that barely scratches the surface – it’s beyond awesome. And all the vendors give away free samples to tempt your palette and entice you into buying.

On a scale of 1-10, just exactly how much enticing do you reckon it’s taken in the past, to get this fat girl to stagger away at the end of the day under the weight of a dozen or more carrier bags..? “Would you like to try a…” “YES PLEASE!”  Yeah, that’s about how much. This time of year has invariably also coincided with the start of the pre-Christmas diet (which has been just as successful as the New Year diet, the Pre-Easter diet, the Post-Easter diet, the summer holiday diet, and the post-summer holiday diet) and as traditions go, the Living North Fair has also been the undoing of the pre-Christmas diet on pretty much an annual basis ever since we started going.

So it’s with a certain amount of trepidation that I’m looking forward to the weekend, because genuinely, it’s going to be a real test of my willpower. Here’s what usually happens. My friend, who by nature is one of life’s most nurturing people will ask me as we head towards the weekend what I would like to eat when I arrive on Friday. Am I dieting? Does a bear shit in the woods?  “Yes, I’m dieting but don’t put yourself to any trouble, I’ll eat what you eat, as long as I can point it”. And I usually do, after downing two large gin and tonics and the majority of the pre-dinner nachos and dip which I always say I’m not going to eat, but which I eat anyway.

Saturday morning usually starts with my friend cooking bacon sandwiches, which I accept with enthusiasm because this year – whichever year it’s been – I’m not going to eat anything from the food hall, I’m just going to look, so best have a decent breakfast. Did you know you can look with the inside of your mouth? It seems you can, I have perfected the skill over the last 5 or so years. By the time I’ve worked my way around all the stalls and sampled every scrap of whatever’s on offer, not to mention tasting the outputs from the cookery demonstrations I am groaning with food, having gained 10lbs over the course of one afternoon, and having left with enough food to last until the New Year diet starts. I mean I’ve blown the pre-Christmas one now, right?

This year, it’s going to be different. I’m telling you about it, and I’m accountable to you guys. I shall plan ahead, check in about dinner plans, agree there will be no nachos within spitting distance of me, and on Saturday I am going to have some samples…but I shall eat fruit for breakfast, and I’ll allocate myself a generous points budget for freebies so I don’t feel deprived. Then a light dinner will see me right.

I wonder whether any of the stands will have luxury polishing cloths so I can touch up my halo on Sunday morning.. 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

A Dollop More Codswallop

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

dollop

So, according to another informative article written by experts, I can seemingly blame all of my weight issues on the layout of my kitchen. Marvellous – I knew if I waited long enough that some ‘ologist’ or other would identify a reason for my chunky disposition based on factors which didn’t include me eating the wrong things in industrial quantities whilst glued to the armchair watching tv. Written by an esteemed professor of something – aren’t they always – this guy seemed to want to absolve me of any responsibility whatsoever for being fat. And as always, I was ready to listen.

The piece started with a question, about whether I walked past the fruit bowl to get to the biscuit tin.  Well…duh. I’m 140lbs too heavy for my 5’5″ frame, so why don’t you take your best guess..? Apparently if you ‘proudly display your bananas’ you’re likely to weigh 13lbs less. And what’s more, if you have cereal and soft drinks sitting out on your counter top, you’re likely to weigh 46lbs more. He didn’t mention more or less than what, which was a bit unhelpful. I mean it’s information we need to know – if the control subject is a moose for example, proudly displaying my bananas to shave 13lbs off seems a bit pointless, right? (But just in case, I’m proudly displaying two bananas and a tangerine…it doesn’t hurt to hedge your bets.)

Doubt about his credentials started to creep in when he went on to assert that if you only had healthy food on display and the goodies were out of sight, you wouldn’t think about eating them. Do you think he’s ever met a fat girl..? I’ve been known to defrost emergency ice cream with a hairdryer because I couldn’t wait 10 minutes till it was soft enough to get the spoon in. And let’s be honest, opening a cupboard door to get at the hob-nobs hardly requires Oceans Eleven type planning does it…no, much as I wanted to latch onto all the reasons he listed as to why my kitchen might be making me fat, it seems he was in fact talking utter shite.

But you know what, I’m kind of ok with that – there have been points in my life where I would have bought into every word, not to mention handing over wads of cash to buy the book he was selling or join the seminar he was running, because blaming anyone but myself for the size of my arse was far less painful than admitting that I’ve done this to myself. I do have thyroid issues, but I had them when I was skinny too, so I’ve stopped hiding behind that excuse. What was I thinking? I want to go back in time and shake myself, for every time I’ve gotten skinny, and voiced my determination to stay skinny this time…in between mouthfuls of cake. I did this to myself, again, and now I’m undoing it. Again.

I’ve come quite a long way in the last couple of months. A few things have happened as I’ve been writing down my thoughts and sharing them on here. I feel more accountable…I know if I tried to pull any bullshit you’d all call me on it. Giving my asshole voice a name and personality all of his own has boosted my ability to unravel lots of twisted thinking and dodge things going on in my head designed to poke holes in my willpower – finding out my asshole voice has a very large family of similar asshole voices who live with each and every one of you guys has helped even more. If I can do it, you can do it because you know what? If you can do it, so can I. There’s power in numbers.

Onwards ladies…we’re really doing this 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Milestone Moments & Memories

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

IMG_3697

Hey posse…home at last, to a rock star welcome from my four-legged fur baby and an enthusiastic welcome from my boy, who’d managed to empty the fridge whilst I was gone…quelle surprise! 🙂 It’s been a memorable trip, and now it’s lovely to be home. Thanks for all your input, comments and emails re yesterday’s post – I love that whilst I was away I sense-checked my decisions and choices every time against the question ‘what would the posse do…?‘ and I love even more that I pretty much hit it straight for that very reason. And I’m here to tell you, you are ALL getting on the asshole’s last good nerve!

In response to both dilemmas, I took a mouthful, made all the right noises about how amazing it tasted and how much I appreciated the gesture, then handed the baton – along with cake and spoon – to the girls who executed a pretty perfect mexican wave of appreciation. They know I’m dieting, and even when the kind of cocktails that would happily take the enamel off your teeth were in play they had my back. Teamwork at it’s finest.

And I needn’t have been terrified about being frog-marched out of the sweet spot for my lack of willpower, never to return…no lack of willpower, and no asshole victories, just some creative accounting within a framework of accountability which means I’ve had treats, but they’ve been totted up instead of written off. I pared back on some of the drinking because eating the food I wanted was more important to me…I had as much fun as everyone else and what’s more I even remember it all, which is an added bonus! Did I wish I could throw caution to the wind and have everything I wanted..? Yes, of course I did, but the realisation that I can’t has wormed its way into my psyche, and even on holiday, I’m all over it.

For those of you who remember the heifer in the helicopter post, and were wondering how it went…yes I had to pay a $100 heavy levy, kind of an arse tax if you will, but it was a little discrete tile on the floor where I had to weigh in, just like everyone else and no alarms sounded, no SWAT team arrived to take out the fat girl and we had the most amazing time, flying over the Grand Canyon and eating a picnic lunch with champagne next to the Colorado river. I’ve even attached a picture by way of evidence, instead of my usual clip-art! For those of you who like or follow the Break Out The Skinny Girl Facebook page you’ll find a couple more pictures on there too.

So, enough…I’ll quit banging on about my trip now, and let’s pick up where I left off with the usual motley assortment of head spam shall we?  I have to ask myself the question what now?  This has generally been the danger zone for me…I’ve got form, in terms of dieting hard for a special event and then leaping off the dieting bandwagon with indecent haste as soon as the milestone moment has passed.  I half expected to be locked horns with the asshole at the first post-flight meal but I think he was too busy working on his exercise avoidance strategy to pay much attention to my food choices so I’ve just quietly carried on making good choices. But I need a new goal, another milestone moment to work towards…I’ll share it with you of course once I’ve figured it out:)

To coin my friend’s phrase, I’m thinking Kylie by Christmas?

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Hurting You, Pleasing Me

Biggest struggles, Freeform thoughts, ,

 

image

So we’ve had the most amazing trip. I’ve made some awesome memories and one of the nights in particular will stay with me always…early cocktails on the terrace of the Skyfall Lounge watching the sun set and seeing Las Vegas come alive, followed by dinner on the terrace of Olives restaurant at The Bellagio, whilst their fountains danced right in front of us…it was magical.

This was day two. Bearing in mind how flexible the weight watchers food plan is, up to that point I had felt completely in charge of me…keeping track of points when you’re constantly being offered things where you can only estimate point values – like the airline meals for example – is always going to be a challenge. But you’ve got to eat, on an 11 hour flight, right?  And when you cross time zones and end up with an extra 8 hours in your day you kind of have to adjust stuff, mess around with your budget a bit.

I took a balanced approach…accepting a little pot of ice-cream with the movie on the flight felt okay because I’d refused a bread roll and chosen not to eat desserts and cake with the meal…not perfect, but given the asshole’s campaign to make me forget the diet for the duration of the trip I felt I was firmly in control of my choices. So I was doing ok.

But going back to our memorable night..getting a table on the terrace at the Skyfall Lounge is a privilege reserved for a very chosen few. My friends had made the reservation weeks in advance, emailing details about the fact we were celebrating a milestone birthday to help get it in the bag, and so there we were…pre-dinner cocktails with the best view in town. Amazing. And then the manager rocked up with a surprise birthday cake bomb which he proceeded to souse in limoncello, cover with two huge dollops of whipped cream and present to me with a flourish. What a lovely gesture…but man oh man, I’d quietly made skinny food choices all day, trying to juggle stuff so I could fit all the planned treats in, including cocktails and a special dinner.

So do I say ‘thanks but no thanks’, and throw the gesture back in his face, or do I eat it as he’s standing there expectantly, having just presented the fat lady who is clearly no stranger to cake with the best boozy creamy cake ever. Let’s look at the evidence…I’m a people pleaser. I do in fact love cake. And limoncello. And cream! And they’re all on a plate together in front of me, an unexpected gesture made by someone who wanted to do a nice thing, just for me. And the asshole in my mind is on it like a car bonnet…you ungrateful cow, of course you have to eat it…it would be totally rude not to, he’s trying to make your birthday treat extra special, you’ll look ridiculous if you make a fuss and say you don’t want it…

Dilemma. And bugger me, fast forward a few hours…we’d had a magical dinner, again, seats on the Olives restaurant terrace are really difficult to engineer since everybody wants them yet they aren’t bookable in advance. We got really lucky, and the evening was made more enjoyable still by our waiter Paul, who was utterly charming, and just wanted us to have an awesome time. And would you bloody believe it, after my carefully chosen meal he arrived at the table with profiteroles with a Happy Birthday piped in chocolate and birthday candles, just for me, thinking he was going to make my evening extra special.

Again with the dilemma…and again with the asshole who by this time of course was hopping up and down like Rumplestiltskin screaming don’t be rude just eat it and be thankful for the lovely gesture, don’t even think about saying no! Once again I’m faced with Hobson’s choice…put someone’s feelings before my own and risk the wheels coming off my food plan…or put myself first and hurt their feelings. Twice in one otherwise perfect night!

So…over to you guys. What do you reckon happened..? And what would you have done in my place..? Bear in mind, I’m not perfect and I’m navigating the road to skinny town the best way I can…I’ll share the outcome tomorrow but I’m curious as to how you all would have reacted ?

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

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.

Like it..? Tell your friends!