I imagine more than a few of you will be familiar with the self destruct button, right? You know that thing you press which immediately snatches defeat from the jaws of victory? Mine’s seen a bit of welly over the years, in fact the letters have worn off and it feels as smooth as a pebble washed a million times by the sea. It’s under my thumb right now, and it’s like I’ve got some weird kind of fat-girl twitch making me press it, over and over.
Why do I do it? Yesterday was bleurgh. I dodged a few things I shouldn’t have, ate salad for lunch but wobbled a bit in the afternoon (fucking refresher lollies ambushed me again at work, although I did count them) and then I went and ate a monster portion of chilli for tea which pushed me right over my calories. It’s all officially gone tits up, in fact my head is like Elvis…it’s left the building.
What I’m eating isn’t the only fuckery going on here. I’m sleep-dodging too. I sat up last night until eleven thirty or so before heading up to bed knowing I needed to write this post. No careful drafting it out and marinading it for a while before refining and making it just right…no no no. Not this girl, in this mood.
What I actually did was sit in the chair and binge watch ninety day fiancé all evening, even though it’s a pile of shite and I couldn’t give a damn about the stupid people in it and their badly scripted trials and tribulations. Maybe it’s because I imported my own car-crash fiancé years ago from over the pond and I’m fascinated watching other people’s disasters unfold in slow motion just like mine did.
That particular life disaster is buried in the archives somewhere for those of you fancy a good laugh, but whatever…I sat and watched five episodes back to back till I could hardly stay awake from sheer fucking boredom, when I should have been busy tipping the contents of my head onto the page and rearranging it all in the medium of words to help move me on a notch.
In the end it wasn’t far shy of 1am by the time I’d tipped up my word-count, and my alarm goes off at six. Five hours’ sleep plus change, to prepare me for a one hundred mile round trip commute and a job that’s wringing me out on a daily basis at the moment. Way to go to nourish my mind and body, right? I’m such a dickhead sometimes.
Mimi was so astute on Monday when she called me out on lining up an excuse ready to wheel out at the weekend as I try and justify three days of over-indulgence with my friends. She was absolutely bang on. I was doing that. I still am. I’m looking at the pictures and GIFs and Memes that we’re all sharing on WhatsApp as we get giddy about seeing each other and making cocktails and eating chocolate in the hot tub, and staying in pyjamas to watch movies.
I want to immerse myself in the full experience including drinking buckets of prosecco and eating my own bodyweight in inappropriate snacks. Same as everyone else. The trouble is, for them it’s a one-off, but me, well…I don’t know when to quit.
So, yeah. I can feel this fucking button under my thumb, but I’m wandering around in fat-girl fog and I’m not sure I can resist the urge to push it. Again.
I’m heading out Thursday afternoon and there’s no internet signal at Foxy Lodge so I won’t be able to post on Friday, although I’ll be back in time for the Shitbird Chronicles on Sunday.
I can’t wait for that one, I mean seriously just bloody shoot me now…
My food fuckery commenced at Thanksgiving and I’m trying to stop pushing that button! Well, there’s been some alcohol fuckery as well. Ha! Enjoy your weekend with the girls!
Thanks Susan! We ended up having to come home a day early due to severe weather warnings! Aargh!
Elvis is in the building, here; and if he isn’t deceased, i can’t figure out why he is such rotten company. The only Voice in my head sounds like Jiminy Cricket in a mayonnaise jar with the lid screwed on: [What? Commercial baked goods, sugary muffin with a quarter-inch of butter, you really need that – it was all the potato chips, they set up a craving… so, let’s get this straight WHY was dinner intentionally left haphazard & unsatisfying? The bags of salty snacks laid in & handy – Hey, put down the Trail Mix.] And all I do is misbehave. Yes, “Please Christmas don’t be late.” “And then for fuck’s sake don’t loiter, I need you gone.”
Oh God me too Fleury!! I’m ready to skip right over Christmas and get this food fuckery right out of my system!!!
Holidays are hard sometimes. And using food to avoid feeling whatever I don’t want to feel is my drug of choice. (lonely, bored, worried, angry, over-worked etc). Any or all of the above.
I stumbled across a blog yesterday named Clean Food Dirty Girl. One of her posts is about self sabotage. Pretty interesting!
Great thanks Tib, it’s really helpful when you guys signpost things you’ve found useful – I’ve added a link, and thank you 🙂
Is it wrong that I want to read about the across the pond guy more than I want to read about restricting?
Ha ha it was in a blog post I wrote way back called Regrets – I’ve Had A Few – I can laugh about it now but it wasn’t funny at the time!!
Well, my goodness … This is why if my husband is ever out of the picture I will have zero interest in dating. I’ll be quite content watching my EE, Emmerdale and Corrie LOL
I love what messymimi said above and I haven’t really thought about it that way. My son has celiac – and he never complains – ever. It’s not fair that he goes out with his friends and just gets a soda, or that he can’t just walk into a restaurant or any fast food place and just “find something” — it just doesn’t work like that for him. Yet it works that way for us – we have the opportunity to make choices based on everything that is out there – and there are good, better and worse choices all the time! I’ve said before – December for weight loss just sucks. I think just getting through it is a victory. I think you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself right now – maybe for the next few weeks just work on maintaining – and get back to your losing mode once January hits.
Do you know what Beth, my head’s trying to go there. It might be the compromise but I’m not quite ready to call it out yet 🙂
“Don’t give up what you MOST want for what you want right now in this moment”
Ask yourself if its worth it? All the misery of the scale continuing to go up, and the self-loathing?
From this moment going forward try and remember how happy you were last Sunday, when the scale didn’t punish you!
That’s all I got Dee sorry… I am rooting for you to make good choices. You can do this!
Thanks Susan…at this point you’ve got more faith in my ability to behave than I have! 🙂
It always struck me as no fair that my friends could eat what they wanted and not gain weight, and it isn’t fair. Then i realized, it’s not fair that diabetics can’t have cake, too. It’s not fair that some people are born blind or deaf. It’s not fair then, it’s not fair now, i still have to deal with the hand i’ve been dealt.
The biggest problem is that our brains have decided to equate fun with eating and drinking, not a good thing to do.
Play the hand you have. More food or drink in your mouth doesn’t equal a better time. Learn to define fun differently, and be prepared to do it over and over, i have to. It’s not easy, it is worth it.
You are so wise Mimi…that’s a fabulous perspective 🙂
Ok, make a decision.
1. Eat, drink and be merry. Note part three of that formula, actually be merry. No guilt. Enjoy all traditional aspects of the time away.
2. Be more moderate in what you eat and drink, still be merry by enjoying the other aspects of time with your friends (are you there to eat and drink, which you could do at home, or spend time with friends? Do you really need to be drunk and/or stuffed full of food to enjoy seeing them?).
3. Eat too much, drink too much, feel sick and guilty and hate yourself all weekend and afterwards, taint the whole weekend thinking about how badly you’re doing with your diet and don’t really enjoy the time away.
I consider options 1 and 2 acceptable. 3 would just be foolish.
Completely agree. It’ll probably be a combination of all three Natalie…it might change by the hour. I’m going to play at being normal and see what happens! 🙂
I forgot the fourth option – eat healthy but feel miserable and deprived and resentful. Not a great one either.