All posts by Dee

It Never Ends Well For The Fat Ones

In the here & now, ,

Do y’all watch the MTV programme Catfish?  I’m a recent convert. I can’t even remember how I stumbled across it but to the dismay of my boy, who’s having to negotiate hard for TV time, I’m currently binge-watching my way through the first one hundred episodes ahead of their season seven airing next week. As far as mini-obsessions go, it’s not bad…it doesn’t involve eating so that’s a win, right? My boy’s perspective is bloody hell Mum, for an intelligent woman you don’t half watch some crap…

If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a show based around on-line relationships, with a couple of cool guys flushing out folk who are stringing other folk along with fake dating profiles. For someone like me, who’s endlessly fascinated with people – aka nosey – it’s irresistible.

Sometimes, like one time out of twenty, the person on the end of the dodgy profile turns out to be the real deal, but more often than not some rogue with questionable morals and a wild imagination has posted fake pictures to entice their poor unsuspecting victim into an on-line relationship.

Now, I’m probably thirty or forty episodes in at this point, right? And fascinating as it is, there’s a theme that I’ve noticed.  It never ends well for the fat ones. 

It’s a bit formulaic, and the story always unfolds like this; boy (or girl) meets utterly gorgeous girl (or boy) on-line and falls in love. Months pass, sometimes even years pass and despite endless texts/emails/telephone conversations the two never meet, so the one being strung along gets suspicious.

Along come the two cool guys and after a bit of detective work, utterly gorgeous girl (or boy) is rumbled, and generally persuaded to ‘fess up in front of their poor unsuspecting love interest.

Sometimes the person behind the fake profile is a bloke posing as a woman or a woman pretending to be a bloke. Sometimes it’s a woman who just looks like a bloke. Sometimes they have eyes that look in two different directions at the same time but mostly they’re none of the above…nine times out of ten they’re just fat.

And on some level you know, I get why they do what they do. As a fat girl, I totally understand the appeal of pretending to be somebody you’re not, and showing a gorgeous face to the world. It must be lovely, having members of the opposite sex falling at your feet declaring undying love at first sight. The truth is, It doesn’t really matter how warm or funny or bright you are, or how much love you have to give, if you’re fat you’re pretty much invisible.

This programme demonstrates the point beautifully. For all the victims’ chatter about being desperate to meet the person behind the pictures, and how what they look like doesn’t really matter anyway because they’ve fallen in love with the personality, as soon as an arse the size of South East Asia lumbers around the corner it’s pretty much game over, you know?

Now, being invisible to members of the opposite sex doesn’t actually bother me at all, because I’m not in the market for a love-interest for all the reasons we’ve discussed at length in these pages. If you missed those conversations I’ll summarise for you…I can’t be feckin arsed. Too much hassle and anyway I’m safer as a singleton. But if I was feeling fruity and in need of a good seeing to, I wouldn’t  imagine that my fat photo would drum up much interest at all.

I reckon that maybe one in a hundred fat folk would regard themselves as fat and fabulous…I envy the ones who do. Me, I’m definitely one of the other ninety nine 🙂

 

 

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My Balls Are Under The Wrong Cup

In the here & now, ,

It’s that time of year again isn’t it, where every other article you read and every other programme on the telly box is talking about diets and losing weight. Some of them are okay, but most of them are written or presented by folk who look like they wouldn’t know one end of a doner kebab from the other, and that raises serious credibility issues in my eyes. I caught the tail end of a programme tonight, and as the camera panned out and the credits rolled, the words of the presenter were left hanging in the air…

“It’s simple really. You just need to eat less and exercise more.”

No shit, Sherlock. It’s that fucking easy is it love? Right then. Praise the Lord! Let’s all eat less and exercise more and we’ll be skinny in no time. World obesity obliterated, because we’re all just going to eat less and exercise more. I might have been a bit more forgiving if she hadn’t prefaced the bleeding obvious with the words it’s simple really…

The science might be simple, but the execution relies far more on the human factor than a scientific equation, and that’s a buggeration factor that we just can’t overlook.

It’s like that old sleight of hand trick with the cups and balls. You can keep your eye on that ball ’til you’re blue in the face, but it’s never under the cup you think it’s going to be under when the cups stop moving. My balls are never under the right cup. And what I mean by that, is no matter how hard I try to keep a watching brief on everything that’s going on, something always ends up in the wrong place.

Just think for a second about all the component parts of being successful in the business of losing weight. You need a balanced diet, with representation from all your food groups. Plenty of protein to help stave off the hunger pangs. Not too many carbs if you can help it…easy on the fat, plenty of green stuff and some fruit thrown in for good measure.

Sleep. That’s important too…not too much but enough to replenish your energy levels. And plenty of exercise to get your heart rate up several times a week. Water, drink plenty of that but go easy on the salt, or your body will cling to the water like a fucking camel.

Stay away from trigger foods, you know those things where one means one packet, or one tub instead of the one bite that skinny people refer to. And don’t substitute one trigger for another, right? Eating fifteen bananas instead of fifteen hob-nobs is still fourteen bananas too many.

It’s exhausting, keeping your eye on so many cups and balls. No matter how hard I try, when I get to the end of my day and I do a quick recce, there’s usually at least one ball missing, or it’s under the wrong cup. So when some skinny fuckwit looks down a camera into my living room and tees up her pearl of skinny wisdom by saying it’s simple really…well, forgive me for wanting to punch her bloody lights out.

On the surface, it’s not rocket science. But for every one of us who gets to the end of the day with at least half of our balls in the right place, and a mental note to do better tomorrow, it’s cool. We’re doing fine. We’ve got this. It’s not about perfection, remember?

It’s about getting up again tomorrow and doing it all over again 🙂

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A Brand New Copybook

In the here & now, , ,

Ok so this is special. It’s a Monday, and it’s the first day of a brand new year…that happens only once every seven years, right? Unless leap years bugger up that sequence once in a while, but whatever. The stars are aligned and I’m actually feeling more than a bit giddy as I write this. It’s a sign, kind of a double whammy if you like.

I’m trying to frame this in my head as though everything I’ve done, and everything I’ve learned in the two years, four months and sixteen days since I decided to wrestle my life back from the brink of obesity-related immobility has led me right to this point. And this point is where my dummy run ends, and I step out for real. I know. I feel like I should be speaking in hushed tones, so significant is this moment…

Okay okay so I know I’m being a bit over the top, but come on, if ever there was a new start that was worthy of being called a new start, this is it. I’ve opened a brand new shiny book, and I’m ready to start filling the pages with my 2018 story. I’m going to make it a good one.

Last year…well. Let’s just say that 2017 failed to impress me on a number of levels. That’s an understatement actually, it was probably the most difficult year I’ve ever had. Losing my Godmum was a sucker punch even though we knew it was coming, and watching my mum become increasingly frail in both mind and body has been excruciating.

On the other hand, I have so much to be grateful for. I’m surrounded by some amazing friends. My boy makes my heart swell with pride every single day. I have a job that I love and I feel really established in my life, you know? I get to travel to some amazing places and I’m healthy enough to really enjoy all of it in a way that I couldn’t before this all started.

And lets not forget these pages…having this creative outlet where I can let all my thoughts and feelings loose and hang out with you guys is awesome. I can be completely honest, safe in the knowledge that you understand me without judging because you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, and you’re always ready to join me in laughing at the utter tragedy of living my life on a fucking diet. All of that is the reason I’m still hanging in here as determined as ever to reach my goals.

I’m still trying to get a grip of it all but to be fair that’s one of the things I’m most thankful for, you know? There’s been no quick fix, no instant results and most of all no cure for the surplus curves I stuff into my pants every day but by some miracle I’m still here almost two and a half years into my journey.

I’ve fallen down a lot and I’ve taken so many wrong turns I’ve lost count but it doesn’t matter does it? All that matters is that I learned over and over how to get up again and keep on pushing forward. Perfection isn’t the secret...tenacity is where it’s at.

Let’s try to take more steps forwards than backwards this year eh? I’m looking at my weight loss across 2017 and accounting for the genius relocation of the shitbird scale into the bath which bumped the number upwards, I’ve netted out the year with a 2lb loss. Yes boys and girls, in the whole of 2017 that’s all I lost.

Now, I could hurl myself at the floor and have a big fat tony bear tantrum and the sheer injustice of that, or I could suck it up and pat myself on the back for at least ending the year smaller than when it started. I choose that one, because I don’t want any negativity colouring the pages of my brand new copybook. Only good things are getting included in my 2018 story.

How about yours? Come on, let’s make this year count…we deserve skinny after all this effort, right? We have so much support in these pages, because we’re all on the same journey and we’re all here to prop each other up. See that little map at the top of the page? That’s where you’re all at…it’s the geolocation footprint of everybody who reads along. The orange bits are where we have the highest number of friends, but there are readers, and lurkers, and regular corresponders everywhere that’s coloured in…that pretty much blows my mind.

Wherever you’re celebrating New Year, I’m sending big love to each and every one of you in the hope that 2018 will be your best year yet. I’m excited to continue sharing this journey…Skinny Town here we come 🙂

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Fat, But Optimistic

In the here & now, ,

So, Wednesday was it, right? I’d planned to take Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day off the diet but I’d made a firm commitment to myself that Wednesday 27th was the cut-off point after which normal sensible non-Christmas eating would resume. Quid pro quo, if you like. Dear Gods of Skinny, you give me three days off and I’ll give you four days on, and I mean on it like a car bonnet. I’ll be all over it. I’ll net out even-stevens next weigh-day and it’ll be like Christmas never happened.

It was a good plan, as plans go. The only problem was, my head didn’t want to get on board with it. At all. I went to bed on Tuesday night feeling as determined as it’s possible to be the night before you start a diet, when your belly’s still full and fat. Trouble is, I woke up on Wednesday panicking about all the nice things that I hadn’t eaten yet and I was sunk before I even got out of bed.

And I found myself pulling that all or nothing shit too. I’m not going swimming today because really, what’s the point? I’ll go tomorrow when I’m back on my food plan, today’s a write-off…

I settled down to write a blog post, and no words came. I’d kind of thought I might ‘fess up about my indiscretions, and talk about moving past them so we could all look forward to the New Year and how we were going to get this skinny shit down once and for all. Except I was still chewing and it felt all wrong, and in the end no words came anyway so I put my laptop away and carried on eating Christmas, plus a bit more for good measure.

Then I cleaned out the fridge, took some chicken out of the freezer to defrost overnight and went to bed hoping for an overnight miracle. In my heart of hearts I was expecting yet another epic battle when I opened my eyes yesterday, you know? Getting day one under my belt is a psychological minefield and it never comes without a fight.

However. Do you know what I got? Nothing. I got nothing. No rebellion, no tantrums and no demands to start my day with a bacon sandwich. Just a quiet acceptance that the diet riot was over, and it was time to behave. And yesterday was flawless. Granted, a day later than planned but the point is, it happened.

I hadn’t been logging food on my off-piste days, so there was a half-hearted whoop whoop from the Asshole voice when I logged in mid way through the week and my app told me I had all my weekly points left plus some rollovers…the actual fuck I do, I’ve probably used up all the weeklies due to me as far as halfway through next year. So I wiped them off and closed down that avenue of food fuckery and he didn’t even put up a fight.

It seems I weathered the storm…I feel good. Fat, but optimistic. I’m ready for the New Year, and the new start, hell I’ve even kick-started things early in the spirit of damage limitation. Read my lips, this is OUR year…we’re heading to Skinny Town, people! 🙂

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Am I Skinny Yet?

In the here & now, ,

Hmm. I just caught sight of myself in the mirror and I suspect the answer is no. Fuck. Last Christmas, I was heading into the New Year feeling frustrated that over the course of the year I’d only lost about twenty pounds. This time, I’m heading into the New Year having lost and regained the same fucking twenty pounds several times over, and I’ll probably achieve a net result of sweet bugger all as I step over the threshold of 2018.

You could say that 2017 hasn’t quite gone according to plan.

Don’t you always think that the end of the year is a great time for taking stock of where you’re at? Don’t worry, I’m not about to get all maudlin on your ass, I mean I’m in quite a good place as it happens. My bum might still be the size of a small continent but I’m reasonably fit these days and I’m enjoying living my life. My eyes are focused on what’s in front of me, not what’s gone before, and I have a feeling that 2018 is the year I’m going to knock it out of the park.

I survived a buffet yesterday. Not gonna lie, the only green thing on my plate was a cucumber stick and in the spirit of full disclosure there was an enormous dollop of hummus on the end so I can’t use it as a shining beacon of food sobriety.

I also had a piece of quiche, a handful of Doritos and a small bit of cheesecake but all in all I didn’t do too bad. No sausage rolls and no bread. Most importantly I didn’t come home and think fuck it, I’ve blown today already so I may as well eat Chinese food. I chucked the balance of my weekly points into yesterday’s bucket just in case, and moved on.

I’m now function-free right over the holiday season, and although I’m going to buy one or two goodies for Christmas day, both me and my boy are pretty determined to stay true to our respective food plans so I have no plans to fill the cupboards with food fuckery. This will be my third Christmas without cheese balls…who could’ve imagined that might ever happen? I’m amazed.

So what do you reckon about Sunday’s weigh-in? I’m feeling good about the week, and even though I’ve eaten a bunch of fat-girl food I’ve stayed within points. My money’s on a one pound loss, although I was going for three. Would you care to make a small wager…?

Listen guys, whatever you’re up to over the next few days I wish you all the love in the world and I hope you have an awesome Christmas. Good luck with your respective food plans and I hope Santa is kind. I’m sorry for being an imperfect role model and spending much of this year fannying about eating the wrong stuff. Often in industrial quantities, to my shame. I’ll do better next year, I promise. Most of all, thank you for the big love and massive support…I feel you behind me with every step, and you’re amazing.

I’ll update the Shitbird Chronicles as usual on Sunday, and I’ll be back with another post next Wednesday. I’m totally praying that the Gods of Skinny find a way to keep me on this straight and narrow path between now and then 🙂

 

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