So I’m just about at the end of my rope with the BOTSG subscription email. It’s like someone created it with the sole intention of twisting my melon you know? It works. It doesn’t work. Then it works again. Sometimes it says that it worked, by sending me confirmation that all my subscribers have had their skinny mail but really it’s a big fat lie, because I’m on the subscriber list and despite assurances to the contrary, mine doesn’t arrive. If I get mine, I know you got yours, right?

Take yesterday for example. Yesterday it said all the emails had been delivered. I stalked my inbox for a while, and nothing. I even roped my boy into being a subscriber as a double-check last time it fell over, and yesterday his didn’t come either. So, about twenty minutes after I published the post I went into the widget and sent a manual notification email to the posse. And still, my inbox contained only tumbleweed…no skinny mail.

I’m irritated by this point, right? It’s pushing my buttons because I hate it when things don’t work like they should. According to the widget history it had sent not one, but two manual emails as well as the automatic one. Great. My posse are going to either get no email like me, or three emails. Surely it’s not beyond the wit of man to make it work, I mean that widget has one job.

It’s been a tough week so far. I’d worked really late the night before and yesterday was a long day off the back of not much sleep. So I definitely wasn’t feeling the love, in fact the whole situation made me disproportionately mad. So what did I do..? I ate quiche.

Now, we all know that eating quiche is practically against the law if you’re on a limited food budget. It was only a small one, and I just about scraped through without dinting my food budget but once again, I’m repeating the same pattern over and over. Get mad, and eat.

For my own future reference, eating quiche didn’t make me feel better. As I took my second mouthful, the first skinny mail dropped into my in-box, followed in quick succession by two more. So now I had three skinny mails, and realisation dawned that not only had I more than likely pissed off the posse by bombarding y’all with multiple versions of the same email, I had no points left for the rest of the evening. Terrific. Damn quiche was the size of a postage stamp. Was it worth it..? No was it chuff.

To my subscribers, I’m sorry about the  emails…I’m going to look for a new widget this weekend 🙂

Yesterday wasn’t a good day, but I made it. Just.

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It’s safe to say that I didn’t react well following my run-in with the bitch in the bathroom yesterday, in fact the whole day was a series of challenges. We get days like that, right? Honestly, I was tested. It brought it home to me how much work I have to do yet, ‘specially on how certain things trigger certain reactions in me.

Nothing seemed to go right. Not dropping any weight really rattled me when I’d had such a great week. It had snowed overnight and it was really icy, so even with my proper walking boots on as opposed to trainers it was a fight just to stay upright when I went out. Just over a mile into my walk I turned around and came back because my back was starting to really hurt from holding myself so stiff, not to mention my butt cheeks which were killing me…a few more workouts like that and I swear I’d be able to crack walnuts between ’em.

I’d walked over four miles the day before, and I’d managed fifteen minutes on the cross-trainer, my longest ever session so only walking two miles yesterday was no big deal really, although being the drama queen that I am, I made a mountain out of a molehill and acted like my world was about to end.

So what did I do..? I came home and made a huge pot of skinny chilli, and damn near ate the lot. And then, having picked up some mini crunchie bars earlier in the supermarket I ate four in quick succession. And then another two. I was in a total food coma by 6pm.

Technically I didn’t cheat on my diet. I used up all my daily points, my exercise points and a wodge of my extra weekly ones. I didn’t do anything wrong as such. I was in control, keying the points values into my gizmo as I vaporised crunchie after crunchie, and watching them tot up. I knew how many points I could spend and I totally wiped out my budget but I didn’t blow it. I still have a handful of weekly points in the bank, and we’re all good. And yet. I definitely flirted with the binge demons you know?

I’m bothered by my reaction to things not going right. It’s like I reverted to type as soon as something didn’t quite go my way, and that’s exactly the kind of twisted thinking that has knocked me out of the sweet spot in the past. Now I’m out of my food coma and I have the perspective of hindsight, I’m choosing to regard yesterday as a lesson.

It doesn’t matter how determined I am, there will always be unexpected or difficult shit that flies out of left field, and coping with it is still work in progress for me. I didn’t binge per se, I caught it, but all those feelings of disappointment, frustration and failure bubbled dangerously close to the surface and tried to throw me right back to my default setting of eating my feelings.

What was beyond awesome, as I laid in bed feeling frustrated at the day were all the lovely thoughts and messages from you guys…I felt encouraged, supported and understood. It felt like balm on a sore spot and it helped, so thank you all 🙂

I had a fairly early night, but not before I’d done another fifteen minutes on the hurt machine. With a belly full of chilli and six mini crunchies…thank the good Lord for Gaviscon!

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So it occurred to me as I was dragging my knackered old body around the office this morning that I may just have overdone it a bit yesterday. I know people tell you to listen to your body, but to be fair, when you’ve got an Asshole voice that lives inside your head and has a PhD in giving you a bum steer, sometimes that’s not as easy as it sounds.

Yesterday was a tough day in a lot of respects, I was supporting someone important to me through a crap situation and as well as being emotionally quite draining there was a lot of sitting about, on chairs which probably weren’t designed with comfort as their primary consideration. So when I finally got home at the end of the day I was tired, and my back was really sore. I’d eaten barely anything all day and my energy was low.

All I wanted to do was to collapse in the armchair, have something to eat and go to bed, but I hit the override button on every reason why that was the right thing to do by insisting to myself that despite my crappy day, I still had to put in three miles of walking before I could allow myself to relax. Cut myself some slack? No chance.

Off I went. Pitch black outside, and raining but whatever…no excuses, I’m on a schedule. There’s a mountain in Cuba with my name all over it, and I’m on one…got to get fit. No slacking allowed. By the time I got back, my back was screaming at me, my dodgy knee was making it’s presence felt and I had a banging headache to boot. Even the dog looked pissed off, since all he wanted to do was curl up on my knee and have his tummy tickled.

So, I ate supper and went directly to bed afterwards, right? No of course I didn’t…I said I would do ten minutes on the hurt machine every morning and every night. Cut myself some slack? No, and don’t ask again…we don’t accept excuses any more, that’s the old Dee. I finally went to sleep feeling sore but hardcore, you know? And not a little bit smug…look at me, bringing it home even after the day I’ve had.

So this morning, walking was painful. Crossing the office was painful. Getting out of my chair was painful. The ten minutes I spent on the cross-trainer this morning passed by in a blur of ouches, and the two miles walk down to the shop and back that I’d planned at lunchtime to try and incorporate some exercise into my day looked more unappealing than I can tell you. But I did it anyway, because I’m on a schedule.

I loped into the house tonight like someone who’d just graduated from the ministry of silly walks. I can’t place my left foot down too hard on the floor because the gremlin in my knee with the razor blade stabs me if I do. I can’t fully stand up straight because my back’s too sore, and if I lift my right leg too high, I squeal.

The thought occurred to me as I was getting out of the car that I was a mile short of my daily walking target and I should do a quick march up the hill and back to make up the deficit…finally, and not before time, the voice of reason stepped in. And I now get it.

There’s a difference between an excuse and a reason. Pushing yourself through a stiff muscle and building on established momentum is fine. Being too bull-headed to flex the schedule because you’re afraid saying no makes you a slacker is not fine.

Tonight I’m going to cut myself some slack…I’m not walking the extra mile. I didn’t miss it out, I just didn’t do it yet. I’ll tack it onto a day where not everything hurts, and perhaps tomorrow I won’t be walking like a weirdo. I’m learning as I go along, and today I learned to listen to a different voice…they don’t all give Asshole advice.

Can’t slack for long though…today I got the confirmation I’ve been hoping for – I’m on the trek…I’m going to Cuba…WHOOP WHOOP!!!!

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