Not a chance, right? Have you met me? After having a quick look around to make sure I’m not standing on a trapdoor I’d have to, I’d be all over it. I mean wouldn’t you..?

I often think that I have a surplus of curiosity running through my veins, so not pressing something that says don’t press me isn’t really an option. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an adrenaline junkie, far from it, especially these days. And I don’t even like breaking the rules, not really. I’m a bit of a fanny in that regard, I guess I don’t like getting told off.

No, the thing that would get me about that button is that I don’t know what would happen, if I pushed it. Not knowing would push my buttons, and I’d start to obsess about it. My desire to conform would be overtaken at some point by my need to know.

I’d drive myself nuts thinking about every possible scenario and what might happen if I pressed it. I’d even wonder whether someone put it there as sort of a double-bluff and maybe there’s a massive reward for the one person who has the balls to press it. As someone who generally keeps off the grass if there’s a sign telling me I should, I find the thought of describing myself as someone who likes to break the rules strangely compelling, because it makes me sound a bit cool, you know? A rebel if you like.

And that’s so not me. But I’d still have to push that button.

Except…if someone switched out the label for one that read ‘self destruct’ that’d be a whole other ball game, kind of like my very own ‘keep off the grass’ sign for buttons. See I know what happens when you push that button. It’s a button I’m familiar with, in fact if you found a self destruct button and dusted it for fingerprints, I guarantee mine would be all over it. I sometimes think that I’ve got so used to standing with my finger on it that I don’t even notice any more.

I’ve thought a lot about this today. I can’t think of a single other example ever of me going up the scale by one pound without blowing my diet off completely out of sheer bloodymindedness because I’ve ruined it so what’s the point of carrying on, really? I was worried yesterday, just for a moment because I know my default reaction to an unexpected gain…it’s not pretty. And that pound would’ve easily turned into five pounds, and then ten, at warp speed.

Which is why I’m so grateful for Sunday’s clean day, long walk and penance on the hurt machine before bed. I’m grateful that yesterday I ate man crisps and pointed them with my battery-powered thingamabob, and still ate a healthy supper. And I’m happy that today I managed to find a 45 minute window in the middle of my working day to go out and walk in the fresh air.

I know where the self-destruct button is, and I walked away. I mean it was there, all red and shiny but I could clearly see ‘self destruct’ etched around the outside of it, and I chose to keep off the grass and carry on doing my thing, and do it better than I did last week. I’m not even rattled, not one little bit. One foot in front of the other, and repeat.

That, my friends is progress.

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I had a perfectly lovely evening at the bloggy folk social, and it felt very cosmopolitan swinging by for drinks and nibbles after work. Whenever I’m in London it feels a bit like country mouse is in town you know? Everyone seems very…together somehow. Like they live this very glamorous life and they all have people to see, places to be…like popping out for drinks and nibbles is normal on a school night before they all disperse to go be glamorous and interesting somewhere else.

So anyway, I didn’t know what to expect tonight…there had been no mention of food on the invite so I assumed there wouldn’t be any, and there wasn’t, not really…but there were two big bowls of cheesy wotsits alongside an assortment of other nibbles which, lets face it are cheese balls out of a different mould. I couldn’t tell you what the other nibbles were, I was too preoccupied with the cheese balls to notice.

It’s like the Gods of dieting just thought I know, let’s stick her in a room full of people who know she’s on a diet together with her biggest trigger food, and see if she manages to navigate a path to the cheese balls without anyone noticing…

By the time I’d had my third glass of red wine, I was feeling very relaxed indeed, and I could feel my defences crumbling, in fact I got so near the table at one point they were within touching distance. I joked with a few of the people I chatted to about the effect they were having on me, and they all laughed along and assumed I was kidding…you lot know better, right?

But I acted like a normal person. I had two cheese balls when someone was saying a few words, and nobody was looking at me, and then I walked away from the table. Just two. Then I sluiced the taste from my mouth with a big slug of red wine, and then started talking to two very nice chaps about blogging.

I did a normal person thing, even if my thoughts weren’t normal person thoughts. I was on my very best behaviour, even after three glasses of wine and I feel very happy about that. Mind you, I had to didn’t I…the room may as well have been filled with the diet police!  I imagine a collective gasp would have gone around the room like a mexican wave if I’d face planted into the bowl like I wanted to.

So anyway, I chatted to travel bloggers, and beauty bloggers, and food and drink bloggers. A car blogger, and a jazz blogger, some of the sponsors, and both of the judges who judged one of the categories that I’m shortlisted in…that was a bit weird. I mean, they were both so lovely, but they know everything about me, and we only met for the first time tonight. That took some getting used to you know? Funny how red wine takes the edge off though 🙂

I’m so glad I went. I survived the cheese balls, I stood up for 3 hours drinking and chatting without being preoccupied because some bit of me or other was hurting, and I met a bunch of interesting and lovely folk who I might never have known if not for this.

Yesterday was a good day 🙂

I’m doing a trek to Cuba in October, to raise money in memory of my dad. You can read his story HERE and I would be so grateful if you’d help me honour his memory by donating whatever you can afford so together we can make a difference and help other people who have been affected by mental illness. Thank you!

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I’ve just been pampered within an inch of my life, and I’m feeling sooo relaxed. I made a deal with myself at the beginning of the week that providing I delivered on both the diet and exercise front, every day, today was going to be payback and I’m here to tell you, I cashed in good and proper 🙂

It’s been a bit of a breakthrough week for me. Actually more than a bit. I’m feeling knackered, but knackered in a good way. I’d booked the week off work with the intention of having a nice rest, because the run up to the end of the year at work was so busy, and I needed to recharge my batteries you know? And if I’m honest, what that’s normally looked like for me is a week in the armchair watching endless TV whilst eating my way through endless junk. To me, that was relaxing.

Not this week. This week I’ve got to grips with my hurt machine after it got assembled on Monday, and I’ll remember the euphoria of completing ten whole minutes for a good old while. I might only be able to manage ten minutes at a time, but ten minutes twice a day is two hours and twenty minutes a week of hard yards that I wasn’t doing before. And I’ve walked with the dog every day, around three miles. So since I finished work a week ago that’s more than twenty miles.

It’s been the kind of weather that in the past would’ve had me turning the heating up a notch and thinking not for me, maybe later, but typically, the armchair/junk food combo – and the resulting food coma – would have meant ‘later’ almost certainly did not involve walking far from the fridge. This week I togged up and walked. We can’t have had more than a five minute break in the rain all week, so every day I’ve arrived home afterwards cold and very wet, but still I walked. Even on the two days this week where my knee was giving me hell, I walked.

Saying all this out loud, is making me think that maybe someone stole the real me? It’s like I’ve discovered another gear that I’ve not used before, and I’m not sure where it really came from unless maybe it’s a mixture of knowing I’ve gone public with my commitment to do the trek in October, and knowing that this award malarkey has pushed the blog onto something of a platform so I have to bring my A game.

I was freaking out a bit earlier in the week because I didn’t know how to dig deep but I’m starting to think that no matter how elusive the theory, when you know you have to, you just can..? It seems a bit too good to be true so I’ll continue to test the theory.

So, I’ve had a lovely head massage and a facial as well as my usual manicure. It was my way of saying thank you to this knackered old body for pulling it out of the bag this week. And much as I’d love to round off my Saturday by chilling out in the chair with a bit of TV, I have to walk the dog.

Just for a change, it’s raining 🙂

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