Category Archives: Freeform thoughts

Is Fat Catching?

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

friendsSo I read an interesting article the other day which made me think.  It seemed to suggest that if your friends are fat, you have an increased risk of becoming fat yourself. Hmm. Lets just think about that for a second…that’s like suggesting that being fat is contagious, like a disease you might get if you hug me then don’t immediately wash your hands…how bloody insulting.  If word of this gets out I’d best prepare for a mass exodus of friends, after all lets be honest, nobody’s going to want to risk  being around me if that’s the case 🙁

Having said that, after my initial flash-point reaction of thinking the article had clearly been written by some skinny fuckwit with fat issues, I calmed down a bit and thought about it for a while, and you know what, I can see a world in which there might be just a tiny element of truth buried in there somewhere. By definition, I guess the people you hang out with are into the kind of things you’re into. So if you’re into fitness and an active lifestyle, your friends probably are too. If you’re a foodie and your free time is spend hunting down new places to go eat, stands to reason your besties enjoy that too.

Pop quiz – when I get together with my friends, do we

a) Go to a step-class and work out for four hours burning 5000 calories each before going out for a salad washed down with iced water and vitamin pills, or

b) Go to a movie, eat Haagen Dazs and popcorn whilst we’re watching it and then go out for pizza, pudding and cocktails..?

Yes…it’s never going to be option A. We would probably burn off at least half the ice-cream laughing through the course of the evening but it’s not going to be a calorie conscious night out. Well, in pre-diet days anyway.  But still – none of my friends look like I do. They come in all shapes and sizes, as you might expect. But as far as I can see, nobody has caught fat from me yet, therefore that kind of begs the question, why do I look like this, and they don’t..?

I think I can answer that. After our night out, they’ll probably all step off the calories for a couple of days, because that’s what normal people do. It’s all about balance and that’s the bit I struggle with…when I’m not dieting, I eat all the wrong stuff, and portion control..? Doesn’t even occur to me, I mean portion control is what you do when you’re dieting, right?  Not when you’re off the leash.  So I can do dieting, and I can do not dieting, but woven together so I broadly style it out across the week..?  That I can’t do…it’s one (and I get fatter) or the other (and I get skinnier).

So, when the skinny girl breaks out and I get to a size that I feel happy with, that’s the time when I need to wake up and learn a whole new way of being. Old dog, new tricks? Yep, count me in…I’m ready to learn 🙂

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Skin in the Game

Diet update, Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

feeling good

I’m enjoying something of an easy ride at the moment – truth be told I feel almost guilty that I’m not providing you with more drama, like my diet blog won’t properly earn it’s stripes unless it’s chock-a-block with tales of struggles and overcoming adversity. All I’ve managed to do so far is to demonstrate that the asshole is…well, an asshole who spends his days just being annoying rather than effective. Which must be twisting his melon BIG TIME because I’ve been such a pushover in the past.

This sweet spot that I’ve landed in is providing me with a protective shell against the worst of him – that, and the company of our posse, obviously. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t gone away…he had a bit of a chew at me yesterday in fact. To cut a long story short I had a really early start and I’d taken breakfast with me (low carb muffins, see my foodie page) – the first opportunity to eat didn’t present itself until I was settled on the short flight over to Ireland (which I made with 7 minutes to spare due to heavy traffic, talk about squeaky bum time!) and as I thought about reaching into my bag to get one out,  I was acutely aware of him chuntering on in my ear about how everyone on the flight would look at me with contempt and think ‘trust the fat girl to bring a picnic for a 30 minute flight hahahaha‘ – his words did sting a bit and I decided not to eat. So he still has the ability to make me second-guess myself, but no real teeth to throw me off track, for now.

I’m fascinated as to the reason why – what is it that’s making this feel like a walk in the park? I’ve become gradually more aware over the last couple of weeks in particular that I’m nurturing a deep down core belief that this will be one of the times in my life where I’ve really managed to get a hold of myself and I’m going to complete the long march from fat to skinny, that’s how secure I feel right now. I’m scared to turn over too many stones in my desire to understand what makes this time different, in case it vanishes like a fart in the breeze – sharing my thoughts with the posse on a daily basis is definitely helping, and I suspect that having almost six weeks’ worth of skin in the game is also a factor.

In the first flush of resolve with a new diet it’s easy for him to justify a slip-up as a false start, and persuade me to get on board with his twisted thinking but the fact that I’ve managed not to let his barrage of chatter un-nerve me is turning down the volume of his voice ever so slightly. I wouldn’t say he’s on the ropes but he’s definitely spending more time in his corner.

One piece of exciting news that I have to share is that Crabby McSlacker from Cranky Fitness invited me to submit a guest blog to her website – I cannot begin to tell you how much I’ve chuckled at the prospect of me writing an article for a fitness website. I mean you almost have to have an epi-pen on standby whenever I so much as think about exercise! I’ll post a link when it goes live, in case you’d like to check it out.

So all in all a great week – I’m just going to keep on keeping on…as always, I appreciate your company, it’s helping more than you know. I hope things are going equally well for you guys 🙂

 

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Space Invader

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

FLS

Now, I’m guessing it depends where you sit on the fat to skinny spectrum as to whether you’ve really given the matter of space any serious consideration. I’m talking about personal space, and how much of it we take up as we go about our business. I say this because until I joined the realms of the super-obese I don’t recall really thinking too much about how much space I was taking up in this world, but once the penny dropped with me that I might be taking up too much of it to the point where it was pissing other people off, I became super-tuned in to the vibe, and it’s become a major pre-occupation.

We’ve all seen the debate raging about whether fat people should pay extra for flight seats and to be honest, count me in – my lard, my responsibility – just don’t make a fuss and for God’s sake don’t make me sit across two seats…that would be less about equity and more about treating me like livestock. They may as well run down the aisle blowing a bugle and shouting ‘Make way for the moose!!’

When I emerge from my chrysalis as a skinny string bean I’d welcome the chance to fly for peanuts if they want to just hitch up my seat space a little so it cradles my bony ass nicely and frees up a little more room for someone with a bit more padding – everybody’s happy. I’m sure in this age of technology it could be done. And if there does happen to be any aircraft seat designers reading my blog today, can you please sort your shit out with the seat belts whilst you’re at it?

I get it, I get that life is designed for Joe average.  And if you’re a fat person who genuinely believes that fat is as beautiful as skinny, or if you’re a skinny person who’s wandered in here by mistake (you’re very welcome but stop screwing your face up like that, you’ll get wrinkles) then you probably won’t be able to relate to what I’m saying. Which is fine, because we’re all different and if you’re happy, I’m happy. And a tiny bit envious.

You don’t know how lucky you are if you don’t feel the need to tiptoe through life trying to take up as little a space as possible. You won’t feel mortified if your arse or your chunky arms encroach onto someone else’s personal space when you sit beside them and pretend not to see FFS written right across their averagely proportioned face. You won’t feel the need to hold everything tucked in as tight as possible ’till your core muscles quiver, in the hope that you can prevent your body spilling over your quota of space and invading someone else’s. It’s not possible to pick up your body baggage and place it on the tray table in front of you to make room for someone to sit down like you can with your carry-on and I hate how apologetic that makes me feel, as though I’m being deliberately rude just for…being.

Writing it down really helps to focus the mind…you have no idea how much I can’t wait not to feel like that any more.

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Tapas, Anyone?

Freeform thoughts,

tapas

Friends are precious aren’t they – it’s almost the weekend and one of my favourite things to do when I’m in the mood to kick back and relax is to get together with a bunch of people I’m close to for relaxed chatter, a bite to eat and maybe the odd glass of wine or two. You just cannot beat an evening where you laugh till your belly aches, and I always find that good food and decent plonk is a great starter for ten.

So the question will always arise, unless we’re dining at home – what does everyone fancy to eat? Admittedly it’s one of the nicer dilemmas to have, even when I’m dieting and in the sweet spot there’s usually something on the menu wherever we end up which will allow me to keep at least a sheen on my dieting halo even if it’s not an out and out shine. But the consensus I dread..? Tapas.

For the uninitiated, it’s the informal Spanish style of eating where little dishes of food heaven arrive at the table in a steady stream and you choose a bit of this, and a bit of that…chat for a bit and then more dishes turn up, and repeat. Everybody dives in and helps themselves and the dishes keep on coming until you’ve had enough. For most people, it’s a lovely relaxing sociable way of eating which promotes conversation and sharing as you meander unhurriedly through the meal. Even as I sit typing this, I love the idea of it. In reality, it makes me bat shit crazy.

I’m in the Joey from Friends camp when it comes to sharing food. I like my food, on my plate under the sole control of my knife and fork. It messes with my head when all these little dishes hit the table and everyone just digs in. I can feel my palms getting sweaty when I see someone going in for the kill on something I fancied the look of and by the time I get to it, it’s all gone. So then I have a bit of something else but I hang onto the food envy.

If a second dish of it turns up a bit later on and I miss it again I swear I can feel the red mist descending. Best friends or no, I want to wrestle it from their hands. And if you strike gold and eat a bit of something you really enjoy, when you go back for more invariably you find that somebody else has eaten the rest of it, so all you can do it use a bit of fancy bread to mop up what’s left of the sauce and spend the rest of the meal watching the waitress like a hawk… poised, ready to pounce but with no guarantee that she’ll be back with more of the one you’re hoping for. And if you’re so busy watching for more of that one, you might miss something else that everyone starts raving about…and so it goes on.

Can you see my point? It’s stress central. And I always end up feeling a bit cheated, like everyone else got all the good stuff. Or got more of the good stuff than I did…I got olives. With so much table activity it’s impossible to tell. But how utterly ridiculous is it that I’d be so pre-occupied with a head full of stressy thoughts about whether I’m getting my fair share of the food – ‘Bitch ate the last meatball!’ – it’s not normal.

There goes the food yanking my chains again…

 

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Preparing to Negotiate.

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

LV

So I guess you could say that today marks the start of my countdown to holiday – exactly four weeks from now almost to the minute, five of my very best friends and I will be touching down thousands of miles away from home for a few days of girly time to celebrate my big birthday. The one that kicks off my next decade…you know, the decade where I’m going to be fifty and fabulous.  Fifty, fabulous and skinny. My friends and I have been exchanging giddy texts this afternoon along the lines of ‘Four weeks from today…’ and I’m grinning from ear to ear when I think about how much we are going to laugh.

Now, I have to hold my hands up and admit that I’m not really a big planner. I’m more of a ‘fly it as I’m building it’ kind of girl – in work I have to be uber organised which means that outside of work I lurk at the opposite end of the spectrum and I’m often caught with my pants down, metaphorically speaking.

I’m conscious that this holiday is my first milestone where the diet is concerned, and I’ve got a big red flag waiting in the wings to signal danger…I’m so happy that 5 weeks in it’s going so well, but it’s only the first in a long line of milestones, and I’m in this for the long game so it’s time to open negotiations with the asshole about what happens on holiday, and what happens when I get home. I need to have a plan.

He’s obviously been anticipating the conversation, and his opening gambit was to suggest that for the four days I’m away, I throw caution to the wind and eat everything that isn’t nailed down. Predictable, asshole. To be fair, it’s a strategy I’ve agreed to in the past, in fact I’m probably not exaggerating when I say I’ve been known to leap on it with indecent enthusiasm and sign on the dotted line without giving it a second thought. In the past, but not this time.

I’m not a big drinker – maybe because I’ve been on so many diets over the years where I’ve been mindful of restricting calories, or counting points, or adding up sins…whatever form the diet took, to me alcohol was a waste of whatever it was I was counting – but even when I’m not dieting, I can take it or leave it. If I’m with friends and we’re having a drink, you know I’ll have a drink, but between social occasions it doesn’t ever occur to me. Thing is, I suspect our little holiday will kind of be a four day social occasion…if you get my drift, wink wink. 

So lets examine the possible flash points.  The asshole is on my case, singing ‘Let it go’ …I’m likely to be flirting with tipsy for a good proportion of the holiday (my friends are wicked wicked people 🙂 ) and we’ll be loose in a city where there’s a buffet on every corner and mostly the drinks are free.

I think I need to work on my strategy before I return to the negotiating table.

 

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