Category Archives: In the here & now

No Longer Required

In the here & now, ,

In those weeks where I’m not seeing eye to eye with the Shitbird Scale, it’s more important than ever that I find non-scale victories to celebrate, and yesterday morning’s  was the sweetest win  in ages. I managed to fasten my bra for the very first time without using an extender. I know, right? It took me more than an hour to get the smile off my face.

I’ve never been blessed with more than a handful in the boobage department and no matter how much weight I’ve been carrying, my boobs never managed to grow any bigger. That’s just how I’m made. Even at my fattest I could still only fill a B cup. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times where I could’ve happily filled my bra twice over with the extra rolls of fat that kind of hung around the general chest area, but in terms of actual boobs, they’ve remained stubbornly disproportionate. No hour-glass figure for me and certainly no match for my double arse.

Finding underwear has always been a bit of a challenge, because nobody seems to make bras for fat girls who have fat backs and small boobs. That’s just a fact, you know? I did once manage to find a size 56B bra on the internet but when it arrived it’d never seen a B cup, I mean I could’ve fitted a decent-sized watermelon in each side.

Not being able to find bras in my size meant I’ve had to stuff my boobs into shapeless non-wired stretchy bra tops for the last few years. Which is fine, and they’re comfy but those things don’t give you any shape at all. They keep stuff under control but they’re not really bra bras, are they?

About a year ago I discovered bra extenders, which are just the best invention ever. Once I knew they existed I bought a ton of them. It wasn’t unheard of for me to have three of them hooked up end to end right the way across my back but at least my boobs were properly supported and it was a definite improvement on the bras-that-aren’t-really-bras.

Anyway, I don’t know whether it’s down to all the swimming I’ve been doing, but yesterday as I was getting dressed I raised my arms above my head, and noticed that my bra was riding up. My excuses-for-boobs were even making a bid for freedom from underneath and at that point I realised it was now too big around the body. So, I had a stab at fastening it without the extender, and it fitted. I mean it really fitted, I could breathe and everything. And it wasn’t so tight as to cause that horrible sideways-on overspill either. It just looked tidy. Everything contained, you know? Silhouette present and correct, and extender no longer required.

It was only a small moment, in the grand scheme of things but every victory is worth shouting about don’t you think? 🙂

 

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

I’m Not Going To Be The One Who Blinks First

In the here & now, ,

So it seems that there’s a bit more to this writing a book malarkey than I’d anticipated. Holy shit is there ever. Having said that, I’ve had some really positive feedback on the stuff I pulled together and I just want to get cracking now. Honestly, it’s been an amazing experience. My head is full of things that I didn’t know on Friday, and now I do. I just need a bit of down-time to process everything, you know? I’m knackered. 

When I finally settled down last night I had every intention of telling you all about it but I ended up doing that thing where I woke up at 3am with my cheek stuck to the laptop which was next to me on the bed. I didn’t get home until late afternoon, and then I’d thrown my bags in the door and headed straight out for a swim. I’ve done so much sitting around this weekend in one workshop after another, I just had this urge to head out and go do something active. Who might have guessed that urge was ever going to take over this body, eh?

One of the non-writing related things I learned this weekend was that it’s much easier not to succumb to the temptation of pudding after half a bottle of Merlot, if you’ve told everyone before the wine starts speaking on your behalf that you don’t eat puddings. It’s a genius strategy, because you can’t then eat a pudding without looking like a muppet, right?

At the gala meal, as everyone else’s sticky toffee pudding arrived I waved mine away…I had to, even though I wanted to weep. It looked all kinds of awesome, and the wine was quite persuasive but there’d been so much chatter over dinner about who was writing what, the whole of our table knew I was writing a book about being on a diet. It was a very effective antidote to the fuck it mentality that I usually fall victim to when I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine.

I did have a couple of dark chocolates with my coffee, on the basis that I’d passed on the pudding, but all things considered I think that was okay. There were seven mealtimes over the course of the weekend, and I’m proud to say I behaved myself at every single one of them. I drank my water. I stayed away from naughty. I passed the test.

I’m still locked in a stand-off with the Shitbird scale mind you. We’re playing that game of who’s going to blink first. I brought my weigh-in forward by two days, because I was going to be away on Sunday morning, and I hadn’t lost a fucking ounce since the last time. Again. I also did a cheeky hop-on this morning to see whether the needle had moved over the weekend…it hadn’t.

I’m not going to be the one who blinks first. Not a chance. I’m going to put in textbook day after textbook day until the Shitbird thing rolls over and offers up a loss. I’m on a mission, remember? 215lbs by Christmas. I keep repeating it over and over like a mantra. And when I get there that means I’ll have less than 70lbs to go before I cross the Skinny Town county line.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy 🙂

 

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

I Would’ve Worried.

In the here & now, ,

I’m so giddy…it’s time for my writer’s weekend! I’m heading out at lunchtime to spend the next three days at the Festival of Writing 2017 surrounded by arty creative types who do this shit for real and I just can’t wait. The very first seminar of the weekend is called From Pipe-dream to Publication, and I’m hoping there’ll be loads of folk just like me who bring enthusiasm over experience and  don’t have a highly polished manuscript up their sleeve. All I want to do is take a tentative step into that world and have a bit of a nose around, you know? Suss it all out.

I’ve got my clothes all picked out, and I’ve got my fake bake on so I’m sporting a healthy glow, or at least I will be when I’ve showered off the excess this morning…right now I look like I fell in a vat of gravy. I treated myself to a face pack last night so it’s as good as it’s going to get. I don’t want to spend the next three days worrying about how I look, but I’m well aware that first impressions count. Having said that, I want to look young and skinny so I’m screwed on both counts, right?

There was a time, where events like this would’ve been off-limits to someone like me. When I was at my fattest there’s no way I would’ve considered rocking up to a long weekend where I know nobody at all. I’ll have no choice but to mingle and put myself out there. Back then, it would have been the stuff of nightmares to be honest, no matter how interesting I might have found the workshops.

I would have worried about what people thought as I waddled around looking for somewhere to sit. I would’ve prayed that the lecture theatres were not too far from each other so I didn’t have to walk very far. I would’ve been stressed to the max about finding a chair big enough for my double arse and I would’ve tortured myself with the buffet in case anyone judged me for my food choices.

I would’ve known in advance exactly how miserable I’d be, and I would have allowed fat to get in the way of my dreams. Again. I just wouldn’t have gone.

This time, I’m not fazed by it. Any of it. Well, except maybe the buffet. I’m not in control of the menu for three whole days but I am in control of my mouth and what goes in it. To be fair, I’m so on it at the moment I’m happy that I can pull it off.

I’m not really big on networking and exchanging small-talk in a work situation, I find it irksome and I really can’t be arsed but this is different. I’m dying to meet other people who love to write, and people who’ve had their words published and most of all I’m dying to meet people who can open my eyes to the possibilities of it all.

Besides, for the first time in my life I can honestly say being fat opened the door…I might never have picked up a pen if I’d been living the dream in Skinny Town all these years, eh?

Have an awesome weekend folks, and I’ll see you on the other side 🙂

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Putting The Asshole Voice on Mute

In the here & now,

It occurred to me as I went to bed last night that yesterday had passed without any fat incidents whatsoever. Not a single one. No dark thoughts about what I wanted to eat but couldn’t because I was on a diet. No pre-occupation at the mid afternoon point as to where I might source a handful of inappropriate snacks, and no debating with myself when I got home from my swim as to whether I should or shouldn’t spend the calories I’d earned.

I wonder if that’s what life feels like for a normal person? Someone whose life doesn’t actually revolve around food. I mean generally, if I’m not eating I’m at least thinking about where my next food opportunity is coming from. Yesterday I even passed up a decent supper in favour of boiled eggs and toast because I was heading to the pool and I just wanted something light. Hello??  That’s a first.

I reckon it’s because I’ve gotten past those first few days of re-booted focus, where the feeling of being deprived all over again makes me hyper-likely to be lured into an ambush by the Asshole voice, you know? We all know that once he’s got me cornered the odds of me being led by the nose directly into the path of trouble increase tenfold.

As day one reduces to a pin-prick in my rear-view mirror, it’s much harder for him to present me with a decent argument as to why starting again tomorrow is a good idea. It’s not. And without my sugar-goggles, I can see that with much more clarity. Today marks fifteen days of food sobriety, and I’ve gone the whole hog by cutting out refined sugar altogether.

That’s such a killer for the first few days. My head deploys every trick in the book to convince me that it’s not necessary. That I can manage perfectly well and lose weight just as effectively with sugar in my life and you know what, for the first eighteen months of my journey towards Skinny Town I did. The difference isn’t in the number on the scale, it’s about how easily I’m able to put the Asshole voice on mute.

You know how in winter, when you wake up and it’s been snowing overnight? You open the door and the world feels quieter somehow, like the blanket of snow has muted all the noise. Well, when I stop eating refined sugar it feels exactly the same. Once I’m over the initial panic and my head accepts that sugar has left the building, it seems to get behind the idea completely and throws a blanket over all the noise about food. Inside my head, after two weeks without refined sugar it’s quiet enough to hear a mouse fart in the next county.

I’m past the hard bit now, and free to focus on the important stuff. I’m determined to hit 215lbs by Christmas and I feel like I have a fighting chance. My mail bag tells me that more than a few of you have already got your eyes on Christmas and you’re on a mission to hit the next size down, just like me…come on, we can totally do this!

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Trying It Without The Carrot

In the here & now, ,

So my conversation with the Shitbird Scale yesterday provoked a miserable reaction from my face, which together with the rest of me had expected more. It gave up nothing, not a single fucking ounce. And I don’t know about you, but that feels really unfair when I’ve worked my cahoonies off to make a dink in the number of pounds I gained when I was busy being a dickhead.

Seriously, I’ve done an hour of swimming just about every day, not to mention all the physio and the walking I’ve managed to fit in. It feels like I’ve done nothing except work and work out over the last week, and I’ve stayed within my calorie limits, so there’s no wonder I feel like that foot-square piece of shitbird glass has stabbed me right in the back. I was actually expecting a fanfare and some sort of trophy for having the best week ever.

It could’ve gone two ways. You know me, setbacks on the scale have been known to send me hurtling straight to the hob-nobs. As recently as the end of July I posted a picture of my weigh-in where the number had gone in the wrong direction, and confidently declared that based on what I’ve eaten I don’t deserve this so I’m choosing to not let it mess with my head…yeah well look how well that worked out. Just about three weeks of anarchy followed because it totally messed with my head.

I’m very happy overall with the regime I’m following. I like the rhythm of counting calories now I’ve wrestled my head back into the game but I reckon I need to tinker around the edges of the numbers a bit because there’s a couple of things I’m not convinced about.

Firstly, I’m not convinced that My Fitness Pal is playing with a straight bat when it tells me I burn one thousand and ninety calories doing sixty minutes of swimming. I mean, that’s a lot, right? When I work out at the Kingdom of Pain, or I walk or get on my bike I know exactly how many calories I’m burning because the technology on my wrist updates MFP without any help from me. It just knows. And in an hour’s circuit training or boxing I generally burn somewhere around five hundred, which leaves me red-faced and half dead at the end of the session.

Swimming is different. It’s not an exact science, mainly because my watch isn’t waterproof, so I have to manually add my swimming activity from the MFP database. And much as it pains me, since I’m not in training for the next olympics I’m not convinced I can burn that many calories doing an hour of gentle breast stroke. I mean, old people overtake me as I’m pootling up and down the swim lanes dreaming about what I might scoff with the one thousand and ninety extra calories I’m racking up. Or not, as the case may be. I get out of the water feeling like I’ve worked, but I’m relaxed and nowhere near half dead.

I pottered about a bit on line yesterday and the consensus seems to be that it’s probably nearer six hundred calories an hour. Which is still awesome, but it’s not one thousand and ninety is it? So I’ve probably eaten a fair few ghost calories this week, which will almost certainly have contributed to my failure to move the needle.

Secondly, whilst I hesitate to go against God of Pain’s counsel, I’m thinking I might be better off setting my daily calorie allowance a little bit higher, but not eating the additional calories I’m earning from exercise. I’m nervous about taking away the carrot if I’m honest…the promise of earning a few thousand extra calories over the course of the week motivates me to put in the work because I know it means more food. I wonder if I’ll be able to maintain the same level of enthusiasm if I know it’s not going to result in extra portions..?

Time will tell I suppose. I’ve reset the numbers and I’m going to give it a go. There’s too much effort going into all this for me to just stand still, right?

Like it..? Tell your friends!