Category Archives: In the here & now

Taking Care Of The Hairy Mary

In the here & now, , ,


Well, first of all I can’t start this blog post without a word of thanks to all of you who’ve taken the time to answer my questions and tell me what you think about the blog…I’m blown away by some of the feedback. I’m not even kidding, I was so moved by some of the lovely stuff you said I did the ugly cry more than once.

I think I might print hundreds of copies and wallpaper my house with it all so when I’m having a shit day your words can lift my mood. Thanks guys, I feel so incredibly lucky having y’all in my corner. And so far, the consensus is that a Break Out The Skinny Girl book might just have legs. If you haven’t had chance to look at the questions yet and you’d like to share your thoughts, you can find them HERE…last time of asking, I promise.

So anyway, this week was born with the potential to go a bit tits up. I’m working away from home which means two nights in a hotel, and quite a nice one as it turns out. I did as much research as I could before I got here so I knew a bunch of stuff, like the menu options for room service, and the fact that it had a pool. And hot on the heels of my holiday swimming, you don’t need me to tell you how excited I was about the pool.

Now, I’m not the only one from the company I work for who’s staying here, in fact there’s probably another eighty colleagues here for the next couple of days. Which means that I’m probably not the only one who’s clocked the leisure facilities. And yet, despite the fact that there’s a very real possibility that I might bump into someone I know from work – cringe – I brought my swimming costume anyway. In fact, I brought two.

Can you even begin to imagine me doing that a year ago? These guys are used to seeing me in a professional capacity, you know?  Dressed appropriately with my game face on, not wrapped in a scrap of Lycra with my wobbly bits on parade in the broad light of day.

Back in the day when I was crippled with horror at the size of my arse you couldn’t have paid me enough to doff off if there was even the tiniest possibility of bumping into someone I knew, especially someone I knew from work. Yesterday, when I arrived at the hotel after a three hour drive, I couldn’t wait to get into that pool, and beyond a cursory check to make sure there was no overspill from the hairy Mary on display I didn’t give a second thought to what if I bump into… I just got on with the business of enjoying the water.

As it turns out, I didn’t see a soul down at the pool…all our lot were all in the bar. And by the time I’d had my swim, and tamed my hair again (since the water had kinked every strand and left to its own devices I would’ve morphed into a Brillo pad) they’d all disappeared into the town for a few scoops, so it was a very sensible early night for me. 

I had a carefully chosen light supper courtesy of the room service menu, so I’m off to a good start. Today will be a challenge. Last time we had a retail conference I remember all the tables groaning under dishes of naughties to keep folk entertained as they sat through one presentation after another. I tried hard to say no but I couldn’t get the words out because I was too busy chewing. It didn’t go well.  I think I ‘fessed up told you about it at the time.

Anyway, this time will be different…no refined sugar, right? I shall liberate a couple of pieces of fruit from the breakfast buffet and if the Asshole voice tries to lead me down a dark alley to get mugged by a something sweet, I’ve got something to stuff into my face which doesn’t involve chocolate.

Sounds like a plan…watch this space ?

 

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Buckled In And Ready For The Ride

In the here & now, , ,

So we’re officially in the second half of 2017. I mean really, how is that even possible? It doesn’t seem two minutes since I kicked off the year with a renewed determination to get back on track and stop throwing the door wide open for the fuck-up fairy to waltz right in and make herself at home. I’m happy to say that with the exception of one four-day visit, her open invitation remains suspended and I’m doing fine.

It’s good to take stock. I’m 29lbs down so far this year, which averages out at a cock-hair over 1lb a week. I’m not gonna lie, I’d prefer the average to be a bit more impressive, but the momentum from switching up my food plan to calorie counting through My Fitness Pal is going to carry me forward a bit faster, I can already see that. I’ve had another cracking loss this week which I’m  so excited about especially after our holiday, and the Shitbird scale is definitely losing the upper hand.

I would never diss Weight Watchers, right? It’s been my travelling companion for a good 18 months and it’s served me well. That said, it was the right time for me to move away from counting points, which I suspect is built around normal people who don’t have a tendency to eat their own bodyweight in anything positioned as ‘free’. I mean come on, some folk just take liberties, and I’d be the first to admit I’m one of them.

Hooking up the technology on my wrist with the MFP app means I’ve been forced to compare the exact number of calories in whatever I’m eating versus the exact number of calories that I’m burning, and shit, there’s no wonder some weeks I’ve lost the equivalent of a gnat’s ass. I know I’m fairly active these days but on the other hand so are my jaws, right? Most weeks I’ve felt a bit aggrieved at my snail’s pace progress because to all intents and purposes I’ve been sticking to the plan, but the reality is the plan I was following was probably just giving me too much rope.

Now, I feel like I have insight and complete control, and it’s a game-changer. I’m excited to see what I can do with this over the next few months, you know? It took me the first five months of this year to lose twenty two pounds, but I’ve lost another seven in the last three weeks, which says it all really. Honeymoon period..? Possibly, but I’m happy to see where it takes me. I’m buckled in and ready for the ride.

How weird is it, that I’m embracing this level of discipline? I don’t ever do too well with rules and rigidity in fact I’ve made it my life’s work to push back against anything that feels like it’s tying my hands, and yet right now I appear to be living in an Asshole voice-free zone. I suspect that at the deepest level I recognise this as the silver bullet that could free me from this fucking fat suit once and for all 🙂

 

On another note altogether, may I ask for five minutes of your time to answer a couple of questions for me? I’d be so grateful for your help. When I started this blog as a way of supporting my own weight-loss journey, I discovered a love of writing that I never knew I had, and as we’ve walked this path together over the last couple of years, many of you have reached out and suggested that I should think about writing a book.

Now, I’m not daft enough to let a few bits of nice feedback turn my head, but you know what, I get the biggest kick out of knowing that what goes on in these pages helps  some of you guys too, and I’ve got almost three hundred thousand words’ worth of blog posts in the bag…imagine if I could turn them into something resembling a book?

I feel a tiny bit dizzy at the thought of it…I’m not a writer, I’m just a fat girl who loves to write but if this journey has taught me anything, it’s that dreams are worth chasing, so I’m doing a little bit of market research to test the water and I’d really value your thoughts. You can help by clicking HERE and it’s completely anonymous so please be honest!

Before I go, I just want to wish Nicola well with her goal this week…if you follow her Shitbird page you’ll see that she’s incredibly close to kissing the hallowed turf of one-derland and I’m excited for her weigh-in on Thursday!

 

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Back From The Land Of Sunshine And Guessing

In the here & now, , ,

Is it just me, or does the last week seem to have disappeared at warp speed? Time flies I guess, but anyway here I am, back from holiday and making the most of my last few days off work. I always miss you lot like mad whenever I take a break, but it does me a world of good to really switch off from time to time, and have nothing at all on the ‘to do’ pile. My batteries are completely recharged and I feel better for it, you know?

We had a fabulous holiday in possibly one of the most magical locations I’ve ever had the good fortune to visit. Did you see the photos? If not, and you’d like to look you can find them here. (Don’t let my Sunday name fool you, it’s me I promise!) I love Italy anyway, but oh my days the Umbrian region is really spectacular.

We managed to get a bit of walking in, way across the valley so we could look back at the castle we were staying in from a neighbouring hill. I rediscovered my love of swimming, which is very easy to do when you pretty much have the pool to yourself and can cut through the water with the sun on your back and the sound of bird song and cicadas as a backing track. I managed at least a hundred lengths of the pool every day and earned a few more food tokens for dinner.

I was so sad to leave, although I know I’ll go back and to be fair it’s always great to get home and see my boys. And guess what…despite all the food temptations, I never stepped a toe out of line all week. I know! I pulled it off and chose skinny, all day, every day. I’m not sure I can find the words to tell you how great that makes me feel now I’m out the other side.

Having no means to weigh or measure anything took me right out of my comfort zone, I’ve got to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, My Fitness Pal tries to make it easy by giving you the option of choosing a cup’s worth of something instead of a weight in grams, but that sets my OCD off all on it’s own.  I mean, how big is a cup? An espresso cup? A Starbucks size cup? I’ve got cups at home which are the size of a bucket and my fat eyes would try and default to those ones every time. Whaddya mean that’s too big?? It’s a CUP Your Honour!

I’ve had to pretty much guess my way through every menu I’ve looked at in the last week and that has twisted my melon big time. The irony isn’t lost on me, given that I’ve pretty much guessed and estimated my way through the last two years. It was easier somehow, when I was counting points instead of calories…there was so much free stuff that you could usually ignore half your plate for the purposes of food logging.

It’s different now. I feel like MFP is making me take accountable to a whole new level, you know? I finished splitting out a punnet of grapes yesterday afternoon into separate little carefully weighed zippy bags. There were six grapes left over at the end, and I didn’t even shove them in my mouth as a freebie…that’s how on it I am.

I’m relieved that after a few days of having to feel my way through the food minefield with one hand tied behind my back, I’ve reignited my relationship with the kitchen weighing scales without a fight and I’m right back on track with my food prep and planning…I was half expecting the Asshole voice to jump on the freestyle bandwagon and propose we continue with this guessing malarkey but he remains reassuringly quiet.

So, the acid test will be Sunday when I go toe to toe with the Shitbird scale. God of Pain’s scales confirmed last night that I’d stayed exactly the same as I was the day before I left, which is great and I suppose it shows that my guessing was pretty bob-on, but I’m not settling for that. I’m pitching for a loss…better watch this space 🙂

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A Pinch Of Common Sense

In the here & now, ,

Monday was a really fun day. My work colleagues and I escaped from the office and spent the day hanging out together doing non work-related team building stuff, and as luck would have it, our day out fell on one of the hottest days of the year. I couldn’t help thinking, as we sat in under the shade of a big tree next to York Minster, just how lucky I was.

We landed in one of the local restaurants for lunch, and as I looked at the menu I could feel myself starting to get a bit anxious. I mean don’t get me wrong, it was a fabulous menu but there was no calorie details to be found anywhere. I even googled the name of the restaurant but despite scrolling through website after website promising nutritional details of every menu in the western hemisphere, I turned up a complete blank.

You know what I’m like…stuff has to be perfect. I’m either all in or all out and there’s no middle ground, so the thought of not being able to play by the rules of My Fitness Pal by logging the exact number of calories in my lunch freaked me out more than a little bit. I had to get over myself and navigate my food choices with a pinch of common sense, you know?

Garlic mushrooms for an appetiser, and don’t eat the bread or the sauce. Chicken for main, hold the fancy potatoes cooked in cheese and cream, and just give me green beans instead. I still had to estimate calories because I couldn’t weigh anything, but it was an educated guess based on the best food choices I could make out of what was on offer. And that’s just life, right? It can’t always be perfect.

I’m going to have to get used to it in any event, because I’m going on holiday tomorrow and I’ll be nowhere near a set of kitchen scales for the next week. My friend and I are going to Umbria in Italy, otherwise known as the land of pizza, pasta and ice-cream…I mean really, shoot me now.

As I explained to a very dubious looking God of Pain before my boxing session this morning, I am going to stick to some broad principles. There’s a gym, and my exercise gear will be coming with me so I can fit an hour in every day. We’re staying on a half board basis, and I don’t know whether it’s a buffet (in which case that’s fine I can make grown-up choices) or whether we get served whatever they’ve cooked (which might be a bit more of a challenge) but either way I am planning to remain refined-sugar free and go easy on the carbs.

I’m assuming there will be Wi-Fi…if not, since the hotel is an old restored castle perched on top of a hill there should be a decent phone signal, so I can continue to log my exercise and my food in MFP based on my best guess. It won’t be perfect, but I’ll work with what I’ve got.

I can’t wait. I’m going with my oldest friend, whose company is effortless. I’ve lined up a hundred books on my kindle, and I can’t wait for the views from our terrace, or the shady spot we’ll tuck ourselves into as we people watch and drink unbelievably good Italian coffee.

I’ll be back at the end of next week but as usual when I’m away, keep your eye on the Facebook page…I may get chance to share a few pictures. Have a great week everyone and see you on the other side…

Wahoooooooooooo….holidaaaaaayyyyyy!!!  🙂 🙂 🙂

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These Are OUR People!

In the here & now, , ,

You know when you find yourself doing something that you thought people like you just didn’t do? Well that was me at the weekend. I’m really living this life, and I have to keep pinching myself. My friend Nic and I set off on Saturday with our bikes slung in the back of her car, looking for an adventure. Yes, you heard that right.

There’s a vast network of forest cycling trails about ninety minutes north of where we live, and since our recent gentle bike rides have helped to acclimatise our respective backsides to the prolonged use of a saddle, it seemed like a great idea to take it to the next level and try something different.

Apparently, loads of folk had woken up on Saturday with the same idea because the car park was bursting at the seams with athletic-looking people on bikes. One barbie-esque girl who climbed out of a van opposite our car had it all going on in a tiny crop top and painted on leggings, although to be fair she seemed more interested in checking herself out in the wing mirror and posing for selfies than she did in her bike. Mind you, as we sat in the car watching her, we were equally pre-occupied with eating our packed lunch before we’d even unloaded the bikes, so we were hardly in a position to judge.

Despite the fact that our jaws were moving at the time, as we sat there, two reformed couch potatoes surveying all these fit families and middle-aged men in lycra, Nic made a sweeping gesture with her hand and said Dee these are our people…cue a fit of the giggles but what she was trying to say in between snorts of laughter was that we were like them, you know? We’d driven for miles to partake of stuff requiring effort, of our own free will, and we shared a moment of satisfaction about our own lycra, even though it didn’t look quite like it did on Toothpickarella across the way.

The forest had a colour coded system to mark out the various forest trails…green for easy, blue for intermediate and red for difficult. We studied the map carefully and tried to fit in by pretending we knew what we were doing. It seemed sensible to  start on a green route, and then maybe have a crack at blue, so we followed the signs out of the car park and set off on what we thought was the green route.

I think we must have cycled a bit of the green route when we first set off but after we’d been climbing for around a mile on a road that seemed to get steeper by the minute we started to wonder whether we might have gone just a tiny bit wrong. I mean, I know we weren’t experienced map readers and all, but the gentle green route which followed the river at the base of the forest hasn’t seemed to suggest you had to climb a killer hill first. We weren’t actually in the forest for one thing, which might have given us a big fat clue. However, on the off chance that this was the easy route, neither of us were going to admit defeat so we carried on going. And going.

So how were we to know that the little green tree on every signpost was fuck-all to do with the green route? It wasn’t our fault that the Forestry Commission’s logo happens to be a little green tree, right? An easy mistake to make m’lud. Anyway, those nice people from mountain rescue happened to pass us after seven miles and pointed us in the right direction and then happily, finally, we made it into the forest. And it was awesome.

Awesome, and hard. It was twisty and uneven and bumpy. Really narrow paths with sharp bends where the effort of controlling a bike on top of loose sandy stones makes your shoulders scream and arms numb and your wrists tingle. Going down was hard but climbing was even harder. Trying to get enough traction to keep going whilst dropping down multiple gears and holding the bike steady was really bloody tough. I’m sure it must be easier if you’re skinny. Roll on that day.

At one point going up and round a bend, I slowed almost to a stop, realised that I couldn’t get the right gear in time then toppled sideways in slow motion onto a log, which was fine until my handlebars jabbed me in the chest and the pedal attacked my leg. Mind you, I came off a lot better than Nic, who fell off spectacularly, twice on a couple of hairpin bends…we were well into the blue route by this point having bypassed green altogether whilst we were scaling the perimeter road. Duh…

Despite all that, we were having such a great time we forgot we were exercising. It was hairy at times and really hard work but it was beyond fun and we barely stopped laughing all afternoon. We did about fifteen miles in the end, at least half of that off-road. That’s not bad going for a fat lass, eh?

To top off a brilliant weekend, yesterday, the Shitbird scale finally woke up and accepted that I mean business, awarding me 3lbs off this week. I worked bloody hard for that 3lbs, and I couldn’t be happier. This new regime is working for me and I’m more motivated than I’ve ever been.

Come on, let’s see what we can squeeze out of this week 🙂

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