Category Archives: In the here & now

Destination Disasterville

In the here & now, , , ,

I was supporting a training course yesterday at work, which was centred around strategic planning for some of our senior team. I love days like that, where you go along thinking you could probably recite the content standing on your head but end up learning a bunch of stuff in the process. You don’t know what you don’t know, right?

One of the exercises really captured my imagination. As a way to drive home the importance of proper planning, the facilitator asked the guys to imagine for a moment that they’d failed to deliver one of the key things they are accountable for. He wanted them to really think about what the consequences of that failure might be. Serious stuff, right? The scenarios they fed back included us losing customers, business, revenue, jobs…the full monty.

Now, I’ve not seen that exercise done before, and as I listened, I found myself participating from the sidelines and doing that thing where my mind anchors everything right back to what’s important in my world. So I set off thinking about my journey down the scale, and the fact that I’m the one who’s accountable for whether or not I manage to shift the extra arse I’ve been carrying around in my pants for the last few years.

Losing weight is the most significant part of my life plan, and has been for the best part of two years, but what would the consequences be if I failed? I didn’t need to imagine very hard, I mean I’ve been there for real more times than I can even count.

I see myself laid in my big fat reclining armchair, peering over the top of my belly at the TV as I watch The Biggest Loser, all the while shovelling cheese balls into my mouth, three or four at a time from the third family-sized bag that I’ll share with the dog in one sitting. Well, I say share…two hundred and ninety seven for me, one for him. Come on, I’m a responsible dog owner and don’t want him to get fat.

In my mind’s eye, I see myself heave three hundred and fifty pounds of lard off the chair and waddle it to the kitchen, so I can retrieve the Daim cake which is defrosting. It’s still frozen but fuck it, I’ll eat it anyway. I don’t mind it being a bit cold. 

As I shuffle back to my armchair with the whole Daim cake on a plate, I feel pissed off at the way my ankles and my knees hurt. It’s not fair. I’ve got an itch on my foot that I can’t bend down far enough to scratch because my belly gets in the way and I look like I’ve got three pillows of fat strapped around my middle. You don’t even want to imagine the rear view. 

I don’t wear anything on my feet that requires more of me than shuffling my foot forward in order to put them on, because fastening any kind of strap or buckle below the knee would cause my eyes to bulge like they’re going to pop right out of my head. Along with the grunting…that happens automatically when the fat I carry on the inside forces the air out of my lungs whenever I try to bend down. I live a vertical life for that reason, or at least I would if I could stand up long enough. Two minutes is about my max, before I start looking around for somewhere to sit down.

With a bit of luck there’ll be a chair without arms, because my arse struggles with the concept of a one-arse sized seat. Chair arms dig right into my legs and my skin will turn blue with bruises. If I do manage to find a seat without arms I’ll never relax in case it’s not geared up to hold an arse the size of mine…the thought of being a fat girl flailing on an exploded chair like a turtle on it’s back fills my heart with dread.

That’s what failure looks like to me, because there’s no middle ground.

Like the sound of needle scraping across vinyl, I woke up to myself in the present day when the facilitator brought the room back, and I almost cried with sheer fucking relief that I’m just fat. On a scale of fatness, I’m still right of the midline but I’m definitely not all the way over to the fat fat fat side. Not any more.

I can walk without pain, left knee excepted from time to time. Hell, I can circuit train, I can box and I can hold a plank for almost a minute. I swing kettle bells. I can cycle, and they even make padded cycling shorts in my size, which tells you that I’m on the fat edge of fucking normal. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

Fat isn’t limiting my life in the way that it did two years ago, and fat will never limit my life again. That’s the promise that I’ve made to myself and with every step I take, I can see that old life getting more and more distanced from who I am.

Failure..? Not on your nelly 🙂

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Getting Into My Groove

In the here & now, ,

Old habits are hard to break sometimes, right? When I got back from the Kingdom of Pain last night after an hour of circuit training I was ravenous, and before I’d even climbed out of my sweaty togs I had my head in the fridge to explore supper options. I started fixing myself an omelette, but despite getting myself all set up first with kitchen scale and the ingredients I needed to weigh, I caught myself lobbing a handful of chopped pepper straight into the pan.

I mean, the scales were right there  on my production line, but my hands chopped the peppers and the only thing that landed on the scale was a swift fuck you as my auto-pilot messed up the system and bypassed that step without a second thought. My app was open right next to me so I could log the calories, but my head was still living in the world where peppers didn’t count.

Like a fully paid-up drama queen, I stamped my foot and acted like the world had ended.

Well that’s it Dee you’ve fallen off the wagon, you may as well go eat cake immediately because you’ve ruined it. You’ll never know how many calories were in those peppers now…

I must have stared at them sizzling in the pan for a good thirty seconds, fighting the temptation to fish them out piece by piece and weigh them after the event. Fortunately common sense prevailed before OCD could kick in, but I did chop about the same amount of pepper all over again just so I could weigh it. It’s currently in a bag in the fridge ready to be eaten later today so it didn’t go to waste, but I’m beginning to see how this could become a bit…obsessive.

The discipline of logging everything isn’t worrying me as much as I thought it might, but I’m becoming disproportionately fascinated by all the reports and graphs which analyse in the minutest of detail exactly what I’m putting into my body.

What do you mean I’ve eaten too much sugar??? (screams at smartphone) – aside from all the stuff that tastes of MDF because it’s busy being all high fibre and low fat, over the course of the day I’ve had a child-sized banana, a handful of grapes and a hundred fucking calories’ worth of cherries. I can’t possibly be over my sugar goal, I’m NOT HAVING IT!!!

I need to chill out a bit, and I’m sure I will eventually once I’ve worked out all the kinks. Exercise has taken on a whole new meaning since God Of Pain approved the new regime on the condition that I eat my exercise calories, because I’m working out and it’s important to properly fuel my body. And let’s be fair that means extra rations so I’m hardly going to argue.

I rarely have time to get to the gym before work because the office is just shy of fifty miles away, but I nipped out for a cheeky half an hour on my bike yesterday morning and then did an hour or circuit training last night…I’m getting adept at sneaking a look at my watch as I work out. Not to keep an eye on the time, more watch the calories rolling into my food bank…ooh look, I’ve earned another grape…

It’s not too bad you know, in fact I’d go so far as to say I’m actually enjoying it 🙂

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The Currency Of Calories

In the here & now, , ,

So, three days in to the new regime and I think it’s fair to say that I’m on a rather steep learning curve…I’m having to kick my handbrake on with every step to save me rolling backwards whilst I fanny about logging everything I eat and drink into My Fitness Pal. This land of calories is a whole new world and I feel a bit like a tourist, you know? After counting points for the last eighteen months, it’s like having a pocket full of pennies when everything’s priced in cents.

Friday, which was day one of my new regime, was the hardest.  I got busy logging my breakfast, and made and logged some lunch to take to work, and then almost had a panic attack when I realised that I’d accounted for roughly two thirds of my daily allowance already.  Whaaa..?  I wanted to hammer down the door of Weight Watchers and beg them to let me back in so I could cling to the tried and tested like a drowning man would cling to a life vest. I didn’t, and in any event I’d forgotten they don’t actually know I’ve gone anywhere yet.

Seriously..? There’s no wonder I haven’t lost any weight recently if this is what a calorie budget buys you. Talk about a wake-up call..!

There’s no such thing as free food when you’re counting calories, is there? Even when you’re talking about foods with a negative calorie value. I distinctly remember someone telling me once that your body expends more calories digesting a tomato than the number of calories contained in the tomato which strikes me as a bloody good deal but even so, according to MFP they have to be counted.

I’m missing the free shit. Grapes are a great example, right? When I eat grapes, which I do all the time, what I actually eat is a punnet of grapes, and before you tell me that’s not normal just like eating a whole melon at one sitting isn’t normal, it’s normal for me. And Weight Watchers used to let me do it.

The Asshole voice went into overdrive on Friday and tried to persuade me that I was actually going to starve. I was fretting as I put my work bag in the car along with my small boxed chicken salad and my one hundred and sixty grams of grapes, to the point where I had to run back into the house for a stress poo, so convinced was I that the world as I knew it was about to end. I felt nervous and a bit twitchy, like an addict with a restricted supply chain…oh, wait a minute…

Thing is, I’d put it out there hadn’t I..? I’d told the whole fucking world that I was going to count calories on My Fitness Pal and as I’ve said a million times before, the only thing bigger than my arse is my pride, which would never allow me to quit on day one no matter how quickly I was fading away.

I’d also committed to drinking at least two litres of water, so for the last three days by lunchtime my eyeballs have been bobbing around above the fill level, and I’ve spent every afternoon peeing like a racehorse.

All that said, I’m starting to get into the swing of things. The weekend has gone really well, you know? God of Pain cast his eyes over my plan on Saturday and gave it the thumbs up, and I didn’t even flinch when the Shitbird Scale took a pot shot at me yesterday morning by declaring a small gain. I suspected that was coming after all the No Count carbs in the early part of last week so I made a jaunty exit from the bathroom without dwelling on it, and imagined instead what the number would be next Sunday. That’s one I’m excited to see.

I have a really good feeling about this. And listen, if any of you do MFP and want to come knocking and add me as a friend, I’m logged as BOTSG_Dee and I’d love to hook up with you. We’re all in this together after all 🙂

By the way, one or two people have asked me why they weren’t able to leave comments on Nicola’s Shitbird page, and I hadn’t realised that the comments bit wasn’t enabled – all fixed now if you want to chat to Nic directly.

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Taking The MFP Plunge

In the here & now, , ,

So there was a chorus of voices following my last post, all chirruping about My Fitness Pal. I mean I’d heard of it, but I’d never really considered using it myself. I was a bit confused and thought it was something to do with a fitbit, and in any event I was comfortable doing my own thing, you know? Logging stuff in the weight watchers app, and using their barcode scanner which is the best invention ever for folk like me with lazy bones.

Everything was connected. My watch spoke to my phone and sent smoke signals about my activity to the weight watchers app and when you’re a technical muppet like I am, the thought of having to set up a different carry-on from scratch is a bit daunting. It was all very comfortable, except for the fact that I’ve been treading water on the whole evicting pounds from my pants project. Which is a drawback quite frankly, when that’s the very reason all this counting and logging is happening in the first place.

The same counting and logging that I’m at the end of my rope with, right? I’ve spent the last couple of weeks locking horns with the Asshole voice over that very issue. When I don’t have his insidious voice in my ear, I log stuff as I go through the day.

On days when I’m bombarded with you don’t need to log every little thing, it’ll save time logging it all at once later on, of course you’ll remember and by the way get a life saddo I’m more likely to do a dodgy calculation on the back of a fag packet at the end of the day which, with a strong wind behind me might be somewhere near accurate. Or not. Depending on how effectively the Asshole has wiped my memory in the meantime.

So, when I was showered with suggestions that I give MFP a try, I couldn’t think of anything less appealing. I mean seriously there was no way I was having anything to do with that. I couldn’t be parted from my Weight Watchers app, and no way was I going to do both. No way at all.

Except, what if? What if this was the kick up the backside I needed? They say a change is as good as a rest don’t they, and although Weight Watchers has been good to me, if I never count another fucking smart point as long as I live it’ll still be too soon…I’m  bored. But maybe I’m bored with the diet rather than bored with dieting per se? I’m desperate to keep the momentum going.

I think I mentioned that I switched to the No Count plan and I’ve been enjoying it actually, but I’m wary of the lack of boundaries. I’ve filled my boots with brown rice and wholewheat pasta this week because it’s free, but I can almost see those carbs jostling for position inside my pants as they weld themselves to my arse.

Besides that, I’m a food addict, and addicts don’t cope well without boundaries. It’s one thing eating a whole cauliflower because it’s free of points, but it’s something else entirely necking a massive bowl of pasta whilst wearing an innocent expression and claiming quite rightly that it’s free…it is. But it’s not, Not really.

So, change is a comin’. I’ve taken the plunge and signed up with My Fitness Pal, and I’m on board starting today. I feel excited, and although I’m not cancelling my weight watchers membership quite yet, I’ve kicked it into the long grass and I’m going to try counting calories in conjunction with MFP. Ta daaah!!

I’m still keeping my weigh-day as Sunday, so this dieting week will be a mixture of two diets but happily, I have no Asshole voice pitching to make today and tomorrow the stuff that fat-girl dreams are made of by taking my foot off the gas ‘because I’m starting again on Sunday’.

And you know he would have been all over that at one point, right? That’s head progress right there whether its reflected on the scale or not. It’s all good. No blip, no drama. Go to bed Thursday on Weight Watchers, wake up Friday counting calories.

Seamless. I’m excited to see how this works out.

And I wonder how many calories there are in gravy… 🙂

 

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Friends With Benefits

In the here & now, , ,

You know how sometimes, you listen to someone wittering on about something, and you want to shake them and turn the mirror round so they can have a good look, and see what you see? Usually that they’re talking shite and the problem is closer to home than they’re prepared to acknowledge, am I right?  Yeah, well that was me on Monday.

I don’t know what’s changed between Monday and now, but I re-read the post yesterday when I was catching up with all your messages, and all I could hear was one big whinge. Poor me, I’m such a victim, I’m trying so hard and it’s not my fault…holy moly what did I sound like. I never play the victim role, but I was definitely trying it on for size wasn’t I? Sorry about that, I feel suitably sheepish. In fact, I feel like a dick.

I’m haven’t really hit a plateau, have I? My recent inertia stems more from the two steps forward and four steps back school of muppetry. I had an email from a lady who suggested I was probably not being honest with myself about what I was eating, and after I’d swallowed my initial response – which may or may not have included a bit of salty language even by my standards – my indignation prompted me to hold the mirror up to myself and take a good long look.

Fuck’s sake. She wasn’t wrong. Looking objectively, I had to acknowledge a bunch of stuff.

There are some things I’m doing really well. I tip out all my thoughts and feelings, and pick the bones of them with those of you who are kind enough to listen three times every week, and that’s what’s helped me achieve longevity on this journey. No way would I still have skin in the game after six hundred and fifty eight days on a diet if you lot hadn’t lent me your ears. I feel supported, and I’d hope those of you on your own journey to Skinny Town feel supported in these pages too. So we got that down, right?

I’m broadly happy with my food plan. Well, as much as I’m ever going to be. Between you and me, I am bored to the back bollocks of counting points, but last week’s switch to No Count has given me a shiny new toy to play with and I’m doing okay. So I can tick that box too.

So, the basics then..? All those things that I know I should do to supplement both of the above, like drinking two or three litres of water every day, and counting points for the dressing I put on my salad, or the honey that I drizzle on my breakfast…huh, so about that… do I really use one level teaspoon’s worth…? I have no idea. I’ve never drizzled it onto a teaspoon, I mean who does that? I guess it’s probably about a teaspoon’s worth, and I count the points on that basis. That’s near enough, isn’t it?

Actually, it’s probably not enough. Not if it’s several times per week’s worth of guess work. As for water…huh. I don’t do that either. I forget, I don’t like the taste, it makes me wee a lot…blah blah blah. I rarely get even half a litre down my neck. I know I should, but I don’t. I have no excuse.

And don’t even get me started on gravy. Come on, I’m a Yorkshire girl, and gravy runs through my veins, in fact most of my meals revolve around it. It’s only since I’ve started following the No Count plan, and my points budget is much smaller,  that I’ve properly read the values again and realised that one point buys me only four tablespoons’ worth of gravy. You’re shitting me, right? I thought it meant four tablespoons’ worth of granules, so I’ve happily been sailing my food through a lake of gravy with every meal, for more than eighteen months. I want to bang my head on the table and wail.

That’s the sound of a penny dropping, right there. I feel like wearing a black armband today, since me and gravy won’t be seeing each other any more. Well, maybe from time to time, sort of like friends with benefits.

I was a bit rattled at the suggestion that I wasn’t being honest with myself, but once again I’m more grateful than I can tell you at the way you lot help me keep it real.

I’d better try harder to read the small print in future, eh 🙂

 

 

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