Category Archives: In the here & now

A Nice Problem To Have

In the here & now, , ,

I think I mentioned didn’t I, that I was going away for the weekend with my mum? We’ve rented a little cottage near the sea, just for a few nights and when I went up to help her pack her bag last night she was almost beside herself…she does giddy almost as well as I do. To be fair, I think she’s just excited about spending four days with Charlie dog, who she utterly adores, but she doesn’t seem to mind that I’m tagging along too.

Mum’s packing was easy. She only has a tiny wardrobe, housing a few carefully selected clothes. My packing on the other hand, is proving more difficult, and it boils down to the fact that there’s just too much choice in my wardrobe these days. My first cut would have kept me comfortably clothed for a month, so I fannied around for ages putting things back and trying to second-guess what the weather’s going to do so I could pack just the right amount of stuff. Yeah, epic fail on that front by the way, my bags are stuffed to bursting point and anyone would think I’m about to leave home.

I’ll tell you what though, how much more enjoyable is it, packing for a trip when you’re excited to wear the things you’re taking with you? I know I won’t wear half the things I’ve packed but choosing which ones to leave behind is impossible because I want to wear them all so I’m unashamedly dragging a ridiculously large suitcase with me because you know what, I’ve earned the right to revel in these clothes. I’ll try them all on and do a fashion show for my mum every morning and then decide what to wear.

I have this wonderfully romanticised picture in my head, of me, gliding along the promenade with the gentle sea breeze ruffling my hair, looking so stylish in my new duds that folk take a moment from their busy day to just admire the look. Come on, that’s never going to happen. I’m more likely to be battered by the hoolie blowing off the east coast, which will whip my hair into a frenzy as I try to control a hyper-excited cocker spaniel and prevent my tiny octogenarian mum from blowing down the beach.

It doesn’t matter, does it? Whether anyone notices I look nice or not, I’ll feel nice. I’m about to go work out, and as I grit my teeth all the way through my muffin tops and bingo wings class, I’ll be thinking about those size eighteen linen pants hanging on the outside of my wardrobe. For my friends in the States, that’s a fourteen in your neck of the woods…I know, right? I’m five dress sizes down from where I started. I don’t care that there’s barely room to squeeze out a trump once I’ve put them on…they fasten, and I can still breathe if I sit down so as far as I’m concerned, they fit.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter. Keep your eye on the Facebook page for postcards from the East Coast, and I’ll see you on the other side 🙂

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All My Knobs Are At The Top

In the here & now, , , , ,

You know what, this week is shaping up to be an absolute corker, I mean I’ve had a couple of really cracking days. After all that sorting out at the weekend, I swear the last thing on my mind was going out and buying more stuff, but on Monday I tagged along with a couple of friends from work for a cheeky lunchtime mooch around a local retail park and I accidentally came home with two dresses, two tops and a jacket. Mainly because I really liked them but also because I could. I should probably feel guilty, but you know what, bite me 🙂

Then, I was out of the office all day yesterday on a course at the local University designed to help me develop resilience in the workplace, and I had lightbulbs going off in my head every five minutes. It was supposed to be a work thing, but there were more parallels than I could even count with this weight-loss journey that we’re all on, so I couldn’t wait to tell you.

One thing in particular really resonated, about mental toughness, and God knows those of us on a diet need a bit of that to resist all the pies, right? I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain it.

This professor dude talked about ‘The Four C’s’ of mental toughness, which are Challenge, Control, Confidence and Commitment.

Challenge is about understanding what the challenge is – what needs to be done and the benefit you’ll get if you do it. Confidence is about believing that you have it in you to pull it off. Control is about feeling in control of both your environment and your emotions and commitment is…well, as it sounds – it’s about committing to a goal or an outcome.

It seems you can pretty much write a cheque for success in any situation if all four of those things are present and correct. As he was talking, I was supposed to be applying the theory to a work context but in my head, my thoughts set off running like a hare in a meadow…I started thinking about my weight-loss journey, and I started to get very very giddy.

Because. I understand that I need to lose weight, and I know how much better I’ll feel when I’m skinny. I one hundred percent believe that I can do it and right now I’m in control of what’s around me, and what’s inside me…the Asshole voice is well and truly gagged. And I’m totally committed to my food sobriety.

Imagine a graphic equaliser. In case you’re too young to remember what one of those was, (get out of my blog immediately) they existed in an era before digital sound blew the need for manual twiddling out of vogue. They looked a bit like the picture I’ve stuck at the top, with knobs you could move up and down to isolate and adjust the different bits of sound when you were playing a record, like dialling up the bass or the treble.

Now think about one of those knobs next to each of the four C’s…right now, all four of my C’s are dialled right the way up. All my knobs are at the top and they have been since I gave my head a wobble in the New Year and rediscovered the sweet spot. They’re all up there on full volume, and yesterday I made the connection between all this lovely theory and what’s happening with me right now. My unbroken run of fourteen losses in fourteen weeks. Not a toe out of line where my food plan is concerned. It’s because all my knobs are at the top.

In the last three months of last year when I was climbing on and falling off the wagon with alarming regularity, my knobs were not at the top. Sometimes one or two or maybe even three of them might have been, but if just one of those four things is switched off, you are on the back foot completely and the chances are you won’t succeed. I’ve lived it, remember? I regained twenty two pounds in the last three months of the year. I’m telling you, it was like fucking Blackpool illuminations in my head yesterday when I made the connections.

Where are your knobs? It might be worth doing a quick recce, especially if you’re in that place where you’re taking two steps forwards and one step back…I guess understanding which one of your knobs needs adjusting might just make the difference, right?

On another note, I’ve changed my weigh-day. I decided that since I’m spending my weekly Weight-Watchers points on days three to five of my dieting week it would make more sense if those days fell on a weekend. So, my new weigh-day is Wednesday. Today. And to my surprise and delight although it’s only three days since my last weigh-in, Shitbird Scale offered up one and a quarter pounds.

Told you I was having a good week 🙂

 

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Mission Interrupted

In the here & now, , ,

Have you ever got mid-way through something, only to lose interest and  wonder what madness inspired you to start in the first place..? Yeah, me too. That was me this weekend, having a bit of a sort-out. Spot the inappropriate use of the word bit in that sentence. I massively underestimated the size of the task, and now my bedroom looks like a clothes-bomb went off.

I ran out of steam after I’d been going at it for three or four hours and proceeded to find all manner of distractions. I even did some ironing which tells you how desperate for a distraction I was…anyone who knows me would tell you that I never pick up the iron without a gun to my head.

So anyway, the upshot is my low boredom threshold means I’ve only scratched the surface of what needs to be done. All the stuff in my wardrobe fits me – or is about to – and anything that’s too big has been evicted but I haven’t been near the stuff I have in storage yet, to see what gems are waiting to be rediscovered. There are definitely things amongst that lot which will fit me now, but the buggeration factor is that I don’t remember packing it away in any kind of order, you know? It won’t be as easy as just grabbing the bags I need, because I’m an ejit and that would be too simple.

I came across a bunch of skinny stuff too, when I started emptying drawers…I couldn’t decide what to do with it, so I just put it back and did nothing. I mean, should it stay? I’m working my way down the sizes so it seems a waste of effort to pack it all up and put that in storage but on the other hand I’m barely in the ‘burbs of Skinny Town and I won’t need it for a while yet. Months, in fact. It probably needs to go. If I’m bringing stuff back here I’ll need the drawer space. Fucks’ sake, swapping all this stuff around is going to take forever.

Still, it’ll get done when it gets done. I’m working until Thursday but then I’m off work for about ten days. I’m taking my mom away to the seaside over the Easter Weekend but I have almost a whole week off after we get back so I’ll make it my mission to crack on and finish what I’ve started. I’ll allow myself a couple of lazy days towards the end of the week if I get my arse in gear and do it as soon as we get back. To be fair, I am looking forward to being reunited with some of the stuff I liked enough to pack away in the hope that one day it might fit me again.

I had another positive conversation with the Shitbird Scale yesterday, did you see?  One and a half more pounds evicted from my pants. That’s the fourteenth week in a row where I’ve lost weight, and I’m still completely in control of my food plan so I’m now breaking new ground and I can’t begin to tell you how good that feels. Just a few pounds more and the number will read sixteen something and God was a lad last time that happened.

Can I just mention too that the sun has been shining this weekend, and my arse has been a black-pants-free-zone. How about that 🙂

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A Wardrobe Full Of Nothing To Wear

In the here & now, ,

It occurred to me this week that we’ve stumbled into Spring, and I didn’t even notice. There are lambs in the fields and the clocks have gone forward…it’s light when I leave for work and when I come home, and I even managed two commutes this week without wearing a coat. I know, right?  

It’s time for a bit of a spring clean I think. More importantly, it’s time for a bit of a wardrobe clear-out. I’ve got to hold my hands up and admit that since my arse commenced its steady march down the sizes, I may have treated myself to the odd thing here or there. Says the queen of understatement. Yes okay whatever, you caught me with a smoking credit card.   It’s hard not to get carried away with yourself though, at the prospect of being able to buy nice stuff for the first time in years. My wardrobe is groaning.

I’ve got to be honest, this time of year has been known to fill me with dread. I always struggled with the transition from winter wardrobe (black pants, shapeless swingy stretchy top) to spring wardrobe (black pants, shapeless swingy stretchy top) to summer wardrobe (black pants, shapeless swingy stretchy top). It felt like the whole world except me ditched anything black in favour of floaty fabrics and linens in lovely spring-like colours.

I’m only halfway through my weight-loss journey, in fact I’m not quite halfway. I’m almost there. I’m seventy eight pounds down and I’ve got ninety seven pounds left to lose, so obviously I’m nowhere near Skinny Town yet, but I do have a toe in the suburbs. I’m no longer required to shop only in fat-girl stores for one thing. Normal shops for normal people now stock a size I can wear, and trust me when I say I’ve taken full advantage of that.

I’m still doing that weird thing though, where I’m buying a size smaller that I really need. And I’m buying way too much stuff. I know that. I keep telling myself that I’m only passing through this size so chill my fucking boots and just have a few essential wardrobe staples but it’s like all my willpower is being used up in the food department and there’s none whatsoever left over to maintain control of what I’m spending on clothes.

The irony of all that of course, is that I’m still not happy with how most of it looks. I’ve gone from pulling on those shapeless stretchy tops and avoiding eye contact with the mirror, to pulling stuff on then obsessing in front of the mirror, twisting this way and that to try and make sure that whatever I’ve put on doesn’t show off my back fat, or my spectacular muffin top, or that it covers enough of my arse to quash those wicked rumours that my rear view looks like puppies fighting in a sack whenever I take a step.

Is it just me?

I keep telling myself that I’ll feel happier when I get to the next size down, or the next. I wish I could make my fucking mind up, you know? I’m much happier now than I was, of course I am. And I do have some stuff that I like wearing because I know it flatters my shape and hides all of the above, but going back to the wardrobe thing, clothes which are too big, new clothes that are too small yet and stuff that fits me now that I like or that I like but won’t wear for all the reasons I’ve talked about are all squashed into one place.

I’ve also got some stuff in storage from my last attempt at getting skinny and I’m sure some of it was the size I’m wearing now, which I haven’t fit into for at least the last five years and probably longer. Don’t get me wrong, most of it’s probably a crime against fashion by now because it’s a few years since it saw the light of day and the world has moved on, but I should really go and dig all that out too for a good root through. It’s definitely time for a sort out.

Looks like that’s my weekend taken care of. Have a good one y’all  🙂

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They Didn’t Burn A Hole

In the here & now, ,

I had a major stress head on yesterday morning. I’m doing some self-development sponsored by my work this week, learning how to interpret and administer a psychometric tool, so I’m on a three day course in the city near where I live. I’d left home in plenty of time and it was all going so well, right up to the point that I went to turn into the road leading to the venue, only to discover the road was closed. Beautiful.

So it’s rush hour, twenty minutes before the course was due to start and I’m driving past where I need to be, in a one-way city loop with no idea how to double back and find a different way in. I know, I think to myself, I’ll call the hotel and ask them. And that would’ve been a really good plan if anyone had answered the fucking phone.

Almost exactly twenty minutes later, I figured it out, but not before I’d turned the air blue inside my car. By the time I’d parked up and done a fast hobble across to the hotel, through the lobby and up to the first floor I was utterly frazzled. My hair, which had looked styled and smooth when I left home had gone rogue on me. The more hot and bothered I got, the wilder my hair got, and by the time I arrived I looked like Albert Einstein. I had big sweat patches under my arms and my cheeks were a lovely mottled shade of purple, I mean we’re talking off-the-chart attractive.

As I half skidded in a very lopsided fashion into the middle of a bunch of delegates, my eyes were drawn like magnets to an enormous tray of bacon sandwiches. Then I caught a whiff of them, and it was pretty much game over…all thoughts of how frazzled I was disappeared, and the deal was just about sealed when some random bloke shook me by the hand and passed me a plate.

Now, bearing in mind this is week two of my experiment, and I’ve hit the point in my dieting week I’m supposed to eat all my weekly points. As I stood there salivating with the plate in my hand you bet your sweet ass I was furiously totting up how many points I’d need to knock off my tally. I could have it, one hundred percent guilt-free. Get in!

Except, I’d already had breakfast in the car on the way there. I’d made a coconut and mango breakfast smoothie with a base of unsweetened almond milk, and it’d been really thick and filling. It dawned on me that I wasn’t actually hungry.

Now, you’ve got to bear in mind that a small detail like that has very rarely stopped me from indulging myself in the past. And I don’t know what was so different in that moment, but yesterday, it did stop me. I wanted that bacon bap like you wouldn’t believe, but on the other hand I didn’t want it at all, so I listened to the voice of reason, and I put the plate down. I went into the bathroom and had a stern word with the birds nest on my head instead.

That was a wise decision as it turns out, because those bacon baps were not actually for the delegates of the course I was on. Turns out the bloke who handed me a plate assumed I was with his lot and that’s why he tried to feed me. As if looking like a mad professor wasn’t embarrassing enough, I narrowly avoided getting in bother for the unauthorised consumption of pig flesh.

It wasn’t the only bullet I dodged yesterday…I managed to sidestep a whole host of booby traps, including a bowl of ginger nuts and fruit shortbread biscuits which were staring me down from the coffee area, not to mention several unwise options at the lunch buffet. I had my weekly points in my back pocket, but strangely they didn’t burn a hole. I wasn’t bothered. I’d decided at the top of the week that I was going to treat me and my boy to Chinese food one night, and I was happy enough knowing that treat was coming. Decision made, move on.

That’s another step forward, right?

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