Category Archives: In the here & now

A Moment Of Flirtation

In the here & now, ,

Is it just me, or does January seem to be whizzing past us at warp speed? I can’t believe we’re in the last week already, and I honestly don’t know where the time went. Last week was a wretched one. We’ve had trouble with our drains at home and the kitchen flooded twice. Okay, I’m being a drama queen, I mean I didn’t have furniture floating past me or anything but I did have to keep mopping up water when it all blew back up the pipes because it couldn’t find its way outside, and the drain people had to come out three times before it was finally fixed.

I feel like I’ve been tested, you know? I can think of numerous examples of domestic crises in the past  which I navigated with the help of yellow pages and a packet of hob-nobs, but I’m happy to report that on this occasion I didn’t compound an already shit week by falling off my food plan. That’s progress, right? In spite of my heroic efforts, Shitbird scale awarded me a very measly three quarters of a pound yesterday, but in light of my big loss the week before I’m taking it on the chin…it’s better than nothing.

There was an incident last night…a moment of flirtation between me and a box of chocolate covered donuts. Which incidentally I don’t even like. That’s the reason they were in my kitchen in the first place…my boy put a request in for chocolate when I went shopping, so I took great care to bring treats that I wouldn’t generally cross the road for. I’m on day 22 of my quest to spend my food budget on healthy choices, and not a single bite of anything naughty has passed my lips since I glued the wheels back on after Christmas.

So I didn’t bring home anything that would tempt me. I brought him chocolate-covered donuts instead because I’m immune to their charms. Except last night, I wasn’t. As I wiped down the kitchen counter, I must have stood and stared at that box of donuts for a good five minutes, wondering how they would taste if I took a bite out of one of them. Just one bite. There was nothing else at all in the house which could have led me towards the danger zone – trust me I mentally rifled through every cupboard just to make sure – and all of a sudden those fucking donuts looked like the most appealing treat I’d ever seen. I don’t care for them, but I was desperate to eat one.

I didn’t though. The moment passed. Wave two hit me when I’d been in bed for about half an hour, and the house was quiet. The asshole voice tried his level best to talk me into going back downstairs and moving in for the kill. You’ve proved you can do it now, you’re totally in control. So you can choose to have one now, and that would be okay…

He got nowhere. It’s funny isn’t it…my mind wanted the donut, even though my mouth doesn’t particularly like the taste. Weirdo, who does that?

Actually, not me 🙂

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A Soupçon of Worry

In the here & now, ,

On the surface of it, the prospect of working off-site for the afternoon is generally something I enjoy. We have lack of decent-sized meeting rooms in the office so if there’s a few of us squashed in for a longish meeting it can get annoying, you know? Besides what’s not to love about a change of scenery.

I was off-site yesterday with one of the teams I support, and our venue was a local brewery. As one of our suppliers, they were keen to host us and they’d even offered us a complimentary lunch. I was a tiny bit worried about that – I know it sounds silly, but you do when you’re sticking to a food plan and someone else is in charge of what’s on your plate. Whatever, I figured I could flex enough to deal with it and to conserve my daily points just in case, I made my porridge with water at breakfast time. Which, by the way is taking dedication to a whole new level because it tasted more like wallpaper paste.

Just before I left, I took a phone call from a colleague wanting to know what size shoes I wear. Weird question…um, size seven…why..? Turns out the brewery were going to kit us out and give us a full on factory tour. Excellent…except. What if ‘kitting us out’ involved actual clothes? And what if they got to me and looked me up and down before shaking their head sadly and pointing a finger…she can’t do the tour, we don’t have anything to fit her…old worries take a long time to die, right?

I needn’t have spent the next hour in the car worrying about it. As it turned out the outfit comprised nothing more scary than safety glasses and a bright red hard hat disguised as a baseball cap with a day-glo yellow high-vis jacket. Apart from looking like Ronald Macdonald it was all okay…but the fat-girl paranoia had kicked in big time and given me a very uncomfortable morning as I speculated about what might happen.

Still, on the bright side, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded with a sharp poke in the ribs now and again as to exactly why I’m on this journey. My days used to be filled with worries like that…which room is my meeting in and therefore which chairs are in that room? The ones with arms? Oh no my arse won’t fit in those ones. Oh no, I have to go there..? God that’s at least a ten minute walk from the nearest place I can park my car, I’ll be wiped out by the time I get there…maybe there’ll be somewhere I can have a rest between A and B…on and on and on.

I had to navigate my whole life worrying about the problems that being fat threw at me on almost an hourly basis. And now, I don’t. The legacy it’s left me with is the odd soupçon of worry here and there…well you know what, I can live with that. Nine times out of ten these days I worry for nothing but it helps to keep me grateful for the fact that I’ve escaped that life.

Something I’ll never take for granted 🙂

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A Stroke Of Genius

In the here & now, ,

So much for my plans to slip into one of those vibrant kaftans and glide around like some exotic creature from a bygone era…cavernous as they are, they don’t bloody fit me! The trying on session didn’t go well from the start if I’m honest…in my head, I’d hoped I might totally rock the Nana Mouskouri look but the reality was nearer to Demis Roussos – and if you don’t know who either of those people are you’re far too young to be in my blog, get out immediately!

Despite the acres of funky fabric there’s a sneaky little side seam in a kaftan which makes the fabric cling to your torso whilst lots of folds of fabric float around the sides. I shit you not, I looked like a sausage roll in a frock. So I shall launder them and put them in the skinny drawer to join the holding pattern of stuff that will fit me ‘soon’.

I did a really tough double session at the Kingdom of Pain last night, I was half dead by the time I got home. Let me tell you though, I’ve taken a few things on board from our friend who wrote the latest guest post and despite my screaming muscles, this morning I’ve decided to embrace the soreness as a signal that last night I worked. Today, every time I move and my abs or my quads or my arse cheeks twinge with a sharp reminder at how hard I worked, I shall have a little moment of celebration, you know? I will visualise every twinge pushing me one step closer to Skinny Town, because actually that’s exactly what’s happening.

I am seventeen days into my renewed resolve, and I couldn’t be happier with how my food plan is going. I managed 11 days’ worth of willpower leading up to Christmas before I fell off the waggon, but I’ve gone beyond that milestone now, and even my binge on the first of the year can’t really blot my copybook. I’ve found the sweet spot again and I can’t begin to tell you how great that feels.

I love waking up in the mornings feeling skinny. Not feeling guilty because I fell at the last hurdle and sank half a packet of Jaffa Cakes and a Daim bar with my suppertime cuppa. I love not waking up with indigestion because my body’s been fighting to process whatever crap I pushed into my face right before bed. Not carrying a heavy heart filled to the brim with guilt and disappointment because I let the asshole voice take the wheel…all of a sudden by focusing on what’s going well, I’m in control again.

Despite a working dinner a couple of days ago, where the menu was awesome and the desserts were to die for, I behaved. I even behaved with a smile on my face, because no asshole voice muscled in on the deal and tried to persuade me otherwise. Some of the people I was with ate dessert, but I didn’t and I didn’t care. It looked all kinds of awesome but I wasn’t interested, because I’m on it.

I’m trying my best not to feel cocky…pride comes before a fall and all that. But I’m in a good place, and I can feel you all cheering me on. On Sunday I saw a steady stream of folk checking out the Shitbird Says page even though I don’t publish as such on the weekend. Nothing to see here except my conversation with the scale. You remember, and I’m incredibly lucky that you care enough to make sure I’m bringing it home. Under your watchful gaze I feel compelled to try my absolute hardest.

It’s a stroke of genius, if you think about it 🙂

 

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Fabulous Is A State Of Mind

In the here & now, , ,

This weekend has been a tough one in a lot of ways. I’ve been spending time with my Godmother, who sadly is approaching the end of a long and very privately fought  battle with cancer…she didn’t even tell me she was ill until the back end of last year. She’d have my hide in a sling if she caught me feeling sad, mind you.

Her perspective, shared yesterday as she lit up her ever-present cigarette and poured herself another very large slug of whisky, was that we’ve all got to die of something, and at eighty two, providing she can depart this world on her own terms she’s had a bloody good life and she’s done fighting thank you very much.

Her Ab-Fab attitude to life has always been utterly infectious. She’s a big lady – even now, her doctors are scratching their heads at why she’s not losing weight when every rule in the book says she should be. We did chuckle at that yesterday, especially when we unearthed a pair of vinyl-clad bathroom scales from the bottom of her wardrobe which were the size of suitcase…a proper throwback from the 1970s. And several kaftans from the same era, which she insists were the reason she got fat in the first place – you could get away with murder under that much fabric, so she did.

As we systematically set about clearing out cupboards, with her directing operations from a distance we talked, I mean really talked, about her life. It’s been a life lived in technicolour, no doubt about that…she and my mum have been best friends from the age of three or four years old, but where mum was always a real homebird, ever since I was a little girl I’ve known my Godmother as the glamorous auntie who used to breeze in, dolled up to the nines and dazzle me with tales of travel to faraway places. I think that’s where I get my itchy feet from to be honest. Funny thing is, I never remember her being fat.

I said as much to her yesterday, which made her snort with laughter. Well my darling, being fat never defined me like it has done you…

Fuck. That stung a bit. A killer line, delivered in a way which was devoid of any malice, just completely matter of fact. But as soon as she said it, I knew exactly what she meant. Being fat has defined me, or should I say my weight has defined me, for pretty much my entire adult life. Hers never did. Looking at those kaftans yesterday which were loud and exotic and certainly not designed to let whoever wore them blend into the background, it was obvious that it would never have occurred to her to feel apologetic for being fat. Nor should it have.

So why do I? I mean, it’s less of a sharp and pointy feeling these days but it’s definitely still there…given a preference I’d still much rather blend into the background in the hope that nobody notices that I’m fat. I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be wearing the sort of brightly coloured garments which could probably be seen from the moon…and yet. Two of those kaftans came home with me yesterday.

On the basis that I’m the wrong side of fifty now, I’m allowed to look a bit retro, dare I even say eccentric – it’s practically the law – so I figured it would be a nice homage to my aunty if I adopt the fuck you attitude to being fat, on the odd occasion when I’m feeling brave enough. It can’t hurt to try it in for size, right? I have a holiday coming up in around a month, so it’s a perfect opportunity to be loud and exotic.

Watch this space…there may be pictures 🙂

By the way, there’s a very thought-provoking new post on our Thoughts From The Posse page today…one of you lot, doing what you do best and making me think! Enjoy 🙂

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A Bona-Fide Badge Of Honour

In the here & now, ,

I might have mentioned before that when it comes to exercise I’m all about the gear. The number of times I’ve been fully kitted out in the right gear for this activity or that is ridiculous, only for said equipment to quickly find itself out of favour and stuffed in the back of a cupboard, where it’s usually stayed until the point I admit to myself that my dalliance with whatever it was had lasted for just a brief moment in time, and now the gear is surplus to requirements.

I’ve always been the same, you know? I like to look the part even if I have no idea what I’m doing. In my early teens when I was learning to ride horses, I’d leave the house looking like I was about to put in a clear round at Olympia with my pristine jodhpurs and hacking jacket finished off with shiny boots and a blue velvet riding hat. I must’ve stood out like a sore thumb at the stables, where I was surrounded by lots more teenage horse-lovers, happily milling around in their mis-matched tops and bottoms, usually finished off with a pair of wellies caked in horse-shit and a shapeless old pullover.

I was the fat one that never broke a sweat, although to be fair my reluctance to join in with the mucking out of stables was more born out of a decision on my part not to bend down in jodhpurs. They’re not the most forgiving of garments, and my hormonal teenage self was already regularly locked in dialogue with the Asshole voice about what I must look like from behind. Conscious even then about the size of my arse, I felt that I looked the part, if I could just stand still with my back to a stable door and sort of…pose.

Looking the part has always seemed quite important. Fast-forward a number of years, and I had to go to court to support a friend of mine who’d witnessed something dodgy. She was giving evidence and I was fascinated by the pomp and ceremony of it all, but utterly distracted by the very tatty robes worn by counsel. I remember thinking to myself that surely if I was earning that much money I’d get myself down to the robe shop for some new ones immediately. I’d want to look the part.

Incidentally, I tapped one of them on the shoulder and pointed out that his robe had a big rip in it, I thought maybe he’d trapped it in the car door or something and hadn’t noticed…he gave me a death stare and walked off. How was I to know that ripped robes are a thing amongst barristers, because shiny new robes scream novice, and experience is measured by the number of rips in your frock? Weirdos.

I’ve certainly never worn any kind of exercise gear often enough to wear it out, in fact this is the first and only time I’ve managed to wear something in. My friend on the other hand has just worn out her first pair of trainers. It’s a big moment…like me, it’s only in the last year that she’s come to appreciate the whole exercise thing, and she wouldn’t mind me saying that like me she’s also spent her life going up the scale, and down again.

As we sat on the cool-down mats earlier this week after an hours’ worth of boxing, we collectively admired her big toe, which was all but poking through the top of her trainers and we basked in the pride which came from slaying them. She was proud, and I was proud by association, I mean worn-out trainers are a bona-fide badge of honour, right? They’ve been worked. And as much as my OCD demands that I look the part, in her shoes – busted up as they are – I don’t think I’d be hot-footing it down to buy new ones either.

Sadly, there’s no sign of my trainers getting ready for that big fitness studio in the sky just yet. Work to do then, eh? 🙂

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