Category Archives: In the here & now

Not This Year…

In the here & now, , ,

I’d somehow imagined that my suitcase this year would be as light as a feather given that the clothes in it are several sizes smaller than the ones it carried last year. I had the good grace to look a bit sheepish earlier this afternoon when packing of said suitcase was in full swing, once I realised exactly how many new clothes I’ve actually bought.

It’s not even like I’m planning to stay in a size 18 for long, I’m kind of passing through if you like…it’s just that when you start to feel better, and look better in your clothes the temptation to go just a tiny bit overboard – pardon the pun – is so hard to resist, you know?

I even repeated to myself several times just because you’ve bought them doesn’t mean you have to take all of them…as I carried on folding them and putting them in my case. All of them. I latched firmly onto the excuse that I don’t know what the weather’s going to be like in Norway so I need to take a bit of everything. I thought that sounded rather plausible, so I’m sticking to it, and I’ll roll it out whenever someone risks a hernia from lifting my suitcase. And I’ve got a few spare things for emergencies, you know like if the ship breaks down and we’re there for six weeks instead of one.

Other items which are still in a holding pattern waiting for their allocated spot in the case include hair straighteners, make-up, jewellery…all those things were conspicuous by their absence last year. I remember sitting on the bed in our cabin with freshly washed but un-styled hair, and not a scrap of make-up on my face waiting for my friend to finish getting ready.

I didn’t see the point of making an effort beyond pulling on my trusty black palazzo pants and yet another shapeless top. The phrase you can cover a turd in glitter but it’s still a turd ran through my head constantly on a loop, and when you know that no matter how much slap you put on you’re still going to look and feel like crap it’s so easy to give up and just not bother. So I didn’t.

Not this year. There’s more bling in my suitcase than you could shake a big stick at. Every outfit has an accessory. I’m not exaggerating folks, in fact it looks like I’m dressing a party of ten but you know what, knickers to it…I’m having fun. It doesn’t matter than one sniff of salty sea air will send my hair into a birds nest as soon as I step out of the cabin…I’ll look like I made an effort, even if it lasts all of ten minutes. And I’ll feel good, which I’m still trying to wrap my head around.

So, I’ve got my false lashes on, I’m manicured and pedicured to within an inch of my life, and I’ve even waxed my legs…I know, right? I couldn’t even reach them last year. I’m just about packed, excited, and we’re leaving at the crack of sparrows to pick up our ship around lunchtime tomorrow.

I’m going to take the next week as it comes. I promise pictures through the Facebook page, and if I get chance in between hiking up waterfalls and mooching through pretty little towns and working up a sweat in the gym to earn my fine dining tokens, I may even fit in the odd post…I’ll play it by ear.

Lots of love to you all…giddy giddy giddy!!!  🙂

 

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Getting All Reflective On Your Ass

Biggest Triumphs, , ,

Can you remember what you were doing exactly one year ago today..? I can. It was a Monday – of course it was – and more than that it was the first Monday after my holiday. It was the Monday I started my diet. It’s been a year folks…I could get a bit choked if I tried, you know? It’s the day a new life came screaming into this world. My new life.

What I wanted to do was spend last night scrolling through some of my early posts and have a good old root about down memory lane. Somewhere around the six months mark I  read through loads of them, and I really enjoyed myself although it kind of felt like I was reading someone else’s diary, if you know what I mean. Was that really me? In the end I didn’t get chance to poke about in the blog because I was working until quite late – I only have two more days at work with a hundred things to do before I switch on my holiday out-of-office so I was a bit up against it to get some stuff finished.

It doesn’t really matter…I don’t need to read it to reflect on the last year. I can kind of feel my way through it by memory, to be honest. I mean sure, I’ll have forgotten some of the detail but if I had to do the elevator summary it goes something like this…Monday 17th August 2015, I started my diet. Like a muppet I decided not to get weighed on day 1, after chickening out of the come to Jesus moment on the scale. I knew the number would be horrible, so I gave it an educated guess instead and decided that when my clothes started to feel looser I’d know I was on track.

That theory works fine unless every garment you possess is made almost entirely of stretchy elasticated middle-agedness. No fixed waistbands on this body back then, so after a couple of weeks when I was very confident that I’d lost at least twenty pounds, I took the plunge and weighed myself…not a smooth move on my part I’ve got to say. I was a decent chunk of change heavier than I’d thought I might have been right at the start, and given that I’d definitely dropped some poundage, I’d obviously underestimated the starting number. Badly.

However, it didn’t throw me off course, when it so easily could have done. Would definitely have done in the past…thing is, I’d started to discover that writing down my feelings was way preferable to eating my feelings. It helped, to talk through what was going on in my head and by some miracle, you lot began to listen, and join in. And out of nowhere, this awesome and unexpected support system sprang up around me. It’s the reason I’m still here.

I don’t remember moving much in the very early days…that came early in the new year when I’d committed to doing the trek and I knew I had to start getting fit pretty much from the lowest possible base. Charlie’s walks got longer bit by bit. Then the hurt machine arrived…do you remember the first time I went on it, and five minutes on the easiest setting almost killed me?

I remember staggering downstairs on legs made of rubber and wondering whether being a fat knacker pre-qualified me to get a refund since it was clear that the relationship between me and that machine was never going to work out. But look what happened when I stuck at it…it became easier, and doing time on the cross-trainer helped me to walk further and further as the weeks rolled on.

In May I discovered two things…firstly I started exploring all the local footpaths and bridle ways which opened a whole new world of interesting walks for both me and Charlie-dog. It spurred me on to walk further. And my friend introduced me to the God Of Pain which was the point at which this shit just got serious…

Those first few weeks in the Kingdom of Pain were tough. But I kept my head down and cracked on…I wasn’t going to step a toe out of line, he was too scary, but I made some new friends who also started getting behind my determination to make it over the mountain. We made it over our own mountain in fact this very weekend.

And here we now are…you lot standing firmly at my shoulder, ready to steady me if I trip and keep me going if I’m running out of steam. My new friends giving up their precious weekend days to push me and walk beside me as I practise and practise some more in preparation for the trek.

I guess what I’m trying to say is if I hadn’t have taken that first step one year ago today, I might be sitting here forty pounds heavier instead of eighty pounds lighter, wishing I had. I’d be packing shapeless garment after shapeless garment into my suitcase ready for my holiday, with frequent stops to get my breath and most of all I’d be hoping that the scenery in Norway was so spectacular that nobody else on the ship would notice me, or how fat I was.

But I did take that first step. And it’s been one of the best years of my life. I’m having a ball. Happy birthday to my fledgling new life. One year down, eighty pounds off and another eighty to go. I’m halfway there folks, and that’s got to be something to celebrate!

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Four Women, One Mountain, And A Wayward Dog

In the here & now, , , , ,

Saturday was an enormous day…I conquered my very first mountain. I use the word mountain in its loosest sense you understand, since technically Pen Y Ghent is a peak, but to me it looked like a mountain, so that’s what I’m calling it. I mean it’s bigger than a hill, right? It’s rumoured to be the most challenging of the three famous Yorkshire peaks, so let’s not split hairs…it was hard, and I did it. We did it, me and my three fellow mountaineers. Oh, and four dogs. I know I’m not normally big on photos in here, but this sort of feels like a special occasion, so I’ve included a few. Come on, I climbed a mountain!

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That’s it, way in the distance. I’ve got to be honest, I nearly did a load in my pants when I realised what we were actually climbing. I’ve heard the name Pen Y Ghent a lot…as a girl born and raised in Yorkshire the name is familiar to me, but I’ve only ever heard it in conjunction with somebody else’s adventure. Me and Pen Y Ghent have never moved in the same social circles, you know?  On the outside I was full of enthusiasm as we pulled into the car park – that’s where I took the photo from. The reality was, I wanted to turn and run, as fast as I could manage in the opposite direction. To a fat lass still in the early stages of recovery from a sofa-surfing lifestyle, it looked downright terrifying.

I was well prepared though. Well, I say that…I was well prepared for the heatwave promised by Yahoo weather on Friday night. I’d brought a lightweight waterproof jacket just in case it was a bit nippy at the top, and my sun-visor and sunglasses. Lots of suncream on my face you know? Didn’t want to get burned. As we arrived and got out of the car there was no evidence of any sunshine at all, and it occurred to me that perhaps the suncream might have been a bit premature.

The lightweight waterproof jacket bought with Cuba in mind a few weeks ago that I didn’t think I’d actually need to put on was a bit snug, in fact it’s safe to say that when zipped up it actually restricted the circulation to several bits of my body. To add insult to injury, when I did put it on, the navy blue and white spots clashed rather alarmingly with the black and white flowery pants I was wearing…I looked like I’d escaped from somewhere. Still, the rest of my prep had gone well…I’d brought some awesome sandwiches for our picnic at the top, and you know me…the promise of food was always going to help get my arse up to the summit.

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The first couple of miles were okay. We were climbing, but it was fairly gentle incline. We covered maybe two miles getting to the bit where it got steeper, and that’s about the time when all bits of blue disappeared from the sky altogether and the mist started to roll in, taking every bit of warmth out of the day. We didn’t feel the cold too badly at that point because we were starting to work hard…it had definitely stopped feeling like a walk and we were climbing. The marker saying Pen Y Ghent summit 1 & 3/4 miles frankly didn’t help. It might have even fleetingly brought on my for fuck’s sake face, but the thought of that roast chicken in seeded ciabatta rolls kept my feet moving.

I wish I’d taken pictures of the hardest bit, because I feel like I’m being a drama queen now when I remember how tough it was, but there was a point where we were actually climbing, like properly pulling ourselves up on rocks and everything, zig-zagging up what felt like a sheer rock face, I shit you not it was practically vertical. It was very foggy, very windy and absolutely bloody freezing by this point, and it had started to rain.

The Asshole voice was chipping in like mad every time I came to a bit that was particularly hard to navigate…you’re going to fall, stop this lunacy immediately, you’ll never make it, Just stay here, it’s almost the top and fat people shouldn’t really go past this point, in fact they’re probably not even allowed right at the top anyway in case they have a heart attack…

Weirdly enough, I didn’t feel miserable. Despite the cold and the wind and the fact that I’m scared of heights and I couldn’t see much beyond the next few yards. I just felt determined. And then, all of a sudden, the ground sort of evened out and there was a proper pathway paved with Yorkshire stone leading right up to this kind of monument thingy…we all looked at each other and the penny dropped. That was the summit. We’d done it. We were there.

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Check out those faces! This was us, at the top, hands on that monument at the summit…relief, elation, achievement…and for me, a burning desire to pillage my rucksack for the chicken sandwiches. And you bet your sweet ass we sat and had our picnic, in the cold and the rain…it didn’t matter. We’d earned it, right? Let me introduce you to these strong beautiful women…my friend in red was the experienced one, and led the way. My friend in black is amazing, do you know she’s lost over one hundred and forty pounds..? And my friend in purple on the right of the picture (check out @therealslimkayleigh on Instagram for some awesome recipe ideas) has dropped about seventy. Y’all know me, and my journey…I’m within touching distance of eighty pounds off now. How about them apples? We’ve lost over twenty stones between the three of us…if we’d still been living in Mooseville no way would Saturday ever have happened. We’ve all put in the hard yards to get to this point, and it’s beyond worth it.

Just to add a touch of drama to the day, one of the dogs fooled us on the way down the other side into thinking she’d hurled herself off the edge of the mountain, since one minute she was there and the next she wasn’t…it was so foggy and we lost her, only to be greeted about twenty minutes later by a very waggy tail further down the trail after we’d hollered, sweated, panicked and seriously considered calling out mountain rescue. As if that adventure wasn’t enough for one day, this one foot tall dog later went on to scale a six foot dry stone wall to go play with some very surprised sheep…she is an adventure on four legs.

So anyway I was expecting at least ten pounds off this week given yesterday’s expedition and last week’s sticky needle…not a chance. The bitch in the bathroom offered up one single solitary pound. Grrrr…but whatever. Not bothered, in fact I couldn’t care less.

I climbed a chuffing mountain 🙂

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Me And My Big Mouth

In the here & now, , , ,

So I reached Thursday this week without having visited the Kingdom of Pain since the weekend. It wasn’t by choice, I promise, I’ve just had a crazy work schedule this week. I don’t go on Mondays because God of Pain has a stand-in (even Guru’s have to take a day off, right?) and it’s not the same. Tuesday I had early meetings followed at the end of the day by dinner with our new boss, and Wednesday was a proper killer. I had a 3.45am alarm call to get a 5am train and it was almost 7pm when I got back home, so fitting in a class just wasn’t humanly possible until yesterday.

And somehow that made yesterday feel really hard. I did not want to go do that early workout, for the first time in ages. I laid in bed when my alarm went off, running through pretty much the whole of the Asshole’s repertoire you know? Stay in bed, you had such a long day yesterday, you’re too old for this shit…today you should scrape by with the bare minimum, conserve your energy and take a load off…you need a rest. You might hurt yourself if you’re tired…blah blah blah.

I went, of course I went but the going sort of teetered on a knife-edge for a moment. The only thing less appealing than dragging my sorry ass out of bed was cancelling the session and getting nailed by the full force of his disapproval. And I felt so guilty at the way I’d tried to talk myself out of going that I went from one extreme to the other and shot my mouth off, totally putting the kibosh on all things naughty whilst I’m away on holiday in the next couple of weeks.

I think the blood must have rushed to my head or something as I jogged on the spot in-between torture stations, because I only went and made a point of telling him that I was going away, and requested, yes requested that he personally weigh me next Friday before I leave, and again a week on Sunday when we get back to make sure I haven’t put any weight on over the course of my cruise.

I mean WTF?? I earned an approving nod of his head as he agreed to it. Well of course he fucking agreed to it, he’s the actual diet police. I can’t think of a more effective way to make absolutely sure I stick to my food plan.

What usually happens when I’m presented with something I shouldn’t eat but really want, is that you’ll hear me say no…no really I’m sure…yes very sure thanks…oh fuck it go on then. I guess I’ve shut the door on that one, right? And you know what it’s like on a cruise, there are chefs hiding around every corner waiting to force-feed you cake. Step on like a girl, step off like a foie gras.

There’s two big reasons why I need to hit this with a straight bat – firstly if I don’t, and I have a week long chew-fest, no way will I be able to get back in the game when I get home. Secondly it’s taken me the last two months to lose ten pounds, and I could put all that back on in the course of a week, and then some…I’ve done it many times and it’s just not worth it.

Plus which, I’ve got to admit as I dress for my skinny dinners in one of my new little size 18 numbers, not feeling like Shamu in a frock is going to really help in the willpower department, you know? And imagine, clothes that fit me as we set sail still fitting me as we arrive back into port…I don’t think that’s ever happened before 🙂

Anyway, I’m just home from doing the ‘muffin tops and bingo wings class’, which is it’s own little world of pain. Tonight I’m boxing, and tomorrow a bunch of us from the Kingdom of Pain are going to conquer Pen Y Ghent, which is a 6 mile walk up one of Yorkshire’s peaks. At almost 700m it’s not far short of the mountain in Cuba that I’ll be looking at in a few weeks’ time. Then Sunday I’m back for the circuit training and boxing combo to kick off my last pre-holiday week.

Have an awesome weekend chaps 🙂

Before you go, we have a new contributor on the Guest Spot – Thoughts From The Posse Page if you’d like to check it out…Deb is an accidental guest writer, since I pulled the words from a note she sent me rather than her setting out to write a post but I could relate to every word, and I’m sure she’d benefit from a little encouragement from the posse. Knowing other people had walked a mile in my shoes when I started my journey helped me no end…you’re a bunch of wise old owls 🙂

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I Didn’t Even Notice

In the here & now, , ,

I had dinner last night with all my colleagues at work – our boss is leaving next month and last night we met the lady who’s joining the business as his replacement. It was really nice to meet her in a social environment first, and one of the things our team is really good at is being sociable. I think it’s fair to say that we all enjoyed the evening, and both our new boss and our team passed muster on all fronts I think…we passed each others’ tests.

Do you know what I didn’t think about, until I was in the car on the way home? What I looked like. This time last year I would have been completely pre-occupied with that, you know? Before, during and after the event. What would she think about the way I looked and what assumptions would she make about me based on first impressions? Were all my chins going to be distracting with their ongoing momentum as we chatted, and was my menu choice going to be scrutinised as part of her assessment of me..? Ahhh…that’s why she’s such a tub of lard! Bad choice, fatty…

Of course she wouldn’t have thought that at all, in fact she was probably far too daunted at the prospect of walking into a restaurant to meet a tightly-knit team who are collectively devastated at the prospect of losing their much-loved leader to pay much heed to anything other than hoping we liked her, but as a seriously fat girl I somehow always managed to make it about me, like I was some kind of special being requiring separate consideration.

I was quite comfortable last night. I fitted on the chair, which in that restaurant in particular used to be a worry – visiting it in past times meant sitting gingerly on small round seats and to be honest back in the day I could’ve done with one whole chair under each bum cheek. We sat in a different spot last night, they’d reserved us a long table with a bench running the whole length. I fitted in, and I wasn’t squashed. No need to push the table away and eat at arms length to accommodate my bulk…I was comfortable.

And you know what, I felt nice. Relatively speaking of course, because I’ve got a long way to go yet but I was wearing new clothes, in a size 18 – that’s a 14 to my friends across the pond – which is where I was aiming to get to before my holiday. They weren’t straining at the seams either…they fitted me just fine.

The funny thing is, I didn’t even notice that I felt nice until I thought about it afterwards, because I was too busy being in the moment. And that’s huge. I can’t even tell you what it feels like not to be preoccupied, worried, obsessed even by the space I’m taking up in the world and what people might think about it, to the point where enjoyment and being present in any moment is eclipsed by the cripplingly dark shadow of self-consciousness. God, those were dark days.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses last night…faced with a menu stuffed full of fat-girl-wet-dream fodder, I’ve got to be honest, making skinny choices brought on a momentary strop in the Asshole corner of my mind. I didn’t choose the deep fried breaded cheese with onion marmalade, which made my mouth water before I’d even finished reading the description. I would have killed my granny for that appetiser, but the strop passed and what I had was lovely.

I got over myself. On a scale of  one to ten what I ate was a tiny bit naughty but nobody’s going to throw me in jail over it. It qualified as a treat without kicking the arse out of it. No guilt this morning, or feeling that I’ve gone off-piste…it’s all good.

Choose this, get this…I’m learning 🙂

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