Category Archives: In the here & now

Eating Humble Pie

In the here & now, , , ,

pie 2

So, one of the drawbacks of coming from good old Yorkshire stock is the tendency to forget that not everyone is as comfortable with plain talk as I am. I mean, if you’re a regular reader you’ll be used to me getting straight to the point of what’s on my mind, with an occasional bit of salty language here and there. I don’t see an issue with that, because that’s me, you know? It’s what comes out of my head, in the same way it would come out of my mouth if you were standing in front of me.

I guess sometimes in my haste to drive home a point I can forget to apply my is this going to offend anyone? filter, and judging by the furious response I got from someone on an email last night at least one blooper got through the net yesterday…whoops.

Now, having exchanged lots and lots of emails with you lot over the last eight months or so, I know that collectively you have a terrific sense of humour. I know we laugh at the same things, despair over the same things and, well we just get each other, right? We’ve walked the requisite mile in each other’s’ shoes, and we’re all eminently qualified to understand and express a view on the general topic of being fat.

It was pointed out in no uncertain terms that there may be a small number of folk amongst the posse who would prefer not to be referred to as fat old ladies with bingo wings. Being a fat old lady with bingo wings myself, I didn’t give it a second thought, but I had a proper bollocking – that’s Yorkshire speak for telling off in case it doesn’t translate – from someone I’d managed to offend with my sweeping generalisation that only fat girls and old ladies wear shrugs…

Now, half of me wants to defend my position (really, have you EVER seen a skinny string bean with toned arms cover up their top half with a shrug unless it’s like an Antarctic event?) but mostly I’m full of remorse that my words might have stung a bit. Not my intention, I promise and I’m genuinely sorry if I hurt your feelings. Me and my big mouth, right?!

That said, I also had a handful of really lovely notes from folk who wanted to encourage me to be proud of who I am, you know, comfortable in my own skin so I could feel like a million dollars despite my arse looking like boulders in a bag. I love the sentiment, and I appreciate every single word of reassurance…I’m not buying it though.

I’d give anything to be able to get to that place, where I consider slender and fat to have equal standing in the beauty stakes. The ability to look in a mirror and see fat and beautiful in one and the same body has eluded me since time began and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I can’t bring myself to fly the banner for big and beautiful…I just can’t. I’m not saying that fat people can’t be attractive, because they can…but looking at it through the lens of self, I can’t put those two words together because I don’t feel it, you know? I recognise that not everyone feels that way…but I do.

That said, in relation to the way I felt 62lbs ago, I feel awesome.  And relatively speaking, I’m looking better. But that’s because I’m skinnier. I’ll look even better still when I get the next hundred and a bit pounds off.

Good job there’s no Smart Points in humble pie… 🙂

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Wanted: One Fairy Godmother

Diet update, In the here & now, , , ,

cinders

I’ve had such an awesome weekend. The biggest wow factor for me was that I left yesterday’s spring fair having done exactly what I’d set out to do, in spite of all those temptations. I did it. In your face Asshole…oh, and you don’t need me to tell you that as soon as I got home, I headed straight upstairs for my weekly weigh in, and guess what…two more pounds off this week 🙂 I’m chuffed to bits.

So, I followed up on my promise to myself and treated myself to a gorgeous piece of costume jewellery yesterday…fair’s fair after all, that was the deal providing my mouth behaved itself in the food hall, right? My favourite jewellery lady was there and as usual she didn’t let me down…I bought a stunning necklace to wear on the night of the UK Blog Awards, which is coming up in just under two weeks’ time. I’m not sure what I’m accessorising yet, but whatever it is it’ll be black.

I’m in an agony of indecision about my outfit – thoughts welcome of course, but I genuinely don’t know what to do. First of all, I’m still too near the wrong end on the scale of fatness to wear heels. I mean I could, if I was happy to totter into the venue hanging onto the arm of my boy and then sit in a corner all night because my feet hurt, but I don’t want to do that. 62lbs ago, the old me would have done exactly that but it’s different now. I’m different now. I want to sparkle, you know?

I’ve been looking for inspiration on the evening dress front but seriously, fat-girl frocks are just awful. Nobody makes evening dresses with sleeves…trust me I’ve looked. Well, nobody except the kind of folk that would successfully dress my great aunt Maud.

I’m not a classic curvy girl. I don’t have big boobs, and a waist. I’ve got shoulders like a linebacker and small boobs with a big belly and an even bigger arse. Not exactly a designer’s wet dream. And I don’t have a good track record with Spanx…what it hold in here it tends to spit out there and so I end up with the same amount of lumps, just redistributed. Smooth thighs with poodle-cut knees…you get the picture.

And I can’t do sleeveless, not with these bingo wings. I’ve already ruled out sleeveless with a shrug because only fat girls and old ladies wear shrugs, and whilst I happen to be both, I refuse to wear a garment that draws attention to the fact that I’m too fat and old to carry the frock off without covering bits of it up. I’ve tried a few on, just in case I could be persuaded but whilst they might do the trick where my upper arms are concerned, they totally throw my midriff under the bus to prove a point. No no no no no.

So that probably means my outfit of choice will end up being flatties with a pair of black palazzo pants, and a plain black floaty top. I think the very sparkly necklace I bought yesterday will dress the black up enough for me not to look like Widow Twanky. But I’m still all kinds of stressed about it, you know? The most annoying thing is that four dress sizes ago I would have worn the same thing, just bigger. I mean, I didn’t think I’d be attending in something bright red, backless and split to the thigh…I just thought I might have graduated from palazzo pants.

Still, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be knocking on the door of size twenty…it’s exactly where I thought I would be at this point. I’m bang on track, and I wake up every day feeling grateful to be on the way down the numbers. It’s just that I’d give anything to have Cinderella’s fairy Godmother rock up on the 29th to wave her magic wand and make me skinny. Just for one night.

Ah well…fat and sparkly it is then 🙂

 

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Don’t Forget The Sausages…

In the here & now, , , ,

image

So I’d obviously given serious thought to the ways in which I could avoid getting sucked into the naughty corner at the spring fair that we’ve been to today. One strategy I flirted with was avoiding the food hall altogether but as I left home yesterday my boy’s parting words were mum don’t forget the sausages…kind of ruled out that option, right? One of the stalls which comes every year sells speciality sausages, and they are heaven on a plate. And trust me when I say my boy knows his way around a sausage…he’s never actually been to this event but he looks forward to it as much as I do and I guarantee he’ll have his nose in my bag of booty faster than a ferret up a trouser leg as soon as I get home on Sunday.

So, my number one strategy for a no samples consumed shopping experience was ruled out before I set a foot out of doors, although as I laid in bed last night and thought about it I decided that was actually a good thing, you know? I wanted to be able to look back and feel proud that I’d faced down the Asshole voice and resisted every single temptation, instead of wimping out altogether. Mind you, at the time I was basking in the afterglow of a big glass of red which always adds a touch of bravado to my thought process.

Let me try and set the scene…did you ever watch that episode of Friends, where Joey tried to make ends meet by taking a job in a big department store, and he was in competition with another bloke to see who could spray the most people with scent in the hope that they’d be the one to sell the most..? Right, well it’s exactly the same as that. Every three steps, someone materialises right in front of you with a bit of cheese on a stick, or a tray of bite-size brownies, and waves them under your nose in the hope that you’ll visit their counter and fill your boots with whatever they’re selling.

It’s what every fat girl imagines heaven would be like.  Times gone by I’m not gonna lie, we’ve probably done two or three circuits. Can you remember where that chilli-infused oil vendor was? No..? Neither can I, we’d best go around again. Oh, you’d like me to try that..? Certainly. They didn’t even make it a challenge, you know…no ‘one sample per customer’ rule in this food hall, we didn’t even have to try and look different second time around. Let’s swap scarves, and I’ll put your glasses on, I’m going in for more Camembert…

So if you’re dieting, it’s carnage. And, all joking aside, it’s hard. It’s hard not to feel resentful that you can’t just face plant into everything and do your best impression of a food hoover which is what you desperately want to do. Well, it’s what I desperately wanted to do.

I guess what helped me get to grips with the Asshole voice today was…well, there were a couple of things actually. Visualising my encounter with the bitch in the bathroom when I get home tomorrow was the first one. Tomorrow’s Sunday…weigh day. No getting away from that, right? No week stretching ahead of me where I can be extra good and unpick any collateral damage before I step on board…today was it, day seven of my dieting week. 

And also, my friend had checked ahead of time what I could eat, and had gone to a lot of trouble making sure she’d organised food to fit my diet…pushing two of everything into my face as we walked around the food hall would have totally disrespected her thoughtfulness, and I wouldn’t do that. So, Houston it turned out there was no problem here after all.

I had saved half my additional weekly smart points, so I had a bit of naughty in the bank. I know these vendors like the back of my hand, I mean come on, I’ve broken bread (or fudge or cake or cheese or sausages) with all of them over the seven or so years that my friend and I have been going. I was able to select my favourite thing ahead of time. There’s a bloke who makes brownies, and without question his white chocolate and raspberry brownies are the most amazing brownies in the world. They are the rock star of the brownie kingdom, and one of them is sitting on a plate in my friend’s kitchen right now with my name on.

No samples, but one treat, within budget and much anticipated all day…it’s going to taste even better than I remembered because it won’t hit a jaded palate. I haven’t assailed my senses throughout the day with all kinds of wonderful. I’ve sampled everything with my eyes, and nothing with my mouth…I’ve had a lovely day and yes of course I still wish I could have dived headlong into all of it. But I didn’t, and I’m feeling strong. Happy.

Most of all I cannot wait to wrap my chops around that brownie ?

 

 

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Pressing Pause

In the here & now, , , , ,

pause

On my commute into work this morning I was kind of half listening to something on the radio in between pondering my ‘to do’ list and trying to ignore the Asshole voice who was busy trying to persuade me that 7.15am would be a good time to eat my lunch, which was on the passenger seat behind me.

My ears were tuning in and out of the radio intermittently, and I caught the tail end of something which sounded interesting enough to prompt me to reach for the remote control so I could rewind it…duh, I immediately realised of course that the car radio doesn’t come with that option. How annoying. I could go on iPlayer at some point I suppose, but the moment has kind of passed and I can’t even remember now what it was I thought I’d heard.

I’m just so used to being able to pause the TV, or rewind and re-listen when my ears have been multi-tasking and I’ve lost the plotline, you know? I don’t know however we used to manage before that sort of technology existed… I love the way that everything can fit around me, rather than the other way around.

A good friend of mine takes that approach to her diet. She knows she needs to lose weight, and she really wants to, but her diet gets paused every time something more interesting comes along. She has the ability to just step in and out of it at will, and I’m beyond envious of her ability to do that. No way could I ever make that work for me, with my default all-or-nothing psyche.

I almost feel like I’ve paused everything else, to focus on this, you know? It just feels more important than anything else I could be doing right now. It’s my time.

My friend and I both have plans this weekend…she’s having a weekend away with a bunch of friends, and then immediately setting off on holiday for a week. Once I’ve finished writing this I’m heading up to spend the weekend with one of my besties. It’s the spring version of the craft and foodie fair that I’ve mentioned before, so I’m going to be bombarded with temptations at every turn.

I’m busy thinking about strategies to stay on the straight and narrow, where my friend can hardly wait to hit stop on her working week and throw caution to the wind so she can dive into the prosecco and hand the flight controls over to her Asshole voice…she knows he’ll probably crack on and do his worst, and she’s kind of okay with that. When she gets back from holiday, she’ll un-pause her food plan and get right back on track.

I wish I could press pause this weekend…I’d sell my granny to be able to sashay around the food hall accepting samples of whatever anyone wanted to give me like I have in the past. There will be cheeses and oils, and artisan breads begging to be dipped. Cupcakes and fudge and a hundred different flavours of cookie, and that’s before we’ve even gotten started with the cookery demonstrations. I’m going to be all kinds of torn.

The thing is, if I were to press pause, it’d be pretty much game over. Fact. Not a cat in hell’s chance of me waking up on Monday with the Asshole willing to relinquish control and move back to the jump seat…I know that. I’m just going to have to say no, and mean it. Not the kind of no which really means yes. The kind where the word no comes out of my mouth and passes a piece of fudge on its way in. Short of having my jaws wired together, willpower is my only option.

I’ve bought sugar-free chewing gum so I can fill my sinuses with peppermint to combat all the awesome smells. I’ve promised myself a really nice piece of jewellery in exchange for not allowing the Asshole to talk me into anything, and I know I’ll have to ‘fess up to you guys if the wheels come off.

I think I’ve got all bases covered, dammit 🙂

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A Bag Of Contradictions

In the here & now, , ,

recipe

Over the years I’ve gotten to know myself quite well, you know? I mean all this wrestling my head into the skinny zone stuff is different and new, but I’m fairly au fait with the way my mind works in the other bits of my life. Non food-related situations if you like. Unsurprisingly, it’s far less troublesome when the Asshole voice doesn’t have a view.

Having said that, I do confuse myself if I stop and think too hard about it. For example I’m not good with change, which is ironic when you consider that much of my professional life is spent up to my eyeballs in managing change. On a personal level, I don’t like it at all. I know what I like, and I like what I know. And yet. I have the lowest boredom threshold ever. Routine is anathema to me, and when I’m bored I get destructive, which often doesn’t end well.

Seriously, the joke’s on me, right? Easily bored but doesn’t like change…wtf am I supposed to do with that? Good job I’ve got a sense of humour.

So anyway, I can feel myself starting to get a bit bored with my menu choices, so in order to head destructive off at the pass, I’ve just bought a new recipe book. I’ve decided that it’s time to get a bit more adventurous with the food I’m preparing, so I can stop feeling uninspired, which in turn means I’m less likely to get tempted to go play out on naughty street. That’s good planning, right?

If you’re anything like me, there comes a point after a while where no matter how much you love a wide variety of food, you keep returning to the same tried and tested handful of meals. There’s comfort in familiarity…you know the points value, it’s easy and you know it works, as in I ate this last week and I lost weight…but I recognize that I need to up my game in order to keep my head interested.

Why that involved buying a new recipe book, I have no idea. I must have a dozen recipe books. Low fat, low carb, low GI…Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Atkins…it’s like Barnes & Noble in one corner of my kitchen. And to be honest, beyond a quick flick through to admire the pictures when I first bought them, it would be fair to say they haven’t seen a great deal of action. Wait, that’s not strictly true, one time when my friend visited with her grandson and he couldn’t reach the table we sat him on half a dozen of the largest ones, but it’s fair to say not many of the pages are splashed with wayward ingredients.

So, that’s my latest challenge to myself. I have no delusions that I’m about to turn into some kind of domestic goddess, and I already struggle with a pitiful amount of spare time. But this whole journey has been about finding ways that I can do stuff, rather than making excuses as to why I can’t, right? Once every week, most likely at the weekend, I am going to pick out a recipe that’s interesting, nutritious and which isn’t going to bust my food budget, and I’m going to try it out.

My boy would tell you this has disaster written all over it but if it keeps me out of mischief I’m game… 🙂

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