Hmm, there’s a song in there somewhere. Fleury got it spot on in the last point she made in her list of life and diet parallels in the guest spot when she said don’t invest too much time in regrets. I couldn’t agree more. Regret is something I’ve always tried to avoid because in my experience, given too much focus it can turn the sunniest of dispositions into a vipers nest of dissatisfaction.

Me, I’ve done some really daft things. When I look back there have been more than a few pockets of chaos in my life over the last fifty years or so but then I reckon anyone who gets to the ripe old age of fifty without losing the plot once or twice hasn’t really lived. I’ve got to hold my hands up and admit that some of my life decisions haven’t really stood up too well to scrutiny, but I don’t regret those things, not a single one of them.

The most notable involved me getting rather too carried away by the possibilities of internet dating when I dipped my toes in the water for the first time. My first evening ever on line involved what seemed like a fairly casual chat with a tall dark handsome and enigmatic man from across the pond.

Uh-oh…I can hear the sharp intakes of breath from here, knowing me and how prone I am to believing in fairy tales. Do I even need to tell you that I fell hook line and sinker for a bloke who, as it turns out, was not quite what he seemed. No shit, how could it possibly go wrong..?

Lets just say after the wedding – six weeks after meeting for real just a couple of months later – there were several things which came to light which were rather unexpected. Like the additional ex-wife and daughter he’d forgotten to mention, the long-standing bromance with his old friend Jack Daniels which several rounds of rehab hadn’t managed to unpick, a mountain of debt that even Chris Bonnington would have baulked at, and a positive gaggle of other ladies on this side of the pond who hadn’t been quite as gullible as me, the dumbass who actually put a ring on it.

It was only after he’d emptied my life savings I woke up and smelled the coffee, and realised that perhaps it wasn’t quite the fairy tale ending I’d imagined. But do I regret it..? Not really. If I hadn’t chased the dream, right now, ten years or more on I’d still be living with the nagging doubt that just maybe, I might have turned my back on the one person in the world I was meant to be with, all because I’d been too scared to take a chance, you know? That would have screwed with my head big time. So no, despite learning a very hard lesson, no regrets.

There is one thing I regret, and that’s the lifelong broken relationship I’ve had with food. I love food, I mean I’m a proper foodie. But when you’re driven by a compulsion to eat to the point where you’re out of control, and the need to do that gets an iron grip on you, you walk such a fine line between greed and guilt the whole time it sucks all the pleasure out of the experience of eating. And yet, you carry on regardless. I regret that.

I often wonder how different my life would have been if I hadn’t spent huge chunks of it zipped inside this fat suit. Without question it has limited me, and opportunities I might otherwise have had haven’t come my way because I’ve hidden from them. But that said, I quite like the person I am now and they reckon don’t they, that we’re all a sum total of our experiences and the things which have carved their deepest grooves into our psyche.

I didn’t turn out too bad and if I’m holding fat responsible for opportunities missed, I’ve got to give it credit for some of the good stuff too…writing and chatting with you lot every day is a joy, and it would never have happened if I’d lived all my life skinny would it… 🙂

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So. If you read the blog last Sunday you might remember that I had a bit of a meltdown when the bitch in the bathroom delivered the less than welcome news that over the preceding week I had somehow picked up an unwelcome guest, in the shape of one whole pound of lard.

I held my hands up and ‘fessed all. I hadn’t cheated on the diet as such but I’d definitely taken my eye off the ball. Counting points had sort of morphed into guessing and I’d become a little too complacent to convince anyone that I was serious about shedding once and for all this additional arse that I’ve been carrying around for most of my life. I swear down I’ve never been more serious about anything, ever. Upping of game was clearly required.

And I have. This week has been totally different. I’ve stepped up to the plate, walked more, exercised more and I have been scrupulous in terms of point counting and clean eating. I’ve been textbook, right? So you’d expect that to show up on the scales, just like I did. As I went about my morning routine I was confident. Some might even say cocky.

After brushing my teeth I threw a contemptuous glance towards the bitch, sitting just to the left of my washbasin, a glance that was intended to convey that her ass was mine, once I’d dried my hair, you know just in case the fact that my hair was wet made it weigh heavy. See, I had it all going on, I know how these things work.

I walked around the bedroom like Rocky strutting around the boxing ring, I mean I was da man. And when I was ready I sauntered back into the bathroom and stood on the scale only to find that there had been absolutely zero fucking downwards movement since last Sunday. That pound appears to have welded itself to my arse like some kind of lardy asylum-seeker, clearly hoping that the past philosophy of all additional pounds being accepted as the norm and going largely unnoticed was still in play.

So now, we’re at something of a stand-off. I mean, I tried all the usual things like moving the scale around the bathroom, standing on one leg, holding onto the sink so I weighed lighter at first and letting go slowly just in case you know, it needed time to adjust in order to be accurate. Nothing. The extra pound climbed aboard the damned thing every time I did.

Now, we all know what would have happened in the past, right? Proceed directly to the fridge, do not pass GO, do not collect £200…you know the score. Plus, let me tell you that since buying my new phone yesterday I’ve spent in total about five hours on either phone support or text chat support with the incredibly patient clever people at Apple.

For whatever reason, every single operating system within the four walls of my house has seemingly needed to be rebooted or updated with different software before anything would recognise my new phone, and now finally old phone, new phone and MacBook are all working but still not talking to each other so the nightmare continues and will probably swallow up my entire Sunday. Knowing all that, and knowing me as you do, with my lack of patience and technical muppetry, you’ll realise that I’m a woman on the edge.

(For dramatic purposes please feel free to ‘hear’ that last paragraph in a voice going up in both pitch and volume, coming from a body dressed in mismatched pyjamas and one slipper because I got dressed without concentrating whilst talking to said tech support and the dog’s slipper fetish has struck again.)

Nine salted almonds and two muesli bars were consumed with a cup of tea during the course of my morning just to ease the pressure. I’m ten smart points into my day and now before I go pick up my mum I have to call the nice man back who said clicking that button and waiting for shit to download would fix the problem, only it didn’t.

Anyway. The pound lives to fight another day but it’s not going to win. The battle lines are drawn and me and the bitch in the bathroom will reconvene next Sunday. I have a lump hammer on standby just in case things turn ugly.

Have a good week y’all 🙂

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I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wake up with an idea in my head, and whilst I might lay and rationalise with myself before I even get out of bed as to why it’s not a good idea, more often than not I end up doing it anyway. Today, out of nowhere I woke up and decided I needed a new phone.

I’ve had worse ideas to be fair…my old one’s been out of contract for at least six months and I’ve been lusting after something a bit bigger. Old eyes and all that, I’m tired of squinting at my hand.

Debate raged for a while between me and the committee in my head made up of the Asshole voice (spend spend spend) and my Captain Sensible voice (nothing wrong with your old one, you’re basing this on want not need and besides the one you’re after won’t fit in your favourite evening purse, you know the one you ‘had to have’ because it was just the right size for your phone…) but in the end the lure of technology and a little retail therapy proved too much, and I upgraded.

And there started the mad dash. I’d faffed and fannied around all morning so I was running late for my nail appointment, which meant I had to rush out without breakfast. From there I headed over to town. I knew I wouldn’t find a parking space anywhere near the shop, and since everything around here is built on a hill I ended up parking right at the bottom and walking up into town. Like normal people do, and without batting an eyelid.

Deed done, I walked back down again, swinging into Marks and Sparks to pick up some stuff from the food hall, and walked back to the car with two fairly heavy bags. Being mother’s day tomorrow the town was jam packed with folk clutching flowers and bags so it required much dodging left and right. I just did it on autopilot. Like normal people do.

And then I came home. Without plundering either bag of goodies in the car or steering with one hand whilst chewing something because I’d not eaten yet and the clock was ticking…I just drove. Charlie dog greeted me with a big wag of his tail and then stood by the door expectantly whilst I unpacked the shopping as if to say come on, you’re all sorted and now it’s my turn. So off we went, and walked about three miles. Then I ate. Like a normal person.

Six months ago, my day would have revolved around food. The prospect of leaving the house on an empty stomach would have practically induced a panic attack. If I’d gone to town at all I would have driven up and down the main street on a continuous loop, getting madder and madder when no parking spaces opened up right on the doorstep of where I needed to be. But I’d have hung in there, for as long as it took. Walk..? No chance.

I certainly wouldn’t have gone near Marks and Sparks on the day before mothers’ day but after I’d eventually found a parking spot and got sorted with my phone I would have swung through the drive through and picked up twenty chicken nuggets to see me right for the drive home, because you know, quelle horreur…I’d missed lunch.

There’s no way on earth I could have done then what I can do now. I’m still fat…I’m six dress sizes away from where I should be so there’s still plenty to go at you know? But I’m a fat girl who’s dipping her toes in what being normal feels like, and I’m here to tell you it feels good.

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