Category Archives: In the here & now

Head Seeks Zone For LTR

Freeform thoughts

shameville

The post I put up a few days ago called The Asshole’s Greatest Hits prompted a flurry of emails from the posse, and one of the pennies that dropped for me when I was reading them, was that sometimes it’s not about being talked into eating this or that…those are minor asshole victories and you know what, let’s be real and accept that sooner or later he’s going to win some of those battles.

Your Asshole voice can only win the war if he manages to convince you that you just can’t get your head in the zone, and that sadly the time isn’t right for you to be on this diet so you should return to your stash of hob-nobs with immediate effect and wait until some as-yet undetermined point in the future when you might be ready to embrace a new diet with open arms.

As soon as you raise your white flag in surrender, that’s it. The asshole voice scores pay dirt, and you’re out of the game. So is it best to keep plugging away and fight it battle by battle, or is walking away, easing the pressure and giving yourself room to breathe the best option?

It’s a hard one to call, when you think about it. I know better than most how emotionally draining it is, going to bed every night still ‘on a diet’ but having blown it, again, and having to promise yourself that tomorrow you’ll be better. Only tomorrow goes to shit too, and you end up repeating it all on a loop, over and over again until your self-worth feels crushed under the weight of so much failure.

I used to feel shame, real shame that I couldn’t seem to get a grip, but at the end of the day if your head isn’t in the zone, you might as well be trying to push water uphill.

As I was thinking about tonight’s post my thoughts turned to those people who fell off the New Year’s Diet wagon a couple of weeks into January because they lost a battle with one temptation or another, and threw in the towel instead of waking up the next day ready to step back into the ring and try again. I wonder how many of them have looked back since, and thought if only I’d kept going I could’ve been ten pounds lighter by now instead of back to square one and then some…

So I’m coming down on the side of keep going, even if you fail every day…what do you think? Maybe it’s more important to take the pressure off by learning to forgive yourself when you screw up instead of taking yourself out of the game altogether. I’m thinking about it in the context of being committed in the way you would be to a long term relationship, you know?

You don’t walk out at the first sign of trouble. Yes you might have some humdingers in terms of fall-outs but you forgive and move on. You learn tolerance, patience and most of all the hard work seems worth it when harmony is restored. When good times happen. Until the next time you have a wobble, but isn’t that just life?

Thing is, whilst some partnerships are just not meant to be, you and a happy healthy body are a marriage made in heaven so it should be worth every ounce of commitment you can muster, even when it’s bloody hard. You’re worth it.

Part of this journey for me is all about reaching acceptance that my Asshole voice isn’t going to disappear when I reach Skinny Town. I’ve got to keep my head in this zone for the long term, and just continue putting one foot in front of the other, one battle at a time.

No white flag here 🙂

I’m doing a trek to Cuba in October, to raise money in memory of my dad. You can read his story HERE and I would be so grateful if you’d help me honour his memory by donating whatever you can afford so together we can make a difference and help other people who have been affected by mental illness. Thank you!

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Tick Tock

In the here & now

tick tock

I didn’t get away from the office yesterday until later than normal, for no other reason than I was really busy and on a roll with the piece of work I was absorbed in. All in all it was a good day, made even better by the fact that in the early afternoon I’d taken myself out of the office for half an hour, to get a breath of fresh air and make a quick trip up to an amazing farm shop near where we work.

When I eventually got away, I’d expected the traffic to be fairly light, given that it was past peak time but someone had had a fender bender on the motorway, and it was backed up for miles so I had no choice but to crawl along at virtually no miles an hour for a big portion of the journey. One and three-quarter hours to be precise…accompanied by a bag full of goodies from the farm shop on the seat beside me. Oh dear…you can probably predict where this is going, right?

I wasn’t hungry, not really…I’d chomped my way through an apple with organic peanut butter and a whole bunch of grapes in the afternoon, so my belly wasn’t demanding to be fed. However, the Asshole voice looked at the clock as we inched nose to tail on our slow journey homewards and decided that since it was fast approaching the time I would normally eat, I’d better have a good root around in the bag of goodies in order to avert disaster – I mean I was in very real danger of actually getting a hunger pang.

I’d left some stuff in the office for later in the week, so there was no fruit to hand. There was a pack of venison and some handmade sausages which I had to rule out for obvious reasons, and then I struck gold. I’d bought a box of artisan crisp breads, which looked amazing and better yet, I’d pointed them up in the shop and they were only one smart point each. Result!

It became obvious halfway through the first one that they would definitely work better with something. No shit, right? They’re crisp breads, and it’s kind of in the job description to be the support act and not the main event. I mean they really looked the part, they were a bit wonky, as you’d expect artisan products to be…a lovely golden colour and really thin and crunchy. The only drawback was that they tasted like MDF, which, to be fair most crisp breads would without the benefit of something on top.

But I didn’t have a topping, so I persevered ‘cos I’m hardcore, egged on by my Asshole voice who kept reminding me that they were only one point each and how lovely and crunchy they were. Three crisp breads later it was starting to feel like the cream cracker challenge. I was desperate for a drink, my tongue felt about four times too big for the size of my mouth and I had a mouthful of sawdust which didn’t seem to be getting any nearer to being swallowed.

It took about half an hour before I was able to breathe without spraying the dashboard with a fine layer of dust. When I walked into the house I fell on the tap like a man who’d just crossed the sahara without a water bottle, much to the consternation of Charlie dog, who’s used to his cuddles being first in the pecking order of just-home activity.

Note to self…nobody dies from a single hunger pang. Next time the Asshole voice pulls a stunt like that remind him that your life is not in danger if you eat a little later than is normal.

In case you’re wondering, I ate tuna with a little cracked black pepper and garlic mayo at lunchtime on the very same crisp breads, and I can confirm they were every bit as delicious as I’d hoped they might be once they’d stopped being emergency food 🙂

ps…today was an exciting day – I finally received the link to set up my fundraising page for the trek to Cuba in October, which I’m doing to raise money in memory of my dad. You can read his story HERE and I would be so grateful if you’d help me honour his memory by donating whatever you can afford so together we can make a difference and help other people through mental illness. Thank you 🙂

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Getting A BAFTA Body.

Freeform thoughts

redcarpet

Did you watch the BAFTAs this week..? I love watching a red carpet awards event on TV, especially the Oscars…I keep the TV in my bedroom on low all night on Oscars night. I mean, I don’t stay up and watch it exactly, but every time I turn over in bed I just have a quick nosy to see who’s wearing what, and who’s winning all the gongs you know?

Given that I have a red carpet event of my own coming up in a couple of months albeit on a slightly smaller scale, I was particularly interested to see an article in the Daily Mail yesterday about how to get a body like a BAFTA winner. Splendid, I’m all over that.

Now, don’t get me wrong, much as I can’t wait to be skinny, there’s skinny and then there’s like toothpick skinny. I’m not aspiring to that look really, and in any event I suspect if I lost that much weight I’d look like I was wearing a flesh-coloured onesie. Years ago, when I’d lived on a liquid diet for months I looked a bit like a lollipop by the end, with a head that seemed too big for my body. I don’t want that…I just want to be normal.

So anyway, I was interested to see exactly what went into getting a BAFTA body, on the off chance that, you know, I could at least have a crack at it.

It seems Pilates is a big thing. I’ve just been looking it up, and it sounds very much like Callanetics. I think most of the diets I did in the 1980s were accompanied by me flexing one bit of my body or the other on a daily basis. Not exactly fat-burning, in fact it was more like the sloth exercise of choice but you know what, I do remember getting quite bendy.

Not like now…these days if I drop something on the floor I have to devise a three-point strategy to pick it up, not to mention the accompanying grunt. I appreciate that I’m twenty five years older than I was back in the day, but I wouldn’t mind giving Pilates a go at some point, I reckon that could be quite good. Do any of you dabble..?

One of the ladies walking the carpet seemingly did six hours a day of dancing and I’ve got to be honest that  suggestion got shelved before I’d even finished the sentence, along with the BAFTA-body habits of those people who exist on a diet of macro-biotic dust and other associated taste free morsels.

Not for me. I mean you only live once, right? In any event, much as I’d love a washboard stomach, I do appreciate that at fifty years old, never having had one I’m rather unlikely to get one at this stage. I’m happy to put the effort in but let’s keep it real. Besides, I don’t have a problem if I’m left with a bit of a belly…it’s having ten bellies that I fall out with.

I used to have one of those exercise belts, which promised the earth, working your muscles one twitch at a time by dispensing little electric shocks as you went about your day. I’m sure they’re hugely effective for those string beans who just need a little toning up and the blurb on the box definitely promised miracles.

The results were more disappointing than they might have otherwise been had I given any consideration at all to the context…carrying 140lbs on top of any abs that might be lurking somewhere way down deep presents something of a toning-up challenge to both man and machine.

Anyway, I reckon between the walking, the hurt machine and fierce attention to what I’m feeding my face with, I’ve pretty much got all bases covered. Plus, if all else fails, I know where to find Spanx… 🙂

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The Asshole’s Greatest Hits

Biggest struggles

asshole

I don’t know if you caught up with the comments thread underneath my Valentine’s post, but my heart went out to Jo, one of our lovely posse who had an altercation with her asshole voice yesterday, and it didn’t end well. I get so cross…not with Jo, obviously but with whoever or whatever it is that plants one of these asshole voices inside all of us with the sole intention of making the wheels come off our good intentions.

I can only liken mine to one of those con-men who arrive at your door full of charm, wangle their way inside and then bugger off with the family silver whilst you’re making them a cuppa.

I thought it might be helpful to compile an Asshole voice top ten, sort of a twisted thinking hit parade if you will. Mine’s had some success with these over the years, but maybe calling them out will demonstrate that your Asshole voice is in fact involved in a much bigger plot to pepper the world with fatties, and by virtue of the fact that you’re reading this I’d hazard a guess that you’re front and centre of it all with a target on your back.

So, your Asshole’s pick of the pops might go something like this…

  •  That thing that you’re not supposed to eat, well I know you don’t want it, but you need to eat it just to prove that you can stop at one.
  • Well that’s it, you’ve gone one point over your allowance for the day, so you may as well park the diet and have a hob-nob. You can start over tomorrow.
  • Look, this craving has been twisting your melon for the last three hours…why don’t you just have a tiny taste of the double chocolate sundae and get it out of your system? You don’t have to eat it all.
  • You just had a big poo so you must have dropped like two pounds in an instant…that bag of cheese balls won’t even register if you eat it right away.
  • There’s stuff in the fridge that’s tormenting you, right? If you finish it off now, all of it, tomorrow you’ll not be tempted by anything, because there’ll be no naughties in the house.
  • If you really want two family bags of Maltesers it’s fine, because you can just eat bananas and drink coffee for the rest of the week.
  • Look there’s food in the fridge that’s about to go out of date – it’s a gazillion points but it’s wrong to let it go to waste, you should absolutely eat it.
  • A balanced diet means eating from all of the food groups, right? So really you need that slab of freshly baked bread lathered with butter to avoid becoming malnourished.
  • Look! Cheese balls are on offer, two for one…they’re a bargain and you don’t have to eat them, they’re useful to have in, just in case someone who likes cheese balls comes round.
  • You just had a terrific weight loss this week, well done…you don’t have to get on the scales for another week now, so you can so get away with being naughty.

Now I’m relying on you guys to tell me if I’ve missed anything obvious off the list…this is sort of like a public service you know? They say that forewarned is forearmed, so anything that helps us dodge these particular bullets as we jog on towards that skinny life can only help.

Right back at the start when I began this diet, almost 6 months ago now, one of the first things I did was to give my asshole voice a personality. I imagine him looking a bit like the picture at the top of this page, sitting on a stool in the corner of my head just waiting to pounce on opportunities to undermine what I’m trying to achieve.

I can’t tell you how much that has helped me…it allows me to separate his voice from my proper thoughts. I’ve learned to recognise when he’s the one speaking, and close him down straight away. Well, most of the time anyway. If you’re anything like me, and have a stubborn streak running through you, the minute you think someone else is trying to sabotage you, you just get more determined.

I had an email once from someone who said I wasn’t taking responsibility for my own thoughts by blaming someone else, and my diet was doomed to fail on this basis. I pointed out that I didn’t actually think there was a bloke living inside my head – duh – but you know what, if it helps me to squash the twisted thinking for the first time in my life, who the hell cares that someone disapproves of the way I choose to do it. I’m more than 50lbs down, go figure.

Whatever works, right?

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No Room For St Valentine

In the here & now

heart

So as expected I wasn’t exactly beating the crowds away this morning as I opened my eyes on St Valentine’s day. My letterbox remains decidedly empty (get your mind out of the gutter right now y’hear?) and there will be no cards displayed on my mantlepiece this year, along with no flowers and no heart-shaped chocolates.

But you know what, I’m kind of okay with that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be lovely to have someone to adore me and spoil me rotten…I lived for many years wishing and hoping that the one bloke who was one hundred percent right for me would hurry the fuck up and make himself known whilst I’ve still got all my own teeth.

Thing is, he didn’t. So I sort of checked out, you know? After three false starts and an endless stream of also-rans in between, I eventually decided I was safer on my own. With one or two notable exceptions, my relationship history is a car crash of the highest order and all the people in my life who give a damn just find it easier to sleep at night when I’m single.

If you read the blog post Magic Me Skinny Please you’ll know that for a while I saw a therapist who did her level best to poke around in the corners of my head. I was hoping she might hand me some answers to the question of why I couldn’t seem to get a grip on my lifelong habit of yo-yo dieting. And somehow in the middle of all that we took a detour to the subject of relationships and how they had affected, or been affected by my broken relationship with food.

What I realised for the first time ever, was that there is definitely a clear connection between those two things. With only a couple of minor deviations it sort of went like this: Single –> get skinny –> get a bloke –> stop dieting whoop whoop –> get fat –> relationship on skids –> single again –> get skinny…and repeat, on an endless loop.

Now, I’m not saying that all my relationships ended because I got fat, that’s not true. The fact that I have a habit of being attracted to blokes with…let’s just say ‘their own issues’ is a major factor, as is my tendency to believe everything in life has the potential to be a fairy tale despite glaringly obvious clues to the contrary.

But I don’t think I’ve ever exited a relationship wearing the same size clothes that I was wearing when cupid’s arrow first struck, so that tells me a lot. Mind you, hands up who’s ever hit Friday unable to get into the pants that fitted on Monday? Not just me then.

Days like this, when I wake up to an endless roll-call of Facebook updates showing off cards and flowers and quirky gestures from people who’ve nailed the whole spouseville thing make me wistful. But I also know I need to be fiercely protective of this food sobriety. It has to remain my utter focus until I reach Skinny Town and beyond...I can’t take my heart off the shelf until I’ve earned my staying there stripes. No room in my life for St Valentine, not this year and probably not next.

My dog loves me, and my boy and my mum and my friends love me. And I love them all back, in spades. I love you guys too. Best of all I’m starting to love me. That’s a lot of love. No hearts and flowers necessary, right? I’ve got the important stuff down 🙂

ps…have you noticed that we’ve had our first guest spot blog post..? You can read it here…

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