Category Archives: In the here & now

Sticks And Stones

In the here & now, , ,

Isn’t it funny, how the view you have of yourself can be disproportionately influenced by the view that other people have of you? I’ve always wanted to be one of those uber-confident people who don’t give a rat’s ass about what other people think. To be fair, advancing years and the accompanying descent into eccentricity is quite liberating in a lot of respects, although it’s less about an injection of confidence and more about feeling like fewer people notice if you wear purple and green together, or nip to Tesco in your slippers.

Someone whose opinion I’ve always respected threw some shade at my less-than-straightforward weight-loss journey this week and it’s made me turn myself inside out to try and see what they see when they look at me.  You know the old saying – feedback is a gift and all that, even when it feels like someone’s just hand-delivered a dog turd through your letterbox.

I was prepared to consider this piece of feedback from all angles, you know? The gist of it was that me putting weight back on proved I’d learned nothing at all over the last two years and therefore I was never going to achieve my goals.

I know, right? This wasn’t an internet troll, it was a proper one.

My first thought was Have you been colluding with my Asshole Voice? I mean it sounded remarkably similar to the kind of thing my inner Asshole would say on a day where shredding my confidence was the primary objective. Actually, I’m lying. My first thought was Fuck off, who the hell are you to pass judgement on me??

Come to think of it, that was my second and third thought too.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. I’m human, and I’m flawed. We don’t all shit rainbows.

Am I a failure in the Skinny Town stakes? I suppose it depends on which way you look at it. Have I successfully lost weight? Yes I have. Have I found some of it again? Also yes. Have I beaten my demons and cracked this weight-loss malarkey? No, have I fuck. I’m a work in progress, but I’m still here aren’t I? I’m still in the game. I get back up every time I fall down and I haven’t quit because it appears that for the first time in my life, I’m not a quitter. Who knew that would happen?

August. August is when the wheels came off my life. I lost one of the people I was closest to in the whole world and it knocked me for six, in fact I’m still processing it. I miss her like you wouldn’t believe. I’m here to tell you, in any other year, my grief would’ve weighed every pound of the eighty that I’ve lost, and then some. I’d have brought the diet to an end on the basis that I couldn’t focus on that right now, and I’d still be not focusing, all the way back to north of three hundred and twenty fucking pounds.

I haven’t done that. Yes, I’ve bounced around a lot. I’ve been up and down again and I’ve lost and gained the same thirty pounds on a loop over the last few months. I’ve frustrated the hell out of you guys I’m sure. Me too, as it happens. But I’m still here. I learned that getting up and pushing on with skinned knees is better than staying down.

I’ll tell you what else. Through it all, I’ve never retreated to my armchair. I’ve carried on exercising, and when I couldn’t work out after my surgery I headed for the pool. Even when my food fuckery was at its absolute worst, I stayed away from the all or nothing school of thinking and I carried on swimming for an hour every day. I still am. So that’s something else I appear to have learned.

That’s two things I’ve learned right there. Two things. Not nothing.

It’s amazing how getting angry can focus the mind. Having reflected on what was said, I’ve consigned it to the box labelled “insignificant one-dimensional perspective” and it’s no longer registering as being worthy of me giving a single fuck.

I can’t argue with the fact that if you look at net weight loss over the year I’ve averaged about half a pound per month, which is frankly pathetic. I accept that. But whilst being on it and off it again has been hell to navigate and frustrating to watch from the sidelines – sorry about that folks – I’m still here, and I’m still going.

Funnily enough, with renewed determination. After all, every day’s a lesson, right? 🙂

 

 

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Something Of An Epiphany

In the here & now, , ,

I can’t go on like I have been, right? I know, and you all know that something had to change. I’d lost it. That precious terra firma in the sweet spot that I was so attached to all of a sudden felt like shifting sand under my feet. I was struggling to even stand up straight, never mind pushing ahead with my plans to get skinny. And I’ve been battling with myself every day to the point where I’m just pissed off with it all.

That’s not right, is it? I mean, I’m used to a bit of internal dialogue with the Asshole voice, after all both of us have co-habited inside my head for years. But there have been long periods of time over the course of this journey where I’ve been properly in control, with just an occasional spat. I saw a steady weight loss and I was broadly okay because I can do it when my head falls in line with the rhythm of losing weight.

Towards the end of last year after I came home from the trek I lost the plot completely, and had a wild food-fest over the run up to Christmas. I pulled it back in January and this year was going pretty well, right up until August when I lost my God mum. Since then it’s been rocky to say the least. But I realised something over the weekend.

Somehow, all the shit I’ve waded through this year has tilted my thinking, and my focus has shifted away from all the possibilities of a skinny life and become fixated on the wrong thing. I’ve been spending way too much time feeling resentful about all the things I can’t have instead of feeling excited about what’s within touching distance. There’s no fucking wonder I’m struggling is there? I’m just one big ball of resentment and the more my head says you can’t have [whatever it is], the more I dig my heels in and cheat my way to having it anyway.

That’s how come I’ve managed to welcome thirty or so pounds back into my pants.

What I should be doing is focusing my energy on achieving my goals, which haven’t changed. I want that skinny life, filled with all those lovely clothes and just the one chin. I want my square knees back, and an arse that doesn’t feel like a tsunami going off in my pants whenever I take a step. Thinking about the possibilities of that life is what glued my feet to the sweet spot in the early days, but I’ve lost my way of late.

I’ve also lost sight of how me being positive and believing I can do it can help and inspire the people around me to do it too. My friend Nic is a case in point…if you follow her Shitbird page you’ll see she’s been ping-ponging all over the place just like I have. We sat and discussed it on Saturday over a coffee. And a dirty great cream scone. We didn’t have our eyes on the delights of a skinny life, we were too distracted by the contents of the cake cabinet. The thing is, we can inspire each other to great things one minute, and willingly, gleefully dive headlong into food fuckery the next.

Well, no more. We made a pact, even as we were wiping the crumbs from our respective chops…I promised not to lead her astray any more and she did the same. Yesterday was day one reboot for both of us and as we checked in with each other last night, it was holding. She’s relying on me, and I’m relying on her. It’s a big responsibility, right? If I don’t cheat, she can’t either. And vice versa. It’s a full on pinky promise.

That, combined with my shift of focus away from all the things I can’t have and back to the size of the prize was something of an epiphany…it’s a conscious step and let’s hope it’s the game-changer we both need.

Who else is in?

 

 

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Walking On Quicksand

In the here & now, ,

You know when I was a little girl, I couldn’t imagine what quicksand was all about. Clear as anything, I remember the day my mum told me about it and I was fascinated by the concept that the ground beneath your feet could suck you down and swallow you whole. I had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards and I’m not kidding when I say it was years after that conversation before I set foot on a beach again, I mean there was no point in taking chances, right? As far as I was concerned, fat girls would sink quicker.

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine this is what it feels like, to walk on quicksand. With every step forward, it seems like I’m getting sucked further and further away from the next step forward after that. Wednesday was my day one, and it was going okay until I had a little wobble over a catered lunch. I pulled it back in the nick of time but dwelled on my semi-okay lunch all afternoon.

It turned out to be a really long day. I’d done no planning whatsoever, on account of getting back from my weekend away too late the day before. I figured I’d just wing it in a healthy way. Because I’m good at doing that…ah. That’s right, my bad…I’m not good at doing that. I knew it was one of those. Who the fuck am I kidding?

When I walked through the door after twelve hours and a long commute, off the back of a night with disturbed sleep listening for robbers, my resolve cracked into a million pieces and I fell headlong into the wrong kind of supper. You don’t need the detail, but it was a definite screw-up. I’d also missed my exercise class after getting stuck in traffic. I was tired and I was still freaking out about bad men in my back yard so I didn’t go swim either. In the space of an hour I pissed off the God of Pain, irked my boy and ate my bodyweight in crap.

However, I got up yesterday and had another stab at it. Even though I was tired and grumpy after yet another disturbed night, where between the hours of one and five sleep had eluded me in favour of having ears on high alert whilst Charlie-dog snored quietly right next to me. I ignored all that and threw myself into the business of day one. And last night when I got in I ate a healthy supper. Go me, right?

Wrong. I’d actually used up all my calories by mid-afternoon so technically no matter how healthy my supper was, I shouldn’t have been eating supper at all.

I’m acutely aware that I’m bouncing around all over the fucking place. But I’m trying to be forgiving of myself. I’ve had a massive shock and my defences are low on account of all this broken sleep. There’s no question that at the moment, my Asshole voice is ruling the roost.

I do have a plan. A friend of mine is coming to sort out my CCTV today, and install security lighting, service my burglar alarm system and fit additional locks to the back door. That will help me sleep more soundly in my bed. I’ve not wanted to leave the house un-guarded this week but I think all the additional security will encourage me to stop acting like a fucking drama queen. And stop eating the wrong kind of supper.

It’s been a funny old week. But today is day one, right? Let’s hope this one sticks…I’d love to meet day two tomorrow 🙂

 

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Going Forwards By Choice

In the here & now, , ,

So I must start with an apology for all those of you who follow my Shitbird page…I promised to update the page a day early on account of the fact that I was going to be away on Sunday, but I ran into a spot of bother on Friday evening when I caught two blokes dressed in black from head to toe and wearing balaclavas trying to break into my house whilst I was in it.

Thankfully I wasn’t here alone, my friend had arrived for our weekend away and actually she’s the one who heard the noise as they tried to force their way into the back of the house. They scarpered when they realised someone was home, and it’s a good job they did because in that moment, as I saw them through the glass in the back door and realised what was happening I was so fucking furious that anyone felt they had a right to try and batter their way into my house that I flung the door open and gave chase.

I know. It’s the very last thing I should have done, but apparently it appears I am more fight than flight. I’m not sure I’ve ever been tested before, but at least now I know, right? My bravado didn’t last long, and after the adrenaline stopped coursing through my veins, my whole body turned to jelly. I drank a stiff gin, ate a pizza then called the police, in that order.

It was awful, and I’m joking with y’all about it now but I was genuinely shaken. Then I got mad again, then I got upset. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go away and leave my boys home alone which is irrational since my son is almost thirty, stands six feet three inches in his socks and he’s as solid as a rock. If he’d been home at the time he’d likely have managed to grab at least one of them and I can’t vouch for how the would-be burglar might have fared. Being fat and fifty proved to be my undoing as they sprinted across the garden and vaulted the six-foot fence…I was never going to catch them. Thank God.

Anyway, all that to say it threw me off my stride. I slept a bit fitfully on Friday night, and it’s fair to say my head was up my arse on Saturday morning as I threw some things in a bag for our weekend away. We pressed on with our plans to take mum out for lunch before we left for the airport, but my head was preoccupied by visions of a band of robbers hiding behind every bush in the fucking garden waiting for me to leave the house. I completely forgot to weigh in, and I didn’t remember until halfway through Sunday that I hadn’t done it but by that time I was in Krakow, and the Shitbird scale wasn’t.

My eating has been horrible, all weekend. I propped myself up with sugar on Saturday, and whilst I’m not using what happened on Friday as an excuse – like I ever bloody needed one – I’ve had another long weekend of food carnage. In my defence, we have walked our socks off…we covered twenty miles on foot in the three days we’ve been away, which might have helped to counteract some of the food debauchery, but if I were a betting man I’d wager that I’ve continued to go in the wrong direction.

So I find myself standing at a crossroads. I can go backwards and continue to dick around until I’ve eaten myself right back to square one, or I can go forwards by getting my shit together and choosing the right path, the one with clean eating and no food abuse.

I know I have to reset. I’m choosing to go forwards. And as luck would have it, God of Pain texted me yesterday to ask when I was going back to start training again. I texted him back with the intention of saying I’m not sure but my fingers betrayed me and typed tomorrow…I’m coming back tomorrow. I don’t feel ready but I’ve gone and fucking said it out loud now. And maybe backing myself into a corner is just what I needed.

So that’s how come I find myself with my workout clothes laid out ready for a body pump class this evening, and my swimsuit laid next to them ready for an hour’s swim after that. Body pump because I promised God of Pain, and swimming because I promised my boy. I’ll enjoy the swimming, it’ll help to relax my screaming muscles…body pump is going to kill me.

It’s Wednesday 15th November, and today is a new day.

It’s day one. And it doesn’t even matter that it’s day one, again. I fell down, and I got up again. There’s no shame in that.

I’ll weigh in on Sunday. I’m not giving the Shitbird any opportunity to derail my new start. It’s too fragile and I’ve decided I’m the one in charge of my head today.

Hour by hour, right?

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The New Enemy In Town

In the here & now, ,

Well I’m here to confirm that after eighty hours of being sugar-free (apart from my accidental hob-nob marshmallow) I’m surviving the experience and actually the sugar cravings haven’t been too bad. Except I woke up this morning thinking about cheese.

Now, I’m about to ‘fess up, and if me talking about food is likely to tip you over the edge you might want to look away now so you don’t get ambushed by my personal self-destruct button.

The reason I woke up thinking about cheese this morning is because yesterday I ate cheese. Actually, I ate a lot more than just cheese. I ate a dirty bacon sandwich when I arrived to meet my colleagues for a working day out of the office, and I’d already eaten breakfast before I left home so it wasn’t the best start…still, everyone else was having one and I hopped aboard the bacon train and joined in regardless.

To be fair, we did then go for a nice long walk around a country park to do a bit of open-air thinking and that might have mitigated the bacon a little bit, except when we got back to the hotel it was time for lunch. Lasagne probably wasn’t the healthiest choice on the lunch menu, especially combined with a side of skinny fries…I did tell her to hold the rocket, which might have saved me three calories. Maybe even four, at a push.

The lasagne was all kinds of awesome, with it’s bubbly cheese and béchamel sauce, all of which I can still taste if I close my eyes. But there was no sugar. Well, no sugar that I could see. Fat, yes. But no sugar. So technically it wasn’t a cheat, right?

I know. Don’t even say it. All the way home in the car I was trying to justify what I’d eaten on the basis that I didn’t have dessert. I tried to guesstimate the calories, and if I take our not-far-off-ten-thousand-steps walk into consideration, and the hour’s swim I put in last night I probably netted out somewhere near to neutral.

Except I can’t now stop thinking about fucking cheese.

I don’t allow myself melted bubbly cheese ever, because it’s definitely one of my trigger foods. As I’m finding out to my cost…there’s a new enemy in town. Sugar? Sugar who? Forget sugar, today I’m lusting after cheese. I’m still not entirely sure what sat behind my dodgy food-choices yesterday but it’s another example of me going off-piste and white knuckling my way through the week.

This too shall pass.

It’s my birthday today, not that I celebrate birthdays much any more. They seem to come and go at warp speed now I’m getting on a bit you know? Still, I’ve got an exciting weekend lined up…my bestie arrives this evening, I haven’t see her since we went to Italy in June and after taking mum out for lunch tomorrow we’re heading off to Krakow for a long weekend.

I’ll be staying away from sugar. I’m hoping that by the time we return my head will be more willing to help me take a straight run at the remaining six weeks of the year in a way which suggests I mean business…not before fucking time, right?

I’ll be back on Wednesday folks, have a great weekend 🙂

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