Category Archives: In the here & now

Sort Of Kind Of Behaving. (Ish.)

In the here & now, ,

So that’s it then…my out of office is on, and now it’s all about the pre-holiday chores…the last minute dash for forgotten essentials, food shopping to stop the man-child from starving whilst I’m away not to mention holiday toes, nails and lashes. I’m exhausted just thinking about it but I’m as giddy as a kipper and I’ll have the wind under my feet as I whizz around being busy today…it’s holiday time!! 🙂

I think I’ve had the divil in me this week, way more than I will have next. Next week is it, and now it’s here, I’m ready to relax. I caught myself at the mid week point fretting about what I was going to do about my diet, so I gave my head a wobble, and reached a ceasefire of sorts with the Asshole voice. In principle, he’ll shut the fuck up if I agree to lighten up a bit and stop obsessing about what I can or can’t eat.

I don’t know why it’s grabbed a hold of me this time where for the last two years I’ve managed holidays perfectly well. I think this will be our fourth cruise since I started writing my blog, and I didn’t go to hell in a hand cart after the first three, so I’m just being a fucking drama queen and I need to stop it.

Here’s the plan. I’ll be sensible at breakfast and lunch, do plenty of exercise and eat what I want at dinner. I’m going to drink the cocktails and I’m not going to obsess about how many calories there might be in a glass of champagne or a gin sling. I’m going to act like a normal person and not do nine circuits of the buffet. If I fancy an ice-cream I’m going to have one, but I’m not going to inhale gelato on every street corner, or have a nine-scoop triple decker with extra nuts.

We’re planning on exploring all the things we want to see on foot, so I’ll get squillions of steps in, and I’ll take my gym stuff in case I fancy a dabble. I want to feel like I’ve earned what I’m putting in my mouth, and that’s sort of the deal I’ve made with myself, you know? I’ve put at least ten new novels on my kindle, and I’m looking forward to dragging my sun lounger into the shady corner of our balcony and reading them against a backdrop of acres of ocean and blue sky.

I don’t want to deal with Armageddon when I get home so I’m not going to be stupid. I’m going to sort of kind of behave myself and I will earn the right to indulge a bit when I want to.

So, that’s me folks, over and out for the next week, in here at least…keep your eye on the Facebook page, and I’ll post lots of lovely pictures as we bob around the Med.

As they say in Rome…arrivederci!  🙂

 

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What Is This Thing Called Moderation?

In the here & now, ,

So most of my on-line shopping from the weekend landed today, and I spent a delicious hour after work opening bags and boxes, and trying stuff on for size. Happily everything fitted and I love it all, so although my credit card is severely winded and may take some time to catch its breath, fuck it, right? Life is short, and if I can’t eat the cake at least I can indulge myself in other ways. Although today I ate the cake too, which I appreciate is taking liberties.

I’ve got to be honest, it’s not been a great week where food has been concerned. I’d like to say I’m struggling but technically I’m not struggling. I’m just not behaving, which is a different thing altogether. I feel a bit out of control on a number of fronts actually…you don’t even want to know how much of a battering my finances have taken in the last week. I didn’t mean to go quite so wild, but this is me all over.

It all started when I got a voucher code through the post for 25% off one of the on-line clothes retailers that I’ve used before, and sniffing a bargain I went onto their website ‘just for a look’. Yeah well that didn’t end well did it….seeing nothing I fancied but with my shopping head on, I wandered onto my favourite clothes website and burned a bloody fortune. No discount voucher, and apparently no self-control either.

If there’s anything to be said for life as a very very fat lady, it’s this; it was cheaper. I mean sure, I used to spend a fortune on cheese balls but I hardly ever bought any new clothes. It would be fair to say I’m making up for lost time.

In the same way I go for ages being really good on my food plan before blowing my food budget in a spectacular fall from grace, I have a tendency to do the same thing with spending money and buying clothes. It’s a while since I bought anything outside my budget, but this weekend I behaved like fucking Rockefeller and almost melted my plastic.

Don’t get me wrong, I really love the stuff I’ve bought but I’m already feeling guilty at my lack of self control, and I’m dreading the sound of my card statement thudding onto the doormat. The postman may just get a hernia as he carries it to my door and the poor parcel man definitely did.

I think we’ve established that moderation is something I’m just not very good at. I’m okay at it for a while, and then BAM, all of a sudden I find myself careering off down the wrong path without any warning. It’s like I need the exhilaration of that ride, where in the moment, nothing matters except the adrenaline rush. What does that make me? A hedonist? Or maybe just a dickhead. I’m thinking that one.

However, I will be the best dressed dickhead in town. Every cloud…  🙂

 

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The Wrong Number

In the here & now, ,

It’s going to be one of those weeks, you know when you can just tell?

It didn’t start well. I practically speed-walked the twenty two steps from my bed to the bathroom for my Sunday morning weigh-in, and I could hardly wait to hop aboard. I had really high hopes this week, in fact I was already planning what words I might use to tell you how fabulous I felt at losing [insert impressive number here] pounds. I felt skinny.

Then the Shitbird thing declared a zero loss, and within a heartbeat I felt fat again, like someone behind me had sprung into action and was busy filling my pants with marshmallows. I went from hero to zero in the length of time it took the little digital display to get its shit together and show me the wrong number.

I don’t know what kind of voodoo fuckery is at play here. I’ve stayed within calories pretty much every day, I’ve been to the pool five times. I did the spin class for God’s sake. I’ve attended meetings at work where the free cookies went uneaten and I didn’t even begrudge walking away from them because I felt skinny, right up to the moment where my toe confidently nudged the Shitbird awake yesterday morning. The number it spat out threw shade over all my effort, and I had a massive strop.

And of course, look who’s woken up…the Asshole voice has been chirruping in my earhole ever since.

Look, Dee, your body’s obviously telling you that it needs a break, that’s why you’re not losing any weight. You’re going on holiday in just a few short days…why don’t you take your foot off the gas and give your body the break from dieting that it so clearly needs. You can start again when you get back, and I bet the weight will practically fall off of its own accord because you’ll be so rested and ready to give it everything you’ve got…

It’s so fucking hard not to be influenced by that voice especially when the words are falling onto such fertile ground. You have no idea how much I want to say fuck it and log out of My Fitness Pal without a backward glance. I want to stamp my foot like a stroppy child and head to the deli tomorrow instead of taking a carefully calorie-controlled lunch to work. More than that, I want to cruise around Italy next week drinking my own body weight in gin cocktails and sampling every fucking morsel of food that the army of chefs on board want to throw at me.

You’ve been through the mill Dee. You’ve lost Elsie and you’re still grieving. You’ve had surgery and you’ve had more than your fair share of stress with your mum being ill. If anybody ever deserved a break it’s you. You deserve this holiday. And it doesn’t even really count if your food plan goes a bit off the rails, I mean it’s not like you’re sitting in an armchair and having a binge, is it? You’d just be doing what normal people do on holiday which is eating a bit too much and drinking a bit too much. Just allow yourself that for God’s sake…

On Saturday, I went shopping for new shoes. I remember savouring the feeling of how easy it was to bend down and fasten the straps as I tried to decide which ones to buy, I mean less than two years ago I couldn’t even reach my feet. In the end, I bought three pairs of shoes and a bunch of other stuff, and I justified it all as a treat to myself for making it through a shit summer and keeping my head in the game.

And yet, not twenty four hours later that fucking scale tipped me headlong into a shitstorm by making me feel fat. I argued back and forth with my own head all day yesterday ’till in the end I was even boring myself.

It’s a rollercoaster isn’t it? Yesterday I stayed within calories, went for a good walk and I swam for an hour. Today I’m going to do the same. One foot in front of the other, and repeat, right?  I’m so excited about my forthcoming trip and I do deserve to go away and have a brilliant time. But I’m feeling wobbly, and the Asshole Voice is at his most persuasive.

I need to tread very carefully, that’s all.

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Don’t Stop Me Now

In the here & now, ,

You know, I look back fondly on the days where meeting up with friends involved coffee and cake. I mean sure, my arse was often too big for the chairs and I’d sometimes find myself wedged behind a table trying not to look as squashed as I felt, but there was always laughter and there was always cake.

The trouble these days is, I’ve managed to fall in with a band of hooligans who’ve turned their back on cake in favour of doing shit that hurts. And that’s how come I ended up earlier this week in a spin class. Yes, you really did hear that right.

I’ve not been back yet to the Kingdom of Pain. I will, but I’ve only just nicely been signed off as fit after my surgery and with mum being poorly and all I just haven’t had the chance to resume my classes. I’ve been swimming pretty much every day so I’ve still kept a focus on being active but it’s been a while since I did the kind of exercise that makes me want to go lie down in a darkened room afterwards.

My friend had been given a voucher for a different fitness studio, and she invited a couple more of us along to get in on the action, which is how we all ended up in the loft of an old warehouse on a wet and windy Wednesday night wearing padded shorts.

Now, I’ve never been spinning before, but I do know people who have. Most of them look like whippets, so to be honest it’s never struck me as a fat-girl activity. I suspected it might be quite hard. I allowed myself to get lulled into a false sense of security as we arrived because they were serving hot chocolate with marshmallows in a little cafe room with more than its fair share of cute, so what’s not to love about that? And the lady who runs it was warm and friendly and smiley so I mean really, how bad could it be?

Bad ASS. That’s how bad. Holy shit.

Hands up, who knew, that one quarter turn of the tiniest knob could make your legs feel like lead? And who knew that saddles could be made of something harder than concrete? And who knew it was even possible to sweat that much?

I damn well loved it. The music was awesome, I mean there was none of this crappy modern stuff…she played Queen, and Abba at full volume and we all sang along at the tops of our voices as we were pedalling up hill after hill. It was a bit like carpool karaoke on two wheels. Don’t get me wrong, the class was really hard but I found myself getting so carried away with the atmosphere that I forgot to notice I was having a near death experience.

Walking down the stairs afterwards on rubber legs was interesting, but the only lingering after-effects have been the memory of that concrete saddle and the carnage it caused in my nether regions. Let’s just say I was perched sideways on my chair yesterday and even now, sitting down makes me wince.

Truth be told, I can’t wait to go back 🙂

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Blue Sky Peeping Through The Clouds

In the here & now, ,

All of a sudden, the world is looking brighter. Mum is doing much better. The bug which kept us at arm’s length over the weekend has blown itself out, and tonight we had a lovely visit. It was bittersweet, because she’s lost so much ground over the last couple of weeks. She turned to me earlier and said you’re my daughter, aren’t you..?  I mean, ouch. That’s a first. But she’s okay, and happy, albeit in her own little world.

And this is me hitting a home run of best behaviour…I know, right? Yey me. I’ve forgotten to count the days because my head’s been elsewhere but I can confirm that I’ve existed in an Asshole-free-zone since at least the weekend and I’m feeling pretty sure-footed. With the exception of the chocolate orange segments on Saturday I think I’ve put my best foot forward for well over a week now and I feel like I’m back on track.

We had a little service on Monday to scatter the ashes of my Godmother, and it really lifted my spirits. Unlike the funeral, which was hard, Monday was full of laughter…mainly at the expense of the vicar, I’ve got to be honest. About ten years ago, my Godmother lost her precious cat, and she wanted to bury him in the grounds of the church where she worshipped. Sadly, the Vicar said no.

Now, ‘no’ isn’t a word that my Godmother was especially fond of, unless she was the one saying it of course. She didn’t argue with the Vicar at the time, but she did pay a visit to the churchyard in the middle of the night armed with a torch, a shovel and a dead cat, and despite her gnarly old arthritis-ridden hands made a very good job of laying him to rest. She wanted her ashes scattered near to the spot she picked out all those years ago, and so despite the solemnity of the occasion on Monday, all of us in the know couldn’t help grinning as we sensed her approval at being reunited with Taffy in the glorious autumn sunshine.

Happily, the Vicar remains oblivious.

My mum wasn’t able to join us which I found quite hard, but by the same token she’d forgotten it was even happening and that’s a blessing.

So, onwards…my thoughts are turning to my holiday, which is coming up in just eleven more sleeps. I’m so relieved that it looks like I’ll be going after all. I’ve bought a couple of new frocks, which I’d hoped might fit me by the time we went, but I’ve dicked around so much with my underwhelming half-a-pound-per-month average weight loss I’ve got no chance, not this time around.

On the bright side though, I weigh about the same as I did when I went to Italy in June, so at least I have a holiday wardrobe which fits and feels nice…isn’t that just the best feeling?

We’ll be flying to Venice then sailing from there to Montenegro, Corfu, Sardinia, Naples and Rome. It’s going to be warm but not too hot and now all the drama seems to have subsided I just can’t wait.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m due a little R&R 🙂

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