Tag Archives: armchair

Resident Of Lazytown

In the here & now, ,

So my conscience was poked a bit when Susan asked me on Wednesday whether I’d resumed workouts and whether I was still swimming…the answer is no. And Susan, by the time you’d passed further comment relating to how much you’ve always admired my drive and determination in pushing on with the workouts, I was shaking my head in embarrassment with my hands covering my ears. The truth is, I haven’t done much since before Christmas.

I know.

That situation needs to change, I recognise that. I full intended to go back to swimming straight after the new year, and I would have, except I had a small cyst taken off the side of my jaw and I had to have stitches in my face. They’re out now though, and I still haven’t been back to the pool so what does that tell you? As excuses go, it was quite a good one, although at this point I can’t quite remember what excuses I used running up to the holiday season as to why my activity had tailed off. Too tired, not enough time, full of cold…I suspect I used all of the above at least once or twice as I descended into inertia.

I’ve been light on the workout front since I had my knee surgery. I was due to go back to it in early November…by that time my knee was well up for it but sadly my head was not. There’d been a few changes at the Kingdom of Pain that I didn’t much like and it didn’t hold the appeal it once had, plus the rigid timetable had always been challenging in terms of getting there, so I moved on to pastures new. Well, technically I just moved on, since I haven’t yet settled into any particular new pasture worth noting.

There are lots of things I fancy doing, you know? I fully intend to resume my swimming because it’s a great way to decompress and I really do love it. I’d like to do more of the spin classes that we enjoyed so much a couple of months ago. There are a couple of other classes at the same place which look and sound like they might be fun, and I’ve also got access to thirteen leisure centres and almost five hundred classes a week as part of my swim membership. I’ve got lots of options, but I’ve been so busy considering all of them that I still haven’t gotten around to hauling my fat ass out of Lazytown and actually doing anything.

And I can feel the difference. In addition to the extra weight that managed to find its way back into my pants, I feel sluggish, you know? I’m loitering in that place where the less I do, the less I want to do and it’s incredible how quickly my body and mind have both embraced the armchair mentality. It doesn’t help that the evenings are cold and dark, and in winter my one hundred mile round-trip commute seems even more wretched than ever. By the time I get home it already feels like there’s hardly any evening left to enjoy so it’s an easy gimme for the Asshole voice to convince me that staying in and relaxing is the only feasible option.

Except it’s not really, is it? I should be heading back to that place where the more I do, the more I want to do, not the other way around. Maybe now I’m getting some traction with my food plan I need to broaden my focus and make a real effort to burn a few calories.

Later on today I’m swimming for the first time in almost a month. There, I’ve said it out loud now…it’s a commitment to myself. And y’all heard me, right?

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Poking My Fat Muscle Memory

In the here & now, ,

I’ll tell you what, I had a bit of a flashback on Wednesday. At the point that I wrote my last blog post I couldn’t wait to get up and at my day, given that I was starting my experiment…it felt like Christmas day and my birthday all rolled into one.

Let me rewind…for those of you not following the weight watchers diet, you probably wonder what I’m banging on about when I mention points…it’s just the way weight watchers carves up a food budget. Every food has a points value in the same way stuff has a calorie value, right? I get 34 points every day, which is a number worked out based on my weight/height/age (and that’s quite a lot because I’m still fat…the nearer I get to Skinny Town the fewer points I’ll get). In addition to that I get 42 more points to spend as and when I like throughout the week.

I don’t always use my weeklies but this experiment I’m doing to try and turbo-charge my weight loss says I should, and what’s more it says I should squash them all in mid-week. So on Wednesday when I get out of bed I was rubbing my hands together in anticipation of scoffing 76 points’ worth of food.

Imagine that. I’m a fat girl on a diet and everything I’ve done over the last 18 months has been about restricting my portion sizes. Not allowing myself to over-indulge. And yet here I am, staring down the barrel of a day where the gloves are off and it’s open season on points…I was so fucking excited I can’t even tell you.

Breakfast was all kinds of awesome. I had two slices of seeded wholemeal toast (3 points per slice) with a teaspoon of butter (2 points) and three scrambled eggs (6 points). Fourteen points for breakfast…I’ve never done that. I was working from home, and mid morning I made myself a coffee with all milk…another 4 points. Lunchtime came and went, and I wasn’t hungry but I made myself have some more toast and a bunch of grapes. 8 points including the butter.

I was seriously full. I’m up to 26 points by now, and normally I’d be panicking a bit at the prospect of only having 8 left for supper. I’d be studying my food plan intently from every angle to try and squeeze maximum mileage out of those last 8 points.

Not on Wednesday…on Wednesday I still had 50 points left in play. So I made moussaka, which is my absolute favourite thing. All fresh ingredients so it still qualified as healthy eating, except there was a fucking mountain of it. 42 points’ worth to be exact. It was a moussaka mountain.

Thing is, as I sat down in the chair, flicked on the TV and started eating, I got this flashback to a life where my world revolved around sitting in a chair with a plate piled high with moussaka, or lasagne, or whatever. It didn’t really matter back then what the hell it was, because simply eating for a long time until I was fit to burst was the attraction. A self-induced food coma, night after night.

On Wednesday, I found myself having to force myself to eat it all. It wasn’t a pleasurable experience, you know? I was uncomfortably full, and I had to keep reminding myself that I was doing it for a reason. It was an experiment. At the same time, I was equally terrified that my Asshole voice would grab a hold of this thing I was doing like some kind of fat muscle memory and start demanding a return to the life I used to live. Yes Dee! That’s IT!! Welcome back to your old life, holy CRAP how we’ve missed this!!!

I couldn’t manage 76 points…wtf is that all about? I scraped 68 and I was done. I finished the rest of my weekly points yesterday, and now I’m back to two days of basic daily points only, before weigh day on Sunday…in many more ways than I have words to describe, it’s a relief.

If I was scoffing cheese balls and Haagen Dazs, 76 points would be a breeze. I could probably do it in ten minutes based on past form. But 76 points’ worth of healthy food felt like it was going to go on until the end of time. Next week, I’ll divvy my weeklies out over three days and make sure I enjoy them. And, honestly? Right now, the fact that my old life looks less and less appealing with every step I take in the direction of Skinny Town makes me much happier than a moussaka mountain ever could 🙂

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Therein Lies The Rub

In the here & now, ,

number

I’m not going to lie, I was a bit miffed on Sunday last week when the bitch in the bathroom refused to budge, to the point where I’ve dragged her out from her hidey hole every day this week to see whether the impasse has been broken. The only breaking news to report is that she’s still not inclined to deliver me the sort of news I want to hear. Bitch. Despite my daily pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Pain, the needle hasn’t moved in the last 10 days.

There’s something that feels so unfair in that, I mean I’m busting my balls here, you know? The Asshole’s butting in with his what’s the point conversation on the hour, every hour and more than once I’ve found myself nodding along…what is the point, if it’s not making any difference?

What this plateau has done, is to serve up a sharp reminder about how easy it is to slip into sulky child mode…I’m so ready to spit my dummy out right now because things aren’t going my way on the number. I’ve had a serious word with myself this afternoon, because I can’t risk going there. It’s only a number.

And therein lies the rub…I know it’s only a number. Logic tells me that. However, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to beat something to a pulp because it’s the same fucking number as it was ten days ago.

I somehow imagined, that once I started pouring myself into those lycra pants on a daily basis and working up a regular sweat the weight would fall off me…I’m earning loads of exercise points which I’m not spending, and on top of my daily torture I’m going out of my way to find ways to walk further and do more, yet still the bitch isn’t for budging.

How long do you think it’s good to wait when you hit a plateau before you swap out your diet? I’m flirting with the idea of cutting loose from Weight Watchers altogether and maybe counting plain old calories instead. I do like the WW diet and the flexibility it gives me but I don’t want to invest all this turbo-charged effort just to stand still, and the fact that I am is really pushing my buttons.

The exercise is doing its job, you know? I feel stronger, fitter and my shape is changing…I can feel it, it’s tangible. But the diet is doing bugger all for me right now and I’m sort of in that place that says it’s time to try something new. Having said that, I’m a bit nervous about it, I mean am I just being a drama queen? I’ve done okay so far and maybe this is just a blip…what do you guys think..?

Changing the subject altogether, I’m gutted to report the sad demise of the reclining mechanism in my fat old leather armchair. How ironic is it, that after four years of heroically tipping a seriously fat old body back and forth, now I’m seventy pounds lighter it’s gone kaput? I feel like I’m mourning an old friend. I’ve got a man with a stethoscope and a spanner coming out next Friday to see whether he can breathe life back into it, but I’m not holding out much hope…it’s like sitting side on to a hill it’s gone so wonky.

Still, on the bright side…no lazing about for me this weekend, right?

Have a good one y’all and I’ll see you on the other side 🙂

 

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Cutting All Ties

In the here & now, ,



Frayed rope about to break isolated over a white backgroundOne of the thoughts on yesterday’s post from Margaret made me howl with laughter. In case you didn’t see it, having just read about my love affair with the big fat leather recliner and how I’d been reluctant to haul my ass out of it, she suggested I kick it out into the yard and torch it. Once I’d stopped chuckling I came out in a cold sweat at the prospect of getting rid of it. I mean it’s so comfy…the comfiest chair I ever owned. I couldn’t.

I know it’s got very close links to my old life, as in I’ve spent years letting the big old frame envelop my big old arse and tip me back at the push of a button to the optimal angle for scoffing cheese-balls in front of the telly. But I’m hoping I can continue my love affair with it in my skinny life once I’ve shed the fat suit. I’ll just leave out the eating bit, and maybe self-impose a few ground rules, you know? Must do x, y and z first before any contact can be allowed between arse and seat cushion…

Thing is, I’m a bit tied to that chair. I don’t mean in a dodgy Fifty Shades of Grey way obviously, I’m too old for that shit even if there was a bloke brave enough to take me on. But daft as it sounds I’m really attached to it. I mean aside from the fact that it’s a great chair, it totally lends itself to the fact that I like to sprawl.

In the comfort of my own home, I can’t remember ever really sitting in a chair with everything where it should be you know? Feet on the floor, arms on the arm rests and so on…other folk did that, but not me. Even as a kid I remember watching TV whilst sprawling on the sofa, because…well, chairs were for the grown-ups. So even though I am a grown-up now, the fact that the chair kind of unfolds itself and offers a perfect platform to drape whatever bits of me wherever I like works, you know?

Given that I’m not inclined to go cold turkey and cut all ties with it, there’s definitely a pull towards my old life that I need to watch out for, which is more pronounced when I’m sprawling in that chair. Remember in the An Old Shoe In The Gutter post, I talked about how getting a new TV knocked me sideways because all I wanted to do was lay in the chair and eat whilst I watched it? There you go…my head just seems to make that association. I need to learn to disassociate, you know, cut ties with the memories of being a lazy bum rather than with the physical objects. Basically get over myself.

There are a few people I know, or know of who’ve taken pretty drastic action to ensure that they don’t repeat destructive patterns associated with their former fat life. Sean Anderson, one of my favourite weight loss transformation bloggers cut all his ties with refined sugar a couple of years ago because he figured out that if he didn’t, he would put his food sobriety at risk. That’s a bad-assed move, because it really restricts your food choices, but it works for him and I’m glad it does. I’ve considered it myself but just like with the armchair, I’m not quite brave enough to flex those scissors. I’m not sure enough that I need to.

That said, if I get to the point where the armchair once again becomes synonymous with cheese balls, it’ll be out in that yard quicker than a flash, you can trust me on that one. I’m curious, is there anything you’ve had to cut all ties with in order to move forward with your new normal?

 

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