Tag Archives: pride

Mrs Smug From Smugsville

In the here & now, ,

So, I’ve been staring at a blank page for ages trying to think of a way to tell you that I managed to stick to my guns and emerge from holiday with my food sobriety intact, it’s just that every which way I try makes me sound like Mrs Smug from Smugsville. Fact is, I did it! It seems that miracles do happen, and despite the best efforts of an army of chefs I’m still motoring and I’ve managed to come out the other end 59 days food sober.

And, I weigh less than I did when we set off.  I mean don’t get overexcited because we’re only talking one quarter of one pound but hey, any hole’s a goal, right?

When I got home I somehow resisted the temptation to run in the front door and hotfoot it upstairs for an immediate confrontation with the Shitbird Scale, because looking at my puffy post-flight waterlogged ankles I didn’t want to give the Asshole voice any leverage to start fucking with my head…I can pretty much predict the script, you know? Ah look, you’ve gained weight even though you’ve deprived yourself for a whole week…it just wasn’t worth it. Go buy a Daim cake immediately and knickers to the diet…

I managed to hold off stepping on until yesterday, and I can’t even begin to tell you how strong that makes me feel. It means that I’m not reliant on the scale to validate my success, you know? I knew on the inside that I’d pulled it off and really that’s all that mattered. I hoped that Shitbird Scale would acknowledge my hard work but I was happy to wait until my body had gotten over the journey before checking in.

God of Pain invited me to hop on his scale when I went for a double session of torture last night because he insists his is the official number, and his scale declared a two pounds loss. Now, if you remember his scale also said I’d gained a pound just before I went which I really hadn’t. But whatever, all things being equal I’ve still emerged a cock-hair skinnier from a holiday which may well have spelled dieting disaster and I’ll take that thank you very much 🙂

There were moments during the trip where it was really tough. One bar on the ship in particular served tapas-style nibbles whenever you ordered drinks, and I had to ask my friend to move the plate out of sight. She looked at me like I’d lost the plot and I was reminded once again that the way a food addict looks at the world is different to normal people, you know? My friend was happy to sit there and chat with a plate of breaded cheese wheels and bite-size frittata and quiche and meatballs right under her nose, where for me, conversation turned into white noise and the plate became my sole focus. The need to reach out and take one after another until they were gone was overwhelming.

And I get it – anyone who’s lucky enough not to have experienced the sheer power of food cravings in that way could never even hope to understand…there’s little wonder my friend regarded my request to hide the plate as a bit weird. But I’m proud of the way in which I managed it, in the moment. It meant I ate one or two, but I didn’t vaporise them all. And at the end of the day, after years of friendship it probably doesn’t come as breaking news that I’m a bit weird.

Anyway, onwards…it’s good to be home. My food plan is nailed on, and my exercise is on track…the next hurdle to navigate is my bi-annual girly weekend which is happening next week. A long weekend of gossip and laughter fuelled by prosecco and gin.

Bring it on, I can’t wait. I’ve totally got this 🙂

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A Bona-Fide Badge Of Honour

In the here & now, ,

I might have mentioned before that when it comes to exercise I’m all about the gear. The number of times I’ve been fully kitted out in the right gear for this activity or that is ridiculous, only for said equipment to quickly find itself out of favour and stuffed in the back of a cupboard, where it’s usually stayed until the point I admit to myself that my dalliance with whatever it was had lasted for just a brief moment in time, and now the gear is surplus to requirements.

I’ve always been the same, you know? I like to look the part even if I have no idea what I’m doing. In my early teens when I was learning to ride horses, I’d leave the house looking like I was about to put in a clear round at Olympia with my pristine jodhpurs and hacking jacket finished off with shiny boots and a blue velvet riding hat. I must’ve stood out like a sore thumb at the stables, where I was surrounded by lots more teenage horse-lovers, happily milling around in their mis-matched tops and bottoms, usually finished off with a pair of wellies caked in horse-shit and a shapeless old pullover.

I was the fat one that never broke a sweat, although to be fair my reluctance to join in with the mucking out of stables was more born out of a decision on my part not to bend down in jodhpurs. They’re not the most forgiving of garments, and my hormonal teenage self was already regularly locked in dialogue with the Asshole voice about what I must look like from behind. Conscious even then about the size of my arse, I felt that I looked the part, if I could just stand still with my back to a stable door and sort of…pose.

Looking the part has always seemed quite important. Fast-forward a number of years, and I had to go to court to support a friend of mine who’d witnessed something dodgy. She was giving evidence and I was fascinated by the pomp and ceremony of it all, but utterly distracted by the very tatty robes worn by counsel. I remember thinking to myself that surely if I was earning that much money I’d get myself down to the robe shop for some new ones immediately. I’d want to look the part.

Incidentally, I tapped one of them on the shoulder and pointed out that his robe had a big rip in it, I thought maybe he’d trapped it in the car door or something and hadn’t noticed…he gave me a death stare and walked off. How was I to know that ripped robes are a thing amongst barristers, because shiny new robes scream novice, and experience is measured by the number of rips in your frock? Weirdos.

I’ve certainly never worn any kind of exercise gear often enough to wear it out, in fact this is the first and only time I’ve managed to wear something in. My friend on the other hand has just worn out her first pair of trainers. It’s a big moment…like me, it’s only in the last year that she’s come to appreciate the whole exercise thing, and she wouldn’t mind me saying that like me she’s also spent her life going up the scale, and down again.

As we sat on the cool-down mats earlier this week after an hours’ worth of boxing, we collectively admired her big toe, which was all but poking through the top of her trainers and we basked in the pride which came from slaying them. She was proud, and I was proud by association, I mean worn-out trainers are a bona-fide badge of honour, right? They’ve been worked. And as much as my OCD demands that I look the part, in her shoes – busted up as they are – I don’t think I’d be hot-footing it down to buy new ones either.

Sadly, there’s no sign of my trainers getting ready for that big fitness studio in the sky just yet. Work to do then, eh? 🙂

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