Tag Archives: resetting the dial

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?

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Climbing Out Of The Hole. Again.

In the here & now, , ,

Saturday night found me sitting at home on my own feeling wretched. My one bad day had morphed into a run of bad days. Confidently declaring I choose skinny, after pouring my heart out to you guys on Friday turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of words and a really strong statement of intent, you know? I believed it from the bottom of my soul as I tipped those words onto the page, but somehow the intent never got wired up to actually drive a turnaround in the way I was behaving. For that reason, Saturday had been day four of what felt like a freight train descending into anarchy.

From a position of food sobriety, I’ve often wondered how it’s possible to have both my head and my heart lined up behind a determination so strong that it could support the weight of a thousand cravings, only for me to watch it fall away to dust when I’m in the grip of an overwhelming need to eat shit, and lots of it. At the very moment that I’m pushing food into my face, I can hear the sound of my Asshole voice laughing hysterically, as he takes the piss out of my naivety in daring to believe I’d ever have the power to stop him in his tracks.

So. Two steps forward and ten steps back huh? If you’ve clocked my conversation with the Shitbird Scale this week, well. What can I tell you? That’s the aftermath of the last few days and it officially sucks. I had to reset the dial yesterday morning, and by some miracle I managed to pull a textbook day right out of the bag. Yesterday, happily, the Gods of Skinny were on my side.

As I laid my lazy arse back in that big fat armchair on Saturday night, I was catching up on one of my favourite medical dramas on the TV and the  Psych doctor said something which struck a chord. He wasn’t talking about me, obviously, but in that moment when I was beating a path back and forth to the freezer eating one raspberry magnum ice-cream after another, he may as well have been. What he said was this…

Ironically relapse can be a very important part of recovery…it happens to most addicts at some point and it’s very often the utter misery of falling off the wagon that motivates those that suffer to finally get serious about staying sober.

Ain’t that the truth.

The only person rooting for me to keep on eating ice cream was Charlie dog, who always gets to lick the lolly stick so to be fair, although I feel sure in his little furry bonce he’d want the best for me, him rooting for me to stop would be a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas and on that basis I forgive him for egging me on.

Even as I ate those ice-cream lollies, one after the other, I didn’t really want them. I just felt compelled to have them. But the words spoken by Dr Whatever-his-name-was kind of stopped me in my tracks because I was miserable. Utterly fucking miserable. And somehow, for once I wasn’t easy in my own company. It was a lonely place. Just me, and the pile of lolly sticks sitting in the chair with a drooling dog at my feet. Some life, right? The thing is, it’s not my life.

It used to be, but it’s not any more. And in that moment, realisation dawned that I was just passing through. I wasn’t staying in that old life. I’d visited it, briefly – well not that fucking briefly if we’re splitting hairs – but it was as wretched as I ever remember it, and I wasn’t staying. No way Jose…it was time to come back. I practically sprinted.

If we’re looking for the learning opportunity here, it’s glaring me in the face. The moment I started messing with my food plan a few weeks ago coincided with my decision to just reintroduce a bit of sweet stuff into my diet…it doesn’t take Einstein to make the connection, does it? No refined sugar equals food sobriety with no binges and an inner peace. Reintroducing refined sugar on the other hand – even in small quantities – well, I’m right back to that combative broken relationship with anything that goes in my mouth.

So listen, I’ve been back to the dark side, and I’ve learned a lesson. To those of you who can achieve and maintain balance by eating a bit of what you fancy from time to time, well fair play to you and I’m more than a little bit envious of your self control. Me, I clearly don’t have the ability to control shit when I’m under the influence of sugar. I sort of knew that, based on the first four months of this year but like a true scientist I needed to prove the theory. And now I have.

So I can’t have it. And I’m not going to have it. This is day two of my refined-sugar-free food sobriety and tomorrow will be day three. Next week’s conversation with the shitbird scale will paint a different picture, and the horrors of this last week will become just one more scar amongst the motley collection which have opened and closed many times over the years.

My heart feels lighter already 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!