Tag Archives: struggles

One Person, Two Mindsets

In the here & now, ,

So I’m two days post-stair machine and I’m pleased to say my bum cheeks are recovering nicely. I even managed to get up from my desk yesterday and walk across the office without looking like I’d just got off a horse. I wouldn’t have believed that five minutes on that thing could’ve had such an effect but clearly it worked something.

My plan was to go back last night for another session in the gym followed by a swim, but it took me almost two hours to get home from work because it was snowing a blizzard, and by the time I got in my motivation had waned a little. My boy had cooked supper, so I thought you know, maybe I’ll just have a light bite and sit down for half an hour before I go back out…hmm. Big mistake, right?

Two hours later (by this time in PJs) I acknowledged that it wasn’t going to happen. I’m not convinced I would’ve got my car off the drive anyway to be fair, the snow was still coming down, in fact I may well end up working from home today. If that happens, I’ll walk up to the pool at lunchtime and have my swim then instead. I much prefer that to turning out in the evening after a long day at work, especially in this shitty weather.

I’m struggling a bit this week, I’ve got to be honest. I’m good, I mean I haven’t over-eaten and I’m doing okay on the no sugar front, but I just want to fucking eat till my eyes pop out. I took lunch to work with me yesterday, along with a big bag of cherries, but the cherries didn’t even make it past the morning commute. I was clock-watching from around ten thirty and counting the minutes until I could reasonably eat lunch and then all afternoon I was preoccupied with what I might eat for supper.

It’ll pass, I know it will but it’s different to last week when it was all effortless. This week it’s anything but.

Don’t you think it’s really bloody annoying the way that happens? I’m the same person, in the same body as last week with the same ambition to climb out of this fat suit, except last week I breezed through the week without dwelling once on the things I couldn’t have. It was a textbook week. Yet here I am now, feeling pissed off because I’ve got to count points when all I really want to do is rip up the rule book and eat whatever the fuck I want until the end of time.

One person, two mindsets, depending on which way the wind is blowing. I can’t think of a single other example where my thinking is so fickle. Why is that? I’m fine one minute and I’m struggling the next. Then I’m fine again. Then I’m not. I often meet myself coming back and there’s no wonder I sometimes feel like a borderline basket case.

It’ll pass. Keep the faith, and just hang tough. We can do this together 🙂

 

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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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