Friends With Benefits

You know how sometimes, you listen to someone wittering on about something, and you want to shake them and turn the mirror round so they can have a good look, and see what you see? Usually that they’re talking shite and the problem is closer to home than they’re prepared to acknowledge, am I right?  Yeah, well that was me on Monday.

I don’t know what’s changed between Monday and now, but I re-read the post yesterday when I was catching up with all your messages, and all I could hear was one big whinge. Poor me, I’m such a victim, I’m trying so hard and it’s not my fault…holy moly what did I sound like. I never play the victim role, but I was definitely trying it on for size wasn’t I? Sorry about that, I feel suitably sheepish. In fact, I feel like a dick.

I’m haven’t really hit a plateau, have I? My recent inertia stems more from the two steps forward and four steps back school of muppetry. I had an email from a lady who suggested I was probably not being honest with myself about what I was eating, and after I’d swallowed my initial response – which may or may not have included a bit of salty language even by my standards – my indignation prompted me to hold the mirror up to myself and take a good long look.

Fuck’s sake. She wasn’t wrong. Looking objectively, I had to acknowledge a bunch of stuff.

There are some things I’m doing really well. I tip out all my thoughts and feelings, and pick the bones of them with those of you who are kind enough to listen three times every week, and that’s what’s helped me achieve longevity on this journey. No way would I still have skin in the game after six hundred and fifty eight days on a diet if you lot hadn’t lent me your ears. I feel supported, and I’d hope those of you on your own journey to Skinny Town feel supported in these pages too. So we got that down, right?

I’m broadly happy with my food plan. Well, as much as I’m ever going to be. Between you and me, I am bored to the back bollocks of counting points, but last week’s switch to No Count has given me a shiny new toy to play with and I’m doing okay. So I can tick that box too.

So, the basics then..? All those things that I know I should do to supplement both of the above, like drinking two or three litres of water every day, and counting points for the dressing I put on my salad, or the honey that I drizzle on my breakfast…huh, so about that… do I really use one level teaspoon’s worth…? I have no idea. I’ve never drizzled it onto a teaspoon, I mean who does that? I guess it’s probably about a teaspoon’s worth, and I count the points on that basis. That’s near enough, isn’t it?

Actually, it’s probably not enough. Not if it’s several times per week’s worth of guess work. As for water…huh. I don’t do that either. I forget, I don’t like the taste, it makes me wee a lot…blah blah blah. I rarely get even half a litre down my neck. I know I should, but I don’t. I have no excuse.

And don’t even get me started on gravy. Come on, I’m a Yorkshire girl, and gravy runs through my veins, in fact most of my meals revolve around it. It’s only since I’ve started following the No Count plan, and my points budget is much smaller,  that I’ve properly read the values again and realised that one point buys me only four tablespoons’ worth of gravy. You’re shitting me, right? I thought it meant four tablespoons’ worth of granules, so I’ve happily been sailing my food through a lake of gravy with every meal, for more than eighteen months. I want to bang my head on the table and wail.

That’s the sound of a penny dropping, right there. I feel like wearing a black armband today, since me and gravy won’t be seeing each other any more. Well, maybe from time to time, sort of like friends with benefits.

I was a bit rattled at the suggestion that I wasn’t being honest with myself, but once again I’m more grateful than I can tell you at the way you lot help me keep it real.

I’d better try harder to read the small print in future, eh 🙂

 

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

11 thoughts on “Friends With Benefits

  1. Ahhh, yes, the truth hurts, doesn’t it. But you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. It’s sometimes a painful break from our perceived reality that indeed releases us to achieve what we dreamt we could.

    Like 16blessings, it’s cream in my coffee and like you, it’s salad dressing that I can’t break up with. As for your gravy…. I haven’t had gravy in three years, except for Thanksgiving dinner. It will work out, Dee. You’ll learn to like your chicken cooked 100 different ways for 100 different flavors of deliciousness on a lean protein choice for lunch and / or dinner. <3

  2. Shh, for me it’s the half and half in my coffee…I add up the calories from the day in my head and wonder why oh why I’m not thin yet, but my coffee…it’s my last holdout. It’s dear life itself. I skim right over the calories in my cream, and that doesn’t mean I use skim. No, it’s fatty-fat-fat creamer for me. I plan to cut a few cups this summer, and replace it with iced tea with lemon, no sugar, of course. And you’re right, it’s much easier to see others than our own selves:)

    Della

  3. You make a good point about being accurate with our teaspoons, tablespoons, and so on. Right now I am trying to be strict since I am not able to workout. I am trying to rest my left calf/knee before the soreness turns into a full-blown injury.

    I think part of the reason I never gained back the initial 40 pounds I lost was that once I was in the habit of weighing and measuring my food I have kept that habit up. I cook at home most nights and I fix our plates at the stove. I weigh and measure out my food my husband doesn’t bat a eye at it its just the way I do things if I want to stay at 148.

    I can vouch for myfitnesspal.com I use the free site. Its a pain when you first set it up but after a while you just click your food off from the list. They have a extensive data base of food to. I have been using it for about four years now I think.

    1. Thanks Susan, I’m sorry to hear your leg is still troubling you.And I admire the fact that you’ve kept your routine going all these years!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *