This week was always going to be a challenge. I travelled a couple of hours south on Monday afternoon to meet one of the teams I support for a working dinner and overnight stay followed by a full day’s training course. After a night in my own bed last night I’m away again today and overnight this evening for another working dinner, and this whole day will be catered in the same way yesterday was catered. A tasty hotel finger buffet with an un-specified take-your-best-guess calorie content.
So, fertile ground for head fuckery, right? Especially as I appear to have scored the biggest own goal ever by shouting from the rooftops on Monday that I’m cool with averaging half a pound a month weight-loss because it’s all tickety-boo and going in the right direction. Somehow, between then and now, my Asshole Voice has interpreted that as having a licence to mess about.
I started the week with fabulous intentions following a great weigh-in on Sunday. I got up at stupid o’clock on Monday morning so I could fit in my hour swimming before most people had eaten their cornflakes because I knew I was travelling later and didn’t want to miss my work-out. I ate a carefully planned breakfast and a carefully planned lunch, then drove down to a hotel in the Midlands to meet my colleagues for a carefully planned dinner…that’s where it all went a bit tits up.
I’d preserved enough calories for a decent dinner, having checked out the menu ahead of time on-line. I was enjoying a small pre-dinner glass of Merlot in the bar, when some bright spark suggested eating out instead of eating in the hotel, and the whole team jumped on it like it was the best idea ever. Shit. I hadn’t planned for that…oh well, panic not. I can adapt my plan. It’ll be fine.
We ended up in a restaurant with mainly burgers, pizza and pasta on the menu. I was the lone fat-girl in a sea of middle-aged men, and I was caught in that no-man’s land between despair and actual fucking excitement that genuinely I might have to say knickers to the diet because really, what choice did I have? I tried to be sensible and order a diet coke, which turned out to be diet Pepsi and I can’t stand Pepsi, so I opened my mouth to ask for a glass of water instead but it somehow came out as a large glass of red wine please.
I passed on the appetiser, but my colleagues ordered a bunch of sharing platters and before I knew it, two beer-battered cheese sticks and a loaded potato skin had joined the large glass of red wine in front of me.
I’d ordered the least calorie-loaded option that I could find on the menu – it was chicken, or at least I think there was chicken somewhere inside those deep-fried breadcrumbs loaded with ham and cheese and served with a side of fries. The thing is, after my third red wine of the evening it didn’t seem too terrible, you know? I mean I’d lost three and a half pounds last week, and we’ve already established that my average is half a pound a month so I’m seven times ahead of myself already…fuck it, on that basis I can relax a bit, right? So I’ll tell you what, let’s have all that and dessert too.
I woke up yesterday morning with indigestion and a heavy heart…I mean come on. So obviously I had a lean breakfast and stayed away from the lunch buffet…oh no that’s right I didn’t do either of those things. I ate bacon and eggs for breakfast followed at lunchtime by two mini cheese and onion pies, some divine onion bhajis and a plate of roasted vegetables which were slathered in oil, plus two cookies and a handful of wrapped sweets.
What is wrong with me? I wrote a fucking blog post on Monday bemoaning the fact that for every two steps forward I take one step backwards, and the ink’s not even dry on the page before I’m undoing all the good work of a three and a half pound weight loss by nose-diving straight into the first temptation I can find. I’m genuinely speechless.
I did make amends with myself when I got home last night and took myself off to the pool. I swam for an hour and chuntered to myself the whole time as I swam back and forth about what a dickhead I can be sometimes.
Today is a new day. But it’s another fully catered one with a big dinner this evening, and I’ll have no opportunity this time to out-swim my fork so I’m going to white-knuckle through on a wing and a prayer because I’m worth more than half a poxy pound.
Come on, focus 🙂
