Tag Archives: blogging

Time To Make Lemonade!

Freeform thoughts, , , ,

HNY

Well, posse, who’d have thought it? I keep scratching my head and looking around for someone to explain to me how the hell we got to the end of the year already. I hate to say this with virtual champagne corks popping all around me, but for the longest time this has been my least favourite night in the calendar. I mean sure, back in the day when I could comfortably drink my own bodyweight in champagne and party ’till the cows came home I used to like it, but for at least the last twenty five years New Year’s Eve has been up there with colonic irrigation as one of those things I’d rather have no part of.

I’m planning to retire with a good book way before midnight and just let 2016 settle gently around me, although my four-legged bedfellow will have other ideas once the fireworks start going off at midnight. Considering he’s of working gun-dog descent, he has a real issue with bangs, and he’s usually as miserable as me on old year’s night.

The problem I have with it is twofold. Firstly it’s an opportunity to take stock of where you’re at in your life, what you’ve achieved this year and what your dreams are for the next. I don’t know about you, but during my annual stocktake I’ve never been able to place a tick in the box for being filthy rich, skinny and dating a bloke who’s who’s hung like a donkey. Life gave me lemons, right?

Secondly it’s a date that pretty much demands that you eat, drink and be merry. How arrogant. Let’s revisit yesterday’s post about being stubborn shall we..? I’ll enjoy it on my terms if you don’t mind. And in any event, forget the booze, I’ve been pre-occupied most years by how much I can eat before midnight because the New Year diet is looming.

But this year feels different. Different better. I’m not about to embark on a fresh cycle of failure marked by a succession of false starts because I’m already in the groove. I’m just about three dress sizes down, and this morning I fastened my watch on the next notch on the strap. Such a little thing but a moment, you know? Oh I know I’m still a heifer, and I will be for a good while yet, but before long I’ll be a foxy heifer with bone structure…awesome.

This year when I look back, I smile. I’ve eaten within a food plan for one hundred and thirty six days without stepping a toe out of line, and I feel strong, and sure-footed. I don’t always make the best choices, but I spend my budget, and that’s that. I discovered a love of writing and now I can’t imagine a day when we don’t chat. I’m fitter, and whilst I won’t be winning races anytime soon, I’m moving. And you guys…well, what can I say? One hundred and thirty six days ago I didn’t know you, and now we’re practically family.

2016 is the year when I’m going to get reacquainted with my collar bone. You’ll be able to tell where my shoulders finish and my head starts, imagine that. I’ll be able to get out of my armchair without having to rock myself up. And oh my god, the first time I can sit down and cross my legs…well I think I’ll burst with being giddy. It’s the little things that will mean the most you know? I mean I know I’ve got exciting stuff planned but it’s being able to do things that most folk take for granted which will give me the biggest thrill of all.

I’m excited about the future, and I hope you are too. I’m excited about trying that size 22 top on tomorrow that I’ve been visualising since Vegas. I suspect I might need to breathe in a bit to make it fasten (!) but really, who gives a crap…second skin or not, if the zip fastens it’s a goal, right?

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing on the eve of this clean, bright shiny new slate, I’d like to thank you from the deepest bit of my big fat heart for your company and your unwavering support over the last few months. I wish every single one of you a very healthy, happy and skinny New Year. I hope that we’ll continue this journey together…2016 is our year chaps.

We’ve got this 🙂

 

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Who, Us?

Freeform thoughts,

robinA strange thing happened yesterday – it all started when I received an email from a very nice lady, saying how much she’d enjoyed reading the blog post on My Fifty Year Fitness Goal, and then asking my advice on a few health-related matters. Now, I can only speak for myself but that’s one of the reasons I love hanging out with you guys….I ask a question and you lot rally around with assorted answers, or one of you asks a question and either me or another one of the posse tries to find a nugget of wisdom to suit the occasion.

I almost flexed my fingers to consult Doctor Google and pass his encyclopaedic knowledge off as my own before throwing her questions out to you guys, but before I did, my thoughts turned to wondering what had led this lady to come knocking on our door for advice. I mean I know we have a few wise old owls in the posse, and between us we’ve been around the dieting block more than a few times but I don’t think any of us would class ourselves as experts in healthy living, right? We’re just all doing the best we can.

So, curiosity piqued, just call me Sherlock, after a bit of clicking left and right it turns out this lady was from a bona fide medical company, you know, with proper doctors and everything. They seem like a friendly bunch – I’ve put a link on my ‘interesting stuff’ page in case any of you need a band aid over the holidays – and they’re getting into the festive spirit by canvassing ideas from as many people as possible about how to stay healthy over the Christmas period so they can have a bit of fun on-line. And obviously our posse are right up there at the top of their list of folk to ask. *Puffs chest out with pride, of course we are, we KNOW stuff!*

How about I start us off..? My best piece of advice is don’t accidentally lick the tip of a 12v battery. I did that once – and before you ask no, I have absolutely no idea why – and straight up singed the hair inside my nose. For a split second I was literally battery powered and my nose didn’t stop stinging for three days. I suspect I still have a bald patch inside my left nostril, so best avoid that if you want to stay fit and healthy.

My second piece of advice is, if it looks slippy outside and you’ve just watched someone execute a triple salchow worthy of an Olympic score of 10 on their way to post a letter, don’t think that nipping over the road to the postbox with your own last minute Christmas cards will be incident free. I’m here to tell you it won’t be. And jumping up quickly before anyone sees you is by no means a guarantee that this time you’re going to stay on your feet for longer than the blink of an eye. I can vouch for that too.

So, posse…over to you. It’s time to gift-wrap those nuggets of wisdom and show the world what wise old beans we really are. Old family recipes which ward off lurgy? Tried and tested methods of shaking off aches and pains..? A strategy to lessen the impact of all those festive excesses, or best hangover cure known to man…whatever words of sage advice you might have to see our virtual compadres through a happy and healthy holiday season, wheel ’em out…the floor is yours 🙂

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Unsubscribe!

In the here & now, ,

unsubscribe

So we see lots of things these days with an ‘unsubscribe’ button, right? I’ve got to be honest, I’m often the first to press it. I’d go so far as to say I press it liberally. Usually on the basis that I’ve received something I wasn’t aware that I’d subscribed to in the first place. I did what? I ordered one item, one time from an on-line store, and they now seem to think I need an email reminder every week in case I ever feel the need to order another one? Shoo! I don’t need that email. That email gets right up my nose.

I have a subscriber list myself, and I’m constantly checking to make sure that if anyone’s clicked the link to go cold turkey on their skinny mail, I action it straight away – I’d hate to be a nuisance to anyone. I mean don’t get me wrong…I’ve only had four of the posse unsubscribe so far but I held a little inquest with myself after each one about what might have prompted them to pack their knapsack and bid us farewell. I think that’s human nature isn’t it?

When I’d finished waving my spotted hanky and they were but a speck in the distance I read, and re-read their last post. I mean, was it a shit post? Maybe I’d offended them by using a naughty word. Maybe it wasn’t funny enough, or poignant enough, or maybe just not good enough…what if I’d crossed the line into self indulgence or just plain mardy? I had a quiet word with myself after the asshole in my mind had kicked a lot of these thoughts into play and moved on – I applied some logic. Some people come into your life for a reason…some people come into your life for a season. Maybe it’s the same with mailing lists, right..?

That said, I doubt very much that most commercial subscriber lists have an actual person who manages them…it’s probably all done by computer. But it’s really annoying when you do choose to click the button and you keep on getting mail. The worst one I’ve known is Princess Cruises…I have no hesitation in naming and shaming, since they’re practically stalking me. I managed to make the connection last time between fancying a trip and finding their website all on my own without them sending me links several times a week. Since I returned from my last trip with them in August however, I have unsubscribed at least twice a week and yet still the emails keep coming. Maybe I should start billing them for my time.

I think the asshole in my mind has a similarly ineffective unsubscribe button. He’s got a broad collection of headings under which his various newsletters sit – what I do, what I say, what I look like, what people think of me…what I wear, what I don’t do well, reasons that make cheating on my diet and falling off the wagon ok…you get the picture. I click the unsubscribe button on every one of his negative thoughts, every time, but still they keep coming.

In some respects, it plays to my stubborn streak. The more emails Princess Cruises send to me and the more they ignore my requests to stop, the less likely I would be to pick them for my next holiday, mainly because they’re getting on my last good nerve. Maybe, just maybe that’s why the asshole in my mind doesn’t seem to have the same power over me as he used to..? The volume of his junk mail got to such a point that few of his messages have landed in the last couple of months. So whilst his unsubscribe button might be on the blink, it’s fair to say that his campaign to undermine my trip to Skinny Town isn’t going well. And how much does THAT make me smile 🙂

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My Round Tuits.

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

tuitWhen I was little, I thought round tuits were real things…my mother seemed to hold them in really high esteem, in fact it seemed like they were her answer to everything. Whenever she wanted to do something, or had something she needed fixing, or a job she needed sorting she mentioned that she was going to get one, to the point where this mystical thing seemed like it held the promise of greatness. Obviously the illusion was shattered when I realised that what it actually meant was ‘I’m going to pull my finger out of my bum and get on with stuff’.

As it happens, I’ve got several round tuits of my own stacked up in a holding pattern, and it’s dawned on me that now I’m officially more than halfway through my allocated life slot, I’d better get a wriggle on. I’ve talked before, in the post ‘Waiting to be Skinny’ about putting things on hold because I wanted to enjoy them without the distraction of being fat, but there are some things where being fat wouldn’t distract from the enjoyment – rather the opposite in fact, the enjoyment in what I’m doing would more than likely distract my attention away from the fat suit.

There’s a programme on TV at the moment called The Great Pottery Throw Down, which is basically The Great British Bake Off but instead of baking stuff they’re making stuff out of clay. It reminded me that I’ve always fancied having a go at making something on a potter’s wheel – I think I first took a liking to the idea when Demi Moore got her groove on with the delicious Mr Swayze in the film Ghost, but whilst her potter’s wheel looked like it totally belonged in a fabulous loft apartment in New York, as a teenager I could never quite imagine how I’d pull it off in my mum’s lounge in West Yorkshire.

Anyway, I digress – despite the lack of a gorgeous half naked man providing an extra pair of hands, I was reminded how much fun it looked so this is one of my round tuits that I’m going to blow the dust off and explore. I’ve made a small note to myself not to get carried away – I do have a tendency to get a bit too enthusiastic about stuff, and if I’m not careful I’ll get to the end of the weekend and find that I’ve won a kiln and three tons of clay on eBay.

Learning to sail is another one of my round tuits, although I suspect that’s best left on the shelf until I’m in a position to nip out of Skinny Town for lessons on the weekend…being fit and active is kind of a prerequisite for that one and wearing a life jacket on top of the fat suit might be a bit much.

You know what else I had..? Writing. Imagine that. A round tuit that just happened after north of thirty years on the round tuit shelf.  And I’ve got to be honest, it’s proved to be an amazing way of taking my head into a different place. I’ve found myself looking around beyond the end of my own nose, for things to chat to you guys about, as well as tipping out various thoughts and feelings for forensic examination. I’m loving the process and bless you for indulging me by reading the words and offering up thoughts of your own. Ironically, writing about being fat sort of takes my mind off the fact that I am fat…go figure!

So I’ve shared mine…out of curiosity, what are yours..?

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Fat Flirting

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

flirting3
You’ve often heard me refer to flirting, although granted it’s usually been in the context of flirting with food. I’ve got an honorary  black belt in that, in the way that only a fat girl who’s spent the majority of her adult life on one diet or another could begin to understand.

All those teenage magazines that I read back in the seventies and eighties..? I paid attention, and they taught me everything I know about holding that gaze for just a beat too long, looking away with a coy smile and then looking back again…conveying I want you with my eyes whilst the rest of my body adopts an I couldn’t care less stance…whether it’s with a bloke or a sausage roll, the principle is the same, right?

I admit it…if I’m feeling mischievous I’m an outrageous flirt. I love the innuendo and the banter, and I’m here to tell you it’s possible to get away with far more as a fat girl than you ever could as a skinny girl. The reason for that? Nobody takes you seriously when you’re fat. Your banter is pretty much guaranteed to be taken as a joke..nobody’s going to believe that you mean it, you know that they’re actually being chatted up. By you.

More accurately the object of your banter would never in a month of Sundays think that you’d imagine they were remotely interested in you…I mean come on, you’re the fat girl. It’s a laugh. I’m not imparting this from a place of bitterness, heaven help me don’t think that for a minute…I’m a single girl by choice these days for the reasons I’ve already shared. But I still like to flex my flirting muscle from time to time, from the safety of my fully paid-for fat suit.

Some of my more risqué conversations have volleyed back and forth for hours, ending in a good laugh, a bear hug and all around agreement that it’s been a top night. If I’d turned serious and acted like I expected it to go somewhere the poor bloke in question would have almost certainly broken the land speed record getting the hell out of dodge, and spent the next few weeks afraid to leave the safety of his front room.

There are exceptions to that rule of course, I came horribly unstuck on a holiday once in the land of camels and hookah pipes…my attempts to secure a good price for a terracotta tagine almost ended in disaster when I found myself practically engaged to a man with funny eyes and something stuck in his beard. I mean how was I to know that buxom blonde women are highly prized in certain parts of the world.

If not for the quick thinking of my taxi driver who – thank God – had clearly watched Starsky and Hutch far too many times, my life could have turned out very differently indeed. I might have been tending goats now instead of writing my blog, imagine that.

So yes, I think I’ve found the one thing to talk about that perhaps I might miss about being fat. In Skinny Town I won’t even be able to flex my pulling muscle with a sausage roll but you know what…I’ll adapt. After all, nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels, right?

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