Tag Archives: happy

No Longer Required

In the here & now, ,

In those weeks where I’m not seeing eye to eye with the Shitbird Scale, it’s more important than ever that I find non-scale victories to celebrate, and yesterday morning’s  was the sweetest win  in ages. I managed to fasten my bra for the very first time without using an extender. I know, right? It took me more than an hour to get the smile off my face.

I’ve never been blessed with more than a handful in the boobage department and no matter how much weight I’ve been carrying, my boobs never managed to grow any bigger. That’s just how I’m made. Even at my fattest I could still only fill a B cup. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times where I could’ve happily filled my bra twice over with the extra rolls of fat that kind of hung around the general chest area, but in terms of actual boobs, they’ve remained stubbornly disproportionate. No hour-glass figure for me and certainly no match for my double arse.

Finding underwear has always been a bit of a challenge, because nobody seems to make bras for fat girls who have fat backs and small boobs. That’s just a fact, you know? I did once manage to find a size 56B bra on the internet but when it arrived it’d never seen a B cup, I mean I could’ve fitted a decent-sized watermelon in each side.

Not being able to find bras in my size meant I’ve had to stuff my boobs into shapeless non-wired stretchy bra tops for the last few years. Which is fine, and they’re comfy but those things don’t give you any shape at all. They keep stuff under control but they’re not really bra bras, are they?

About a year ago I discovered bra extenders, which are just the best invention ever. Once I knew they existed I bought a ton of them. It wasn’t unheard of for me to have three of them hooked up end to end right the way across my back but at least my boobs were properly supported and it was a definite improvement on the bras-that-aren’t-really-bras.

Anyway, I don’t know whether it’s down to all the swimming I’ve been doing, but yesterday as I was getting dressed I raised my arms above my head, and noticed that my bra was riding up. My excuses-for-boobs were even making a bid for freedom from underneath and at that point I realised it was now too big around the body. So, I had a stab at fastening it without the extender, and it fitted. I mean it really fitted, I could breathe and everything. And it wasn’t so tight as to cause that horrible sideways-on overspill either. It just looked tidy. Everything contained, you know? Silhouette present and correct, and extender no longer required.

It was only a small moment, in the grand scheme of things but every victory is worth shouting about don’t you think? 🙂

 

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

I Would’ve Worried.

In the here & now, ,

I’m so giddy…it’s time for my writer’s weekend! I’m heading out at lunchtime to spend the next three days at the Festival of Writing 2017 surrounded by arty creative types who do this shit for real and I just can’t wait. The very first seminar of the weekend is called From Pipe-dream to Publication, and I’m hoping there’ll be loads of folk just like me who bring enthusiasm over experience and  don’t have a highly polished manuscript up their sleeve. All I want to do is take a tentative step into that world and have a bit of a nose around, you know? Suss it all out.

I’ve got my clothes all picked out, and I’ve got my fake bake on so I’m sporting a healthy glow, or at least I will be when I’ve showered off the excess this morning…right now I look like I fell in a vat of gravy. I treated myself to a face pack last night so it’s as good as it’s going to get. I don’t want to spend the next three days worrying about how I look, but I’m well aware that first impressions count. Having said that, I want to look young and skinny so I’m screwed on both counts, right?

There was a time, where events like this would’ve been off-limits to someone like me. When I was at my fattest there’s no way I would’ve considered rocking up to a long weekend where I know nobody at all. I’ll have no choice but to mingle and put myself out there. Back then, it would have been the stuff of nightmares to be honest, no matter how interesting I might have found the workshops.

I would have worried about what people thought as I waddled around looking for somewhere to sit. I would’ve prayed that the lecture theatres were not too far from each other so I didn’t have to walk very far. I would’ve been stressed to the max about finding a chair big enough for my double arse and I would’ve tortured myself with the buffet in case anyone judged me for my food choices.

I would’ve known in advance exactly how miserable I’d be, and I would have allowed fat to get in the way of my dreams. Again. I just wouldn’t have gone.

This time, I’m not fazed by it. Any of it. Well, except maybe the buffet. I’m not in control of the menu for three whole days but I am in control of my mouth and what goes in it. To be fair, I’m so on it at the moment I’m happy that I can pull it off.

I’m not really big on networking and exchanging small-talk in a work situation, I find it irksome and I really can’t be arsed but this is different. I’m dying to meet other people who love to write, and people who’ve had their words published and most of all I’m dying to meet people who can open my eyes to the possibilities of it all.

Besides, for the first time in my life I can honestly say being fat opened the door…I might never have picked up a pen if I’d been living the dream in Skinny Town all these years, eh?

Have an awesome weekend folks, and I’ll see you on the other side 🙂

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

These Are OUR People!

In the here & now, , ,

You know when you find yourself doing something that you thought people like you just didn’t do? Well that was me at the weekend. I’m really living this life, and I have to keep pinching myself. My friend Nic and I set off on Saturday with our bikes slung in the back of her car, looking for an adventure. Yes, you heard that right.

There’s a vast network of forest cycling trails about ninety minutes north of where we live, and since our recent gentle bike rides have helped to acclimatise our respective backsides to the prolonged use of a saddle, it seemed like a great idea to take it to the next level and try something different.

Apparently, loads of folk had woken up on Saturday with the same idea because the car park was bursting at the seams with athletic-looking people on bikes. One barbie-esque girl who climbed out of a van opposite our car had it all going on in a tiny crop top and painted on leggings, although to be fair she seemed more interested in checking herself out in the wing mirror and posing for selfies than she did in her bike. Mind you, as we sat in the car watching her, we were equally pre-occupied with eating our packed lunch before we’d even unloaded the bikes, so we were hardly in a position to judge.

Despite the fact that our jaws were moving at the time, as we sat there, two reformed couch potatoes surveying all these fit families and middle-aged men in lycra, Nic made a sweeping gesture with her hand and said Dee these are our people…cue a fit of the giggles but what she was trying to say in between snorts of laughter was that we were like them, you know? We’d driven for miles to partake of stuff requiring effort, of our own free will, and we shared a moment of satisfaction about our own lycra, even though it didn’t look quite like it did on Toothpickarella across the way.

The forest had a colour coded system to mark out the various forest trails…green for easy, blue for intermediate and red for difficult. We studied the map carefully and tried to fit in by pretending we knew what we were doing. It seemed sensible to  start on a green route, and then maybe have a crack at blue, so we followed the signs out of the car park and set off on what we thought was the green route.

I think we must have cycled a bit of the green route when we first set off but after we’d been climbing for around a mile on a road that seemed to get steeper by the minute we started to wonder whether we might have gone just a tiny bit wrong. I mean, I know we weren’t experienced map readers and all, but the gentle green route which followed the river at the base of the forest hasn’t seemed to suggest you had to climb a killer hill first. We weren’t actually in the forest for one thing, which might have given us a big fat clue. However, on the off chance that this was the easy route, neither of us were going to admit defeat so we carried on going. And going.

So how were we to know that the little green tree on every signpost was fuck-all to do with the green route? It wasn’t our fault that the Forestry Commission’s logo happens to be a little green tree, right? An easy mistake to make m’lud. Anyway, those nice people from mountain rescue happened to pass us after seven miles and pointed us in the right direction and then happily, finally, we made it into the forest. And it was awesome.

Awesome, and hard. It was twisty and uneven and bumpy. Really narrow paths with sharp bends where the effort of controlling a bike on top of loose sandy stones makes your shoulders scream and arms numb and your wrists tingle. Going down was hard but climbing was even harder. Trying to get enough traction to keep going whilst dropping down multiple gears and holding the bike steady was really bloody tough. I’m sure it must be easier if you’re skinny. Roll on that day.

At one point going up and round a bend, I slowed almost to a stop, realised that I couldn’t get the right gear in time then toppled sideways in slow motion onto a log, which was fine until my handlebars jabbed me in the chest and the pedal attacked my leg. Mind you, I came off a lot better than Nic, who fell off spectacularly, twice on a couple of hairpin bends…we were well into the blue route by this point having bypassed green altogether whilst we were scaling the perimeter road. Duh…

Despite all that, we were having such a great time we forgot we were exercising. It was hairy at times and really hard work but it was beyond fun and we barely stopped laughing all afternoon. We did about fifteen miles in the end, at least half of that off-road. That’s not bad going for a fat lass, eh?

To top off a brilliant weekend, yesterday, the Shitbird scale finally woke up and accepted that I mean business, awarding me 3lbs off this week. I worked bloody hard for that 3lbs, and I couldn’t be happier. This new regime is working for me and I’m more motivated than I’ve ever been.

Come on, let’s see what we can squeeze out of this week 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

I’ve Had Worse Weekends…

In the here & now, , ,

Did you have a good Easter? We had a lovely weekend away but I’ll tell you what, I’m so glad I’m off work for the rest of this week, I am knackered. I adore my mum, and it was so nice to spend some time together and make some memories, but she’s so frail these days I feel like I’ve been on pins for the whole time we were away, in case I broke her. We have laughed a lot, but it feels like the last four days have mainly involved me running around with a stressy on, trying to make sure that the right pills were dispensed at the right time, and that mum didn’t trip over the dog, or fall out of bed, or scald herself on the kettle.

And don’t even get me started on the nightly trauma of helping her up the stairs to bed, in a cottage housing the longest and steepest staircase I’ve ever seen, which required at least three rest stops on the way up, me following two or three steps behind mum with my shoulder wedged under her bum to try and provide a little support and forward momentum. Fortunately there was a downstairs loo, or we would have been royally buggered.

We did have one or two trips out to the beach, but mum tires really easily so to be honest we spent most of our time just curled up in front of the fire, in companionable silence you know? Mum with her feet up watching the snooker and me reading my book with Charlie snuggled up to one or the other of us on the sofa. I’ve definitely had worse weekends.

The people who owned the cottage had very kindly left us a bottle of wine in the fridge, and a big box of chocolates by way of a welcome, and you don’t need me to tell you that those fucking chocolates have nearly driven me to distraction. They sat squarely in the middle of the kitchen table, and they didn’t move all weekend, but boy did I ever know they were there.

Mum, having eaten the three little cellophane-wrapped cookies which had been part of the welcome provisions on the first night, put in a request for some more, and I’ve never been able to say no to my mum so we picked up a box of assorted biscuits to bring back to the cottage and they added their ten-penneth to the Asshole voice’s daily seduction routine…come on Dee, just have one…you know you want to…

By some miracle, I resisted. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to face plant into all things wicked, but I knew if I started on either one of those things I wouldn’t be able to stop. So not starting was the only way to go really, you know? I did have a treat on Easter Saturday, in the shape of the biggest fish you ever did see, encased in crisp golden batter and smothered with salt and vinegar from a chip shop in Filey. Holy fuck it was orgasmic.  I used my weekly points and vaporised it without one iota of guilt, and that made up for not starting on the chocolates. Well, almost. The chocolates were Milk Tray. Not my favourite. If they’d left us a big box of Black Magic we might have been having a different conversation.

Here’s the thing though…it’s weigh-day today. And last night I slept easy in my bed because I knew I’d done my absolute best. There was no pacing the floor or wringing of hands at the prospect of my conversation with the Shitbird Scale…I mean yes, okay I always feel like I’m walking the green mile when it’s time to step aboard, but I knew my input had been bang on the money. I wasn’t worried.

And did you see..? Four pounds off. Four! I’m going to struggle not to punch the air with every second step today, I’ve never lost four pounds in a week before! It was a best of one situation…that was my very first reading and I whipped out my phone, took the picture and had that Shitbird Scale back in it’s corner before it had a chance to change its mind. No second or third of fourth hop-on for me this week, even though it’s usually the third or fourth go that gives me the best number. I’ll take the first reading thank you, it’s the only one I need 🙂

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

A Nice Problem To Have

In the here & now, , ,

I think I mentioned didn’t I, that I was going away for the weekend with my mum? We’ve rented a little cottage near the sea, just for a few nights and when I went up to help her pack her bag last night she was almost beside herself…she does giddy almost as well as I do. To be fair, I think she’s just excited about spending four days with Charlie dog, who she utterly adores, but she doesn’t seem to mind that I’m tagging along too.

Mum’s packing was easy. She only has a tiny wardrobe, housing a few carefully selected clothes. My packing on the other hand, is proving more difficult, and it boils down to the fact that there’s just too much choice in my wardrobe these days. My first cut would have kept me comfortably clothed for a month, so I fannied around for ages putting things back and trying to second-guess what the weather’s going to do so I could pack just the right amount of stuff. Yeah, epic fail on that front by the way, my bags are stuffed to bursting point and anyone would think I’m about to leave home.

I’ll tell you what though, how much more enjoyable is it, packing for a trip when you’re excited to wear the things you’re taking with you? I know I won’t wear half the things I’ve packed but choosing which ones to leave behind is impossible because I want to wear them all so I’m unashamedly dragging a ridiculously large suitcase with me because you know what, I’ve earned the right to revel in these clothes. I’ll try them all on and do a fashion show for my mum every morning and then decide what to wear.

I have this wonderfully romanticised picture in my head, of me, gliding along the promenade with the gentle sea breeze ruffling my hair, looking so stylish in my new duds that folk take a moment from their busy day to just admire the look. Come on, that’s never going to happen. I’m more likely to be battered by the hoolie blowing off the east coast, which will whip my hair into a frenzy as I try to control a hyper-excited cocker spaniel and prevent my tiny octogenarian mum from blowing down the beach.

It doesn’t matter, does it? Whether anyone notices I look nice or not, I’ll feel nice. I’m about to go work out, and as I grit my teeth all the way through my muffin tops and bingo wings class, I’ll be thinking about those size eighteen linen pants hanging on the outside of my wardrobe. For my friends in the States, that’s a fourteen in your neck of the woods…I know, right? I’m five dress sizes down from where I started. I don’t care that there’s barely room to squeeze out a trump once I’ve put them on…they fasten, and I can still breathe if I sit down so as far as I’m concerned, they fit.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter. Keep your eye on the Facebook page for postcards from the East Coast, and I’ll see you on the other side 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!