Tag Archives: happy

Mission Interrupted

In the here & now, , ,

Have you ever got mid-way through something, only to lose interest and  wonder what madness inspired you to start in the first place..? Yeah, me too. That was me this weekend, having a bit of a sort-out. Spot the inappropriate use of the word bit in that sentence. I massively underestimated the size of the task, and now my bedroom looks like a clothes-bomb went off.

I ran out of steam after I’d been going at it for three or four hours and proceeded to find all manner of distractions. I even did some ironing which tells you how desperate for a distraction I was…anyone who knows me would tell you that I never pick up the iron without a gun to my head.

So anyway, the upshot is my low boredom threshold means I’ve only scratched the surface of what needs to be done. All the stuff in my wardrobe fits me – or is about to – and anything that’s too big has been evicted but I haven’t been near the stuff I have in storage yet, to see what gems are waiting to be rediscovered. There are definitely things amongst that lot which will fit me now, but the buggeration factor is that I don’t remember packing it away in any kind of order, you know? It won’t be as easy as just grabbing the bags I need, because I’m an ejit and that would be too simple.

I came across a bunch of skinny stuff too, when I started emptying drawers…I couldn’t decide what to do with it, so I just put it back and did nothing. I mean, should it stay? I’m working my way down the sizes so it seems a waste of effort to pack it all up and put that in storage but on the other hand I’m barely in the ‘burbs of Skinny Town and I won’t need it for a while yet. Months, in fact. It probably needs to go. If I’m bringing stuff back here I’ll need the drawer space. Fucks’ sake, swapping all this stuff around is going to take forever.

Still, it’ll get done when it gets done. I’m working until Thursday but then I’m off work for about ten days. I’m taking my mom away to the seaside over the Easter Weekend but I have almost a whole week off after we get back so I’ll make it my mission to crack on and finish what I’ve started. I’ll allow myself a couple of lazy days towards the end of the week if I get my arse in gear and do it as soon as we get back. To be fair, I am looking forward to being reunited with some of the stuff I liked enough to pack away in the hope that one day it might fit me again.

I had another positive conversation with the Shitbird Scale yesterday, did you see?  One and a half more pounds evicted from my pants. That’s the fourteenth week in a row where I’ve lost weight, and I’m still completely in control of my food plan so I’m now breaking new ground and I can’t begin to tell you how good that feels. Just a few pounds more and the number will read sixteen something and God was a lad last time that happened.

Can I just mention too that the sun has been shining this weekend, and my arse has been a black-pants-free-zone. How about that 🙂

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Let’s Never Speak Of Them Again

In the here & now, ,

There’s something about new clothes that makes you feel epic, don’t you think? I wore a new shirt for work yesterday, one of the ones that’s been hanging in my wardrobe for a while which hasn’t just quite fitted me. Until now all of a sudden it does. I bloody love that feeling. I got a compliment from two different people at work, and when I walked in the kitchen back home at teatime my boy looked up from what he was doing and said blimey, you look skinny today…I bloody love that feeling too.

It’s been a while you know…at one point towards the middle of last year, folk started to notice that I’d lost weight and were fairly generous with their compliments, but when I started going back up the scale again those same folk were gracious enough to keep their gobs shut. Well, most people do, don’t they? I can think of one notable exception in my circle of friends who thinks nothing of fat shaming where someone’s gained a little weight but she’s never been brave enough to call me on it. Just FYI I’ve got three dozen one-liners lined up ready in case she ever does, and trust me when I say whichever one I pick will be delivered with relish, possibly accompanied by a smack in the chops.

I can’t really pinpoint the moment where I started to care again, about what I looked like. When I was way north of three hundred pounds there didn’t seem much point in spending too much time in front of the mirror because no good ever came of it, you know? All it did was open the door for the Asshole voice in my head to wheel out one put-down after another, to the point where some days it was hard to lift my head.

I only had a handful of clothes, all of which I’d bought because they fitted me and not because I liked them. A few tops that I’d kidded myself made me look a bit smaller than I was. That’s the difference you know when you’re locked in battle with a fat body…you don’t decide what to wear because the colour suits you, or because something’s on-trend. You pick anything that you think makes you look smaller. In my head it was sole criteria, the only thing that mattered. I’d like to point out to anyone who actually knew me back then, that most of those hideous garments were not worn by choice and let’s agree never to speak of them again.

It’s different now I’ve evicted poundage from my pants. To be fair, there’s a lot more choice and I’m choosing things that I like. And that’s why it’s so lovely when people take the time to pay me a compliment…it’s nice to be noticed for the right reasons and it definitely spurs me on.

I have a little jar you know, where I store my compliments. I scribble them down on a scrap of paper and put them in my jar, and if I’m having a day where it feels like this fucking diet will never end and I’ll never reach my goal, I tip them all out and take a moment to bask in the sunshine, and it never fails to lift my mood. My jar has been gathering dust for a few months but it saw a bit of action yesterday, and it did me a power of good 🙂

 

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Choosy Is Good, Right?

In the here & now, , ,

So, I had two things to navigate yesterday. One buffet lunch straight out of the 1970s with no healthy options whatsoever, and then a working dinner with some colleagues last night. I did okay, in fact you would’ve been proud of me. At lunchtime I did eat half a rather greasy sausage and a couple of fat sandwich quarters, but really only enough to stave off starvation and see me through the afternoon. And last night in the restaurant, I watched everyone else eat their appetisers but because there was nothing suitable on the menu for me I didn’t order one. Yes, you heard that right…even though I was ravenous I said no. I would have had one, but I was choosy, and choosy is good, right?

I practised behaving like a skinny girl. Squid? Awesome, I’ll have that, I love squid…oh hang on just a minute, deep fried in batter with a garlic mayo dip? Nah not for me…what else…oooh look, mini ribs with homemade slaw…I’ll have that! Oh blimey, hang on a sec, that barbecue sauce is probably loaded with sugar, and there’ll be half a tub of mayo in that slaw…shit, move past the ribs, come on we’ve got this. So I ordered a big fat juicy steak for my main, and passed on the starter.

The steak was alright, I mean it won’t go down in history as the best steak I’ve ever had but it was okay. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t even particularly juicy but to be honest by the time I’d watched everyone else eat their squid and their ribs I wasn’t about to send it back. I’d ordered a side order of healthy greens, and I carefully transferred all my fries into the bowl my veggies came in just to get them off my plate.

I did catch my hand reaching out a couple of times to grab one of the fries…I ate three in the end. Which isn’t going to kill me, so there’s no drama and it’s a hell of an improvement on other similar meals in my chequered food past, where no chip escaped unscathed. Not on my watch. Don’t get me wrong, if I was in diet mode and trying, I would’ve just as carefully transferred the fries off my plate in a great show of willpower but over the course of the meal they would have gotten eaten anyway and that’s not willpower as much as geography. But not last night.

I was waiting, you know for the all-consuming desire to kick in and press the override switch on my willpower, but…nothing. It didn’t happen. And I didn’t eat dessert, although I can’t claim that as a victory because nobody else did either so that wasn’t willpower as much as circumstances. 

Interestingly enough though, when someone said does anyone fancy dessert? and the rest of our party shook their heads, my usual visceral reaction of wanting to beat to a pulp all the crazy people who passed on pudding meaning I couldn’t say yes either was also conspicuous by its absence…I didn’t want dessert. And thinking about it, I haven’t eaten anything sweet for over a month now. Saying that out loud almost makes we want to run to the mirror and make sure I’m still me.

I’m taking some comfort from all the above, and feeling rather hopeful that I might continue in a similar vein on my forthcoming trip…not having to fight with the asshole voice makes dinner out with friends a much more enjoyable experience, you know?

Have a great weekend everyone 🙂

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Rediscovering The High

In the here & now, ,

I drafted this post as I was laid in bed last night, reflecting on the day. I’m not going to lie, I was feeling very smug, having aced day twenty three of my new start. And yes, I know that smug is beyond irritating…I was even getting on my own nerves to be fair but there’s no other way to describe it really…I was smug. I can’t recall the last time I managed twenty three days on the bounce without sneaking in a single treat. Hell I earned smug, right?

It’s interesting to look back at the lifecycle of my diet. It’s gone through different stages over the last seventeen months and one week, which is exactly how long I’ve been on this journey. It’s already taken the crown for the longest diet I’ve ever been on, and it’s depressing to think that if I hadn’t pissballed around I could have been much further down the road than I am right now – let’s not forget that the pounds I’m losing at the moment have already been lost and then found again. Still, it is what it is.

Phase one was nailed on, feet planted firmly in the sweet spot and the thought of cheating on my diet would have filled me with horror. It was all about eating the right things in the right quantities, and slowly weaning myself off the armchair/TV combo. Phase two kicked in when I’d signed up for the Cuba trek and the hurt machine took up residence. The food plan still held firm and my weight-loss started to gather a bit of momentum…happy days.

Phase three was when I got a bit cocky. I’d upped the exercise but at the same time I upped my intake of food and carried on losing, just more slowly. In hindsight I was looking at it all wrong, you know? I sort of fell into the mindset that I was earning the right to eat more because I was working up a sweat and walking several times a week. Or, to put it another way, I was eating more and getting away with it. 

Phase four was when I met the God of Pain, and the exercise descended into torture on a regular basis. Cuba was getting nearer and I was working hard. And yet I was still eating my efforts…sure, there was a slow saunter down the scale but my losses weren’t especially impressive. Cuba came and went, and that’s when I bumped headlong into phase five, which by and large was a fucking disaster. My foot was completely off the gas, my food plan was peppered with binges, and reclaimed poundage moved back into my pants at warp speed.

So this is phase six, and I’ve come full circle. I’m back in the sweet spot and I feel unshakable…maybe because I’ve switched it up a notch. I mean, the diet hasn’t changed as such, I’m just spending my food budget more wisely and shopping like a grown-up. And let’s be honest,  the thought of having to take a picture of my conversation with the Shitbird Scale and show you if the needle has moved in the wrong direction is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. It’s proving to be quite an effective appetite suppressant to be honest.

I’ve also rediscovered the high which comes with knowing I haven’t put a foot wrong. And I’m here to tell you that it hands down beats the high I get from a crinkly wrapper and a sugar hit. Any day of the week 🙂

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Nailed On

In the here & now,

I looked like I’d swallowed a beach ball when I went to bed last night, but at least I hit the mattress knowing that I have five days’ worth of self-control safely over the line. I felt fat, but actually that was more to do with the mountain of vegetables (and the resulting alchemy) that I had eaten for supper with my chicken. I still feel bloated this morning and it’s a bit of a nudge in the ribs – there are some in here somewhere, I swear – to remind me that eating late isn’t such a good idea.

Thing is, I didn’t get home from work until way after seven, and I was knackered and starving in equal measure. What I should have done was to have a light supper and an early night, but having failed to talk me into being naughty with all the free cookies available during our meetings yesterday, no way was the Asshole going to be talked out of the planned dinner. Not when a light snack would have been higher in points than the huge chicken and veggie plate…it was never going to happen. Hence me retiring last night feeling like Shamu.

I’m properly going for it this week, and knowing that I was going to wake up skinnier today than I did yesterday meant I wasn’t remotely offended when I caught sight of my Buddha belly as it led the way past my mirror. Once upon a time, catching sight of that reflection would’ve made me want to gauge my eyes out with a spoon, but I’m a bit less offended by it these days…now it just feels like I’m wearing my body like a fat suit on top of the real me. The picture I posted on Wednesday – and your reaction to it – has given me exactly the boost I needed. That skinny girl is in there somewhere, trying to break out.

I’ve even treated myself to a couple of new tops for the festive season – I did good this week so far, you know? I figured I deserved a reward 🙂 I mean I know it’s only five days but this run of five days have been hard-won and I’m celebrating it, so there. It’s been a while since I did five days on the bounce.

I mentioned the free cookies yesterday…there were dozens of twin-packs of cookies thrown in with the cost of our meeting room at an off-site venue, and once upon a time, any we had left at the end of the day would have come home with me ‘for my boy’. After all we’d paid for them, right? The reality is they probably wouldn’t have made it home at all, in fact by the time I’d left the car park the mobile cookie party would have been in full swing. I dodged that bullet yesterday, and it feels great.

How I’ve missed that feeling 🙂

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