Tag Archives: muppet

Autopsy Of A Binge

In the here & now, , , , ,

spring cleaning

When I’m not in the grip of a binge, I find it really hard to get my head around the concept that an Asshole voice inside my head has the ability to take over every thought, and for that brief moment in time completely rule the roost. I mean, I can talk about it, and even report it as fact but the truth is I’m detached when it’s not happening right now. Being in a position where I’m not the one calling the shots seems unlikely, from my current vantage point of control.

On an intellectual level I get it of course – in the same way that I understand that some people feel the need to drink their way into oblivion, and other people are driven to get high…what I can’t do, outside the moment is to call up how it feels as I lose my grip and tumble head first into a binge. I can only feel that in the moment, and I can’t comprehend it when I’m not feeling it.

Last night, it got me. Head on. I’ll tell you about it in a minute but before I do, I want to try and unpick why. I’d had a great sorting out kind of day. In some respects. What I didn’t do, was the walking I’d intended to do, nor did I make the call about joining a gym…I was too busy. I did have a chat with my boy last night as he was cooking dinner, about how I was thinking about not front-loading my blog posts for this weekend and having a couple of days off instead as I kicked back with my girls…he was horrified.

He knows how much this means to me in terms of accountability and support. He also understands that the creative outlet of writing is the anchor which has kept me in the sweet spot over the last nine months, you know? That, and the love that I get from you lot. He was worried that if I didn’t post, I’d go completely off the rails…he’s seen it, and lived through it too many times over the years. Not blogging, obviously, I’ve never done this before but if I’ve ever stepped away just for a second from whatever thing was working for me at the time, I’ve gone under the wheels and it’s pretty much been game over.

To be fair, I worry about that too…when I started this journey I said I would post every single day, and I have. One hundred and eighty thousand words so far, that’s like two whole books’ worth of words in a little less than nine months. I spend at least a couple of hours writing every day, and when I’m time poor that’s a big commitment. If I join a gym and have to find time to fit that in too, something’s going to have to give.

So that scares me anyway and his reaction reinforced my own worries you know? My boy is right…I need this outlet. I also need to join a gym and build up my stamina to honour the commitment I’ve made to do this trek because I’m not getting enough traction on my own. I have to do stuff with my mum, and I have to work a full time job and run a house…I’m a bit freaked out that I’m not going to be able to fit it all in. And after our conversation brought it all to the surface last night I watched the TV and chewed it all over in my mind.

Then I chewed a bunch of other stuff. For fuck’s sake. The extra weekly points that I’d so carefully saved for this coming weekend away…gone. The additional exercise points that I’d built up, also gone. Twenty points that I haven’t even earned yet have gone before they’ve even fucking arrived.

And in that food fug last night, which by the way was entirely sugar-related, the Asshole voice talked me into believing that I couldn’t over-flex my food budget at the weekend anyway since five of my closest friends were going to act like the chuffing diet police so I may as well get all my chocolate in whilst I had the chance, and live on dust until Sunday.

It seemed like a very plausible argument, right up until it didn’t. Then I cried, and washed the kitchen floor. I have no idea why, it wasn’t dirty and in any event my cleaning lady was coming today, but I think I just needed to scrub something, because I felt dirty.

On the up-side, talking about it has at least opened the window on why it happened. I’m not reacting well to the pressure I’m putting on myself to do it all. And I still don’t know how I’m going to pull it off if I’m honest, but in the cold light of day as I sit and survey the damage I’m fed up, but a lot less freaked out. I’m back in control. I’m okay. I’ve still got this.

So, I need to be more careful this weekend than I thought, right? We’re planning healthy food anyway, and I’ll have some fizz, but none of the edible goodies I was saving up for can feature in my weekend. And you know what, I’m okay with that…it is what it is. I’m just happy I’ve made it out of the other side and I still have my eye on the prize.

It’s all good, if a little too close for comfort 🙂

By the way, if the posts are a little sporadic over the next couple of days, bear with me…we are staying in a forest and based on past experience there’s next to no phone signal and no wi-fi!

 

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Everything I’m Not

In the here & now, , , , ,

eyes-belly

I woke up with a familiar sickly feeling this morning, and I have to say it served as a sharp reminder about both how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to travel on this journey to Skinny Town. It’s my own fault for handing over the control of all food-related decisions to the Asshole voice after I got in from work yesterday…he was on form, as always and I can’t even pretend that I put up a fight.

I’d been very organized before I left in the morning, throwing liver and onions in the crock-pot to slow cook all day, so by the time I got home there was a divine smell. My boy, who would rather stick pins in his eyes than go anywhere near liver and onions threw a dirty look at the crock pot and fixed himself a pizza. Obviously I wasn’t going to fall out with that…more for me, right?

So I’d worked out the Smart Points value in the morning and there was only ten in the whole thing. Which to be fair would have comfortably fed three people…three normal people. People who didn’t eat as though their food supply was about to be turned off for a month. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I lifted the lid.

The Asshole voice was all over it. There’s only ten points in the whole thing so you’ve got more than enough to cover it. And it’s liver…you can’t re-heat liver and it’s too awesome to go to waste. Yes, I know the dog’s almost having a heart attack trying to let you know he’d be happy to share but it’ll give him gas and then we’ll ALL suffer. You can manage that, come on you’re hardcore! It’s only ten points!!

I’ve got to admit, it was a challenge fitting it all on the plate, along with the mountain of vegetables, but purleease…as a fat girl who’s built many a salad bowl in a dish the size of a thimble at pizza hut over the years, I know how to build a plate so nothing escapes. And I ate it…all of it. It was only ten points at the end of the day.

I was fit to pop, so stopping there might have been a smart move, right? Ahhh…isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing. I just fancied something to finish with, and there he was again. Yes I know it’s true that you’re practically about to burst, but chocolate cherries hardly take up any space at all, and you’ve got eight points left! You can’t keep them in the bank, use them or lose them, you know the rules…

So I ate eight points’ worth of chocolate covered cherries.

Then, having got the taste for them I finished the bag using exercise points accrued and some of my additional weekly points for good measure. The last three that I put in my mouth took some effort…I was starting to feel a bit sick to be honest. And yet. I had points to cover them, and I was on one.

This morning when I woke up, I knew I’d over-stepped the boundary. I just felt bilious and that familiar prickle of guilt was there, even though technically I was within points, if you don’t mind a bit of creative accounting. But I wasn’t within normal. Normal folk wouldn’t have done that.

For some reason, I was thought about my Grandma. I have no idea why, but something she used to say started rattling around in my head. Don’t apologise for the things that you’re not…instead, shout about the things that you are. Okay then.

I AM A MUPPET.

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Flunking The Pizza Test

Biggest struggles, Freeform thoughts,

pizza dog

So, I’m a tiny bit partial to the odd slice of pizza – not thick doughy based bendy pizza, that isn’t my thing at all, I’m a thin and crispy girl all the way. It’s a rare treat though to be fair, it would never occur to me to order pizza in…if we’re having a takeaway it’ll usually be Chinese food. Pizza’s a bit brutal on the points budget so it’s not a great choice, but I spent the evening with friends on Friday night and that’s what everyone fancied so I threw myself into the spirit of things. Four slices, within points, enough to feel like I’d had a good innings at the pizza box and it was scrummy. All things being equal that should have been it for a while. Except I just ate it again last night for the second time in three days. But I swear, this time I only meant to sniff it.

Someone had put a late meeting in at work, five ’till half seven and it’s kind of an unwritten rule that if someone expects you to extend your working day into the evening, the least they can do is feed you. I did a quick risk assessment on the likelihood of being offered something worth having, but given that it’s generally nothing more exciting than half a dozen custard creams on a plate in the middle of the boardroom table – which is so wide that nobody can ever reach the plate without a very undignified bend and reach manoeuvre  – I thought I’d be safe. And I was, until the pizza arrived.

Ten large pizzas…five of which were thin crust, and two of which were thin crust pepperoni. And they smelled amazing. It was six hours since I’d had my lunch, and it had been a really trying day…my defences were low m’lud…that’s why, when the asshole in my mind suggested I could go stand next to the pizza box and just, you know breathe in, it seemed like a great idea. I mean, no harm in that, right..? And I might have gotten away with it too if someone hadn’t handed me a plate, before staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to take a slice and move on, get out of his way.

What’s a girl to do? I could hardly say it’s ok, I’m just sniffing it…even I know that makes me sound like a freak. So I allowed myself to get carried along for the ride and before I knew it my jaws were moving and I was staring down at my plate which appeared to have a half eaten slice of pizza on it. I mean it’s not the biggest disaster in the world, since I can point it, and count it. Along with slice two and slice three, dammit. But the point is, I didn’t make a conscious choice to eat it…I just didn’t make a conscious choice not to. Eighteen big fat points on three slices of pizza. I am weak!

I lectured myself all the way home in the car. I was within my points budget for the day so it’s not that that I’m cross about. More that I had no intention of eating pizza at all…if you’d asked me at 3pm as I walked through reception, ignoring the pile of Ferrero Roche with ease whether I’d make a dodgy choice later on I’d have delivered a resounding no, I am strong! The offer of a muffin as I crossed our trading floor earlier had been met with a curled up nose and a polite no thanks. I’m hardcore! Apparently though, if you show me pizza and hand me a plate, I turn into a complete fanny. FFS!

No harm done…well aside from the fact that by the time I got home I was starving, with no daily points left. So I just had to have an early night and suck it up. Muppet.

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Gingerbread Meh

In the here & now, ,

gingerI braved the vile weather at lunchtime and popped down to the shop – like an almighty plonker I’d made lunch and then realised halfway to work that I’d left it on the kitchen counter. Duh. But it didn’t matter too much, there’s a lovely deli at the shop near where I work so I popped in there instead, and whilst I was there I couldn’t help noticing the promotional baskets at the end of the aisles…Christmas seems to have arrived with a vengeance!

It made me smile, especially since I already know that this is the month where every aisle in every store is going to be bursting at the seams with Christmas goodies, and boobytraps designed to make the wheels come off any self-respecting food plan. But what jumped out at me was the box of ginger viennese whirls…and I knew I was lost. Firstly, ginger is one of my favourite winter spices…cooked in savoury dishes, in cakes, as a flavouring in coffee…I love it’s warm and spicy aroma, and the tongue tingle. And I’m also partial to the melt-in-the-mouth awesomeness of a viennese whirl.

Now, I’m not sure what rotten sod decided to combine these two taste sensations and make them a new thing when I’m on a diet…I mean that’s just bloody unfair, right? However, on the basis that I’m following weight watchers, where pretty much anything goes as long as it’s counted, I was allowed. I did the maths, four points that I could afford to spend…happy days, before I knew it I was hot-footing it back to the office with a box of them nestling on the passenger seat next to me, feeling as giddy as a virgin on prom night.

So, we ate lunch on the run…sort of a working lunch, our small but perfectly formed team of six sitting around the meeting table, chatting through our respective updates…all the time the box of six gingerbread whirls were sitting there just begging to be eaten. I barely tasted my salad – said, as if anyone tastes salad, ever – all I could think about was the way in which I’d have four, maybe five bites’ worth of crumbly, gingery scrumptiousness to go with my post-lunch coffee.

I imagined the sweetness of the buttercream filling and wondered what it would be flavoured with. Orange..? Vanilla..? Maybe even lemon….big yum. All good with ginger, in my humble foodie opinion. The anticipation almost killed me.

Shall I tell you what the filling tasted of…? Nothing. The actual ginger whirl wasn’t much better…I swear, I was so ready to be blown away. The MMMmmmmm….was poised and ready to burst forth as I took my first bite but it fizzled out before it got going…it didn’t even merit a Mmm. Not even close. I couldn’t bring myself to award a single M.

So lets have a pop quiz…what did I do, after eating the first disappointing bite..? One point consumed remember, in that one mouthful of vaguely spicy sawdust held together with gooey white stuff flavoured with…oh yes that’s right, nothing! Did I put it to one side?

No, of course not. I had another bite. WTF? Was I checking to see if the next one was better..? Like it’d improved since bite one..? It hadn’t. So I’m going to set it aside now, right? I mean, I’m two points in and I don’t like it.

Bite three and I’d cottoned on to the fact that it tasted of MDF and as I polished off bite four it occurred to me that I need only have wasted one precious point…I could have saved three by chucking this impostor of a Christmas treat straight into the bin. On reflection it’s like I was SO determined to enjoy it, I hoovered it all up anyway and then declared it inedible. As I wiped the crumbs off my lips.

Times like this, I realise I have a way to go…

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Closet Closed for Business

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

wardrobe

Is that what your closet looks like? No, mine either. *Sigh*. To be fair, wardrobes like this don’t happen to people like me… I do have a really lovely wardrobe, in fact three lovely wardrobes, but it’s complicated. They are bursting at the seams with clothes…skinny clothes. I can’t put my fat clothes in there. Yes, when I say it out loud I appreciate how ridiculous that sounds but I just can’t do it…if my fat clothes were ever to make it across the threshold of my wardrobe, that’s tantamount to admitting that they’re staying, and that would never do, because they’re not. Obviously.

So the fat clothes – you know the ones that have fitted me for the last six years or so – exist in kind of a holding pattern between the wash basket, the ironing pile and my one ‘fat clothes’ drawer. My skinny clothes on the other hand – the ones that fitted me for about ten minutes – have hung undisturbed since the day I sloped out of the skinny zone with my tail between my legs and started eating all the pies.

When I’m skinny, I love to shop. I have a thing about business suits and evening dresses in particular, which is strange in itself, because I have no real cause to wear either. I mean I could go to work in a suit if I wanted to, but the skinny me could probably wear a different one every day for months before I’d worked my way around them all…a lot of them still have the tags on.  As for evening dresses, although I’ve probably got a couple of dozen in my skinny wardrobe, I can count on one hand the occasions I’ve actually needed to wear one…I don’t live that life.

Which begs the question, whose life was I actually buying them for?  I’m the kind of girl who can’t wait to climb into PJs as soon as I get in from work. Weekends come around, and I love nothing more than kicking back with my family, or having friends around for a few scoops or a nice meal, but dressy black tie functions..? Not for me. It’s never been my thing at all. It’s as if I thought that once I’d hit the skinny zone, this whole new and different world was going to open up and I’d start doing things I’d never enjoyed, and living a lifestyle I’ve never aspired to. Which, when you put it like that makes me sound like a right muppet.

I can’t help thinking that it’s another example of a real mis-fire in the way I think about stuff – skinny equals a glamorous just-stepped-off-the-pages-of-vogue lifestyle, where fat equals jersey pyjamas and a love affair with my armchair. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s a bloody great chair – but there’s absolutely no reason I couldn’t buy skinny pyjamas and kick back and relax in it as a skinny girl…no glamour required, and the real me could dig in to live the life I choose, not the one I think I ought to want.

Perhaps it’s time for a clear out…or maybe I’ll leave them there just a wee while longer…after all, skinny I’m comin’ to get ya 🙂

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