Tag Archives: rock bottom

Part Woman, Part Ostrich

ostrich

In the way that I often do when I’ve said something out loud – or written it on here which pretty much amounts to the same thing – I’ve been reflecting on something I referred to yesterday. Remember I talked about voicing my determination to stay skinny in between mouthfuls of cake..? It sounds so utterly ridiculous when I put it like that. But as much as I was being flippant yesterday in the interests of provoking a smile and a shared ‘eyes to the sky’ moment with you all, that’s literally what happened.

When I look back I can see myself walking away from Skinny Town, a place I loved and had worked so damned hard to get to. I was walking in the opposite direction without a backwards glance, sitting in my big fat leather armchair night after night with a family bag of cheese balls and a large carton of Haagen Dazs, having already eaten my way through the day. It’s all very well me looking back now and wanting to scream “what were you thinking?!!!” at myself…I don’t think I could answer that even if the Dalai Lama himself rocked up to help me find enlightenment. I wasn’t thinking – my head was empty. I mean yes of course, on a rational level I must have known that the wheels had come off but where I should have been having a word with myself…nothing.

I can’t seem to recall a single conscious thought about what I was doing and yet every day I watched myself get bigger and bigger. Discarding the skinny jeans in favour of elasticated waists and shapeless sweaters. I lived in the moment, and never thought about the pattern. The trajectory, you know? Where I was headed. From Skinny Town to Mooseville in one long straight run, stopping only to replenish the  supply of cake. You know what I think? I think it went beyond just not thinking about it…I think I made a conscious choice to ignore what I was doing to myself and stick my head in the sand. I was an Ostrich. And I’m struggling to understand why, I mean that’s not right is it…normal folk just wouldn’t do that. I mean, maybe they’d turn a blind eye to five pounds, or even ten pounds at a push. But one hundred and forty pounds…? No.

If someone had asked me why I wanted to put the weight back on, I would have looked at them as though they’d taken leave of their senses. I didn’t. And yet, I was.

You know I still don’t have all the answers, right? I know on here I come across as fairly well in control and self-aware, but it’s mainly because I’ve had some wonderful encouragement and feedback from you guys – I know you’re drawing inspiration here and there from the odd post, and the posse in general too which is amazing. I guess we’re all just figuring it all out as we go along. Getting skinny is a familiar journey – the unknown bit, the hardest part for me at least is going to be staying there. Pulling up the drawbridge and becoming a permanent resident of Skinny Town.

But you know, I thought it was worth talking about this today, because we’re all at different stages of this journey, and if just one of our posse is sitting in their armchair every night, walking away from Skinny Town without anyone there to hold the mirror up and yell WHAT ARE YOU THINKING..???  Well I’d feel like we’d let them down.

Please don’t be that person…don’t do what I did. Please.

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Hitting Rock Bottom

You know what I mean when I say ‘the sweet spot’, right?  It’s the holy grail.  It’s that rock solid, cast iron will which clicks into place and acts as a shield, protecting you from cake. When you find the sweet spot you no longer have to argue with yourself for a good hour at least about whether eating the cake is a good idea or not.

Any food junkie worth their salt will know that even if you manage to gag the asshole voice in your head and win the argument with yourself, that cake continues to flirt with you from a distance.  It stares right into your soul…your mouth waters as though you’ve already taken a bite. It doesn’t matter what else is going on in the room, all you see is the cake. It’s like a magnet with its own force field, and you keep on having the should I/shouldn’t I conversation with yourself in a loop, right up until the point someone else eats it.

But none of that applies, if you’ve found the sweet spot, and you’re in the zone.  If the magic happens, you’re somehow immune. Nonchalant even…cake, what cake? No thanks (wrinkles nose), I don’t really like cake…do you have any lettuce?

It’s elusive.  The more you dig deep, the harder it is to find. I have a theory actually…I think perhaps the sweet spot is a finite resource that you’re only able to truly tap into a handful of times in your life. Kind of like a cat has 9 lives…maybe you’re even born with an allocation and once you’ve used it up you’re destined to be a salad dodger for the rest of your natural life.

I don’t think there’s a formula for finding it, or holding onto it. It’s irrelevant how much you want to find it, or even how much effort you put in to trying to find it. But one thing’s for sure…without it you have zero chance of sticking to your diet, because the asshole in your mind will always win the argument about cake.

My rock bottom moment happened just over a year ago when I had to buy one of these…

Essential holiday accessory
Essential holiday accessory

Passport, check. Tickets, check. Sunglasses, check. Airplane seatbelt extension, check. The ultimate indignity…well, it’s a 9 on the 1-10 scale. 10 would be having to ask the string bean in a cabin crew uniform if you can borrow one of theirs. Having your own mitigates the shame down to a 9 but even so.  If that’s not rock bottom I don’t know what is…yet still I continued to argue with myself, and eat cake.

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