The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

It ain't just a river

There is a mutant breed of Positive Thinking that is called Denial.

Like if you decide to focus on the many many many great things in your life, and ignore the black cloud that's hovered over for months and months.

Or if you write selectively about that one good day or that one cool thing that happened, and forget about the twenty good days that didn't happen because you were hiding from your friends and eating toast on the couch instead.

Or if you focus on that one kick-arse kickboxing class you did this week, and ignore the five sneaky chocolate bar wrappers in your handbag.

Or if you tell yourself you really love this dark baggy daggy sweater, it's not because you want to be invisible. You were never one for dressing up all foxy-like anyway!

Or if you smile when a colleague comments on your Ultra Healthy Lunch, even though you're contemplating a cupcake run as you fork in the lettuce.

Or if you admit to your excellent husband, I feel as low and hopeless and lost as I did way back when I was 350 pounds... but since you're fitter than ever and your clothes still fit (ish) and chairs don't collapse beneath you, you've got nothing to whine about really!

Or if you've fancied writing a ranty blog entry about feeling awful, but don't do it because you know you have no real reason to feel awful and you'll get a Get Over Yourself email from a stranger, and what's the point because after all you're only One Good Day away from feeling fantastic again!

But how bad do things have to get before it's bad enough? How rubbish do you have to feel before you treat yourself with some kindness and self respect again? Does it have to be an extreme like morbid obesity or can't-leave-the-house-depression before you DO something?

Dude! You can tell yourself that you're a Glass Half Full person but if the glass is full of crap, that's not a very appetising beverage.

After the happy ending

I wrote this guest post for Refuse To Regain as part of the Dietgirl Virtual Book Tour. I've archived it here as I know lots of people stalk their way through the archives and it's a very important entry, explaining where I'm at now in terms of my maintenance struggles adventures! Be sure to stop by at Refuse To Regain - it's a fabulous blog and resource for maintainers.

My first year of maintenance was easy. I think I cruised through on euphoria alone. Every day in my new body was an adventure - I rejoiced in my new clothes, new fitness and new ability to fit inside bathtubs.

Later that year I finished writing a book that charted my six-year, 175-pound weight loss journey. I was still giddy with excitement as I churned out the Epilogue. My body is something to savor and celebrate, I wrote. Every time I put on lipstick and high heels it feels like I'm singing to world about the joy I've found within.

The second year was a different story. Everything was messy and unpredictable. I was simultaneously renovating our apartment, starting a demanding new job and promoting my book in the UK and Ireland. I also took on big fitness challenges, such as training for kickboxing grades and a marathon walk. As the year dragged on there were personal issues and a serious financial scare, then we sold our apartment and moved house.

As a result my maintenance efforts were chaotic. I'd alternate weeks of intense exercise with weeks of nothing at all. I'd buy takeout too often then go crazy with healthy cooking to compensate. I wrestled the same ten pounds all year long, pinging up and down the scale. Instead of high heels and celebrations, it was more brooding on the couch in my sweatpants.

Meanwhile, my inbox was flooded with messages from people who'd read my book. You're such an inspiration! You're living the happy ending! You must be so proud! I didn't feel proud or inspiring. Sure I've lost a few pounds but look at me now! I'm barely holding it together! If those kind readers knew how much I struggled, they'd demand a refund! I felt like a fraud as I answered their email questions about my exercise program, instead of actually doing my exercise program. I made jokes about my woes on my blog, not wanting to alienate readers new and old with too much doom and gloom. But the negativity crept in. I spoke about maintenance with words like "struggle" and "battle" and "never-ending stinkfest".

There were times when I could have cheerfully burned my book. I bugged the heck out of myself with my optimism and irritating self acceptance. I was just plain jealous of Book Shauna, to be honest. I could barely believe that was me who'd lost all that weight and stuck at it for so many years. How did I start wanting change more than chocolate? That determined girl seemed like a stranger and I worried I'd never find her again.

The third year of maintenance was rapidly approaching and I was desperate to make it different. It was a lot like the start of my weight loss mission - I thought someone else must have the secret. I started reading blogs written by fellow maintainers, such as this one. I stalked through their archives, looking for magic solutions. But instead of magic, I read about hard work and persistence; the ability to learn from mistakes and pick yourself back up after a crappy day. Or even a crappy month or year.

I finally had my DUH moment. Maintenance was really no different from weight loss. Sometimes it is fabulous and sometimes it sucks. And that's okay.

I think part of me thought that writing THE END on my manuscript would mean The End of the struggle and The End of learning stuff. Surely after six ridiculous years of lard-busting I'd have figured out my Issues for good? But life doesn't stop when you close a book. The story plows on, the character keeps evolving. Holding on to that happy ending is hard work.

A few months on I'm starting to feel more at peace with the realities of maintenance. I'm starting to live and breathe that happy ending again, albeit without the delirium of the first year. Life is still stupidly busy, but I remembered the best thing I learned in the weight loss phase - the journey is easier when you make it enjoyable. Last year I was falling back into the arms of my old dieter's mindset - all or nothing thinking, expecting perfection, dwelling on mistakes and not savouring the good stuff. But now I want to celebrate how far I've come, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it or taking it for granted. Maintenance doesn't seem like such a drag when I take time out to find the joy in the little things. The peacefulness of a Pilates stretch. The gleeful clobbering of my kickboxing class. The wholesome smugness of a healthy day's eating. I'm ready to dust off those high heels and lipsticks.

The Weary Squirrel

I'm back from me holidays! We attempted to balance all the whisky, cooked Scottish breakfasts and Cadbury Top Deck with lots of walking - to big rocks, steep steps and a pair of Munros.

Mysterious Jenny on Ben Lawers.

I'm pleased to report that Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas were my least whiny hills ever. Partially because they were touristy fellas, side by side with non-scary paths. But also because my mate Jenny was there and I didn't want to look like a wuss. So there was only one obscene gesture and a wee bit of stick waving!

We need to start a lobby group to bring this to the UK.

. . .

It's been awhile between entries - sorry you had to look at my boofy cheeks for so long. No matter where I've been on the scales, I've always had chubby cheeks that grandmothers love to squeeze. Gareth once said they were like "little cushions". That a weary squirrel might rest upon!

. . .

A year ago this week I was dancing in the streets after handing in my manuscript. "La la la!" I said, "I AM DONE WITH THIS WEIGHT LOSS SHIT and I am never going to think of it again!"

Then I ate a packet of Marks & Spencer choc-coated strawberries.

Of course I remembered the next day that you are never done, sucker. Ever since then it has been a challenge - no, let's not downplay it - it's been a constant, shitty struggle to get the balance right. I so badly want to stay healthy without needing to be a slave to scales and calories, but I have to bear in mind the brutal reality that when it comes to food, I got issues. I can't pretend that I don't need to think about it.

It's like my peanut butter fork. I keep a jar of PB in my desk at work and I like to spread a wee bit on spelt crackers. For the past couple of months I've being doing this with a plastic fork. Part of my brain screams, "This isn't working! This ain't the tool for the job!" and the other part of my brain says, "Oh shuddup. Sure it's messy and the cracker is cracking up all over the keyboard but it sort of does the trick, right?"

Likewise I've been letting everything get chaotic. I cram more and more into the day, not sleeping properly, eating too much, feeling like crap but telling myself I'm still good! I'm still good, just because my guts have not yet exploded out of my jeans. I keep diggin' and diggin' with my plastic fork. 

Last Wednesday on the Isle of Skye, we hauled our arses up to the Old Man of Storr. There was a polite sign near the big rock that said, You are advised not to go beyond this point. There's no better sign than an actual SIGN!

Dr G laughs in the face of danger.

Hmm hmm hmm. I really need to stop and get my priorities in order, before I burn out and bloat up. And/or become an annoying wanker who claims to be too busy to peel an orange.

. . .

Ooh I gotta write about the Moonwalk! Next time Gadget. Next time. Hope you're all doing well!

Heading up to the Old Man of Storr.

Comeback #457

Back in the saddle today! It's been three weeks of sickness and sloth and sloppy eating, with no exercise except the blowing of the nose. I hit the wall in York yesterday as I stared down into the remains of a tasty pub lunch of steak pie with mash and veg. My belly burbled, Why are you feeding me all this pastry? And all these animals? Why haven't you been taking me for walks?

I have long accepted that there will always be times when I lose it for awhile - circumstances conspiring to disrupt the routine... or me just eating too bloody much. But it is weird, even in the actual moment of overdoing, I don't seem to feel the old shame and panic anymore, nor the urge to carry on scoffing into oblivion. It's more like, Righto. I'll enjoy this here pie now and get on with the porridge and kickboxing as soon as.

But lordy it sucks getting back into the routine. How many million times have I been here? I had a nice healthy salad sandwich for lunch and stocked the desktop pantry with oatcakes and apples and bananas and oranges and peanut butter but I just wanted to bellow, BORRRRRRRING! like Homer Simpson. Then I arrived at the gym for kickboxing after a shitty day to discover I'd left my trainers at home. Nothing like that spluttering rage that comes from doing something stupid that can be blamed on noone but you. I stomped back downstairs and said to the receptionist, "I left my shoes at home! Can't do the class! What a shame eh?" Then my friend Vicky arrived and pointed out I still had time to trot home and get my shoes and only miss ten minutes. "OH ALRIGHT THEN," I said. Foiled!

But I'm glad I fetched them, even if I arrived back in time for a fitness test. Apparently they do this every six months. This annoyed me because we had a CHART to fill in and lack of exercise has left me weak and totally not PRIMED for the event... so my chart wouldn't be as good as it could be! I got all competitive and pathetic and even stole glances at other peoples charts in order to become even more competitive and pathetic. It was all, how many quivering push ups can you do in a minute (bugger all), how many axe kicks (57 left leg, 60 right), how many backhanded fist punch thingoes before you swear your arm is going to fall out of it's socket (170-something), how many lunges (barely 20! stupid knee!), how many straight punches... I can't remember but surely it was HEAPS!?

I take the mouth-frothing desire to improve these statistics as a sign that I am on the comeback trail, despite still not being able to hear properly. Woohoo!

. . .

First law of blogging: Never blog after midnight. Second law of blogging: Never blog while upset. I did both at 1AM today in spectacular fashion. SCORE!

Then after much tossing and turning I woke at 5AM feeling like a twit. So I deleted the entry, forgetting that all the people subscribed to the site via the RSS feed had already seen it. Derr! Sorry you guys had to witness such raw panic in motion.

The gist of the entry was: I received an email from someone who was extremely angry that I hadn't responded to their email of three weeks ago. My tiny mind made the short leap from one angry person to the possibility of whole armies of angry persons - due to the current backlog of emails - and all of them thinking I was a heartless evil sell-out. Thus I spewed out the 1AM Entry o' Turmoil!

Important lessons have been learned here. One, You just cannae please everyone.

Two, there's only so many hours a day. Day job, family, friends, book stuff, bathing, kicking things - these must also be dealt with and I've been trying like a bastard to keep up with it all. I get such really hilarious, heartfelt and/or heartbreaking emails and want to break out the Scotch Finger biscuits and blether with you all, but I need to be realistic about what can physically be done each day.

Three, my contact page needed a tweak. For a long time I've had a disclaimer that responses can be slow due to my o'erflowing inbox, but because of the current volume the disclaimer needed to be strengthened.

Cheers m'dears and hope your Monday is/was a goodun.

That'll Do, Pig

Why is snot?
Where does it start and why won't it stop?

I'm sure that statement could be wrangled into a totally brilliant haiku or something, but I'm too snotty and miserable to bother. It's been a week and that cold is still hanging around. From Friday to Tuesday I was proper, Couch and Toast ill. Now it's just the annoying dregs that aren't quite horrible enough to justify time off work. Today all the symptoms have rushed to my head. I'm deaf in one ear, it feels like something is about to explode. I'm also treating my colleagues to regular nose-blowing concertos. Next up: The Blue Danube. Da da da da daaaaaaaa - HONK HONK! HONK HONK!

It's not just my body that's hopeless right now; my brain is below par too. Please excuse this substandard excuse for a blog entry. I know there are a lot of new people swinging by here lately who are probably thinking, Who is this snotty moron and what fool gave her a book deal? I assure I do have my articulate moments. Please don't run away! I'll come good again soon.

An example of my braindeadedness: Mistress Anne of Elastic Waist invited me to partake in their brand new Naked segment, all about beauty and body image. On Wednesday night I spent five hours in front of the computer trying to answer those five little questions. With the way I was gurning at the screen you'd think I'd been asked to solve the third world debt or the Brittney Spears Conundrum.

It just SUCKS when you brain and body won't do what they're told. I think I've taken them both for granted lately, assuming they'll always perform. I'm doing my best to be patient and rest, but I have to admit there's a wee bit of panic there. How long is this going to take? I got miles to walk and emails to reply to. And still the answer seems to be: Settle, petal!

I got stuck on one Anne's questions: When do you feel most beautiful? I don't know if I ever feel beautiful. Maybe it's an Australian thing, but I'd feel like a turkey even thinking that, as though a pack of high school bitches would jump out of my wardrobe and say, "You're SO up yourself!" (oh how I miss Australian phrases like up yourself) then flush my head down the loo.

But I spose I do feel sort of mildly pretty, inside and out. The best way I can describe what I feel when I look in the mirror is like the end of the movie Babe when James Cromwell pats the wee pig on the head and says, "That'll do pig. That'll do."

Not that I think I look like a PIG, mind you. It's just that I feel a quiet peace with how I look. At this very moment, with red eyes and half the skin sandpapered off my Rudolph nose, I don't feel particularly gorgeous. But for the most part, especially with lipstick involved, I just nod and smile and think, "Yep, we're doing alright, no worries. Let's go out into the world!"

UPDATE: Tis Sunday morning. I started this entry on Friday but got distracted. Today the snot has subsided but the deafness has morphed into the Excruciating Ear of Doom. Now it's ringing like I'd been to ten consecutive Iron Maiden concerts. There's also an oceanic whooshing sound. And PAIN like you would not believe. I called NHS 24, the government's out of hours doctor service. The nurse told me to take painkillers and call the doc tomorrow. IF my eardrum hasn't exploded all over the house before then

At least the nurse was nice. They should rename the service to NHS Virtual Mum, because when I described my symptoms she was all, Poor hen. Ooh I know. Ooh I know dear. An ear ache is never nice. Poor thing. Now THAT is what you really want when your real mother is on the other side of the planet. That is why I pay my taxes.

What concerns me more than the pain and deafness is that I went to a Curry and SingStar Night with my work pals on Friday evening. SingStar is that Playstation game that's like fancy lounge room karaoke. Bolstered by about half an inch of wine, I really got carried away. I belted out I Should Be So Lucky, Hungry Like The Wolf, Parklife, Tutti Frutti, I Got You Babe, I Heard A Rumour and two Franz Ferdinand songs. The combination of half-deafness and that half inch of wine made me believe I sounded fantastic. But this morning I had a tentative warble in the bathroom and realised I sound like dog turds! My voice is pissweak enough in good health but right now it is a total drone. I can't believe I subjected my colleagues to hours of that. There's no way in hell I was hitting any of those notes. Especially in the particularly rousing sections of Total Eclipse of the Heart. At least if this earache does me in, I'll never have to face them again.

Just in case I'm not back in a timely manner and you are looking for a means of passing the time, here is a nice interview I did with the Irish Examiner with only one swear word - click here.

Total Eclipse of the Lungs

Over the past month I've watched friends and colleagues be slain by various colds and bugs. I sailed along untouched, thinking the power of citrus and green vegetables made me invincible. But the wee tickle in my throat has turned into a bark and I've got a fever and more gravel in my voice than Bonnie Tyler. D'oh!

You know those adverts for flu tablets, where a red-nosed woman juggles three toddlers in one hand and a multinational corporation in the other while the voiceover sighs, In Today's Modern World, I Just Don't Have Time For A Cold! I would always snort, "Shut up, you overpaid martyr! Nobody's that busy!" But this year, despite not having kids nor a briefcase, I've discovered such insane levels of activity. Which is fair enough because I've been coasting along for 30 years in a truly half-arsed manner. I only blog about the ACTION, which might create some sort of illusion of a wildly exciting life, but really it's mostly been me faffing around and shouting at televisions.

Anyway, I feel like shite today. It's a good excuse to put on my tracky dacks (that's Australian for sweatpants) and my baffies (that's Scots for slippers) and curl up on the couch with a book. I'm supposed to do an eight-mile training walk tomorrow but I might need to postpone until Sunday. I feel twitchy at the thought of NOT ticking off that box on the training schedule but I spose one should listen to ones body. Right now the body says: LET THERE BE TOAST.

. . .

In other news, apparently the Dietgirl book has flapped its way down to South Africa (thanks Moira!). I think it might also have made it to India, as there was a little mention in The Hindu that charmed my pants off:

"The concerns about obesity and how to beat it finds expression through the ‘Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl.’ ... The interested may also Google their way to her blog for more information."

Bon weekend, groovers!

Dietgirl Contest: The Winners

Can I just say I am having a dirty cow of a week. I would like to know what are you supposed to do when you feel ultra-stressed that doesn't involve diving face-first into a vat of Smarties or buying stuff. I went out at lunch today and the brain was racing: CHOCOLATE no don't need any more chocolate STUFF no don't need any more stuff OK THEN WHAT ABOUT A MAGAZINE coz that's not edible.

So I stood in the queue at Marks and Spencer and by the time it was my turn I realised the magazine was a bit shit. January issues of magazines are always so skimpy. Anyway, I skulked back to the office and wondered if my head would explode.

This never really gets any easier, does it? Stress is always going to come along and my reaction is always going to be: how can we instantly soothe this uncomfortable sensation? You can't Take A Bubble Bath or Phone An Understanding Friend when you're in the office at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

In the end I went to the gym after work. Franz Ferdinand's first album is like purpose-built interval training. So many handy changes of tempo! After 40 minutes of that I felt alright. Better-ish. It's just annoying sometimes, how you never get to stop dealing with this stuff. It's always there. Stress. The siren song of the vending machine.

. . .

DG: I can't make up my miiiind!
Dr G: Well, you're f*cked then.
DG: They're all too goooood!
Dr G: That's you being Australian with your egalitarian outlook.

I've been angsting for three hours and wanted to pick three Grand Prize winners for the Scavenger Hunt, but UN Ambassdor Gareth said that changing the rules would be unfair and devalue the competition. Then there's that whole issue of not actually having three Grand Prizes.

It also would have been easier had I made the contest totally random, instead of 9/10ths random, and just said, "leave a comment if you want to win a book". That way maybe bazillions of people would have entered and I wouldn't be feeling so angsty about the winner:non-winner ratio we have now.

But I wanted to have a contest with a bit more fun and interaction, and it's been great to gawking at such imagination, humour and resourcefulness. THANK YOU for all your time and effort! If I had 35 copies I'd send you one each, honest guv.

But ten is all I quite literally have. It went down to the wire, but the Grand Prize goes to Anji of Operation 100. I loved her canine Elvis and her Greek Citizen yogurt. She showed great inventiveness and style and really got into the spirit things.

Next up, merciful RANDOMNESS! I wrote all remaining entry numbers on little squares of paper (as determined by order of receipt, see bedazzling official list) and chucked em in a Cadbury Roses tin then thoroughly shoogled it about. Gareth reached in and drew out nine numbers, while simultaneously watching a documentary about Pink Floyd. This is your guarantee that the numbers were not peeked at! Here's what came out:

30. Piabella
4. Lucinda
12. Sillymonkey
14. Marla
33. Tanya
11. Heather
23. Mel
19. Sara
28. Stephanie

I'll be contacting the winners soon to get your postal details sorted.

Be sure to check out the entry list to see just how good these entries were and how torturous my decision was :) THANKS AGAIN everyone for playing along and hope you had a hoot!

Bagel Belly

Here I am back on British soil. Damp, dark British soil! But it's nice to be home. While we were away, the leaves were busy morphing into even toastier shades of gold. Those leaves still left on the trees, that is. Bare branches against a grey sky are always a beautiful sight, anyway.

So, I LOVE AMERICA. It always shows us a good time. The people are glorious. I want to go back nnnnow! I can't decide if San Francisco or Chicago or New York is my favourite city so far. I think New York has the edge right now; I still feel so hyper and exhilarated and grinny. It's like those dizzy days when you first fall in love and everything in the world suddenly seems more colorful and sexy. What a town!

But now I'm thinking of all those other unexplored states. In my alternative lottery-winning fantasy life, I have jacked in my job and I'm driving around America for months and months in an obnoxious tank of a vehicle until the immigration people kick me out. Look out people. Toot toot!

. . .

In days of yore, I always came back from holiday and filed a report en blog re: What I Ate Abroad, often footnoted with loathing and remorse. But these days it seems I can be let out of the country without gnawing everything in sight. In fact I was so overcome with excitement and delirium (or drink?) in the first two days in New York that - gasp - I lost my appetite. We had dinner with a friend on the second night at an Argentinian place and I barely nibbled a third of my main course. Then when the manager presented us with a free mega platter of spectacular desserts and I all I could muster were a few idle bites. There just seemed to be too much else going on to bother with food. All those sights and sounds and craziness!

But by day four the stomach was back! I made my way through my Things To Eat In NYC list. Things I'd read about in food blogs, mostly, like famous cupcakes and pizza and burgers. But I was very modest and had just one of each of those things, instead of multiple sortees. A much better way of doing things, methinks.

(TANGENT: Every time I ate my lunch in a New York park, I would casually fluff my hair and look around in the hope of seeing the Elastic Waist dears filming an episode of Are You Out To Lunch. That's where they ask random punters to guess how many calories are in their lunches. It's my favourite thing on EW, and not just because the Nutrition Data Center guy is foxy. ANYWAY, despite sending ESP messages and thinking very hard about the calorie content of my Shake Shack burger and making sure I didn't get it all over my face, etcetera, I didn't see Sarah and her microphone. Hehe.)

ANYWAY, methinks I've gained a bit of lard. It is so bloody annoying how small my threshold is. Despite being choosy and walking a bazillion miles a day, I was still eating far more than I would at home. And a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast at the hotel each day is far more stodgy than I'd normally have. But bloody delicious, mind you :)

After five days of bagel brekkies I could feel my UK size 14 jeans clinging unpleasantly to my thighs and belly. This was the same day I tried on a size 10 US petite dress and it was too big... so that ego trip didn't last long, mwahaha. (And I really liked that bloody dress too. I thought if I crossed my fingers and stared hard at it, the power of my mighty thoughts would make a petite size miraculously grow long enough to cover my podgy knees... WRONG!)

So now I am back home and faced with the task of getting back to normal. And all I can say to that is (Homer Simpson voice) - BORRRRRRRING! There is nothing more tedious than that Home From Holidays thing, where you realise the fun is over and you have to plan the meals and order the groceries and wash your skanky clothes and resume your exercise routine. Life... it keeps rolling on!

My exercise routine has been pathetic for the past few months - sporadic heroism of bike rides and mountain climbs with very little everyday grunt sessions in between. So I am going back to how I did things earlier this year - before I descended into Manuscript Deadline Hermit Hysteria - and that's the good old Weekly Exercise Plan. It starts on Monday evening with a return to kick boxing class. I booked in this afternoon. I am committed! Woohoo!

This weekend may involve some walking and weights but mostly socialising because I turned 30 yesterday! I grow old, I grow old. But thirty feels good, I tell you. At the start of this year I was still obsessed with the idea that I had to get a certain number on the scales before I turned 30 OR ELSE I would be the biggest loser in the universe. But writing that darn book made me look long and hard at my life helped me let go of that freaky dieting mentality for good. So I say let's dive into them thirties with a delicious sense of sanity and joy and pride and healthiness for living in this ol' body of mine.

This entry was brought to you by the letter J for JETLAG!

Good Feeling

So how do you hold on to the Good Feeling? I'm a huge MotoGP fan, and when you see the riders getting interviewed after a race they often talk, in their endearing English As A Second Language way, about their Good Feeling.

"The bike gave me a good feeling today," they'll say if the race went well. And then I snigger, coz I'm sure I'd have a bloody good feeling too, if I was straddling a gigantic vibrating motorcycle! But if things go bad, they will say, "I could not find a good feeling with the bike."

They're talking about the harmony between man and machine. What's this got to do with anything? Well, if you say hypothetically my brain is Valentino Rossi and my body is a motorcycle, then it's clear we're not having our best season. It's that elusive mind/body connection I was talking about last month. I still haven't quite got it back!

The last time I truly felt the Good Feeling was back in Chicago in July. I'd just finished the first round of book edits and was so happy with how it turned out and with the message I'd put across. I felt this lovely peace with everything. It was like there were dozens of those dinky tealight candles, racked along on my ribs, so I was just glowing glowing glowing from within.

But ever since various things... mostly my own sabotaging brain... have chipped away at the ol' confidence a bit. Do not fear, scale-watchers! I've not stacked it back on. It's just that a little black cloud has been loitering like a seagull outside a chip shop.

The other day I went out for a bike ride ON THE ROAD. Analogue bike, that is. I'd never ridden a bicycle on a road before. I grew up on a farm so it was all rattling over gum leaves and sheep shit. After a year of adult bicycle ownership I thought it was time to venture beyond cycle tracks and illegal footpaths, so I got Gareth to take me around the road loop he does a few times a week. I felt a grim determination about the task. I wanted to come back to the blog and report my triumph and be all positive and light and endorphin-ed, like I always do after these new sporty forays... mind and body hooked up again. Instead of clicking New Post and staring at the blank space for an hour.

The ride was bloody terrifying! Especially because I don't have any road sense. I've driven a car once in the past 4.5 years, so I'm rusty on road skills and peripheral vision. Gareth pedalled along behind me on a lazy country road, and yelled out when a car was coming. I would shake my head vigorously in denial, as if that would make them go away! I could barely pedal, my quads were so ridiculously tense.

Somehow we made it to the Big Mother Roundabout with all the buses and trucks hurtling along towards Glasgow. I froze in terror and pulled over, feeling angry tears catch in my throat. It was like that Yoga Incident a couple months ago, where my physical fear and crapness felt like a metaphor for everything else I'd been crap at lately. But after glaring at some trees for ten minutes I got back on, approached the roundabout and made the shakiest hand signal ever and arooooond we went. DUDES, MY HAND WAS OFF THE HANDLEBAR FOR A WHOLE TEN SECONDS. I can't believe it took me a year to get up the nerve to do that. Mwahaha.

Then I pedalled painfully slowly through a wee village that was far busier than should be legal on a Sunday. Why do people insist on not only driving cars , but parking them and getting in and out of them and flapping their big scary doors!? My teeth were chattering with terror, but then I got the giggles at how I was too knackered to pedal any faster to get out of this situation any quicker.

Finally I made another hand signal - this one more of a limp flash of a Hitler salute - and we were back on a country road. Oh my leggggs. They had nothing left to give! I had to get off and walk for the second last hill. Gareth reassured me he didn't make it either earlier in the year, when he'd put on a slight Winter Coat of lard over Christmas, stillI couldn't help feeling annoyed.

But then we got to the last hill, and I recognised it right away. The same "XTREME" hill I was too terrifed to ride down in February; the same hill I failed to pedal up! It looked so hilariously tiny now. I huffed and I puffed but I got to the top, no worries!

We finally got back home after 1hr 20mins - Gareth usually does it in 45mins, the shapely bastard. I curled up on the couch to listen to my muscles sing. The exercise hadn't brought on the Good Feeling; I'll be honest... but I suddenly felt okay about not feeling the Good Feeling.

I've been very negative recently, thinking that I should be cool with all the Big Changes in my life by now. I worried that I'd never shake it and find my way back again. But the highs and lows of that little bike trip made me see where I've been going wrong. It's impossible to see the way forward if you're too busy beating yourself up. It's not a failure of character if you dare to feel a bit lost and incompetent. Sometimes life gets challenging and things are plain uncomfortable for a sustained period. The Good Feeling is harder to come by, but that doesn't mean you'll never find it again! I keep thinking of that dinky little hill that seemed so impossible six months ago, and remember that I've been here before. I'll be back up to fullhorsepowers soon enough. Vrooooooom!

Old Dog New Tricks

Diets are dead, they've been telling us for years; it's all about lifestyle changes. I'm down with that rather annoying phrase. But what irks me is just when you manage to make changes, the style of your bloody life changes so those changes no longer fit in... to your lifestyle. Does that make any sense at all?

This week I'm trying to figure out arrangements for the latest changes. How long can I feasibly snooze before gulping down brekkie and getting out the door? Which is the fastest route to the office? Does the office have a microwave? How long must I eat Quiet Fruit like bananas before I feel comfortable enough to chomp an apple? Where does exercise fit into this new schedule? Before, lunchtime, after? I've got timetables and graphs and diaries and still haven't figured it out the logistics.

Sometimes people ask "What's the secret?" in regards to the flab busting. There's no secret, I say squirmingly, just exercise and eating healthy and spilling your guts on the internet, over and over for six years! But seriously, if I was forced to pick something I'd have to say an ability to adapt. Finding new ways of doing things when things change, over and over again.

But that kind of thinking will have to wait for the weekend, methinks. MY BRAIN IS FULL! Information overload. I keep fantasising that the Career Fairies will sprinkle me with brainy dust, so I will be blessed with all the workplace knowledge right now and able to bypass the whole uncomfortable Stupid Questions and Silly Mistakes phase. It's like when I started my Lifestyle Change back in the day - I longed for miracles and instant results, without having to endure all the panic and salad.

A Little More Action

I've been stuck in a perpetual state of Freaking Out for the past month or so. It's either right there in my face, intense and debilitating and bloody irritating for all around me, or it bubbles under the surface - a nice jittery background panic, just enough to cause insomnia.

There's nothing wrong per se, it's just that everything seems to be changing all at once. And I've always been rubbish with change. I tend to find a nice little rut, fill it with mud and roll around all comfy and safe for as many years as possible. Splash splash, wallow wallow! But then one thing changes and it seems to set off a chain of further changes and suddenly that cool pool o' mud no longer surrounds you.

If you look at it all with calm and rational eyes, you see change as challenge and opportunity. It really is positive stuff what's happening to me. But I always seem to have to go through a tedious period of Headless Chickening before I can embrace that. This involves funny breathing, spontaneous sobbing, making lists of things to do but being so overwhelmed by said list that I do nothing at all, etc etc.

You'd think when things are uncertain that that would be when you'd REALLY make sure to look after yourself and exercise and eat right. But nooo... the routine got chucked out the window. I have been moping on the couch, doing a few half-hearted DVDs or going for a bike ride only because Gareth spent an hour persuading me.

This isn't about fat or diets or weight loss, it's just that basic mind and body connection. Personally, when I deliberately move my arse and eat the fruit and veggies on a regular basis, I simply feel better equipped to handle the world. When mind and body are humming along together as one kick ass machine, I have the energy and self-assurance to muddle my way through challenging periods.

So why the bloody hell do I always abandon that connection when things get tough?

I've been drafting and deleting entries all month about this, because I am a paranoid loon and so many people I know read this now therefore I hate being a whinger. But this blogging malarkey has always helped me work through things and to GET OVER the Freak Out and GET ON with the action. So if you will indulge me today. What I am going to do is:

1. Draw a Microsoft Paint representation of my current state of mind, because Microsoft Paint really is an underrated as an artistic and therapeutic tool
2. Get off the couch and do my Muscle Max DVD then
3. Report back to you.

OKAY PEOPLE I AM BACK!!!

My abba-dabbas are screaming and my triceps are still shaking and I have gained perspective. Score!

A basic lesson I need to remember is that no matter how petrified one may be feeling, nine times of out ten that feeling can be soothed (temporarily or otherwise) by one or more of the following:

1. Fresh air
2. Exercise
3. A cup of tea

I feel much better. I feel kinda... rebooted. I will get back into my routine, darnit. Like I said, this isn't about weight loss, it's just knowing what my brain and body needs to feel capable and excited about moving forward, rather than terrified.

I am determined to be done with the Freak Out phase now. So it's on to the Action phase.

This arvo I am going to make a pot of veggie soup (with guest appearances from barley and split peas) then I am going to do the dishes and then I'm going to store all my summer clothes so there is more room in the drawers so I don't have to swear at the drawers when I can't find anything and can't close the fucking drawer afterward AND THEN I'm going to read some more of this book or tackle the Email Backlog of Doom and then I am going to figure out what the hell to wear for the first day of my new job on Tuesday (ARRRRRRGH no I didn't mean arrgh I meant YAY) and then I think I'd better have a bath.

Thanks for putting up with me, comrades. Bloody hell.

Keep Calm And Carry On

I'm hardly going to help diffuse this blog's alleged reputation for frank language when I say I've had stinky bastard of a week. But things are somewhat challenging at the moment and I've been stalking through the days all tense and angsty. Nothing major, but you know those moments when you temporarily forget your usual optimism and just let things completely overwhelm you?

Thankfully I've not sought solace in a tub of mashed potatoes. My declaration of Listen To Your Guts week turned out to be timely. A simple equation kept popping into my simple mind:

Stress = Eat!

During one moment of frustration I found myself walking to the kitchen like a zombie. A dull chant rang in my ears, food food food!

But I remembered just in time that I was supposed to be remembering to listen to my guts. I had an apple instead. Green. Granny Smith. Crunchy!

There was a great post on Angry Fat Girlz yesterday that asked, what do we substitute for food? The diet gurus have helpful suggestions like, "Take a bubble bath!". Aye right. It takes our bath half an hour to fill. Do you think I am going to just stand there patiently saying, "Dude, just you wait til I jump into you. I shall be A BEACON OF CALM!". Besides, we're in a drought and I don't want to waste water. I do realise the drought is in Australia and I am actually in Scotland now, but still.

They also suggest to write down your feelings in a journal or blog. I don't mind doing this after I've simmered down a bit, but I'm talking about what to do in the actual moment, you know when your hand is poised over the bread bag. If I wrote en blog in the midst of an angstypants session, I'd have no visitors left or at the very least The Mothership would disown me for foul language.

So this week my substitutions for mindless eating were: ranting phone call to sister, ranting to Gareth and kicking a door frame.

For a more long-term tactic I have just hung up this inspirational poster! I've always hated fluffy motivational items with cheesy poems and proverbs and daffodils and kittens, but via Ed I found this bloody brilliant reproduction of a World War II poster. Elegant simplicity in a glorious shade of resilient red. Just one look at that noble font and soothing words makes me sit up straighter and say "Chin up old chap!" in my worst English accent.

So carry on then, chums! Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I know we'll meet again, some sunny day.

The Last Tempation of Dietgirl

Oooh it feels good to be exercising again. Aside from Pilates I hadn't done a thing for two weeks! I went back to the gym on Friday and did HIIT on the bike for half an hour then did an extremely grueling upper body weights on Saturday. Then yesterday I did my new Pilates DVD. Okay I didn't do it, I sat on the couch and watched it. You have to build up to these things.

I've also been skulking around Fatblogland, reading my eleventybillion favourite blogs frothing with jealousy at those of you who are displaying stellar self-control and sailing through the holidays, saying nay to festive fatty foods at every opportunity. I salute you, and also weep with envy. Does anyone else do this, or am I just completely pathetic?

It's not that I'm on some sort of wild sugar bender; I just know I'm not in my usual Routine and it feels uncomfortable. For example, I couldn't do my weekly online grocery shop because all the delivery slots were full. I didn't realise how ESSENTIAL this is to keeping me on track. When you shop online you have plan an entire week of meals in advance, so you really can't go wrong. The pantry is always stocked with wholesome things. There's no excuse nor means to be unhealthy. Like last week Gareth was prowling through the cupboards and I said, "What's wrong, is there nothing good to eat?" and he said, "Yes there is, that's the problem! Everything's GOOD! There's nothing BAD! I want something BAD!".

Hehe. Anyway, we had to venture to the Real Supermarket on Friday night and actually prowl the aisles instead of paying someone else £4 to do it. We went at 10pm thinking the crowds would have died down, but noooo! You had to fight your way down every aisle, bodies and crates of vegetables and loo roll everywhere. Depsite having a shopping list, we soon got so stressed we were tossing random crap into the trolley just to get it over with, and of course when we got home I only had about 50% of what we needed and a whole bunch of ingredients that just don't seem to go together.

So I got online immediately and put in an extremely wholesome grocery order for the next available delivery slot - bloody Thursday! I felt better already.

Now I just have to get through today. Christmas Dinner with the Reids. I hereby vow to avoid the wee bowls of crisps and pretzels that will no doubt be laying about. I hereby vow not to eat the entire sticky toffee pudding.

And then it will be Boxing Day and I will go for a walk and lift some heavy objects and make some hummus. And order will be restored.

Going For Tin

I couldn't post yesterday as I was incandescent with rage. Such a nice phrase, but I wish I didn't have to use it. I gained 0.6 kg (1.5lb) which meant after three weeks of Going For Gold I am 0.3 kg heavier than when I started.

Before anyone suggests I'm self-sabotaging or stalling, let me assure you this is not the case. Nor is it a plateau. I don't believe in plateaus, not for me anyway. Besides, a plateau suggests that one has levelled out from some sort of height. I haven't even got off the floor yet! Trust me, I want to get to goal. I am determined and I have been working hard, but it just wasn't reflected on the scales.

So I managed to talk myself down from the ledge. I know last week was a Good One. But the week before was a shocker. Sometimes the true crapness of a Crap Week takes longer to properly show up on the scales, just as a Good Week doesn't always show up instantly.

(I am also bloated like a mofo. That should be over with by the end of the week, hopefully without me taking any prisoners!)

I have also been at this long enough to know it is dangerous to focus too much on the dreaded machine. All I need to do is have another Good Week, and then another and another. Consistently staying conscious of what I eat and how I move my wobbly arse. Until I rack up a whole bunch of Good Weeks in a row I can't expect to see great movement on the scale. So I have to keep going and not panic!

Have to admit though, despite the fact that my trousers feel looser and my waist is smaller and I could lift heavier weights this week... as soon as I stepped on the scale I felt completely shit for awhile there; that sinking realisation that my goal was now even further away.

But I got on with it, and as soon as I started flinging around some dumbells and admiring my so-called biceps I was reminded again what this is supposed to be about. Gettin' healthy! Being strong! Pushing myself! Why do I forget that so easily?

Onward and downward!

300 Weeks

In the kick ass October Rules post, Fat Blogger also mentions an old entry from April 2005 called God I Hate Being Fat. It's one of those entries that attracts a tonne of Google traffic, and over a year later the comments thread is still buzzing with people venting about how much they hate themselves and hate their fat. It really is a fascinating, heart-wrenching, horrifying but ultimately inspiring thread, in no small part to FB's encouraging comments throughout.

What struck me most were the commenters with large amounts of weight to lose, and the overwhelming sentiment that it's too hopeless, too much, too bloody impossible. It made me want bawl because I understand that feeling so well. I just wanted to write a wee something today for anyone out there who's in that position.

I remember how it feels to truly loathe yourself. I'd grab handfuls of flesh and want to hack it off with a knife. It seemed like there was no way out of this lardy prison. Even when I did finally get up the nerve to start fighting the flab in 2001, I still often felt I was in a hopeless situation. In some ways it was worse, because I now knew the cold hard statistics - 351 pounds, with at least 185 of them to lose.

I've told the story a million times before how after a month  I decided I had to start exercising. I only managed to shuffle to the end of the block before my lungs wheezed and rattled in protest. I remember thinking bitterly, What was the point of that? How is walking fifty metres ever going to add up to anything? What's the point of any of this?  It's never going to get any better.

But -- *insert soft-focus montage of the past five 3/4 years, sweat, tears, caramel shortcakes* -- as we all know, these seemingly tiny changes do add up over time. And the more little changes you make, the easier it gets, giving you the confidence to you make even more changes. And the more you do it, the more you feel good about yourself and those negative voices are hushed.

I know the numbers can be overwhelming. I know it feels like an impossible mountain to climb. But if it seems too much, don't try and fix everything all at once. Don't try some fancy diet. Just pick one thing this week. Walk to end of the street and back. Cut out the teaspoon of sugar in your tea. Just try one tiny little thing for seven days. Then when you've done that for a week, add another tiny little thing for the next.

I know this approach is not quick enough for some. Where's the gobsmacking results? Where's the meal replacement shakes and the deprivation? Where's the dramatic statistics? I'm always having people tsk-tsking at what I eat - whether it's some toast or the occasional chocolate - and saying things like, "You'll never get to goal eating that! Carbs are bad! Last year I lost 20 pounds on Trendy Diet Of The Month, why don't you do that? ".

Never mind that the person usually has put back on those 20 pounds plus more. How can you say a diet Works if you gained the blubber back? I'd rather enjoy real food and take longer to get to goal in my slow-ass bumbling way, than crash and burn on a Trendy Diet and wind up with even more pounds to lose. 

Sure it sounds BORING to take it slowly. But just add up all the time you've spent losing and regaining pounds on Trendy Diets. How many weeks or months would that be? Imagine if you'd used that same amount of time to lose half or one pound a week? Would you be heavier or lighter than you are now?

I was moaning about my own excruciatingly slow progress the other day. I've now been Busting Lard for five years and nine months, which is roughly 300 weeks (fark!). And I say roughly, coz I am shite at maths. And now for some statistics:

300 weeks
78.3 kilos (172 lb) lost
A paltry average of just over HALF A POUND (220g) per week.

But... imagine if I'd gone the other way? What if I hadn't changed anything? What if I'd maintained my addiction to ice cream and cheese n bacon rolls and family blocks of Cadbury's Black Forrest?

Right before I started the Lard Busting in 2001, I was gaining weight far more rapidly than half a pound a week. But for arguments sake, let's just say I'd gained at the same rate I've losing for the past 300 weeks - half a pound a week.

I'd now weigh 237.5 kilos. 523 pounds.

Who knows what I'd be up to now. Maybe I'd be in a golf cart, trundling off to the shops; or in a crane, being lifted out of my house by the fire brigade; or just a plain ol pine box. It's kinda scary to think about.

So if you think a pound or a half a week sounds too slow, or if you think your walking around the block or switching to wholegrain bread or doing twenty squats or increasing your veggies isn't going to amount to anything... don't worry. Be patient. Don't give up. Take all the freakin' time you need. Sure, it might take 300 weeks or more. But at least it's 300 weeks in a healthier, happier direction.

Blur

My lard-busting efforts are like an old manual focus lens on a crummy SLR camera. This could possibly be the crappiest analogy I've ever come up with.

I remember this ancient Pentax I used in my photojournalism class at uni. I would peer through the viewfinder and wrap my chubby mitt around that lens, twisting the dial til it got in focus. But it never seemed to stay there for long. The slightest false move, the smallest tremble, and everything went blurry again.

So that's how it's been lately. Focusing. Losing focus very easily. Feeling fuzzy and blurred. Refocusing. Over and over again.

The couple of weeks have been completely out of focus. I am one of these people who does not thrive on chaos. I like routine. I like planning my exercise for the week, ordering the groceries, laying my clothes out every night for the next day, getting to bed by a certain time. As soon as anything unusual is thrown into the mix (Mothership visit, weekend camping trip) I don't cope well.

And that's in spite of all my forward planning for these events. I plotted healthy meals for Mum's visit and packed healthy foods for the camping trip, but none of that counts if you eat the healthy food and then eat a whole pile of crap ON TOP OF IT. Mum ended up staying an extra night, so instead of cooking something healthy I suggested we get a takeaway curry, aka a steaming bowl of grease. Then while in the Highlands on the weekend, I easily persuaded myself into an ice cream cone, a large serve of greasy chips and a handful of shortbread.

It's like as soon as I venture outside of my home/work routine into the Real World, all my planning and logic fades into the background and I give myself licence to chow. As though calories don't count if they're eaten in the non-everyday Super Happy Fun Zone.

The eating is always so mindless, I don't feel guilt or remorse and I never stop to think, Is this something I really need to eat? It wasn't until I got on the scales yesterday and realised I was up 2.5 lb (1.1kg) that I remembered all that crap I ate.

. . .

Yesterday I felt so bloody fat and cranky and ugly. My face was all puffy and itchy, my legs were a mess of red blotchy bites; I had a severe reaction to the midges (small, annoying Scottish insects) that attacked us on the weekend.

So I was in a small, shitty supermarket for the sole purpose of buying one red onion to put in our homemade bean burgers. Why is it when you feel fat and ugly you want to eat crap that will make you feel even more fat and ugly? I selected my onion then prowled the aisles, all reckless and defiant, wondering what rubbish I could cram into my gob. I wanted to grab anything and everything. But this particular supermarket is tiny and poorly stocked, I could only huff at the lack of decent ice cream; the paltry selection of chocolate and crisps. Sure I wanted a binge but I wanted a binge of decent QUALITY. Long gone are the days when I'd be happy with Home Brand ice cream and cooking chocolate.

In the end I just lined up in the queue with my stupid red onion. I put it on the conveyor belt and waited for the old lady ahead of me to painstakingly count out small change to pay for her beef mince, solitary apple and pint of milk. So I paced back and forth to the ice cream freezer at the front of the store, eyeing the Magnums and Soleros and Mars Bar Ice Creams. On my third trip I thought, FUCK IT, I'm going to have a Mars Bar Ice Cream!

But then I remembered a moment from last year, when I'd just moved in with Gareth and was feeling confused and overwhelmed by the whole cohabiting/marriage thing. I'd sneaked off to the shop for a Mars Bar Ice Cream while his friends were visiting. I stood at the bottom of the hill scoffing it down then looking for somewhere to stash the wrapper. I remember it didn't taste anything special.

So I just went home with my red onion.

I said hello to Gareth then went straight to the kitchen and stuck two fat pieces of grainy bread into the toaster. I slathered them with an obscene amount of peanut butter then gnashed it all down with two huge glasses of milk. I ended up giving Gareth half a slice, but I ate enough to feel satisfied. All those peanuts and grains jabbing my gums and sticking in my teeth, it was all rather violent and messy.

I dunno what comes over me sometimes. You'd think after 5.5 years of fat fighting I'd have learned not to confuse eating and emotions, but it never ever stops. To Gareth it just looked like I was eating a piece of toast, but for me it was a compulsion that I couldn't ignore. I won't kid myself there's a cure. But as I've said before, if I can't eliminate these episodes altogether, at least these days the damage is less calorific, and I can put a stop to it a helluva lot quicker.

I'm going to have a quiet weekend. Clean up and cook and write and exercise and settle down again. Think about what I want and what needs doing.

Refocus, refocus.

Keep Going

You know, Dr Phil is a bit of a tool, but I have always liked his mantra, You Gotta Name It To Claim It. Dieting in secret never worked for me, and neither did keeping my writing ambitions secret. Being secretive just meant I faffed around and achieved nothing. But now I've finally stopped the vagueness and properly defined my goals. And most importantly, I have Claimed 'em out loud. Now that openly declared that I want to Finish The Lard Busting and that I want to Write A Stinking Book, I feel motivated and focused. Saying it out loud makes it feel real and accountable.

It's also making me better organised with my time and energy. I am about to finish my second week in a row of Proper Planned Exercise! My muscles ache deliciously and it's great to feel smug two weeks in a row. Woo bloody hoo.

. . .

My favourite mantra is actually a quote by Winston Churchill - When you're going through hell, keep going.

It's particularly useful during catastrophic events, but also works for trifling inconveniences, such as When The Bloody Scales Won't Go Down.

I've been having my Fat Camp fantasies again. When I was super lardy, I used to dream of being banished to a type of gulag for the obese, where I would be pummeled into shape by a crack team of nutritionists and trainers, before being returned to society a brand-new, slim and healthy person. Oh, just to be removed from society for a year or so, to focus on nothing but losing weight! No work, no social events, no family dinners, no Christmas feasts, no corner stores with chocolate bars.

I hadn't thought about Fat Camp for ages.  But lately with my less than spectacular results, I've been daydreaming about being Sent Away to finish the job without Real Life getting in the way. I'd only need two months of extreme regime. Three, tops!

Last night we went to a friends house and the plan was to get an Indian takeaway for dinner. I'd been sulking in advance all week, knowing that even the vegetarian dishes would still be greasy. Why do we have to be social anyway? Can't I just live in a vacuum til I'm done? Bah humbug!

It was fine in the end. The veggie food was nice, I ate too much naan but didn't drink the wine. I'm not one to waste calories on liquids. It was great to see our friends. I realised once again that life does not stop for weight loss. I am not about to bring along a bowl of lettuce to someones house.

I guess all I can do is aim to be consistent as much as I can, and minimise the damage on these special occasions. I have to remember what works for me in the long term -- slow and steady, no extremes. If I stay consistent, my efforts will bring results eventually.  Which of course brings to mind another quote by another great 20th century philosopher, Rachel Hunter.  As she famously said in the Pantene commercials, It won't heppen overnight, but it will heppen.

. . .

Here's a most excellent, sane and informative podcast that's well worth a listen even if you don't have kidlets - Getting Children To Eat Well, by Dr Joel Furhman, author of Disease Proof Your Child. All via the lovely Loobylu.

The Spectrum

When I am on top of the world and everything is cruising along with healthy eating and exercise, it seems impossible that I could ever I behave any other way. The idea of ever sitting down with a 100g block of chocolate and ploughing through the whole thing seems absurd. Who was that piggy in the window?

But when things are not cruising along, it seems impossible and hopeless that I could ever reach a point where I wasn't out of control. I can't remember ever not thinking about chocolate every waking second. Who is that stranger with the diet blog and the gym membership and the pile of jeans in diminishing sizes?

When you're at one end of the spectrum, you just can't believe that you could ever be at the opposite end.

The latter is how I felt after coming back from holiday last week. The successful Dietgirl seemed like some lofty stranger. But I am crawling my way back, the old baby steps routine. My exercise has been good, my eating has been healthy although my portions have been too big on some days. Och well, I'll get there.

. . .

I was up til 3AM on Sunday watching the Commonwealth Games. Oh lordy, I love sport. What's not to love? It's competitive, it's exciting, it's emotional; it's full of gorgeous bodies to perve on!

Although not exactly top drawer in the perving stakes, I particularly enjoyed watching the marathon. The women's race was won by Aussie Kerryn McCann in a nailbiting finish. After running for 2.5 hours, it was neck and neck for the last 300 metres. I was screaming at the telly, GO AUSSIE WOO WOO WOO! And then she won! And then I shed a few wee tears.

The men's race featured Errol Duncan, from the tiny Indian Ocean island of St Helena. This was his first marathon! From the Sydney Morning Herald:

"He immediately dropped behind, stumbled over a witch's hat marker and almost missed the exit [of the stadium] as he acknowledged the cheers of the crowd."

He ended up finishing almost exactly an hour behind the winner.

Now this is the kind of thing I really love! It's so refreshing a world where it seems sport has had the soul sapped out of it by commercial interests. And it's so inspiring. People from all sorts of backgrounds overcoming all sorts of obstacles to compete. You don't have to be a runner to be inspired by that. It's just people wanting something, working their arses off for it then experiencing the pure joy of seeing that come to fruition.

. . .

I've seen a lot of people mention SparkPeople lately on their blogs. SP is a free website packed with weight loss tools. There's a food diary, exercise planner, a thriving message board community and personal webpages.

I got an email from Grant from SP inviting me to check it out. I get random emails now and then from companies asking me to put up links to their crackpot diet drugs or whatnot in return for a link on their sites (wtf!?!) and this freaks me out no end. But since Grant writes a nice polite email and SP is a free, non-crackpot website, I was happy to take a look around. It looks like a great resource, I really like the goal setting bit. While I have my own lardbusting method down pat now, I think SP would be a great site particularly if you are still looking for tools to help you. There's a lot of top advice on there and Free is a nice price!

. . .

Oooh there's a thing come on the BBC just now about the obscenity trials in the 1960s over Lady Chatterly's Lover. It promises Strong Language and Adult Scenes. Sounds good to me. Til next time, groovers.

Attack of the Blahs

Just in case anyone has developed Gap Envy vis-a-vis the last entry, it's only a tiny wee gap. Like the size of a pound coin. Probably smaller than that. A half-inch peephole at best! So don't despair anyone. It would only look like a gaping chasm to me :)

Today I weighed in at 83.5 kilos for the fourth freaking week in a row. It's handy and dandy to know I have the skillz to maintain my weight. But alas, this is something that I don't need to be doing until I shift another bloody 8.5 kilos.

What also sucks is how slight the difference is between Maintaining and Losing. In order to maintain I would have liked to think I could have fit in a 100g bar of Green and Blacks chocolate or a whole block of feta cheese. But nooo, maintaining is one fun size Kit Kat and a home baked jammy biscuit. Where's the fun in that?

But seriously. This is not a plateau, nor is it me focusing on the scales too much. I just need to take things up a level. I know that overall I am on the right track. I have developed consistent good habits. I have exercised consistently and I've not binged. I have written down every single freaking thing I've eaten every day this year, something I have not done properly since the heady days of 2001.

But at this stage of proceedings I need to do more.

I am not doing enough cardio, for example. I am barely managing twice a week lately. The pilates and weights are going great, but you gotta move your butt if you want to move the blubber. And these Monday Afternoon Avocado on Toast feasts must stop. I don't know why I am always so ravenous on Monday afternoons. But it seems an extra two bits of grainy toast and avocado today is the equivalent of a Family Block of Cadburys bender five years ago. I simply don't need as many calories now. D'oh!

It's been a pretty blah kind of week, really. I've been really blah and I would elaborate on the blahs, yet feel too blah to write about it right now. But I need to let it all out so I will come back tomorrow. Apologies for the blahness of this entry but I just wanted to update since it's Wednesday and all.

Blessed Are The Listmakers

Righto. Let's get on with it.

As always I'm squirming after writing such an emotive entry. Do you people realise how lucky you are? (Insert smirk here.) Because year after year I keep letting it all hang out for the masses, documenting every bad mood, every tantrum and ill-considered rant despite the fact so many people are watching, many of whom I know.

It's a love/hate relationship with blogging. Each entry is a snapshot of a sliver of time in which you might not necessarily be at your most articulate. You put it out there then leave yourself vulnerable to all sorts of feedback. And quite often by the time you hit the Publish button, you've written yourself out of the crappy mood anyway.

Nevertheless, it's invaluable to have a record of a rollercoaster journey. You can see the patterns of behaviour. For example, you can see parallels in my recent behaviour to how I felt two months after I moved to Scotland - bleak thoughts, overwhelmed, unmotivated, hopeless, teary, excessive self-pity... excessive self-deprecation to disguise the self-pity. Back then I quickly identified this as potential depression, going on my previous episodes. But because I caught it so early on, I kicked into preventative action right away.

The night I posted the last entry, I couldn't sleep and was just lay there doing that crying-quietly-in-the-dark thing and wondered what the hell to do. I felt the fog was rolling in and I didn't have control of my life or emotions. I considered going to the doctor and asking for anti-depressants. I wanted to wave the white flag and cry, Yep, I'm back down here again. Someone please help me back up!

But then I realised why I felt so goddamn awful. I simply stopped looking after myself. I'd let a few weeks of holiday indulgence drag on for another three weeks once I got back home. After that one jetlagged Body Pump class, I'd only done two more classes in three weeks. I ate a tonne of chocolate and toast and cheese and assorted crap. Yes, I was feeling so miserable to be back in Scotland and all the issues in the last entry -- but I had exacerbated and prolonged the problem by letting my physical health slip.

That may sound simplistic to you, but this is how it works for me. My mental and physical health go hand in hand. After much trial and error I finally figured out that regular exercise and healthy eating were just as effective for me as the loony pills. Actually, more so. As soon as I am looking after my body and getting the happy chemicals flowing, I am able to cope with challenges. It clears the fog, instantly boosts my self esteem, helps me see solutions to problems, and gives me the energy to take action.

So I wasn't going to surrender. I'd caught it early again and I knew what I had to do. The more you know yourself, the quicker you can fix yourself.

Sunday afternoon I went for a run with the Scottish Companion. Good lord, I was shite! I've barely run at all since the Race of Life 5k in June because of my knee injury. At 4.30pm it was already dark and freezing and they hadn't turned the lights on in the park. But we walk/ran for fifty minutes, me huffing and puffing and trying to find the light button on my stopwatch. After awhile I was so hot, my skin burned and I had to take my gloves off. But it was fucking brilliant! Aside from an occasional dog walker, the park was quiet and empty. I just lost myself in the sensation of making my body do what it's meant to do. Running is such a sensual experience compared to being in the gym with a squawky instructor. It's all fresh air, trees, icy wind blasting your face, screaming muscles, and the amazing feeling and rhythm of your legs just striding out over and over.

And it totally worked. Fifty minutes and I felt like my mojo was back.

I'm determined to get things in order. For the past three years I've used small Moleskine journals as an organiser, writing down all my lists of things to do, goals, recipes, story ideas, overhead conversations, travel details, important numbers in one handy place. I'd just filled my third up last week, so I've got a brand new empty one. It's all rather symbolic, yo. The last one covers August 2004 til now, including trips to the Baltic States, Spain, USA, Australia, plus 5k training notes, journalist's phone numbers and three weddings worth of To Do lists. Looking back through my scribbles I know it was the most incredible year-and-a-bit of my life. As many of you commented, I have had some non-fat achievements. But now I have a new book and all those empty pages to fill with new goals, ideas and adventures.

On the first page I've already made a list of all sorts of things I want to do, both specific goals and lofty dreams.

It was an all-action weekend, really. We have been DIY-ing like mofos to turn our spare room into a study. The Scottish Companion works from home, but his office has been the couch. Which means there's no separation of his home/work lives, leading to major frazzlement. And also, I've been longing for a quiet space to shut the door and do some writing when his pals are over. SO, we painted the walls, bought a desk and bookshelves and big leather executive chair that looks like the kind of thing an movie villain would sit in and stroke a fluffy cat.

The transformation wasn't a quick process, especially when SC forgot the 5-litre paint pot was sitting on top of the step ladder when he moved it, launching Dulux Natural Straw all over the door, wall, ceiling and the one patch of carpet we hadn't covered. Oh yeah, and on SC's head and crotch (HILarious!). But the hard graft was deeply satisfying in a nerdly DIY sort of way. It's finally starting to feel more like our home, instead of me just visiting SC's Grotty Student Digs. Now I can't to settle down and get on with my writing goals.

So things are looking up, huzzah!