Monday 30 July 2012

Swimmin' with the Wimmin'

So, the Olympics has started in London and everyone's mind is turning to all things sporty. 

Mine isn't.  Even though I've watched a lot of gymnastics (and fencing, swimming and... actually that's it, so far).  If I could back-flip, I have a feeling that I would never walk again.  A normal trip to the corner shop for a pint of milk would be a very different experience.  Or if I'd gone on a dead long walk and my legs got tired, I'd just walk on my hands instead.  I'd be triple somersaulting all over the flippin' (ha! see what I did there?!) place.  It must be nice to be a natural athlete.

The E Word keeps rearing its ugly head and I keep on avoiding it like the plague.  Due to my lack of car I do walk nearly everywhere - at least two miles a day, but I'm really starting to get the feeling that I have to do more.  I have arms that need unwobbling.  I have curves that need to look more curvy and less lumpy.  I have core muscles that need... er... coring. 

I'm bored already.  Exercise is for people without the capability to watch sport on television, surely?

I blame the plethora of exercise that's going on in the country right now.  Us sedentary chaps and chapesses are being made to feel guilty.  Look.  Some of us - like Bruce Springsteen - were born to run.  Some of us were born to get public transport instead - like me.

I keep being advised to take up swimming, but I feel this is the last thing I ought to do. For a start it will unquestionably involve, at some stage, the concept of me in a swimming costume. There is probably no sight more repugnant to the human race. Even the thought of it makes my blood run cold. Nobody needs to see that!  Eeesh!!!  The other problem with swimming is that I can't swim.  Which really is a problem that far exceeds any self-hate issues I happen to have running in conjunction with my lack of ability.  Besides, I'd end up with shoulders the size of a small child.  I don't need another hang-up about my physical appearance, thank you - I already have enough for two lifetimes!!

There'll be an activity out there that has my name on it.  Something that doesn't involve going outside, is a well known source of aerobic exercise and is utterly enjoyable and with purpose.  I know what you're all thinking.  And you're right.  I should really start dancing round the living room!  (What?!  What were you thinking?!)

I've been very good this weekend.  I've eaten a lot but it's all been the right sort of stuff.  I've also done a ton of decorating and loads more walking than usual.  That ought to do something for certain muscle groups.  Dunno what, like, but it ought to - I'm knackered.  It should at least improve my karate.  I've seen the Karate Kid (I'm referring to the real one and not the abysmal remake that Jackie Chan basically spent the whole film looking apologetic for.  And this is from the man who made Shanghai Knights!), I know how it works.  I bet I'm an expert now - I could take on ALL the Cobra Kai team and batter 'em!!  Just try coming at me!  Try it!! 

Actually - don't.  I'll most likely scream hysterically, fall to the floor and assume the foetal position.

I don't know what to think about the weight-loss thing at the moment, though.  It seems to me, whenever I think "Oooh, I dunno, I feel a bit podgier this week, I'm sure I've put on!  And how about that extra cup of coffee with milk I had on Tuesday morning?!" it turns out that I lose something ridiculous like 4lbs or so.  But when I've been mega-good and Synned like a nun at Lourdes, and thought to myself, "I've been dead good, I must've lost something this week!  I even feel thinner!" I end up either only losing half a pound or putting a bit of weight on or staying the same.  All I'm doing is following the plan exactly as I did on my first week back in January.  At the moment I'm simply aiming to still be the same weight as I was before my epic week of hedonism.  If I get a better result than that then I shall be chuffed, but I really don't want to get my hopes up.  I mean, I've been very good last week and am determined to be just as good this week, so, who knows.  If I can get as close as I can to my 4 stone mark by next Thursday I shall be more chuffed than the chuff of a chuff's chuff.  And we all know how chuffed they are!

Join me later on in the week for my pre-weigh in nervous breakdown.  It's been two weeks since I last went to Fat Club and I'm sure by Wednesdayish I shall be absolutely terrified about getting back on those there scales...  *wibble*

Thursday 26 July 2012

Full to Bursting

This is the happy predicament in which I find myself.

My cheating days are over.  I think that's what Kirsten Stewart said to Robert Pattinson (satire!).

I have to say, quite seriously now, that I love Slimming World.  For a person of the large persuasion who genuinely loves their food in all its glorious different guises, I'm pretty sure it's the only way.  Basically, the idea of it - for those who are lucky enough not to need to lose weight or those who have never heard of the plan before - is to fill up on foods with a lower density of calories (fruit, veg, rice, pasta, potatoes, lean meat etc) so that you basically don't really have a lot of room for foods with a high density of calories (chocolate, cakes, cheese, booze etc), but the diet is still flexible enough to allow some of those foods every day so (each food is appointed a 'Syn' value, and you're allowed between 10-15 'Syns' a day.  Not 100% sure of the reason for the purposeful misspelling, but I'm a Monkees fan, so I'll let it slide), theoretically, you don't get put off and you can feasibly just eat that way forever.  Which sounds perfectly logical. 

Doesn't it sound just TOO easy??  Yes.  Tell you what though - if you follow it, it works.  Just over 3 1/2 stone later, I'm proof of that.

The reason I mention it is because I'm in that glorious mood of post-lunch.   This lunchtime - and bearing in mind I am absolutely 100% hardcore on this diet right now - I managed to cheerfully plough my way through a jacket potato with baked beans, followed by a Vanilla/Chocolate sprinkles Mullerlight and half a canteloupe melon.  This was on the back of a breakfast consisting of two boiled eggs, a handful of cherries, a banana and an orange.  Stomach - full to capacity.  Syns consumed - 0.  Associated guilt regarding said full stomach - 0.  And don't worry, there's an apple in my bag for later on this afternoon so I will have actually had my five a day!!

Beat that, Weight Watchers.

I have no idea how it works.  But it does feel as though the more you eat, the more weight you lose.  I'm totally up for that. 

I won't be going to weigh-in tonight because there's stuff to do at Wainwright Towers that requires my constant presence.  However, I've had a bit of a conflab with Andrea the Consultant and I'll be back next week, and - hopefully - get my 4 stone shiny sticker and matching certificate.  I shall be working hard to get there.  I just hope it pays off.

The llamas (I know how much you all love them) are fine.  They've been taking it easy for the last few weeks, but they're back in training for next Friday's fiesta.  I've promised them a fiesta and if I don't deliver on it I think Enrique will keel over with worry.  That's right.  I'm not losing weight for my health, my appearance or my obsession with filling my wardrobe with dresses - I'm doing it for the llamas.  After the cannonball stunt of a few weeks ago, Miguel has finally recovered, the cast came off his leg last week and he's delighted - do you know how itchy llama legs get in plaster casts?  Neither do I, but the poor little fella was going mad with the itching.  Watch Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart, you'll get some idea of how Miguel felt.  I mean, with regard to having an itchy leg up to the hip in plaster, not with regard to inadvertently witnessing a murder when all he wanted to do was have a sneaky perve over the ballerina in the flat opposite.

Join me on Monday, if you like.  I don't know what news I'll have to report by then, but if I have any I promise you'll be the first to read about it!!!

Monday 23 July 2012

Starting All Over Again

I know it's been ages, but I've really had very little indeed to report on the weight loss front.

Although...

On July 5th (exactly 6 months after I first stepped on the scales) I managed to hit my half-way target of 3 1/2 stones. In fact I got just over my half way point, and all I needed was to lose another 5lbs in 5 weeks in order to hit my 4 stone mark.  Then the boredom set in.  And when it set, it stuck good and proper. 

I don't know why, when I'd worked so hard over the last six months, I suddenly decided it would be a fabulous idea to go completely off the rails because I couldn't be bothered keeping on the straight and narrow.  Yes, because getting halfway there totally means you're allowed to give yourself a week or two off, just because you 'can't be bothered'!! 

No, actually, I shouldn't be allowed to give myself two weeks off 'just because' yet.  I've not done anything yet.  Halfway does not count.  I've been here before.  I've been halfway, and I've always fallen into this trap and the weight has piled straight back on and I'm back to where I was before I know it.  I haven't done anything to congratulate myself for yet.  I'm not taking away from the fact that it's been a long hard slog to get this far. And I know that losing over 3 1/2 stones in six months is an achievement, and I'm not really detracting from that.  But it isn't the target.  It isn't where I want to be. 

You don't see people training for marathons giving themselves a few weeks off from training after they finally manage to run for thirteen miles solid, do you?  Exactly.  I haven't made it yet, I've got no reason to start messing around and giving myself lame excuses to fall off the wagon.  So what if I've had a tough day at work?  That doesn't instantly mean that I have to have a few large glasses of something interesting.  It's not going to make my tough day any less tough.  It's just a bunch of extra Syns that I don't actually need and that will only serve to make me feel guilty for a lapse in motivation.

Perhaps, and the thought did occur to me earlier last week, I've really never known myself this size.  It feels weird.  I look in the mirror now and I only see two chins, rather than 50.  I saw my collar bone when I looked in the mirror the other week.  It was just, y'know, there.  I genuinely panicked for a few moments and thought there was a tumour growing below my neck, until I realised what it was!!  My shoulders have gone skinny.  My cheekbones are huge.  I don't look like me any more.

Being smaller than I already am, although I want it desperately, will seem so weird.  Being 'big' is very much an intrinsic part of how I see myself and what I think I am.  If I haven't got that instant, bizarrely comforting, self-deprecating joke of me being fat to hide behind, then I'm not really sure what I have got.  Perhaps my firm thwack on the 'self-destruct' button last week was because I'm actually really scared of the physical aspects of being smaller.  I already hate the attention.  And no, no I haven't had any attention from blokes, they still have no idea I exist - but getting told, "Wow, you look great!" and "Oh my god, look at you!!" or "I can't believe how amazing/stunning/beautiful/fabulous you look!" (and seriously - words like 'stunning' and 'beautiful' should never be associated with me) and all that sort of thing... don't get me wrong, it's lovely, I really appreciate how supportive everyone is - and it's a lot nicer than "Holy hell, look at that fat bitch!" which I haven't actually heard for a while now.  But to be truthful, I don't feel like I deserve it and it really makes me uncomfortable.  I don't really want to be looked at.  I thought that's what being smaller would help me achieve - a nice little degree of invisibility. 

Still.  That's still no reason to go completely off track.  I've got things to do.  I've got clothes to fit into.  I've got a Michael Nesmith gig to go to at the end of October!!  So I'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself, I'm going to stop being scared and I'm going to get the hell on with it. 

In the wise words of Tony DiNozzo from NCIS - "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."  In the equally wise words of Stanley Holloway - "You can't jump with one foot on the floor."  Basically, this week, I need to get my finger out and make damn sure I don't completely put the last six months to waste.

Four stone mark - I am going to own you...!!