The Weight of the Situation

So I've re-applied for my llama licence.  I had to.  I got a postcard from Miguel (I dunno how he managed it due to the lack of his opposable thumbs, but I didn't like to split hairs with him over it) saying that him and Ricardo are broke and can't find work.  There are too many Llama Dancing Troupes in Bolivia and they aren't considered a novelty act over there any more.  Javier left the troupe (I know, he was everyone's favourite) after an incident with one of the girl llamas in the local theatre and so they're all pretty down on their luck and want to come home as soon as possible.  Ricardo's everyday legwarmers went threadbare about six months ago and he's been wearing his gold sparkle ones for the past three weeks which are starting to look a bit grubby.  There are no local launderettes and Ricardo's nerves are like piano wires due to the fact he has to walk the streets of Bolivia wearing dirty legwarmers.  

It was a very large postcard, that's how he managed to fit so much information on it.

For those of you new to my blog, I'd best explain that I am the proud owner of an invisible and completely imaginary troupe of dancing llamas who put on a fiesta for me every week during 2012 when I was losing weight.  They've had a year off travelling around the world (although they finally settled in Bolivia) and going on adventures but now they're just about ready to come home.  

This morning I weighed myself for the first time in fifteen months.  It's an inaccuracy to say it was 'difficult', because it was actually remarkably easy - I just stood on a pair of scales and tried to think thin thoughts.  The build-up, however, was a little daunting.  Scales and I have never been friends.  They have never said anything nice to me.  Of all the plus sides associated with losing weight, stepping on a pair of scales every week was never something I had missed.  Part of me secretly hoped that I hadn't really put any weight on at all and that someone had just blown me up with a foot-pump in the night when I wasn't looking.  Another part of me worried that I'd put at least eight stone on (112 lbs, for the benefit of my American readers).  But I knew that if I was ever going to get anywhere, then I'd need to take a deep breath and get back on the scales, so as soon as I'd woken up and while I was too tired to talk myself out of it, I weighed myself.

It was pretty much as I'd expected.  I've put every single gram of weight back on - plus one pound for good luck.  So I am more or less exactly where I started (after all, when you weigh the same as an entire rugby league squad, what's an extra pound between friends?!) two years ago.  Which, actually, is a really good thing.  The slate is completely wiped clean.  I can start completely afresh.  I know what mistakes I made last time, I know how quickly the weight came off last time so I won't get as impatient with myself.  I know what to be aware of and I know not to be afraid that losing weight won't ever happen, because I know it will.

I'm back to Square One - but this time I've got one up on myself from last time.  This isn't new ground.  I've got this.  I've done this, I've been here.  And now I know exactly where I'm going...

**********Cue theme music to Rocky**********

Sleeves Firmly Rolled Up

Normally, as you know, I get pretty narked when I put weight on after a week of being good.

However, this week, I've put half a pound on, and although the llamas haven't come out for a celebratory fiesta (although to be fair they had two fiestas last week so they could do with a break), I'm really not too worried about it.

This is good because I've taken into account that for the first couple of days since my last weigh in I was still a bit wobbly on the diet before getting back on it properly on Monday so I haven't really had a week of being good, I've had about four days of being good.  I've also taken into account the fact that I've drunk a lot more water this week, mostly due to the fact I've walked everywhere.  I've walked about four miles a day over the last week, which doesn't seem like much but it's more than twice as far as I usually walk, so for me, it's loads, and I've probably developed a teensy tiny bit of muscle.  Not to mention the fact I've worked full-time which always screws up my diet plans, and I more often than not end up skipping breakfast altogether, which isn't ideal, I know.  But still, I know why I've put on, and that's less frustrating than being really good and still putting half a pound on.  AND it means that I'm finally starting to get a bit of perspective on weight loss, realising that it can't always be a constant thing and just because I put a bit on, it doesn't mean that I'm a bad person or a failure.  Which is quite a revelation.

However, at the same time, it's also a bit scary because not being too worried about a weight gain can make you complacent.  And I'm not skinny enough to get complacent!

Andrea The Consultant gave us all the New Members' talk again.  It's not just been me that's been a bit screw-uppy, everyone's gone a bit off the boil.  It's apparently only 16 weigh-ins till Christmas, which doesn't worry me too much because obviously I don't celebrate Christmas and I've no plans around that time anyway other than to eat my own body weight in chocolate and to drink enough alcohol to make Georgie Best, Oliver Reed, Keith Moon and Robert Newton all applaud my stalwart efforts. 

But it's only seven weigh-ins until the Michael Nesmith gig, and that does worry me.  Even though it shouldn't, really.  I know if anyone said to me this time last year I'd be able to wear a size 18 dress to go and see Michael Nesmith in concert, I'd have laughed at the implausibility of both suggestions.  So, really, in that sort of context, even if I don't lose another dress size between now and then, I'm still ridiculously thinner than I was this time last year - AND I'll get to fulfill a lifelong ambition and actually be in the same room at the same time as my favourite Monkee.  I mean, it's all good.  Even if I put four stone on between now and then, the fact I'll be there is incredible enough in itself.  Not that I will, of course.  I've come much too far now to go back to how I used to be.
 
But now I'm here, two or three dress sizes to go until I get to target (I probably won't reach that decision until I've lost the next two dress sizes!), and it somehow still doesn't feel like I've done nearly enough.  I know it isn't a race.  I'm not trying to be thin for an event or because someone else is losing X amount of stones and I want to beat them to it.  I'm losing weight because I don't want to spend the rest of my life not doing things because I'm too fat to do them.  And if it takes me a year to do it or it takes me 18 months to do it - fine, so long as I do it eventually.

But I still want to get it over and done with as quickly as I can so I can make a start on maintaining it!!

It isn't an impossible ask to drop a dress size in 7 weeks.  In fact, it's quite reasonable.  I know I can do it.  So I'd best get on with it, really, hadn't I?!  I've not got time to mope - I've got lbs to shed!

Join me again at some juncture next week when I may have some sort of an update for you.  But if not I shall update again on Friday when hopefully, fingers crossed, after a whole week of being good I'll finally have a result worthy of a fiesta from the llamas!!

24 Toasters from Scunthorpe

Prizes will be handed out to anyone who gets the reference in today's blog title.  Answers to the usual address.

It's Wednesday.  Just over 24 hours to go and I'll be hopping back on those scales for the first time in three weeks. 

I.  Am.  Terrified.

What if I've thought I've been doing the right things for the last week or two and actually I haven't and I've put a couple of stone on?  Actually, is that biologically possible?  Even if it isn't I bet I probably still would!!

When you do something unpleasant on a regular basis, the pleasantness doesn't improve, because it's always a horrible thing to do, but the discomfort does subside a little because you're used to it.  I can't really think of anything nearly as unpleasant to willingly put oneself through aside from going to work every day.  You have to do it because otherwise you starve, it isn't pleasant but you go anyway, and then you usually find it isn't quite so hellish when you get there.  Unless you work for the NHS.  Fabulous institution, Britain's best idea by miles - absolutely terrible employer. 

I'm going off-topic.

My point is, I avoided scales like the plague until January, and then I've subsequently I've hopped on a pair every week for the last 26 weeks or so.  I never liked getting on the scales but it had become a slightly less scary prospect.  After 20 days away from the scales, half of which were spent mostly in blissful varying stages of inebriation - I have roughly the same desire to get back on the scales as a Death Row convict has when offered a seat a large chair near an electric switch.

But it's one of those things, isn't it?  I've got to do it otherwise I'll just slip back into the old routine, and I really don't want that.  I've come much too far now.  Or at least I think I have.  Who knows. 

What if the worst happens?  What if I do get on the scales tomorrow and even though I've reined it back in SO much over the last ten days I've still put weight on?  Am I going to give up?  Go back to how things used to be?  Think "I'll never get there" and cry for an hour?  Probably.  But then after I've cried for an hour I'll have a stern talk to myself, stop being weak and pathetic and get the hell back on it again.  Marathon.  Not a sprint.  I will get there.  Whether that happens this year or next year.  I gave myself 18 months to do this, and on June 3rd 2013 I will look completely different to how I looked on January 1st 2012.  I will.  I'll even post pictures to prove it.

Maybe!

Join me on Friday.  I will have got back on the scales and I'll know exactly what I'm working with.  The llamas are going to have a fiesta anyway because it's the Olympics and Ricardo has decided to try and campaign for 'fiesta-ing' to be an Olympic sport.  He's even designed Team GB's legwarmers for the Rio Olympics...

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...!!

Two Steps Behind

Thank you to Def Leppard for providing the title to today's blog post.  It's in reference to the fact that at the moment I seem to be two steps behind the step forward I'd taken at last week's Fat Club.

I'm sending the llamas to Madrid for the weekend.  It's the Euro 2012 final on Sunday and they're supporting Spain.  They're all so excited it's been pandemonium round here, what with them flinging their sombreros in the air with jubilation, Enrique doing back flips all over the place, Ricardo getting busy making red and yellow leg warmers for the occasion and Miguel finally getting up from his sick bed to look for his passport.  He's still only on three legs at the moment but the cast is due to come off next week, and he can start training again in a couple of weeks.

You know what that means, of course, and they're so busy celebrating the fact that they're going on holiday that they've failed to notice that there will be no fiesta this week.  They only get upset when I don't lose weight, and have you ever seen an unhappy llama face?  It'd melt a heart of lead, I'm telling you.  Look:

Imagine twenty of those.  I  simply couldn't do it to them. 

After a week of hard slog, self-deprivation, a will of cast iron and Synning like a Puritan in an attempt to lose half a goddam sodding pound - I somehow inexplicably managed to put ON half a pound!!

I was gutted.  And really really narked.  Those blooming scales haven't been on my side since Andrea the Consultant bought them!! 

So, I felt the only thing to do under the circumstances was to come home, pour out a few large glasses of something interesting and have my first pizza of the year.  Let's face it, if I put half a pound on by being majorly strict, I may as well eat yummy food and have a good time putting weight on!!

Of course, I'm back on it today.  I do think having nights where you think "Soddit!" is an important part of the whole process.  I'm not going to put 3 1/2 stone back on by eating half a pizza and a enjoying a couple of drinks while I'm watching the football once in six months.  So long as it's just ONE night of forgetting about it out of seven or fourteen or thirty or however often you officially come to the end of your tether, rather than every night, it's not going to do you any harm and it does keep you going on the straight and narrow for a lot longer.  Constantly saying 'no' to food and drink that you're dying to say 'yes' to just depresses you, especially when you feel like you're constantly saying 'no' and not seeing any results from it.  Like me, at the moment.

Although I was genuinely buoyed when one of the ladies at Fat Club who hadn't been for the last couple of weeks turned to me and said, "Bloomin' 'eck, you haven't half gone skinny!  You can really see it in your face!  You're doing brilliant!"  I mean, I was so pleased that I didn't even think about correcting her grammar!! 

I know half a pound isn't the end of the world, but it's just so annoying.  I honestly feel at the moment that I will never ever get there.  Ever.  So I'm not going to think about it for the next few days, it's just too depressing. 

Besides, I've started reading again.  You know the biggest tip writers get?  READ.  As much as you can.  Just give it a whirl.  Get reading.  Open a book, sit down for an hour and let your eyes dance across the pages.  Not literally.  I have to say, when I was younger I was known to (my friend Emily will testify to this) read at least two books in one night.  Of late, I've totally got out of the habit of reading.  It's sheer laziness.  I've had the best of intentions of reading and just never got round to actually doing it in ages and ages.  Not properly.  Not in that 'I am actually so into this book that I have utterly lost my grip on reality' manner that made me fall in love with books and reading and writing in the first place type fashion.  Until yesterday when I started reading The Prisoner of Zenda.  I have a feeling that even though I've only read the first three chapters, if anyone wants me for the next week or so, I'll be in Ruritania. 

The reason I'm telling you this is because I think I've discovered the real cause of my writer's block.  I vaguely realised it yesterday afternoon when I read a snippet of Suzie Tullet's current work in progress, and couldn't stop thinking about all the different directions the story could have come from and might go to.  The realisation was cemented when I started reading Zenda.  I haven't read anything - and so it naturally follows that I can't write anything. 

I don't even know how this works.  It's some sort of magic.  I had worried for a while that writing after reading would be viewed by others as a type of plaigarism.  This, however, is a stupid line of reasoning because - as everyone knows - there are only seven stories, therefore there are no original ideas, there are only variations on themes.  But reading actually doesn't have the effect of making someone write a carbon copy of what they've read.  It does more than that.  It somehow manages to realign your brain into thinking creatively, so that you can form your own plots and subplots and tangents from what you're writing - no story ever really finishes because everyone can add to it or put their own spin on it.  It brings characters and worlds to life and it shows you the way you need to construct sentences, paragraphs and dialogue in order to do it.  They're How-To manuals for the Muse.  It makes the Muse think 'hang on a minute, I can do better than that!' and then before you know it you've written something, most of the time completely different to the thing you've been reading.  I simply haven't had anything to work from.  That's my problem.

I really wish I'd made this glaringly obvious discovery a lot sooner.  I might need to go off-grid while I get some heavy duty reading done over the next few weeks.  I have ideas and hopefully this will help me to realise them.

So, all in all, the utter devastation I felt last night has somewhat dissipated (I think the pizza and brandy helped massively, in fairness) and I'm really rather looking forward to the weekend.  Hopefully I'll get a lot of reading and some other rather important things done and when I report back on Monday I can tell you all about The Prisoner of Zenda and what happened to Rudolf Rassendyll at the coronation...  I hope that Michael fella keeps out of it.  Never trust a fictional character who has been played onscreen by James Mason - that's my advice!!

Whatever you're up to this weekend, have a lovely time, and thank you so much for sitting through this torturously long blog entry!! 

Guess Who's Back...

Hello, hello, hello!!

I'm sorry I failed on the blogging front last week.  Last week was horrible.  Please can we pretend it didn't happen?  That would totally work for me.  I know the whole purpose of the blog was to be some sort of personal therapy when times got tough as well as the chroncling of joys and euphoria when times were good - but there are reasonable limits to everything.  My head is feeling really rather screwed up at the moment.  Life with the Wainwrights just hasn't been the kind of thing anyone would want to blog about for the last seven days.

Aside from the stuff you don't want to know about, on Thursday's weigh-in it turned out that I had put half a pound on.  The llamas were extremely disappointed.  I didn't pack them off to Magaluf again this week, but Enrique did say that if I have a good result this week he'd choreograph an extra special fiesta for me.  What more incentive do I need?!

My slimming mojo seems to have vanished since the Debacle of the Scales.  It's ridiculous.  I know it's only a little thing but it's really just thrown me off-balance - no pun intended.  Just when I'd finally started to think I could really do this and I could finally start looking like a person rather than an orb with feet, it was a huge knock I wasn't prepared for.  Andrea the Consultant has got a lot to answer for.  I am seriously lacking in confidence now, and being slimmer now feels more like a pipe dream again than the achievable goal it had started to become. 

I'm not going to get my target of reaching my half-way point by my birthday.  Or at least, if I do, it'll be a miracle.  I know that now, and I suppose knowing that has taken a bit of pressure off, but the best I can do is to try and get as close to it as possible by then.  I've still got three weigh-ins to go.  Who knows.  It might happen.  I'm being really tough this week.  I've got 3 1/2 lbs to go before I get my 3 stone boxed off and if I don't do it this week - or certainly the week after, I'll be completely gutted. 

On the plus side, everyone buy my best friend Nathan's album when it comes out in a couple of weeks.  Not only is he incredibly talented, makes amazing music and is, indeed, my favourite man since creation - I wrote the liner notes!!!  Wahoo!  I knew I'd see my name in print somewhere this year.  Now I just need to get rid of this fershlugginer Writer's Block on The Phantom Winger.  I've been advised to write the end first.  I don't know how I feel about this, I think it might be a bad idea.  Although I might start from mid-way in the third chapter, I'm only about five or six paragraphs away from breaking the block. 

Actually, you know what, first of all I think I just want the world to stop spinning so flipping quickly for five minutes and let me get my head together before I go any further with anything...!!

"...You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry..."

You do not know - you cannot possibly even begin to comprehend how much I was looking forward to yesterday, because I can't put that much excitement into words.  I've been counting down the sleeps since about 60.  I never thought that longed-for day would ever arrive, but then yesterday, it did. 

The Avengers - Earth's Mightiest Heroes - finally Assembled.  The sister and I went to the epicentre of small-town Lancashire, if not the universe (Preston), to see it.  More on that later.  I know I said I wouldn't turn into an hysterical wreck, but... to be honest, I had no other cause for celebration.  There were plans for Southport but, despite me having such very high hopes for the day, not much turned out as planned.

I left work early so I could go to the 5:30p.m. weigh in and then go to Southport with Jo for a nice bit of a nosh-up at Nandos pre-film.  But I hadn't reckoned on rush hour traffic on Golden Hill Lane in Leyland.  My plans were ruined, so we decided that I'd get weighed early for the 7:30p.m. weigh in and we'd go to Preston instead and get KFC - it's the only savoury thing I've really craved and I haven't had it since last June when I went to see X-Men First Class.  And as last week's plan of overindulging didn't go to plan, I thought I'd definitely be able to sin like mad with some well-deserved fast food.

I turned up at the Church Hall at about 7:20p.m. all full of hope - and was a bit peturbed to find that there was uproar in the group.  Trouble at t'Mill, you might say.  Everyone was angry.  There was shouting, there was a lot of, "This is a [flipping] joke!"  There was even a bit of, "That's it, I'm not wasting my time on this [nonsense] any more!  Forget it!  Shove your [blooming] weight loss regime!" It's a family-friendly blog, I had to censor the level of uproar!

I was, quite frankly, puzzled.  Normally our group is very cheerful and happy and nobody's too grumpy at all.  It's all really quite chilled out.  Everyone usually has a bit of a giggle if they put weight on.  Last night, however, was different.  Quite, quite different.  It looked like there was going to be a riot of some sort.

When I got to the weigh-in point, I asked the lady at the scales what was going on, and it turned out that Andrea the Consultant, in her infinite wisdom, had decided that the scales she's been using since time immemorial were weighing too light and so she'd bought new ones, which were weighing a bit heavy - so everyone had seemed to put weight on.  The lady before me had apparently put 6 1/2 lbs on.  There was fury.  Real, proper anger. 

I crossed my fingers, hoped for the best and got on the scales.

Apparently, despite the fact I'd done nothing differently during the past seven days and had eaten sensibly, done a bit of exercise and generally followed the same procedure that I have always done - I've put 3lbs on.

This is a nonsense.  The red mist officially descended.  I was livid.  My blood pressure almost hit 200.  I might've gone green, shot up in height and turned into an inarticulate rage monster.  I very very nearly did.  I ranted, I raved, I pointed out that we depend on the accuracy of the scales and we all spend good money each week on making sure that the equipment we need is there for us.  Even if the scales themselves were inaccurate, the increments of weight loss should be reliable.  Then I stormed out with some women who said they would never again darken the doorstep. 

I just said I was going to the pictures and was quite noncommital about my proposed whereabouts for next week.  I still don't know what to do.

Psychologically, she's done a really stupid thing to everyone.  She has two classes and all members of both groups were furious with her - and I would feel sorry for her, but why would you do that to people?  I mean, why?  Seriously.  But there's nothing we can do about it, she's not likely to change the scales back, and even if she did - next week wouldn't read right either because we've already been weighed on a different pair of scales.  Basically - the thing not to do when you're a slimming consultant, I think, is to change from a pair of scales that allegdly 'weigh light' to a pair of scales that clearly 'weigh heavy' without giving anyone any prior warning.  Just saying.

I know it only sounds like a little thing, but it isn't to me.  I mean, I have worked really hard for this, and so's Jo with all her genius cooking, and so have all of you just by encouraging me to keep going and it really feels like the one person who shouldn't have pulled the rug from under me has done.  It's like the goalposts have been moved on her whim, that whatever achievement I've celebrated I haven't been entitled to because the scales were wrong all along.  I genuinely don't know what to think now.  At this stage I'm really not sure if I want to go back to that group or not.  It isn't just me she's let down, it's everybody.  There will be a lot of grumpy fat people in Leyland today.  More than usual.

Needless to say, I came home and immediately sent the llamas off for a well deserved break to Magaluf.  Ricardo was very excited, Miguel decided he'd take fashion tips from Javier (the quiet one) and buy a bandana while he's out there, and Enrique had a panic attack because he didn't have time to do any practice packing.  They'll need the rest.  Perhaps they'll be back next week.

So, after bursting into tears and contemplating a longish trip to the roof of Argos followed by a short one down, we went to the cinema via KFC.  I could practically feel my arteries hardening when I ordered!  I didn't feel too bad.  I had Diet Coke with it.  Anyway.  It was lovely and I really wasn't in the mood to think about my waistline. 

The one thing I won't do is give away any spoilers for the film.  Seriously.  None.  Not even non-plot related ones.  All I'll say is this.  I read practically every single article, watched every single interview, watched all the trailers, all the preview scenes, and generally obsessed like a loony over the film before it was released.  When I did finally get to see it, nothing that I'd previously seen or read prepared me for it.  It was absolutely incredible.  There were thrills, spills, action, adventure, drama, some real belly laughs and a couple of really quite emotional moments.  There were so many geeky comic book references, I was absolutely delighted.  I developed an instant girl crush on Black Widow.  She's just... Agh.  I want to be her when I grow up.  Or even just one tenth as kick-ass. 

The one character I really wasn't looking forward to seeing was The Incredible Hulk.  Not because I don't like him - I mean, a geeky scientific genius who happens to be notoriously grumpy, what's not to like about that?!  But Edward Norton is my favourite actor of the modern age (James Stewart is my actual favourite actor of all time), and he has been for about 15 years, and it isn't because he's rather easy on the eye, it's because even though I haven't always liked all the films he's been in (take my advice, never watch a film called Down in the Valley.  You won't get those two hours back!), I've always believed completely in every performance he's ever given.  He's just an exceptionally talented man.  I absolutely adored his performance as Bruce Banner in the last incarnation of The Incredible Hulk, and I was so gutted that he wasn't going to reprise that role in the Avengers that I really wasn't interested in whatever anyone else thought they might have to bring to the role.  My attitude was very narrow-minded and sort of, "Huh!  Mark Ruffalo?  Who is he anyway?  He's no Norton!  He'll be rubbish.  What the hell are Marvel playing at?!" etc etc.  Well.  I well and truly had my words forced back down my throat during the film.  He was an absolute revalation, and, I have to admit it, he was actually far better than Edward Norton. 

(If anyone was wondering when I was going to mention him - hell yes, it seriously is ALL about Hawkeye...  *gazes off distractedly*)

Seriously, if you've been looking forward to it, forget absolutely all of your preconceptions and think bigger.  It's like no superhero film you've ever seen before.  I'm going to completely go out on a limb here and say it's my favourite ever superhero film, and by that I do include my beloved Spider-Man 2.  It's more than just a great superhero film, it's simply a great film.  There's something in it for everyone.  It's amazing. 

So, join me next week, when I should have calmed down from the hysteria of the film, and the red mist from the ridiculous weigh-in should have lifted by then too, when I'm sure I'll find something else to talk about...!!

Crash! Boom! Bang!

Can't believe it's Monday again.  Can't a girl get a break?!  All I want is just one day off, just one, on my own, to get my little head straight, to get some things done that need doing and to just have a few hours of silence.  God.  Sounds like heaven.  It's all too much.  I need everything to stop for a while so my head stops spinning.  I have a feeling it won't happen until at least Easter, though.  Even then, I have my doubts! 

Saturday was lovely.  I haven't seen my niece and nephews (collectively still termed 'the kids' despite the fact they're all grown up and only a few years younger than I am) all year.  Which is partly due to general bad auntie-dom, but also due to the fact Southport is a hell of a place to navigate into and out of on public transport - and the fact my niece now lives in Bristol.  Which is quite a walk.  Still, getting to spend time with any of them is on my favourite things to do in the whole world list - so spending time with all three of them at once made me ridiculously happy.  It's my Mum and Dad's 50th anniversary at the end of March and the celebrations began on Saturday.   Well.  Technically I think they began last Wednesday when Mum invited some of my cousins over, but this was the first actual party for them, and there will be more celebrations as the month progresses.  I mean, why not?  If you're going to celebrate something so monumental, do it properly!! 

I got really upset yesterday.  I have never known an overweight person get heckled more than I do while minding their own business walking down the street.  Honestly.  It's ridiculous.  I must be some sort of monster.  People must visibly recoil in horror when they look at me and get a little bit sick in their mouths at the sight of the putrid mass that is me.  Honestly.  I was just walking to my pal's house, feeling quite proud of myself for not being knackered at the half-way point, when I saw three kids on the pavement a bit further up the road.  I hate children (I say 'children', they were probably about 17, however, evidently still not old enough to have learned any people skills), as you know, so I thought rather than have to share the same airspace as them, I'd just cross the road.  As I did, this happened:

BOY 1:  Bloody hell, you're fat, aren't you?
ME: [thinking] Ignore him, ignore him, he may be talking to... someone else... even if you are the only other person on the street!
BOY 1:  Erm, excuse me, didn't you hear me?
ME:  [thinking]  Holy hell!  Vile people are getting braver!  I wish I knew more people on this road so I could just call on them and hide till they went away!
BOY 2:  I'm sorry, were you talking to me, I thought you were talking to the fat person who just crossed the road!
ME: [thinking]  If only there was a convenient tall building I could throw myself off at this juncture - it'd be over quickly, I must have one hell of a gravitational pull!!

I mean - goodness only knows what they'd've said if they'd seen me walking down the street at the beginning of January, they'd've probably had a heart attack - as between all three of them they probably only have one heart. 

I know.  I know what you're all saying.  They're idiots - and this is true.  They were only showing off in front of their friends - and this is true too, because one of them was a girl.  I am quite aware that their hostility and attempts to humiliate me in public was merely due to the fact that they likely have to compensate for inadequate-sized, ineffectual genetalia.  And I do derive a smug sense of satisfaction that, if they ever read this blog entry, they wouldn't have a clue what the last sentence meant.  But then you can't help that little voice in the back of your head saying, "They're only saying what everyone else is thinking because they don't know you so they're not worried about offending you."  You'd think, the more it happened, the less it'd hurt, but to be honest, it doesn't hurt any less - if anything, especially after all the hard work I've put in over the last nine weeks, it hurts more.

I'm feeling very wobbly at the moment, I think that's what I'm saying.  I keep having dreams about devouring the contents of a sweet shop and I wake up feeling really bloated and horrible, even though I know I haven't really eaten anything.  I felt a bit of a failure on Thursday night and managed to talk myself round by Friday - but now I feel as though perhaps my initial self-loathing was possibly warranted.  The thing is, I'm really doing my best and I feel like it isn't good enough but I've no idea what else I can possibly do to make it better.  I know I'm a bit grumpy, but by and large I like to think I'm quite a nice person - I definitely wouldn't go out of my way to upset anyone, and I don't understand why complete strangers feel the need to inform me of how large I am when I am clearly already painfully aware of the fact.  Really.  Stop it.  It's fine.  I know.  I'm doing something about it.  It isn't a miracle cure, it's a long, hard slog - so it'll take time, but I'm doing it.  Just... back off and stop heckling me!  I wouldn't mind but they're not even funny like Stadler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show!!

So, all in all, I'm feeling far too Mondayish for my own good today.  Still.  There's only seven hours until I'm on the train on my way home.  Sorry.  Six hours and fifty nine minutes...

Join me again on Wednesday.  The good thing about that will be the fact that as I'm already pretty much at rock bottom today, I can't hit a midweek slump by Wednesday - so with any luck I'll be feeling far more cheerful and positive about everything.  Well.  Perhaps!!

I am Not a Number, I am a Free Woman!

You see, there's a reason for me updating my blog on a Friday rather than on a Thursday night.  If I'd asked the llamas to dance for me last night, Ricardo would have looked derisively at me and replied, "La mitad de una libra? Eso no vale ni siquiera una sonrisa, la novia!" - or, as they say in Spanish, "Half a pound? That isn't even worth a smile, girlfriend!" 

He'd have been right.  I was gutted.  There's no point in all of this 'any loss is a good loss' thing as soon as you get that news.  It's very encouraging and motivating two or three hours later when you've finished beating yourself up and you're in the process of dusting yourself down and starting all over again - and admittedly it's more helpful than handing over a large slice of chocolate cake and saying "to hell with it, get this down you!"  But at the time - when you'd been hoping and striving to lose a minimum of 2lbs and you only lose 1/2lb - trying to get any posititivity out of that feeling of abject failure is really tough.

However, I've slept on it.  Not the llama - the bitter disappointment that after a week of sensible eating and walking like a true Wainwright, I only lost half a blasted pound.  Now, after a fabulous night's sleep - now I can say the words we've all been waiting for all week:

Hit it, llamas!!!

*shimmys around the room shaking maracas*

Why the celebration??  Because, as I realised this morning, my focus had been dead wrong all week.

When I first started this weight loss thing, I wanted to lose five dress sizes.  I had absolutely no idea how much I weighed because I'd been too scared to stand on a pair of scales for at least five years (even when I got weighed at the doctors I closed my eyes and told them not to tell me what the scales said!), and I had no idea how much I wanted or, indeed, needed to lose in pounds and ounces.  That's still my aim.  I didn't think I'd lost sight of that, particularly, but when people start bringing scales into the equation, naturally your focus gets shifted to how much you weigh now and how much you ideally should weigh. 

Thankfully, Slimming World aren't interested particularly in focussing on BMIs and don't have that "if you're X feet and inches tall you should weigh X stone otherwise you're fat" mentality.  You set your own target, you don't even need to tell them what it is if you don't want to, they'll just give you the right support until you get to wherever you want to be.  Which is great.  But, for practical and logistic reasons, they do need to focus on the pounds.  Which is a very contagious focus, especially when you can't really see much difference but the scales tell you that you're definitely losing weight.

This week was completely the opposite.  I can now see that I'm getting smaller.  Even though it's only been a week I can see how the walking is helping to tone me up.  I can tell by my clothes being a lot more loose-fitting that I'm getting smaller.  I am still working towards being five sizes smaller.  I've lost one dress size already.  I've only got four to go by August.  I'll still do it.  It's all about the shape.  I'm not going to be dicatated to by a set of numbers on a pair of scales.  I'm still Being Skinny!!  Even if I did only lose half a pound!!

So, to any of my pals or my other readers who are also on a weight-loss journey and have had similar blip, honestly - don't feel down.  You've not failed, even though you might think it.  You're still winning.  It's the small battles that count.  We can all do this.  It'll happen.  We just need to keep our focus in the right place.  You will never wear a pair of scales but you will wear lovely clothes in smaller sizes.  You will.  It'll happen.  Let's do this!!

Join me again on Monday, when I'll give you a full report of the weekend's activity - I'm really excited about seeing my beautiful niece and gorgeous nephews (biological and adopted!) this weekend for one of the early celebrations of Mum and Dad's 50th anniversary.  It'll be a lovely weekend - and whatever it is you're up to over the next couple of days, have a fabulous time and I'll see you back here on Monday!!

My Funny Valentine

Gah.  As if Monday wasn't depressing enough, now it's Tuesday.  I have no qualms with Tuesday on a normal basis.  Tuesday is, by and large, a nothing day.  However, this particular Tuesday also coincides with St Valentine's Day.  It does make me wish I owned a copy of Some Like it Hot though.  Best St Valentine's Day Massacre film ever.

I must say I often feel sorry for St Valentine.  All of them.  There were about a dozen of them altogether, who comprise the modern-day Valentine.  All the original Valentinus wanted to do was get on with the day to day aspects of being a Christian in Ancient Rome.  Get up in the morning, have a wash, eat breakfast, have a bit of a pray, fight a couple of lions in the afternoon, come home for tea, have a bit of a pray, go to bed - that sort of thing.  But no, the blokes in charge wouldn't have it and got a bit narky about him believing in one God rather than all seventy eight billion gods that the Romans had.  When he tried to explain things to them in a rational manner, they freaked out and attempted to stone him to death:

STONER 1:  Woooahh... dude, that guy's talking about one God!
STONER 2:  Dude!  That's so narly, dude!
STONER 1:  Totally bodacious!
STONER 2:  Let's stone him!
STONER 1:  Dude, we've not got any spare, and my dad'll totally freak if he knows we've taken his!
STONER 2:  Dude, I mean, let's throw large rocks at him!
STONER 1:  Oh...!
VALENTINUS:  That's a little harsh, isn't it?

[VALENTINUS gets pelted with stones]

STONER 1:  That'll teach him, dude!
STONER 2:  Yeah!!
VALENTINUS:  Hahaha!!!  You missed me, you missed me!!  I'm still alive!!

So then the stoners passed him onto the beheaders - and they didn't miss.  Poor old Valentinus.

So, you may ask, what has that got to do with Valentine's Day as we know it? 

Chuff knows.  It's all about the media and marketing nowadays, in a ploy to fill the shelves with booze and chocolate in order to ruin everyone's diets.  I mean, the original Valentinus might not have been married.  He might not even have liked girls.  Or boys!  He might have just been all about the lion fighting!!  I bet he would never have made anyone feel inadequate for being single, though.  If Valentinus had any inkling that his name would be exploited in this manner nearly 2000 years after he died, I bet he'd be well narked.

So, no, today will not be a day of diet-breaking for me.  I must say, during the weekend I did have a bit of a wobble, but didn't cave.  There were sausages (Synful ones!) in the house.  And white bread.  And butter.  I cannot tell you how much I craved buttery toast.  God.  I could almost taste it, all salty butter and crispy toast all fluffy on the inside...!!  I feel like Homer Simpson...

No.  I was strong.  For all the good it'll do, I resisted temptation with the iron-like resolve of a girl who has seen lots of pretty dresses that she'd like to be able to fit into one day.  I have to say I'd done rather well on the not-wobbling front up until this weekend, but I've been feeling very wobbly indeed over the last few days and just wanted to eat absolutely everything I've laid my eyes on.  Whether or not it's edible.  "EAT DRUMS, EAT CYMBALS!!!" 

I'm going to have a day off on Saturday when Jo and I go to see Olly Murs in Manchester.  I can last out until then.  No.  I have no idea what I'm going to wear.  Everything I own is a bit old and battered and either slightly too big or slightly too small.  Never mind.  I'm sure I'll think of something.

I shall likely post again tomorrow.  After all, Wednesdays are only slightly less miserable than Mondays and besides, I haven't really started panicking about my impending weigh-in yet.  Knowing my luck I will have put weight on.  Which is really depressing because we've had a rather skint week and I've hardly eaten anything at all anyway!!  Ho hum.  Just one pound.  That's all.  Just the one.  Just one little pound.  I'm not after much...!!