Day 73 - oh dear

I cheated last night and I've sooo paid for it. I have to say on the scale of cheating it wasn't very impressive - I bought some sugar free Fruitellas and some sugar free M&S berry chewing gum. It was an awareness that I was going to flip out but wanting to minimise the damage that led to such an uninspired choice - rather than actually specifically wanting those things. Of course, the sugar free stuff has lots of odd artificial sweeteners in it (and can have a laxative effect which frankly wouldn't be a bad thing!) and I was so ill - I felt really sick, my stomach really hurt all through the night, was very distended and made dreadful noises and I had extreme, er, wind. Yuck, sorry! I don't think I will ever eat either of these things again and felt quite sick even as I was eating those last few gums (first few sugar free Fruitellas were lovely though, I have to say). I couldn't then face having my last two packs of the day and probably - as the sugar free stuff still does have minimal calories - this is just as well as I would have gone over my 500 calories. My jaws still ache from chewing up a whole packet of M&S gum tablets.

Two good things though. First, I normally have this bonkers reaction to feeling ill. I'll have something to eat, then think "Oh, I still don't feel better, I'd better try something else to eat" and this goes on and on - even if I feel worse and worse. Classic self-medicating (and crazy) behaviour. Yesterday, that instinct was still there but I firmly told myself not to be so utterly stupid. I had a Bouillon to try and flush all the sugar taste and some water and that was it. I couldn't even face any water flavourings as it was just too sweet.

Secondly, I was trying (in LL fashion) to work out what set me off. This mystified me for some time until I dredged out something I was entirely unsure about - and then the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I'd got it right. I went shopping after work last night - to buy some ballet pumps. I didn't buy them as I had had the idea of ballet pumps being ugly if you're anything other than Audrey Hepburn or similarly leggy, ethereal types, firmly put in my head by Gok Wan in his rather fabulous How to Look Good Naked book. I really do need some in-between seasons (reasonably comfortable) shoes that I can wear with work skirts and casual skirts alike but I tried them on and I could see that they DID make me look frumpy and dumpy and did my ankles and legs no favours at all (that Gok, he so wise). That's 3 times I've gone to buy them and not actually done the deed. Problem is I don't know what to buy instead. And this is true of clothes too. I can't believe that I am finding the concept of clothes so stressful - I think it's that I knew what sort of things I always bought and what to look for and now.... I don't.