Biased reporting

Okay, I'm feeling a bit guilty that I am maybe too mean about bf in my posts after A's comment on my last blog posting. Thanks for the comment A, and it's nice of you to be so concerned for me but I think I ought to try and be more balanced. I guess I only ever 'talk' about him when things are going badly. He is a strong character and can be a bit of a bully but I am a wuss and ought to get a spine (he has said this actually - but not sure if he'd really like it!). I'm also ridiculously thin-skinned and things that other people wouldn't notice, bruise and wound me and I agonise over things that don't even register with 'normal' people. And - as someone clever once said - you can't change other people, you can only change your behaviour so you shift the dynamic that way. I have had some success with this actually but it's quite tiring to keep up a mode of behaviour that isn't really you. A bit like dieting in fact. I guess it's a question of 'fake it til you make it'.

On swimwear: the stuff finally came from Figleaves. I tried it on. It looked awful. I sent it back. I seem to pay some sort of overnight rental for these things - I pay the postage but have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Actually bf came in whilst I was mid-tankini and said I looked good (as I cowered away, hoping he might not spot me at my worst - ha!). I really, really didn't look good and I think this was what he thought was a subtle attempt to get back in my good books after compter-rage #2. The tankini was brown and he hates brown too! As a redhead, brown is my black (ie I wear it alot) but I have to confess it's not an inspiring colour for swimwear. I have bought a rather fuddy-duddy swimsuit (given up on tankinis, the lines are definitely even less flattering) from Bravissimo -in (you've guessed it) brown! With a turquoise band around the waist (http://www.bravissimo.com/products/swimwear/swimsuits/ballet/swimsuits/bw05-details.aspx?colour=Choc+Blue). Unsurprisingly it looks a lot better on her! Then I cunningly went online and found the exact same swimsuit in turquoise with a navy band (http://www.curvesandgoddess.com/ballet-acapulco-swimsuit-p-244.html) which is more summer-y I think. Unsurprisingly it will look a lot better on her! Of course, now I have to bite my nails and hope it arrives by Friday (paid extra for next day delivery so it ought to - and ordered a couple of other options too so will have to squeeze in a trip to the post office again before we go to return the others).

Diet - things are not good. I keep eating sugary crap. And I've not been able to cycle nor have I done the Circuit of Hell. That +2lbs really stuffed me in all senses of the phrase. I am freaking out that I will not even be able to fit into my fatter wardrobe by the time I return from Turkey. Already the few things I've tried on in shops don't fit. And freaking = sugar in the mad world of Peridot. I am not going to let myself do this. Today has been a little better and tomorrow is going to be better yet. I will not have that giving-up slump. This is not the beginning of the end but the end of the er, lapse.

Caught by the fuzz

I'm not having a happy time at the moment so it's just as well my holiday beckons. Regardless of swimwear trauma (which has now gone missing en route!).

We are having real problems with our computer at home which makes bf furious with me - I'm afraid that his default position seems to be to take out any anger/frustration on me. That's how it feels to me although I'm sure he'd have a different perspective. Then I make matters worse by trying to help and usually failing spectacularly. We've only just got a computer so it's all a bit new.

On Saturday he told me I was becoming self-centred and selfish (although he now denies the selfish bit) because I had an appointment at the hairdressers (of which more later) which I - essentially - hadn't okayed with him and he fancied doing something else as it transpired. Which is kind of unfair as I recently had a lecture on how I need to be more independent and less reliant on him. Then computer rage #1 yesterday (white hot - he lost his document which was my fault for talking to him about the self-centred comment whilst he was working on it). Tonight I was out with my friend E for supper and came home to more of the same. I loaded some free security software yesterday in response to some criticisms but today the pre-loaded stuff (which it wants us to pay for) is prompting for renewal and preventing him using Word. I've downloaded the trial office package and I hope it sorts it - but (as has been pointed out to me) I'm no expert.

So I'm feeling a bit emotionally fragile, what with one thing and another. I feel bruised by bf's anger, I've got a few health problems (nothing serious but not pleasant and could be quite impactful) and of course I have the elephant in the room. Oh no, that's me! Or rather my weight....

I ate several pieces of cake on Friday, post scales and today I've had what - for me - is a binge: a white bread roll, a chocolate bar, 3 walnut whips, some fizzy sweets and a half dozen plums (as well as my planned salad for lunch and a frugal choice in Wagamama for dinner). If I'd had anything else I would have eaten that too. As it is, I bought a chocolate bar home with me and intend to eat it next, even though I have a big lump in my throat to force it past. Will it make me feel better? Probably not but I'm not sure what else to do. Pretty pathetic, huh? I need to get a grip. And I will. I really will. But the verbal bashings on top of me just mentioning to E tonight a teeny bit of what I'm feeling, have made me feel both tearful and horribly self-indulgent and feeble. And ashamed for being like this.

So, the hairdresser's. I'm afraid I paid for an absurdly expensive hair treatment on Saturday which is currently making my hair look dank and greasy but when I'm allowed to wash off (tomorrow night - hurrah!) the product sealed into my hair, will make me shiny and sleek with little or no work by moi. It should remove hair-frizz holiday hair trauma and thus (hopefully) go some way to offsetting my swimwear trauma - perhaps people will be so blinded by the gleam of my luscious tresses that they won't be able to see my spare tyres and fat suit! It might just be worth the bashing I gave my credit card if that's the case.

At a loss (for words)

So, after a week where I've determinedly not been thrown off course by the scale, where I've cycled c45 miles, where I've done 2 long walks, where I've done the Circuit of Hell (only twice), where I've kept a grip on what I've eaten and substituted to cover any mistakes, in that week I've...... put on 2lbs.

I don't know what to say.

When good money goes bad

Activity tally: I walked 7 miles on Saturday, 7.5 miles on Sunday. I cycled Monday (nearly 18 miles - my standard commute), today (Tuesday - again, nearly 18 miles) and will be cycling Friday (weather permitting). I will have done my circuit of pain 3 times by Friday (only once so far though - next session planned for 6.15am tomorrow).

Food tally: a bit more lax at the weekend but nothing too awful (an ice cream, a couple of cookies and a couple of pieces of cake (non butter-cream variety) all of which I'd subbed stuff out to compensate for). Today however I had an almond Magnum - which was almost the same calorie content as my dinner will be. That's why I have to calorie count, I convinced myself that a Magnum was c200 cals and I was almost 100 cals out. I will be just over 1400 cals today and I try to keep it around 1250-1350 cals when I cycle. This allows me to eat more at the weekend. A Magnum rather throws that balance out and I really regret having eaten it now.

So it's with a heavy heart that I approach the penultimate weigh in before holiday to Turkey. Perhaps that's the reason that the scales never give me a happy reading? It's not my blubber that's heavy, it's my heart! Hmmmmm, sure thing porker!

And I am going to have to face the Swimwear Trauma very soon. I chickened out and ordered two tankinis and a swimsuit from Lands End but I have yet to summon up the courage to actually try them on. I need to pick the least awful option and send the others back - and in time to have a panic buy on Figleaves if necessary... They were expensive but not really attractive (all underwired though - that was a non-negotiable - although not in bra sizes curiously but dress sizes (not quite sure how that works)) so I do rather resent the money I'm spending just to make myself look bad. After all, I could do that quite cheaply!

An exercise in futility

So, since my freak-out about my impending holiday I have lost (drum roll) - precisely 0lbs. That's right, a big, fat zero. And since late June, I am half a stone heavier. That would be a stone heavier than last time I went abroad on holiday (2 years ago) and 1 stone 10lbs heavier than my lightest weight (last summer). I seem to be going in the wrong direction. Fast. I know I've had my birthday in the middle of pre-holiday freak-out but I've also done lots of exercise to try and compensate and kept the 'treats' down. I feel hard done by, fed up, and, oh yeah, fat.

I'd be depressed by this even if I weren't going away to a land of swimsuits and skimpy summer clothes, but would focus on hiding under jumpers and boots and beavering away, hoping for a pay back by the time Spring came around and I had to emerge from this cocoon (hmm, not sure about the spelling of that). But my current situation rather ramps up the anxiety. A holiday really shouldn't cause this much angst! It ought to be purely anticipated with excitement and pleasure. I do think that this is one of the (many) miseries of fat-dom: that nice things (holidays, parties, weddings etc) become the focus of anxiety and pressure. Not that I'd want to forego them, I have to say but afterwards I always find myself vowing not to be in the same situation (fat) next time so that picking an outfit becomes a pleasure, not an exercise in damage-limitation, and that photos hold no fear and self-consiousness has no place.

Frankly I think I was only just a bit short of heroic that, after that wretched weigh, I still did my Circuit of Pain (weight, sit ups, push ups etc) that the experts at the fat loss summit agreed might help give me some sort of metabolism. All I really wanted to do was scoff those truffles (yes, even at 6.20am). Especially since a little voice has been whispering that I might as well eat the lot in one sitting and then I'd be 'free of them' and have got it all out of the way. Luckily, I recognise this as the voice of madness, as pleasant as it would be to give in to it. Last night - a personal best - only 3 truffles (they're a bit smaller than a 10p coin).

I found myself wondering about a quick dose of Slim Fast on my cycle ride in. Maybe if I did that for a fortnight I could shift half a stone? I haven't discounted it but I suspect that the total calorie consumption would be much the same as I am having anyway - just in the format of powder and artifice, rather than food. And I am still afraid of slowing my metabolism down yet further - my specialist thinks part of my struggles date from a hangover effect from Lighter Life which has depressed my already barely existent metabolism into something approaching nothing-ness. It is, apparently, normal for a VLCD to depress the metabolism but the effects usually last 8-10 months (in which time, cruelly, many of the people who have slogged away at a VLCD put most, if not all - or more - of their weight back on). I'm up to just over a year now - he hopes suddenly my metabolism will return to 'normal'. Which for me is turgid at the best of times. Still, I could do with that increase in speed right about now. Or possibly yesterday.

Outlook for the weekend - fair to moderate in terms of effort. I am doing a walk tomorrow of c4-5 miles and one on Sunday of c7-8 miles. We're going to a farmers' market tomorrow morning before the walk and it has a great fish stall, so my off plan meal on Saturday will be fish and vegetables chiefly (samphire if I can get it) - with some wine - which is pretty good on the old calorie count. And we're going to an oyster festival at a pub down there for lunch - so half a dozen oysters and either a sandwich or ploughman's (whichever PhD friend recommends as least damaging - suspect sandwich because of the cheese effect of a ploughman's).

Thought for the day (a less smug and pious version than R4 Today's): as I was being menaced by motorbikes in the cycle lane, I was thinking how I could explain to them simply the difference between a motorbike and a push-bike. My latest reason was how all they exercise is their wrists on their commute - and then I thought this is probably true of them in other activities too....

Windswept and dissolute

It took me ages to cycle in today: cross-wind, head-wind - it all came at me this morning. It was a real battle. People cycling the other way were literally pinging past me. They had the mythical tail-wind which propels you along like ET - I have never experienced this but it looked impressive with me going one way v-e-r-y slowly and them whisking past at high speed the other way. I grimly consoled myself that I must be burning more calories than normal - and my arse and thighs were certainly screaming by the time I got to work.

Which is just as well. I had another encounter with the truffles last night. I had 3 of the larger rectangular ones (they're now gone) and 3 of the smaller, round ones. I dread to think what that did to my calorie count. I'm aiming for 2 small ones tonight and NO MORE. I don't think I possess even a shred of will power. Do you think I could buy it on ebay? Or pretty much anywhere really!

I was supposed to go to M&S last night to look at the dreaded swimwear - I couldn't cycle so it made sense to go. But it was cold, rainy and I couldn't face the ensuing freak-out. So I went home and ate cottage cheese instead. And, er, truffles.

Three - it's the magic number

The weather is not on my side. Rain this morning and promised torrential rain this afternoon meant no cycling. I did manage to dash out of the flat in time to walk in though - and I did my anti-fatter approved circuit too. It's not leading to a happy encounter with the evil scales of doom on Friday though.

Last night I had half a tub of cottage cheese (with pineapple) and a corn on the cob (to use my glut up) for dinner - is this a balanced diet? I shall be having the same tonight to use it up but it kind of feels a bit nuts. No actual nuts included. Dinner (if you can call it that) had to be that restricted to kick in at under 1250 cals. As it is, I entered my calorie counts including one square of my usual chocolate to sub in for the (birthday gift) truffle I intended to have which was coy about calories. Reader, I ate three.

Fair, fat and forty

That will not be me! Despite evidence to the contrary thus far....

I have to say, that despite feeling occasionally (or, okay, quite often) feeling depressed and/or desparate and/or thoroughly fed up and/or just plain knackered about my weight, I have never, not for one moment, considered giving up. I have a year to get slim. It sounds beguilingly easy when you say it like that, doesn't it? I know it won't be. My conundrum is that the saying "if you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you've always got" or something like that. I genuinely think that - short of wiring my jaws shut and joining a permanent boot camp - there's little more that I can do differently. To encapsulate my plan:
1) Cycle to and from work as often as possible (a minimum of 3x a week)
2) Have initiated a circuit of sit ups, lunges, arm weights etc of c20mins in the morning on the advice of friend with PhD in anti-fatter. She reckons more muscle will kick start my metabolism. It's got to be worth a try.
3) Calorie counting 1200-1350 cals Mon-Fri (depending on cycling etc). Evening meal on Saturday with bf - more relaxed. Sunday evening meal - something off plan like steak and salad but still low cal. Rest of weekend ultra cautious but no counting.

Am I missing something?

And Mrs Lard asked me what a slim life would look like. Well, I am under no delusion that life will suddenly become easy - I know that the struggle to stay slim is just as great as to get there. I know that every time I go away or go off plan that I'll put weight on and will then need to concentrate on getting it off again. But I do think it will be easier to start from that level - to know that you can get there, to know what you did that worked to enable you to get there. I would anticipate that special occasions like holidays, weddings, parties etc would no longer hold the same sort of terror/horror over what to wear, how to fade into the background, how to avoid photos etc. I know that if I were to get to this mythical state of slim-dom I'd still be dieting (although hopefully I could eat a little more) and still need to exercise - I can live with that. But I would hope that my whole life could stop being about food (or lack of), weight and flab. That would be good.

So, this weekend. I have eaten, but I have to say there's a contrast to last year where I got in my favourite toffee and fudge (by mail order!) and bought my favourite chocolate bars in anticipation. This year I have had treats but they've been part of meals. And I've done a reasonable amount of walking (Thu - 8 miles, Fri - 3 miles, Sat - 3 miles, Sun - 4.5 miles, Mon 6.8 miles) which I hope will go some way to balance everything out. I deliberately chose to build in as much walking as I could - weather permitting - for this reason. But I know I've put on weight and I'm too chicken to weigh myelf before Friday (when I hope to have cycled 4 times and done my little weights and floor work circuit 4 times too). I know that this holiday is going to be another one where I am constantly embarrassed by my size and I know that I'm not going to be fitting into last year's summer clothes for it so I'm just going to do the best I can and focus on not feeling like this next year.

Thanks for all your comments, I think it's a record number! It really does make a difference knowing there are people out there who understand how hard this can be - because they're living it too.