Thing that make you go hmmmm

 
Just me that remembers the C&C Music Factory?  Possibly.  Even though I have to admit this is the only song of theirs I recall – its quirkiness appealed….  Although it never did make it on to my ipod: I think it’s best left in the 1990s.
 
My big learning point for the weekend has been learning to interpret  a book  description which claimed it was the ‘adult Twilight.  Oh!  THAT sort of adult.  Blush.  I honestly dread to think what Amazon are going to be recommending me from hereon in.  I actually decided to read an old book afterwards for safety’s sake.   I know it won’t suddenly launch into graphic description.  (Btw, why are heroines always petite and heroes so tall and protective?  I don’t think I’d stand much chance against baddies – am I not worth protecting (Don’t answer that!))
 
I bought some tights from JL.  Opaques.  I bought XL and was bemused to find that they had an additional Y shaped panel in the body bit.  I studied them.  I decided to put the panel at the back, feeling that my arse possibly needed the room.  The seams rubbed horribly.  I turned them around in our squalid work loo: less rubbing but seriously not comfy.  That was a waste of £12.  What peculiar things.
 
My world seems to be contracting.  I think that’s why my last post was so yawn-inducingly dull.  It’s the time of year (I hope).  To illustrate my point, my weekend consisted of working Friday night – Saturday morning (and being unable to sleep), an amazing pizza on Saturday lunchtime and a migraine all day on Sunday.  And I read 3 complete books and two partial books.  Maybe it’s because it’s cold and dark and money is tight, but I seem to be engaging with the world in general far less.  And the less I do, the less I want to do.  Of course, no-one can engage with a migraine in any case.  And I suspect that was prompted by too little sleep on Friday night -  although you can never be sure where they come from.
 
I am trying not to eat as I type.  It’s a starve day but I am really very, very starving.  And with just a piece of fish and a courgette to look forward to.  I’m not usually quite this hungry.  I may eat my colleague if I lose control – although she’s so bony I think she’d be the human equivalent of whitebait. 

Cookie monster

I’ve done two pretty good starve days this week and have only been prevented from doing a third by having to have tests for cholesterol and diabetes this morning where I had to have two blood tests interspersed by a seriously unpleasant sweet drink.  I’m not worried about diabetes as I don’t have any of the symptoms but I am worried a bit about my heart because a)I do have some symptoms (although I’ve been so under pressure at work I tend to think that if I did have a problem, I’d have keeled over by now) and b) because they seem to push out statins with such eagerness and abandon these days and I really don’t want them.

My non-starve days have been less good.  I had a cookie frenzy on Tuesday and yesterday was just a bit carby.  Next week I'll have to work on the non-starve days too and get them looking more like a diet.  The cookie frenzy was at Ben's; I only allow myself to go there maybe a couple of times a year but they really are the best cookies.  And it actually stops me buying cookies anywhere else as there is no point.  But a buy 3 and get 4 is not the amazing and irresistible offer I thought it was.  Yes.  Four.

 

On the plus side, one of the starve days was against the backdrop of a psychology session, feeling generally ill and a tricky day so I was particularly impressed with myself that I stuck to it and didn't use any of these things as an excuse not to starve.  I couldn't have really after cookie-gate - or alternatively I could have decided this week had already been rendered pointless (not in a WW way, obv!)

 

Work remains a challenge - the volume of work is slightly less but this is due to something incredibly frustrating acting as a blocker.  Still, I live in hope of getting a lunch hour one day next week.  I do leave feeling like a limp, wrung out rag most evenings and I can't carry on like this.  Okay, that was just to give me an illusion that I have a choice!  I have a new boss who is very funny and seems really lovely - he's like a camp, English version of Graham Norton.  We work in a bit of a blame culture where people eagerly look out for and pounce on mistakes, ignoring good work, which is sapping and depressing.  I hope he can cope because my life is a lot more pleasant and a lot easier with him in it.  I only had my tests because he made me feel that there would be no repercussions if I was out of the office for half a day: there is no way I could have done that up to now.

 

Dear me, this is so dull, I am actually boring myself.  Will try to be more interesting next week.  If I can carve out a bit of life outside work for myself that is....

Springwatch

Oh dear.  Work is really tough at the moment: there is just too much to do and I feel constantly on the brink of screaming panic.  The only thing that stops me is that I'm far too tired for that burst of energy.  It's just relentless: one of my junior colleagues on a parallel team has been signed off with stress and is in a bad way and I feel so sorry for him.  The only glimmer of a silver lining is that I have a new boss who seems very nice and is certainly pitching in (my old boss didn't believe in actually doing any work, seeing his role as one of unconstructive criticism - he's temporarily promoted so the criticism is more fairly shared about now). 

I don't seem to have the mental energy to diet at the moment.  I'm not eating like a crazy woman which is good but I must - I MUST - do better.  Last week was pretty exemplary, this week was not.  My starve days didn't really happen - more tetchily hungry, picking-rather-than-eating days. 

The thing is that work is only going to get more busy for the next month.  So I have to find some way to deal with that that allows me to diet too.  I can't think what that might be and I am SO TIRED that my mind is foggy.  Maybe the weekend will help me formulate a plan.  But all ideas most, most welcome.

I'm still struggling with the January blues too.  They're so intensely navy that I sometimes wonder if it's a bit more than that.  I guess I'll wait until Spring and find out.  We're over halfway through January so that's good news.

I am - after your encouragement - doing a photo challenge called 100 happy days.  Its premise is that you take a photo of something that has made you happy that day and put it on your choice of social media site.  I think I've been doing it for about a week and it will tell me when I have completed it.  It makes me look for optimism every day and even when it's a bit feeble (the colour contrast of my halved kiwi on a cobalt blue plate was today's), I think and hope that it reinforces the message that there is at least a flicker of happiness every day.  Far too many of mine are of food or drink, sigh (NB Just checked - 4 out of 10 are of food or drink so not so bad!).  If you fancy having a go, do google it.  I'm doing it on Instagram and I am enjoying seeing other people's photos.

And tomorrow's photo is likely to be of a cocktail.

Revolve resolve

I cannot possibly calculate how many years I have had ‘lose weight’ as my New Year’s resolution.  Even on years when, looking back, I was not that fat (this relates to teenage years fyi) it was a resolution.  Last year I tried to think of something more meaningful and resolved to look less like a mentally ill bag lady when out hiking.  I did actually achieve this, more or less.  This year, as I’ve been feeling so low, I decided I would do a ‘3 good things that happened to me today’ in my diary.  I used to do this online with a colleague but she’s now moved on so I thought I could do it, it would be fine and it would be nice to look back on at the end of the year.
 
Oh dear.  The first day I scraped through with one ‘thing’ being very unconvincing indeed.  On the 2^nd I only managed 2 tepid ‘things’ and then I stopped.  It’s supposed to cheer me up but when the best thing I manage is ‘today is over now’, it really, really doesn’t.

It could be my January blues leaking pigment all over my life; it could reflect how under the weather and stressed I feel because of work; it could be because this Christmas has been punctuated by a series of distressing rows with P (eg the one where he was convinced I’d deliberately burnt his piece of Christmas pudding by ignoring his instruction to put it in the microwave for 1 min (I didn’t hear him and put it in for 3.  And burnt it)).  Any which way I look at it, I’m struggling for any feelings of self-worth and positivity at the moment.
 
None of which takes us an iota away from the fact that I still need to make my NY resolution losing weight.  And that’s not enough, I need to succeed at it.  I’m just not sure how to do that.  I bought a Slimming World magazine on Sunday to think about trying that one again.  I vaguely remembered it wasn’t all about carbs and that it would suit me.  I had forgotten the excruciating simpering system of “syns”and the vehement belief that the way to achieve success was by eating foods where anything natural had been removed and replaced by chemicals and saccharin.  I can’t do it.  I’ll buy the Weight Watchers one next but I fear a similar level of zeal for low-fat, highly artificial, vilely tasting products.
 
In the meantime I went back to the starve days yesterday – it was a good day and even with 2 Lindors, I should have come in around the correct calorie consumption:
Breakfast – nothing
Lunch – a mini babybel cheddar, an apple and 2 clementines
Dinner – a roasted courgette (spritzed with spray oil) and a pack of Birds Eye frozen haddock in some kind of sauce.
 
Today is a non-starve day and I feel it’s critical to still diet hard – I kind of think maybe I overdid things on non-starve days.  So today:
Breakfast – stewed apple (no sweetening), 120g “% fat Greek yoghurt, 6 dates and a scattering of nuts
Mid-morning – flat white
Lunch – home-made chicken and vegetable soup, a piece of cheese, apple and 2 clementines
Dinner – Home-made meatballs with spaghetti and spicy tomato sauce, pineapple, 2 cubes Turkish delight
 
That’s quite a lot for a non-starve day – I was due to have roasted salmon and ratatouille but P is making meatballs and this is one of my favourite comfort foods so the salmon has been re-scheduled for Thursday.  Tomorrow and Friday will be starve days (although I have my ‘mindfulness’ session with the psychologist on Wednesday first thing so that could scotch that one). 
 

Of course, as I am too frightened to weigh myself, it’s hard to know how I’ll know whether this is being effective or not!