Tuesday 7 January 2014

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 2nd 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!

3 comments:

Lisa said...

I think you're doing great - dont be too hard on yourself, you've not given up and you keep on trying - dont underestimate that. Have you tried cauliflower 'rice' - I've recently discovered it and its been great for bulking out my meals and keeping my calories down - just blitz some cauliflower in the blender until it resembles rice and then I dry fry it with some coconut oil - makes a lot and is really filling, I've replaced most of my carbs (rice with stroganoff, noodles with stirfry etc) with this.

Not a very useful blog comment but just wanted to say hi and send some virtual blog hugs! x

Seren said...

Quite apart from the fact that work appears to have been utterly grindingly awful for a while now, try and hold on to the fact that the January blues are utterly endemic - I believe yesterday was statistically the most depressing day of the year (statistics as brought to you by the Probability Department of the University of Romford). Also, stupid holiday rows. D snarked at me yesterday because our local Waitrose have stopped selling his favourite brand of toilet paper. So you are not alone.

I would avoid the WW magazine like the plague. It will only try to encourage you to buy WW brand crap and feature success stories of people who felt like "elephants" when they had ten pounds to lose. Not that I don't applaud their achievements, I just don't find those articles helpful. With regards SW, my Mum has been following it since September and has lost over a stone (she had very little to lose) and cooking pretty much everything she eats from scratch so I think both of these regimes have merit if, as you say, you get past the insistence on chemically nonsense.

You will need to brave the scales at some point though - because I want you to be able to write as one of your good things of January 2015 that you are (tbc) pounds lighter than this time last year. As for today, I want you to write that there are people out there in the blogosphere rooting for you every single little step of the way.

Courage, mon brave! And I hope the mince pies were good - D wants me to nag you for your recipe in time for next year.

Sx

Lesley said...

Grrrr Blogger just ate my comment....

So, Seren has said most of what I wanted to say but with added reasonableness and moderation (I was a bit riled by the reported holiday row....).

You are truly a champion at sticking to your task in the face of adversity. I wish you would see yourself as you are, though, without the filter of self-mauling. To which end I really hope you stick to your daily list of good things. They will get easier to spot with practise and maybe could actively seek them out, you know because YOU DESERVE GOOD THINGS!!

Re SW, I dont think chemical muck is compulsory. Perhaps have another look eh?

I'm cheesed off too tbh...so have decided to drop 2 stone before we (hopefully) go on our hols to Malaysia in May! Some declaration eh? We CAN AND WILL do it honey. Chin up and big hugs.

Lesley xx