The bitterest pill

So, I wish it were that my pills were preventing me from losing weight – I really do.  Unfortunately, as ever, it’s my hateful body.  There’s a small body of thought that the pills might make it easier to lose weight but most of the thinking is that they have no impact.  Not even the paranoid world of the internet seems to summon up a single person that thinks that it causes its victim to put weight on.
 
So, no, all my own work.
 
But thank you everyone for the words of support and suggestions – its means more than you can ever know.  I don’t talk to anyone about this – not a soul – and this is my only outlet.  I sometimes think I would go mad if I internalised it any more than I do.

I have been seeing this psychologist but she’s really there to help me stop doing things that make me put on weight.  Since that seems to essentially be existing and breathing, I’m not sure she can help.  She can’t help me lose weight and she can’t make me reconciled to that (let alone anything more positive), I am going to suggest we call it quits.  As it is, I am an hour late into work once every fortnight – which is not viewed with any degree of acceptance – and she comes into work 45mins early to fit me in.  So it’s a lot of pain for no gain.  Unless it’s of the lard variety.
 
Last Friday I lost 1lb and something.  Could have been 1.25lbs or 1.75lbs, can’t really remember.  I have to find some way to actually document this somewhere where it will never, never be seen.  I think that makes my net loss for the month something under a lb – possibly a 1/4 .  I know it’s better than nothing – but only a few ounces.  Literally.
 
This weekend, three meals out led to two puddings (but otherwise okay choices), one of which was worth it, one of which wasn't and I left about a quarter of each.  I ought to be able to take a moment to be proud that I was able to employ some willpower but of course, I’m dreading the – likely – savage judgement of SoD.
 
By Friday however, I will have done a day of painting –will that help do you think?  We have taken off a week and a half to paint the entire flat (walls, woodwork and ceilings) prior to long overdue flooring arriving.  All of which was precipitated by two leaks, one at either end of the flat.  (Surely all painting two bedrooms, two halls, two bathrooms and a living room ought to burn some flab?)  It will be good to get it done but it will stop us going on holiday this year (sudden lottery win apart).  The upside of THAT of course is that I won’t have the I’m-too-fat-and-I- have-nothing-to-wear pre-holiday panic.  Although that pretty much is my life at the moment.

The only way is up. Apparently.

So this is why I shunned SoD for so long.  I've been anxious about weigh in day for the last couple of days - but I'd had a good week, I was well overdue seeing my efforts rewarded by SoD.  It should all be good, right?  I had to stop being neurotic and trust that doing the right thing would end in the right place, right?  Keep.  The.  Faith

Wrong.  I put on 1 1/2lbs.  I am now at a new all-time high (weight).  When I talk about Fresh Fat, I mean putting it on, whereas most dieting blogs refer to getting rid of it. 

That is the sort of high that makes me feel low.  I really feel very unhappy.  I don't know what to do, I can only tweak because of the diabetes - no new seductive possible diet that might, just might, oh please might, help me shed some of this blubber.  Not, admittedly, that it ever has.

It's odd how getting bigger makes me feel smaller.  It's as if as my girth increases, something in me gets smaller and sadder.  Which is doubly ironic as I have the jeans of pain on today - not sure if it's some psychological need to punish myself since they hurt when I was almost 4lbs smaller (small obv being a relative term) so you can imagine...

As Seren says, all I can do is keep on keeping on.  I'm just very scared as to where I will end up, emotionally and physically.

Jean libels

This is why I hate SoD.  I hoped for 3lbs loss this week – my inexplicable 2lbs gain from last week and another.  It seemed a fair target – not too ambitious – given a good week and a mammoth walk last weekend.  Well, my loss does have a 3 in it but that would be a loss of ¾ lb.  It’s heart-breaking.  I know it shouldn’t be and I should get some perspective but it is and I can’t.
 
I may have maligned the jeans.  My bruises are fading although I am (clearly) not diminishing.  Admittedly I don’t wear them much but I think it wasn’t them.  Okay, they compressed me painfully and fiercely but I think the bruises were from trying to negotiate around a solid sleigh bed, approximately 4” from the wall.  This is a width restriction I was clearly never going to achieve but shoved my way through in any case.
 
I would ordinarily now have boasted about my great week.  How conscientious I’ve been, how dedicated to The Great De-blimp.  How my goal is 3 ½ stone by mid October (with an eye to getting into my winter coat this year).  But now – thanks be to SoD – I can’t.  So, that’s that.
 
Other greatness has not happened this week.  Work is grim.  And hard.  And thankless.  There are two jobs I’m applying for – one is decidedly a long shot.  I’ve been here before (metaphorically) and yet I’m still here (literally).  We have sprung two leaks in our flat – at either extreme.  The flooring will definitely have to come up and there’s a real chance that the walls will have to be knocked into (what idiot puts pipes IN a wall?).  The bright spot of this week has been starting my Level 3 wine course.  The people weren’t terribly friendly and the exam sounds terrifying but I think I’m going to learn a LOT.
 
Signing out, damp and fat but looking forward to a sunny weekend with NO WORK.

Of literal and metaphorical bruises

I can’t believe I’ve been SO STUPID.  How can I POSSIBLY have allowed myself to hope that this time around was going to be any different?  Even after all evidence and history pointing to the impossibility of this?  Despite being really restrained on our weekend away, despite two hikes, one of which was extraordinarily tough, I put the whole 2lbs back on.  I thought I might lose a solitary lb; of course I hoped for more but I thought that was probably realistic.  And this is the worst thing about SoD – it wrecks my day, my week.  I feel so dispirited and so STUPID for thinking things might ever be any different for me.  It’s amazing how insidious hope is – even if you try and shut it out, it winkles its way back in.  Only to trip you up and leave you flat on your face, battered, bruised and humiliated.
 
Talking of bruises…. (and yes, my abdomen is still purple and yellow) I have the self-harm jeans on today.  I think they look better.  I think they do…. So I thought I’d wear them for dress down day.  I may live to regret this decision.  I may not live to regret it.  Actually, I may already be regretting it.  I’ve promised myself that I will wear my comfier (if alas, slightly too short) bootlegs over the weekend – on Sunday I’m working and on Saturday we’re just going to walk along the Thames for a few miles to enjoy the predicted good weather so I’ll just be in Converse (thus hopefully keeping my hem a little close to the ground).  I might have a fresh crop of bruises after my reckless behaviour today so it will give them some healing time!

Yorkshire Terror

 Well, that was quite a weekend.
 
Let’s start with the ups.  We saw friends (and their absolutely gorgeous chocolate Labrador), Yorkshire was liberally festooned with snowdrops (I don’t think I have ever seen that many), we had some lovely food, I resisted puddings an epic 3.5 times out of 5, I ate very, very sensibly overall and avoided carbs as much as poss, I still ache from one of the hikes which must have meant it did me loads of good, we had access to several roaring fires.
 
On the downs – the owner of the place we stayed at was epically unpleasant when we pointed out they’d undercharged us for the bill; they were happy for us to pay it but didn’t feel this merited a simple thank you or apology for the inconvenience.  It rather spoilt the whole weekend. 
 
Also – and this is probably the only place I can confess this – I bought new jeans. [A moment is inserted here where we can all go ‘ohhhhh’ in mutual pain.]  It should have been easy – I bought the same style as the ones I’d recently trashed and the same brand etc as my bootlegs except they were straight legged and a bit longer (the horror: I recently came to the unwelcome conclusion that my jeans are just that fraction too short.  So. Unflattering).  I digress but this should have been relatively simple, right?  Wrong.  They felt tight when I put them on but they have 2-3% of stretch so I thought they’d give - I'd even read advice that said you should buy them tight as they give.  Um.  I got more and more uncomfortable on Friday and by the time I took them off at c1.30am I really did feel some pain.  Well, a couple of days later when being tortured by bath (more of which later) I noticed some absolutely corking bruises across my abdomen.  I don’t bruise easily and I can’t remember the last time I saw anything like it.  And I really do think that it was my jeans.  I’m actually scared of them now.  And I'm still green, black and yellow.
 
Before we go to the bath of torture, let me tell you about the hike of horror.  It started off beautifully – gorgeous day, lovely path.  We went through a beautiful village and onto a path described as “undulating”.  Well, it wasn’t the undulations that were the problem.  This path was like a goat path – ie v narrow and essentially on the edge of a ravine.  At the bottom of which was mostly a river.  The path was thick with mud.  Deep, sticky, slidey mud.  For about 2 miles we teetered along this path, grabbing hold of trees, rocks, anything to try and stop slipping over the edge.  It was exhausting (and filthy) – my legs burnt and then they just went numb and rubbery.  The relief when we finally emerged a tense and very long hour and a half later!  Short lived relief because then we had to climb a massive hill and I had legs of rubber to take me up.  I ache round my waist, as well as the tops of my arms and all of my legs – two days later.  It surely – if there’s any fairness in the world – must have burnt at least a gazillion calories?  Hmm, let's see what SoD makes of that on Friday.
 
Ah yes, then I decided to have a hot bath.  I’m more of a shower girl but as my legs had pretty much gone on strike and to try to prevent total seizing up, I decided to have a hot bath.  I don’t know which sadist (and indeed masochist) put it about that a hot bath was a great thing but if I find them, I’ll boil them alive.  Assuming I can catch them.  Youch.  I sat in there.  I tried to lie in there.  I tried to relax and unknot my muscles (or what passes as muscles).  I gritted my teeth – I must stay in for 20 mins.  I couldn’t make it and got out after about 12 mins.  My heart was galloping, I thought I was going to throw up or pass out.  Or indeed both.  It took the best part of an hour and a half for my heart rate to return to normal.  Never again.
 
Slippery ravines and baths of torture apart, I’d like to go back to Yorkshire.  But I’ll be staying somewhere else next time.  Seren: what’s the Star like to stay at?