Skirting the issue

Sorry it’s been a while – work’s been long and crazy and I’ve had little time for anything else.  I knew it would be like this so it’s not a surprise.  And it’s coming to an end.  This week is likely to be the last high-pressure, high volume week (for a while) and then of course I’m off for a fortnight. 

Dieting is particularly tricky when work is like this – a shortage of time to do all the prep required for the discipline of dieting and more sugary snacks about to derail me.  And very long days too.

With that as a backdrop I’m doing okay – but it’s a bit wobbly (not the only thing about me that that is true of!).  The first week I lost 2lbs.  Then last week on WI I had put on 1lb which was upsetting.  But the next day I’d lost that.  Even so it’s somewhere in the realms of 0-1lb+.  And I had bread and wine over the weekend which has sent me soaring up 3lbs.  This WI is the last one before my holiday – I will fail to reach my target (again) but I’d like to have a solid loss behind me to keep me going.

Not least as I’m in that tricky ‘in between’ stage with dress sizes.  My usual skirts are way too big but the next size down is just a tad too snug.  I had the horrific task of going through summer stuff over the weekend to try and find stuff to wear on holiday.  There is nothing good for the ego about going through bags and bags of clothes that are too small.  Most of it has been bought from ebay but even so, it represents quite a sum.  The good news is that if I continue to lose weight, I have plenty of stuff to wear.  The bad news is that it varies from ‘almost/just about’ to ‘you must be joking’ in terms of fit.  At the rate I lose weight I have enough to wear for years – once I get into the larger end of my clothes mountain.  There are some very nice things – most of which I have never worn or only worn briefly.  It makes me sad.

Two of the three skirts I dragged out to take on holiday are of the ‘just about’ variety.  They’re tight but I can get them on.  I’m pretty scared that they won’t fit by the end of the holiday though and I’m not sure how good they look.  I have got very good at not looking at myself in mirrors – or looking just to do make up, but managing not to see myself.  I don’t scrutinise myself in the way that I was doing yesterday – for the good of my mental health.  As I seem to have next to nothing in the next size up the two snug skirts are coming.  But you can see why I’d like to lose as much lard in advance.

In my head, I intend to be pretty good on holiday – I think salads, fish and fruit are perfect in hot weather.  Albeit not for breakfast.  It’s the booze that worries me – especially on an all-inclusive.  Mind you, I read on a review that the wine is pretty awful and since I don’t drink beer and would never drink a cocktail with food, it’s only aperitif time I need to worry about.  After all, it would be handy if things still fit when I got home, obviously!

Quick update on Jane Plan: the evening meals are fine, the breakfasts are fine, the lunches are vile.  Who knew that soup could be so unpleasant?  I’ve heated up two different flavours (leek and potato and vegetable and bean) that were so nasty I ended up chucking them away after a wary mouthful (the smell was grim).  Possibly good for weight loss as I try not to buy a second lunch, but not ideal.  The mushroom one is fine.  I recall that tomato and butternut squash were bearable if not actually tasty.  The only other option are salads in boxes – remember these are ‘ambient’ – I’ve tried the bean one and would rather not do so again, I’m yet to try the tuna one and salmon one.  Unless I can find 3 lunches I can bear, it’s a deal breaker for me.  They are good at swopping meals you don’t want – apparently: I’m yet to put this into practise – but I need to find something to swop for.  

Just a girl, standing in front of SoD....

At least that’s January out of the way.  February is grim but at least there’s pancake day.  Admittedly, not good for weight but very good for cheering up purposes. 

Which brings us on to....

Yeah, I did okay last week – I lost 2.5lbs.  The reason I’m not jumping in the air, punching it in the manner of an 80’s rawk god, or indeed a grey politician (yes, Mr Duncan-Smith, I’m looking at you.  Although trying not to.) is that SoD is busily informing me that ever since that point (and indeed slightly before it), my weight is going in the wrong direction.

As of today, I’ve put 2lbs of that back on.  Sigh.  I hope that by Thursday (next WI) I can turn that around as I have two starve days in between now and then (today and Wednesday) but sandwiched beautifully in between those two days, in a somewhat ironic juxtaposition, is pancake day.  I had thought we’d be having Shrove, er, Friday as I was due to meet a friend, but work is such that I’ve had to pretty much cancel all social occasions for the month. 

Of course, I could skip pancakes entirely (whimper) but you know what?  I don’t want to.  I hate this time of year and this is pretty much the only bright spot in a desert of grimness.  A dessert in the desert, if you will...  I am a pancake purist so it’s only heavy on the lemon, light on the sugar rather than drifts of cream, buckets of nutella or the like, but we all know that there are no diets which feature pancakes.  Or do we – if you know of one PLEASE tell me stat.

The thing is, I need to accept – ideally not begrudgingly – that it’s not what you don’t eat that counts when you stand before (or indeed on) SoD.  As is reflected in my stats so far this week.   Intuitively I feel that every time I don't eat something that I want to, that there should be a small commensurate downward movement on the scales as a reward. Thursday was a charity cake sale at work.  Now, this is, in some respects a tale of virtue: I had two v small slices and chucked a 3^rd away after one bite as not worth the calories (it was a wrench even so).  For this I forewent breakfast and lunch.  But clearly that is not enough.  Again, we were away for the weekend so I was v cautious in other meals and tried to minimise damage but dinner with friends at their house was the most difficult to negotiate. 

All this caution is against the backdrop of a tricky time at work with a ready supply of chocolate – it’s not easy.  I do keep reminding myself of the holiday though.  At the WI I thought I was in with a chance of hitting my target pre-hols; now, not so much.  Anyway, let’s see where 2 starve days, pancakes-by-exception and discipline takes me.  It’s got to be better than where I am now, in any case.  Pancakes notwithstanding. 

I’m still finding the Jane Plan lunches hard.  The breakfasts are more than I’m used to and tasty too, dinners are quite meagre but mainly palatable (I’ve had meatballs – really nice, and tuna pasta – okay but rather tasteless) but the lunches are small and at best tasteless (broccoli and cheese soup – smelly, and bean salad – not pleasant).  But they’re not horrible like Lighter Life bars were so it could be a lot worse.

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

I am still suffering hormonal bloat (now a fortnight overdue (if not TMI)) and feel much like Violet Beauregard – or Aunt Marge in Harry Potter.  I may yet explode.  In fact, I did over the weekend and yet I am still puffed up.

I had either very violent food poisoning or some vicious stomach bug.  This was initially good on the weight loss side – always the silver lining – but the recovering stage means I really only want toast and marmite which is not so good.  There really isn’t a low-carb equivalent to that kind of comfort, easy-eating food.  I did have scrambled eggs (P makes excellent eggs – and an excellent nurse) but again, on toast.  So I put weight on again – 1.5lbs from post- erm – ejection to today (although still down overall on the week).  And today is a starve day so let’s see what that does.  My stomach is still not happy – which is unfortunate since I have Covent Garden Soup Co Peri Peri chicken soup planned for supper (and trying to tell myself that I will NOT have toast).  I’m in the office but shooting off as soon as I’ve got an urgent outstanding issue sorted to languish on the sofa and feel sorry for myself.

I had a rotten night too – I’ve not had one for a bit, but I went to bed anxious and unhappy and it spiralled down from that point.  No-one talks about the menopause but I think I’m in perimenopause – not something I’m relishing being precocious about, my mum was about 10 years older.  But she didn’t have these symptoms.  I really think the depression, anxiety and sleeplessness I’ve had over the last couple of years is linked to my hormones; not least because the last time I felt this bad was when I was 12-13 years old.  Seems too much of a coincidence.  Apparently these symptoms can last 10 years.  I wanted to cry when I found this out.  Actually I was crying but you know what I mean.  So please, please anyone reading who’s not hit the perimenopause be aware of these symptoms so that you don’t think, like I did, that I was going mad.  It does make it a bit better.  All I knew about was hot flushes – at least I don’t have those – but there are a myriad of unpleasant health problems, including anxiety, depression, insomnia and migraine (all of which I have).  Something to look forward to, eh?  Or you may be like my mother and sail through without really noticing, fingers crossed.

Anyway, enough of this second-bout-of-teenage-angst.  Dieting is going well – post-ejection toast aside.  Last week at WI day on Thursday I lost 2lbs which is pretty stellar for me.  The first couple of Jane Plan days showed a good drop too but I won’t pre-empt the official WI.  Jane Plan? It’s okay.  It’s more breakfast than I’m used to – I had 25g granola and they give me 40g – but lunches are very small (a half cup of soup) and dinners are small too although bearable.  You also get a snack – either a small bar of quite nice dark chocolate or a very sad, small, lonely biscuit. 

Their granola is tasty, the soup (tomato) was fine but pretty tasteless and the two evening meals I had were vegetarian lasagne (really quite nice) and beef in ale casserole with root mash (okay).  I only had the lasagne first as one of the ambient packs had exploded – in the manner of an ambient and faulty breast implant – and I had to eat the contents of the pack with the most fall-out.  Shows though, as I wouldn’t have greeted vegetable lasagne with any enthusiasm whilst beef casserole sounded great – in fact, it was the other way around.

I’m still planning to do 3 x days of Jane Plan, 2 x days of starve days and 2 careful weekend days.  The starve days are to balance the weekend days.  Otherwise I take your point Mrs Spoon that it would b worth giving JP a full go – but eating with husband in the evening at the weekend is really important to us both.  Especially given that dieting is such a long haul slog for me – otherwise it could be years with us basically not eating together!