Lard be scone

I had a plan.  An ambitious plan, sure, but an achievable one.  Or so I thought.  My aim was to lose a stone before our holiday in May.  I had two months (8 weeks, to be exact)  to do that.  Now I have seven weeks.  The first week went okay.  I’m doing my bit – but SoD is not pulling his weight.  I’m sure the Scales of Doom are male – surely any female inanimate object would be more empathetic?

To put this in context, I’m freaked out by this morning’s WI.  And, other than Easter, this was likely to be the most challenging weekend so I need to try not to panic (or, fatalistically, give up) just yet.  We cushioned our filial duties this weekend by gin, wine and tapas on Friday and a bottle of fizz last night.  Last night’s bottle (no supper) was, frankly, medicinal.  But I still had alcohol three times – normally I would only allow myself to have it once.  And we had three meals out.  Still, that doesn’t explain the reason that little git said I’d put on 5.5lbs since Friday morning.

Today is a starve day so I’m hoping that extraordinary gain will be tempered by a larger loss than usual (6lbs would be a start). I’m certainly hungry enough to merit some pay back.  And I’m still shooting for that stone.  To be honest, even a stone won’t help me feel less self-conscious on holiday – and the thought of the beach makes my heart rate speed up and my shoulders tense up.  It won’t get my into my nice summer skirts.  But on the basis that every little helps, I’m hoping that it will make for a slightly less anxious holiday.  At least I’ll have done my best.  Like my wedding, I know, hand on heart that I really, really tried; the fact that I was still fat and didn’t look great, was not because I didn’t put the effort in, and whilst that makes me sad, it doesn’t make me angry with myself.

Apart from the odd evening meeting up with friends, the only hurdle to manage in the next seven weeks are some friends from the US coming over and being in London the Easter weekend.  In an attempt to cram as many quintessentially British food experiences in, P has drawn up a schedule which includes lunch at a rather lovely pub in Kent (I’ll be driving so at least no booze for me), a cream tea at our place and a roast dinner (beef).  I need to practice both Yorkshire puddings and scones – both of which I’ve had problems with in the past.  My Yorkshires determinedly solder themselves to the pan and my scones are rather biscuity.  The latter is particularly weird as I make (though I do say so myself) rather spectacular cheese and sweetcorn scones.  Maybe it’s the rolling and cutting that causes them to refuse to rise.  Anyone got any advice or idiotproof recipes?

Anyway, all this food chat is making my stomach growl ferociously and I’d better stop before people think there’s a rabid dog on the loose.  Actually, I’m slathering a bit too.....

Previously on munter to minx....

I’m not sure I’m back yet.  I left because I thought I was being irritatingly moany and morose and that you, dear Reader, deserved more.  By deserving less of me.  Well, I deserve less of me too – more of which, later.

I am tip-toeing back and dipping that toe into the water.  Has anything changed?  No.  I’m still at roughly my pre Lighterlife weight.  I am still doing two starve days a week, mostly with success that never quite translates into anything encouraging on my old pal, Scales of Doom.  Nothing lasting at any rate.

I’m also back to low-carbing – essentially because I have now pretty much exhausted all the diets so am on a second (or third or fourth or...) pass around.  And because I felt best on it.  And that has worked in that my blood sugar levels are pretty damn exceptional.  But I cannot rejoice in this until it also means a steady downward trajectory on SoD.

Not least because we’re going on holiday in May.  We were going to Iran which, pleasingly, would have required me to be covered from wrist to ankle.  And whilst that had a set of problems, they were generally ones that could be answered with a bit of patient ebaying.  But, you know, Trump, and a couple of other things that made us pull out.  We had paid a deposit though and rather than lose it all, we transferred it to another holiday (there was a £60 fee because OF COURSE there was but at least we didn’t lose the lot).  So, we’re going to Jordan.  It’s as part of an organised group because that’s what this holiday company offers (and Americans, Canadians and Brits have to go to Iran as part of an organised tour) and so the itinerary is set for us.  It’s 11 days and it includes not one but TWO beachy bits: the Red Sea and the Dead Sea.  Reader: nothing makes me so clammy and terrified as swimwear.  So much so that when we went to Cape Verde last year, I deliberately didn’t take a swimsuit so that I didn’t ruin the holiday for myself in anxiety.  Yes, I would have loved to have gone in the sea but given the choice, it was no choice at all.

I will use the excuse that Jordan is not as westernised as all that – I’ve read that most women there would swim with a t-shirt on at least, sometimes shorts too.  But we’re staying in Western hotel chains so that’s somewhat flimsy.  I suspect there will be swimsuits and bikinis everywhere.  I only have to think this and I quite literally feel panic.  Panic anyway and then when SoD smugly refuses to shift down.  I had horrible food poisoning and that caused a leap downwards – I was flickering just above the next bracket down – and then it leapt back up.

I have nine weeks before we go.  If I could lose a stone I’d still be obscenely fat but it’s a stone better than where I am now. I ought to be able to say that I can set my mind to losing 2lbs a week and then I’d be at the lower point of the next stone down.  Admittedly at a pound a week, I am unlikely to notice any difference.  I know this numbers game is utterly self-flagellation, but I can’t not do it.

And I have two really nice skirts that I bought last summer (work skirts) that were just a smidgeon too tight.  I never wore them.  And I was a bit slimmer then.  HA!  I was not any gradation of slim –I was less fat than now.  I’d really like to wear them this year.  Every year I put off buying things – or even dry cleaning a couple of work skirts as ‘by next year they’ll be too big’.  I’ve thought this for years.  I’ve been wrong for years.  But I can’t quite bring myself to replace them or clean them.  There’s a winter jacket (duvet coat) in the sales that I like but I don’t want to be this size next winter.  I bought a mac at least three or four years ago that I thought I’d wear for a bit and then flog on ebay.  I’m still wearing it and it is looking sad and droopy (like its reluctant owner).  One of my best friends and my husband would tell me to accept that this is the way I am.  But I can’t.  I just can’t.