Dog days

I should never, NEVER, say things are going to get better soon.

Work is....well, it's hit a new low.  By the end of the day I am exhausted by maintaining a bright, professional 'game face' and metaphorically blooded from a thousand cuts.  I can see us ending up in a tribunal because I WILL NOT allow them to bully me.  We'll see - there is one or maybe two stages before that.  By the time I get home I'm exhausted as all the adrenaline leaves me and I just want to slump and cry.  It's not good.  The other night I couldn't be bothered to eat - dinner was two glasses of (indifferent) wine.  P has been a ROCK.  He meets me for a swift coffee most lunchtimes, just so I can see a friendly face.  My colleagues are fine btw - it's t'management - so it's not as if I'm sat there in a sea of hostility, that would be unbearable.

Still, the bank holiday weekend will be a blessed relief.  But I really need to find a new job - and I'm trying.  I've even applied for a maternity cover and would give up my (toxic) full-time job with no certainty of the cover extending beyond 9 months.  And that's if I were to get it. 

In other news: we are dog-sitting.  We have a chocolate lab for 3 weeks whilst my mum is in Singapore visiting my brother and the chav-in-law.  Lily (the lab) is having an intense love affair with P.  As I type, she's lying outside the bathroom, waiting for him to come out of the shower.  She follows him around and sits by him, gazing up at him.  This is v cute; her waking us at 5am or 5.30am is not.

It's not helping that I'm not sleeping.  I lie in bed and it feels like misery literally pulses through my body.  It's mainly about the way I look but work is now crowding in too.  I do get to sleep but I'm getting 4-6 hours and I'm an 8+ hours girl.  It makes things harder.  But I usually sleep well in Suffolk - the clean, sea air I think - so am hoping, if Lily lets me, of doing some catching up this weekend. 

The silver linig of the week is the best WI I've had in - well this year I think - I'm now Repulsive.5 3/4lbs so that's about 2 1/2lbs off I think.  It doesn't make me feel any better about how I look - I think it's going to take a couple of stone before that - but it doesn't make me feel worse.  And frankly that's an absolute blessing.  If I could be sure that I'd move steadily in that direction I would feel less dreadful about it but past experience suggests I really would be very foolish indeed to hope.

Another good week...

Which ought to mean a decent result on SoD - but of course not really.  From official WI I put on 1lb - from unofficial WI I lost 1lb.  It's a bit confusing.  Anyway, I'm now Repulsive.8 1/2 lbs.  Really, who knows what's going on.  I think we can assume another cold winter though - I don't see me losing 2 1/2stones by then, which is what I need to do to get in my coat.

And 2 stone would make such a difference - like fitting in some of my summer clothes for a start.  I have some nice cotton and linen shirts which I'd love to wear with jeans at the weekend but they're just too small.  Everyday is another panic about what to wear.

Little else to say really.  I'm still feeling pretty wretched but I do thank you for your kind comments, it does help not to feel quite so alone with this.  Work is also being even more of a nightmare than usual.  P is really helping with this but I so need to get out - it's just toxic.  I applied for a couple of things this week but we'll see.  Things have to get better soon.

Blimp blip

I’ve not been feeling well for a while and skipped eating a few times so hoped for this to be reflected on SoD on Wednesday WI: I had put on 1 ¼lb – taking me to Repulsive.7 ½ lbs.  I’ve – obv – been fretting about this ever since so decided to WI again today to reassure myself that it was just a blip: yes it was, I’m now Repulsive.9 ½ lbs.
 
Now, I understand why a few of you take issue with my verbal descriptions of the stone brackets – in your place, I’d probably say the same.  But the fact is that this is pretty much the only space I can be honest in.  Admittedly I don’t talk about my weight to anyone in the ‘real’ world (although I am sure they’ve noticed that I’m the size of a Barrett starter home) – I even avoid talking to my husband about it.  But if he did ask, I feel obliged to be positive – the ‘slow progress but learning all the time’ line which is, let’s be honest, a lie.

The fact is that I feel beyond repulsive – I feel so much more repellent than that.  All the way to the core (through all those layers of flab).  There is no word for how I feel and it’s only getting worse.  I am tired of the subterfuge and the pretence that one day it will all suddenly fall into place and I’ll lose weight steadily like a ‘normal’ person.  I’m tired of saying it’s all okay, that next week will be different, that I have good qualities (because, frankly, if you pushed me, I couldn’t name one).
 
I’m tired full stop.  All I want to do is read – which is a double edged sword in that I forget how much I loathe myself and can escape to another world (good) but all the female protagonists have one thing in common: they’re good looking and this is essentially what leads to their happy-ever-after.  Or sleep – because if I’m unconscious I don’t know what I look like or feel the pain that that brings.  Perhaps I could do a Sleeping Ugly and wake up in 100 years - surely not eating for 100 years would make me slimmer?

So I AM (at the very least) Repulsive – nudging upwards to…. I’m not sure what but clearly will have to get my thinking cap on – and will I ever move down to hit the Obese bracket?  It seems increasingly unlikely.

WTF WIs

There were carbs over Easter.  Especially – in fact exclusively – hot cross buns.  So I was worrying about getting on SoD.  Admittedly, I always get worried about getting on SoD.  I tried to rationalise it away today and justify delaying WI to Friday.  But I was working overnight on that Thursday which means typing furiously and non-stop from 6-9am which makes the whole WI thing difficult.  I usually weigh first thing but ‘forgot’ until I was in the shower.  Cue intense internal dialogue about how this might affect the result:

Well, the extra water might make me heavier

But then I’ve washed dirt off* so that might make me lighter

Even I have sufficient self-awareness that I realised I was prevaricating.  I got on the sodding SoD: Repulsive.9 ¼ lbs.  That’s ¼lb off.  It was a blip, clearly but I’ll take it. 

 

It might explain why this week's WI had me staying the same after a pretty damn good week.   Still Repulsive.9 ¼ lbs.  Running to stand still?  (No, NOT literally!  Forget the couch to 5k thing!)

 

Not sure where the next WI will take me but I've had some kind of virus which, aside from making me pathetically weak and with a splitting headache, makes me feel nauseous in the evenings - so I've not eaten a lot.  Mind you, a couple of meals have been toast.  Not good on the carb front - what DO you eat that's bland and comforting but not carbs?  I can't work it out anyway.

 

I'm hoping to get out for a proper hike on Sunday - I need to feel better for the weekend, surely?  And hurrah for three day weekends (even if I don't finish work until Saturday morning)!

 

 

 

* I am not that dirty, promise

 

Running scared

No, no, NO!  I need to start by clarifying – I am not intending to do the Couch to 5k programme.  And this is because I already did this for a year (and started it again maybe a year after that).  Probably only Lesley will remember this but I really did give it my best shot and I did persevere and I HATED it.  Which would have been okay if it had made me lose weight: Reader, it did not.
 
No, my exercise is mainly about walking these days – I try to incorporate as much as possible into my working week and then P and I go hiking most weekends or days off.  I don’t suppose it will achieve much but as it’s not painful – indeed, I really enjoy it most of the time (getting us lost miles and miles from the car apart!) so I don’t resent the time spent on it.
 
So, I think I need to come up with some sort of way of recording my weight: I DID get on SoD today (which I think was extraordinarily brave btw) and I either stayed the same or put a little bit on.  So, I’m going to revert to my impossible-to-penetrate code system of a few years ago and name my stone brackets:  I am currently Repulsive.9 1/2 .  The next stone brackets in a downward direction (I cannot bear to go the other way) will be:
Obese
Very Fat
Fat
Chubby
Plump
Normal

Obviously I’d like to be in the Normal bracket (the one under that would be Slim.  I’m really not that much of a dreamer to imagine I would ever, could ever get there) but to be honest, Plump would be fine.  Hell, Chubby would be fine.  Or, you know, any downward trajectory.

 
I think that I need to have made serious inroads into the Fat bracket to get into my winter coat before the chilly Autumn weather returns.  That’s a lot of lardage.  Into which I’m making little headroom. 
 
It could, of course, have been worse.  I could have put more on.  We do have a meal out this weekend but mostly it’s looking like a pretty clear week – let’s see if SoD can grant me a loss this week.
 
In other news: I didn’t get shortlisted for a job I really wanted.  There’s a long story here that explains my level of disappointment which I will not try your patience with, dear Reader, but it’s obviously compounded by the extremely unpleasant environment I’m increasingly desperate to escape.  And on top of feeling so low (for which read: fat) it was all a bit much.  I am very resilient and I will bounce back but things feel a bit bleak at the moment.
 
Which brings me on to telling the psychologist that I didn’t think it was worth continuing.  It was an awful session – firstly because we went over how I feel about my weight and appearance which is very hard and painful for me anyway.  And then she said she’d felt she’d failed and I was overwhelmed with guilt.  I was so upset that I had to practically sprint from her office and my legs still feel like jelly. 
 
Still, a four day weekend is just the tonic for most ills.  We may only manage one hike but it’s going to be a good one (fingers crossed for good weather) and there’s the whole four days off thing again which is pretty damn amazing. 

Cry fowl

I'm back - back at work and back on the blog.  Things are still tough but I'm trying to capture a bit of a 'new term' vibe.

I haven't weighed myself since my last post, dear Reader.  I've been feeling so bad about myself that I was just too chicken to face the malevolent SoD - I do not share Seren's optimism that it will treat me anything but cruelly.  I have to do it - I know I do.  I've earmarked Wednesday for The Deed but I feel no sense of determination or resolve.  As Caroline pointed out, it's tough to lose weight when you've had three meals out, no matter how sensible (Mothers' Day - grrr).   And Hazel: damnit, that weigh in was PRE those meals.  Shiver, quake, cluck, cluck, cluck...

But thank you all for all your comments - it's really heartening to know that on pretty much the only place I feel I can 'speak' that I can get support and advice.  I actually find it incredibly difficult to talk about my feelings in real life - if bottling things up ever were to become an Olympic sport, I would be supreme champion - so this outlet is extremely important to my vestiges of sanity.

I've worked really hard on the decorating - and no sooner did the achiness from that ease than I got us lost on a moderate hike which then turned into a mammoth hike, just to get back to the car.  I always feel I ought to get more of a SoD acknowledgement of exercise.  I don't really understand why it doesn't work for me, Gabby.  When I did LL and was thus surviving on 550 cals of artifically flavoured dust a day, I was running (or at least, doing the couch potato to 5k plan) and it made NOT A JOT of difference.  Ditto when I've been a gym bunny. 

I pretty much have to stick with the low-carbing thing, Lisa, because of the diabetes thing and it is noticeable how it smooths out my blood sugar levels.  But I think I need to cut it to the bone, as Stephanie and Amy have alluded to - maybe I'm somehow mis-managing it with the odd (carefully chosen but nonetheless) pudding.  I think this is one of the reasons I'm afraid to approach SoD as I've eased up on the carb restrictions whilst we've been decorating: I've told myself that I was doing physically enough that the carbs would be burnt straight away but as Amy, Hazel and Stephanie have hinted at, it's easy to deceive yourself or just honestly make a mistake.  Constant vigilance, as Madeye Moody would say.  Although possibly not about dieting.

I'm actually thinking about stopping seeing the psychologist.  She's very nice but I find it very hard to talk anyway and work are not happy about me coming in an hour late once a fortnight (no matter that I work over my hours pretty much every day).  Also, although it's interesting and has been a bit helpful to discuss my dysfunctional childhood, the elephant in the room is me and I how I feel about my weight.  I've talked about it (well, sobbed, really) but she can't make me slim and she can't make me feel anything but very unhappy about the way I look - so really, what's the point?  Rhetorical question there.

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.