MppffffmeeOWWWW

That, dear Reader, is the noise of a cat escaping from a bag.

I have news; glad tidings, in fact. I am affianced, betrothed, intended.

This startling turn of affairs occurred at the weekend in Devon but I had a couple of friends who read my blog that I had to tell in person. That is now done – just one of my best friends to tell (scheduled for Thursday).

In a fit of Victoriana, I almost fainted when bf asked me to marry him. I went so white, he held on to me as he thought I was going to pass out! I then (romantically) sputtered:

“WHAT?”
“Yes!”
“WHAT?”

Then after 15 mins, I made him propose all over again, just to be sure. He did say he'd text it to me so I could check it as I wished - but nothing so far.

I spent the weekend stupefied, stunned, shocked. He had (wisely) not chosen a ring but the very first jewellers we visited on Wednesday (a funny little place that clearly still thinks it’s the 1920s) had – not what I’d thought of , but nonetheless the perfect ring for us. (Except for the price maybe! Bf nobly didn’t wince and indeed pressed me to have it over a much cheaper one that I also liked (not as much admittedly) and would have been quite happy with.) It is an antique Art Deco ring with a square sapphire of quite incredible blue, surrounded by extremely sparkly diamonds. And I didn’t think I cared for diamonds particularly! I care for these, very much!

I had stopped imagining this day, it hurt too much to think it would never come. But when I did, I imagined that I would feel more secure but not that it would make me feel so loved-up, so determined to cherish what we have and indeed cherish him. I will be an Aged Bride as we think it will be October/November 2012 when we actually marry but I will manage this (and not with Botox. Although....)

I know you will understand, dear Reader, that I am glad that he didn’t propose at my slimmest (although not glad that I have to get to that weight and indeed get slimmer than slimmest) as I would have linked those two things inextricably and used it as a stick to beat myself. Now, I have to – at my geriatric snail’s pace – get to a size 12-14 I think to be happy in a wedding dress. And I have to get there by next year and keep it there for the following year. Just as well SoD granted me a 2lb loss this week (call it an engagement present!) 3lbs if you count it from Monday when I’d put on a lb after the weekend. It’s very confusing. Still, I think it’s a grand total of 4lbs this month which is distinctly not stellar. I’m going to need this long engagement just to get into a dress without looking like the flipping marquee.

But this weekend is about Naughty R’s wedding. In traditional female wedding guest fashion I have:
· Outfit that feels slightly too tight
· Shoes that are too high for comfort (or, er, walking or standing)
· Something borrowed (thanks Beth!)

And my shiny new (to me) engagement ring to admire in the sunshine (hoping for sunshine! And not just for me I hasten to add)

My jacket has cap sleeves. WHO ever thought that cap sleeves would flatter anyone? Except Michelle Obama – and look how much media coverage she got simply out of being able to look good in cap sleeves. The jacket also has a peplum thing though which is good. I would say that hopefully people will look at my arse not my bingo wings except I don’t hope that at all. I’m sure all eyes will be on the bride and I’ll be able to sneak my bingo wings past all scrutiny, largely (ho ho) un-noticed.

Got to dash, mwah, mwah.

Thy SoD is a jealous and vengeful SoD

Or mine is anyway, hope thine is otherwise. And my SoD (Scales of Doom) is particularly heavy on the vengefulness. Or is it me who is heavy? Well, after last week's frankly piss-poor WI (either half a pound on or off - the SoD couldn't really be bothered to say either way), I had hoped for a bumper week this week. But when I WI on Friday - either I lost 1 single solitary lb (if I put on a half lb last week) or I lost 1/2 lb (if I lost 1/2 lb last week). Either way, well, really. It's not on. I am pretty much busting a gut here. And so I want to, er, bust a gut. And of course, I WI this morning to see the damage put on over the weekend and it's 1lb. Which wouldn't be so bad if it didn't equate to 2 weeks hard work to lose it!

Weekend was lovely (more on that next week probably) - gorgeous weather, surroundings and company. Actually did talk to bf about the gastric bypass - he's really not keen. He said that he loved me as I am (which is nice!) and it would amount to putting myself through alot purely for vanity's sake - and that he thought it would make me very unhappy if I couldn't eat properly ever again. He also pointed out that I'm pretty keen on being healthy in so many ways and that this would be the antithesis of that. It's a good argument - of course, he doesn't realise just how unhappy I am at this size (he may love me as I am - but I don't) so it's not quite vanity, more mental health I think. But I do think I owe it to both of us to exhaust just about everything else first. Including plodding on at 0.5lbs a week.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingsall's restaurant was disappointing though - an offal lot of offal. And what I had (offal-free) was fine - perfectly pleasant - but not amazing. It didn't touch Jamie Oliver's Fifteen (although as personalities I much prefer H's TV persona - there are only so many times you can hear the word 'nice' in one cookery programme without longing for at least one other choice of adjective).

One disturbing thing I noticed though is that if bf and I have broadly similar meals, I will get hungry again much more quickly than him. My specialist tells me - and I believe this - that my metabolism is basically flat as a wafer-thin pancake. But wouldn't that mean I got less hungry? My scientific knowledge is poor so this may be wrong. Either way though, it's confounding and frustrating. It also makes me feel like a greedy pig when I'm desparate for a snack and bf is still full.

More dash than flash

In haste, I dash this off before I dash off to catch a train. I have already missed one train – to miss any more might expose me to comment on the platform. I love Oscar Wilde.... I’m at a sort of all day meeting tomorrow (always problematic on the food front) and off to Devon for the weekend (including that trip to Hugh Fearnley Wittingsall’s restaurant).

So, progress thus far this week. Food = pretty good, B+ (always room to do better). Exercise = B (not going to manage much on Thursday (work) or Friday (travelling) but cycled on Monday and Tuesday and did some weights in the gym this morning (not at all sure it was a worthwhile endeavour...)).

And teeny-tiny triumphs – wore chocolate lingerie set (the colour, not the ambrosial food substance 'cos that would be messy) yesterday and it did not cause me pain all day! Unlike my shoes now – ow – but not putting that down to podgy feet! Am a bit squeezed into summer skirt today (cue the clouds descending and it suddenly going grey and windy – and no, I have no jacket) but in one nonetheless. I am choosing to ignore a panic buying session to the shops at lunchtime when I could not get into either skirt I selected as a smarter choice for tomorrow than what I have packed. Yikes! I have a new boss to impress who is very old school and I suspect I am not smart enough. Ah well, nothing I can do now... Except worry....

So the weekend has some eating in store for me (ahem! maybe an overstatement but I will do my best, brownie's honour) but also a long walk on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it so much anyway. I will consult the ever censorious SoD before I go off on Friday – I’m owed a benign reading, I think you’ll agree.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E

It’s over between us. I gave it a good go but it’s just been too much to bear – it was a one-way relationship and I was putting all the effort in. Yep, me and running are through. The big split came on Sunday, when I’d heaved myself out of my bed far earlier than I’d wanted, to embark on Week 4, Run 1. Now, I was already unhappy with the jumps in the programme (from 90 secs running to 3 mins last week), well, get this: Week 4 was run for 3 mins, walk for 90 secs then run for 5 mins, walk for 2mins, 30 secs (and then do it all again – yay(NOT)). I did it – just. And I did not get a runners high, I hated every long, long second of it. And I was dreading week 5 all the way– just checked and it moves up through the week from 5 mins, to 8 mins to 20 MINS RUNNING! It would kill me – probably quite literally. So I’m stopping the whole sorry business. I feel bad, in fact I feel like a big, fat loser (and not in the weight loss way, sadly) to have failed at this. If I were enjoying it OR the weight was dropping off, I’d keep going (although there’s no way I’d be able to run for 20 mins straight next week) but I don’t and it doesn’t.

My alternative plan is to go to the fitness room in the basement of our flats and work on the weights machines for 20 mins or so – and then, if I have enough time, walk in in my MBTs. Everything I’m reading at the moment seems to say that building muscle speeds up metabolism – and as my specialist has attested, I have an abnormally sluggish metabolism (or what Claire calls arseybodyitis!) and need all the help I can get in this department. Interestingly, there was a (opinion column) piece in the Observer saying that MBTs do work (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/16/polly-vernon-what-i-bought-this-week-mbts) – can’t say I’ve noticed much “sculpting, toning, lifting and separating’ but I’m prepared to keep plugging away. Maybe my legs and arse are more of a challenge than Polly Vernon’s! In fact, I’m sure of it.

I’ve been very good over the weekend – yes, I’ve had a couple of treats but I’ve really balanced that with very sensible, low-cal choices. My main course on Saturday came with a pile of chips that I promptly off-loaded onto my 17 year old stepson’s plate, leaving myself a maximum of 12. He was groaning with his head on the table when he’d eaten (not quite all of it) and only temporarily perked up to scoff a brownie with ice cream before slumping again. And I have not had so much as a tiny glass of wine all weekend which I guess helps.

Going back to my specialist, I saw him last week. He’s still keen that I have a gastric bypass. I don’t fancy it one little bit. Given that he reckons that Lighter Life has suppressed my metabolism virtually out of existence, I couldn’t see that eating the same calories because of an op could be any better. He said that people who had the op generally lost most of their interest in food; I said that I suspected this is because they kept throwing up every time they tried to eat which would tend to put one off rather. He said that actually it seemed to affect ghrelins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin) and was impressed I knew what this meant. I’ve said I’ll see this other operation specialist – IF he contacts me which he’s not got a good track record on - but I have to say I am really, really not keen. Of course, I’m not keen on staying fat either. It really does seem to be a choice between the devil and the deep, blue sea. The specialist has promised that in the time the op would take to come up, he’d continue to look for new drugs which might help but wasn’t able to offer any more hope than that – thin hope indeed. Ho ho.

Oh, for SoD's sake...

You may remember that I waged war on Scales of Doom after their – frankly - poor pronouncement last week. I suppose I realised that I may have been biting off more than I can chew, that I was David against Goliath or (for Lesley) Sheffield Wednesday against Chelsea. SoD hammered this point home this morning when I, bleary eyed after not enough sleep and tired after a week of early starts to get all this exercise in, nervously consulted it. It couldn’t quite decide whether I had lost or gained a measly half a pound. To lose half a pound with all that exercise (3 runs, 3 cycle rides, people!) is depressingly pathetic, to GAIN half a pound is pathetically depressing. In the end, SoD got sick of my sodding about, jumping on and off it, and told me that I’d gained a pound and a half. Chastened, I returned SoD to its lair and worked on ignoring its threatened 1.5lbs gain.

Annoyingly, I was pretty confident that I would have good news to report this morning – I’d even started formulating the post in my head! It seems that all that exercise has passed SoD by (but it does appear to remember the scone). But I resisted more scones the next day AND Krispy Kremes – should that automatically remove lard from my personage? In my head when I do this, there are clacker style boards - like the old-style train announcement boards - taking ounces off me.

And stupidly, even masochistically given my ego-bashing at the hands of the phantom wedding outfit, I tried on lots of my summer skirts yesterday as I removed them from deep storage (optimistically) to cram them into my wardrobe. The good news is that I might be able to squeeze into 4 – the minimum I need for work – the bad news is that several things that were a little tight a month ago, and that I was therefore hoping would be okay now, weren’t. In fact, there was no discernable difference. So it seems that I am not losing inches either.

Just to reassure you after your lovely comments to my last but one post (The Long and Whinging Road) that this does not mean I’m giving up. Oh no, this a battle unto death. I don’t even think that’s an exaggeration. I’m never going to stop trying to be slimmer. Sometimes I take some time to lick my wounds (and, er, the odd chocolate bar) but I always come back – bloody, beaten but unbowed.

Of course, I do feel that after – what? – 3 odd years of really putting my back into this, that I should be at the battling to maintain stage (and I don’t underestimate that that’s a whole new offensive in the war against flab) and not fighting to get down to and beyond my lowest weight over that period - or even my post LL weight (currently 2 st, 3 lbs heavier than my lightest weight which was the summer before last).

Realistically I’m only going to manage a max of 3 runs and 2 cycle rides in next week as I’m not at work on Friday. So stick that in your pipe, SoD, and smoke it. Brave words but I know I'll be quaking again - still feel it owes me though!

Btw, LOVE the image of Curlygirl giving the Debenhams cubicle a good kicking (comments on The Long and Whinging Road) – don’t mess with the redheads, people!

The story of P (aka stupid girl)

WARNING: extreme introspection ahead.

I've been thinking about this on my cycle home. I feel I need to get it down; I've rushed in - haven't changed, eaten or showered. I need to write this - I'm not sure why or why it's significant but I feel that somehow, somewhere there's a clue in there that might help me.

When I was a teenager I was very pretty - in a particular way. I had the sort of curves that can only look good if reined in by youth, a fortunate metabolism and/or extreme deprivation (ie the sort that can't last!). I had had a miserable time from 11-15 and reinvented myself when I started at a boys school, that took just a few girls, when I was 16. I'd lost my remaining puppy fat and I guess had hit my peak. I had the sort of prettiness that consisted of jailbait curves combined with absurd innocence, ditsiness and compliance - even docility - it's an irresistable combination to many men. I suddenly saw myself reflected in the admiration in boys' eyes and I felt good about myself for the first time - my father had always told me I was stupid, worthless and ugly (except for a brief period at 16 when he took me out with his work mates to wine bars, held my hand and bought me clothes that he confided that he couldn't buy for my mother because she was too overweight). At school were other males - ones who told me I had the best legs in school (there were only about 30 girls I hasten to add and I was by no means the prettiest - or even in the top 3), that I was gorgeous, pretty, lovely etc. I was eager to please, eager, if I'm honest, to keep that buzz I got from admiration (although there were a few times it was frightening too). I ate next to nothing, feeling almost powerful in shedding the pretty normal chubbiness I had had. I took no exercise other than frolicking half-heartedly and prettily with a badminton racket occasionally when I had to do games at school.

The boy I really liked - typically - didn't want to go out with me; we were friends as I tried hard to get him to like me. He told me that he was afraid that he would hurt me, that he had a nasty temper. I wasn't afraid although I probably should have been. I went out with someone who pushed hard for it and then cheated on me, in front of me and then wept until I forgave him. I was hopeless at saying no. I didn't want to risk that novelty of being liked and admired. I was quite revoltingly passive. There were boys at uni who I let hold my hand, even kiss me - although I didn't kiss them back - even though by then I had a boyfriend who I really liked. Still, the combination of wanting to be liked, and reveling in the effect I had on men, was seductive. It was a horrible way to behave.

I had no real personality - now I would say that I am a woman of strong opinions and convictions, some people find me witty (not bf sadly - he looks at me with a mixture of bemusement and uncomprehension when I tell a story that has them roaring at work), I would even say I'm quite spiky. Actually, there were signs of the spikiness even then: I remember the only other girl in my history class fixing the teacher with her poutiest, most limpid-eyed expression (she was a very pretty girl), fiddling pointedly with the button at her cleavage and lisping prettily "Was Xerxes sexy Mr A_?" and me snapping "Oh yes, because we're bound to get that as an A level question. Was Xerxes sexy? Discuss with reference to the Ionian Revolt, considering the archaeological and contemporary source information to illustrate your answer". The teacher told me reprovingly that I was "waspish" and referred to me in those terms for the rest of the year.

And one of my friends now, interestingly enough - I hope she'll forgive me for saying this - was the opposite of me. She tells me she was overweight in her teenage years - her relationships with boys were more equal, they were friends too; she concentrated on pleasing herself as well as others. She has skills now from having those friendships that mean she can thrash most men at pool or at arcade games - and she can hold her own in any conversation about anything. She developed her personality, rather than concentrating on being pleasing. Now she's slim AND she has all the personality that made her attractive anyway - seriously, if I leave her anywhere for a moment now, some bloke will hit on her. Not that she usually realises! Good for her though.

And now I wonder if where I am now, how I am now, is some kind of divine (or otherwise) retribution for that silly, shallow girl I used to be. I remember finding a classmate's cardigan which was slung down, showing a size 18 label, and being horrified that anyone could allow themselves to get so big. Serves me right really to have been that size - still am that size sometimes. And what have I learnt? I don't want to be the vapid creature I once was but after everything, if I had to trade what I am now to be as pretty as I was then, I'd still do it in a heartbeat. How's that for shallow and stupid?

The long and whinging road

In my ‘real’ life, I find it very difficult to talk about things that upset me. I literally choke on the words. I am a very archetypal buttoned up, repressed, stiff-upper-lipped Brit. I find it so much easier to ‘talk’ on here. Sometimes I worry that if I moan on here, no-one will read it and – worse – that they’ll be rolling their eyes at my tedious self-indulgence. But I’ve decided that not even I can be so absurdly people-pleasing that I deny myself the relief of unburdening myself here – metaphorically unbuttoning and letting my flab hang out, if you will. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you with that image! But I apologise, dear Reader, if this is just too damn irritating for words.

Are there any occasions more mentally torturous than a real rub-your-nose-in-it shopping session? Last night I went to look for an outfit for Naughty R’s wedding in case I either a) couldn’t squeeze into the outfit I had in mind and/or b) it was so bloody freezing that a short sleeved jacket would essentially be committing suicide by hypothermia. I can’t really afford anything new but I did feel that a boost from feeling that I looked good in a new frock would be the sort of lift I need right now.

Well, you know what they say about best laid plans? Something about them going awry for mice and men apparently. And women too, it would seem. I tried on 7 dresses in John Lewis and 3 in Debenhams. I can honestly say that I looked absolutely ghastly in every single one. Most of them were too tight to do up, a couple got wedged around my hips. And that was in a size 18. I usually wear a 16 but am clearly kidding myself. And it followed a ghastly day too – it was the cherry AND the icing on that particular poisoned cupcake. Shouldn’t shopping be fun?

It was utterly, utterly soul-destroying; I wanted to cry – and then eat chocolate and then cry a bit more, repeat, ad lib to fade... I ended up by saying “Well, let’s go and eat – you can do that at any size”. And that sums it up.

It really – brutally – rammed home, rubbed my nose in it, that I am a fat bird. It doesn’t matter that I am two stone lighter than my heaviest weight (and sadly, 2 stone heavier than my lightest – felt every ounce of that), it doesn’t matter how much running and cycling and walking I do or how many salads I eat or how many times I don’t have the chocolate or the cake or the sweets or whatever it is, I am fat, fat, fat. And my (lack of) progress means that I might never be anything else, no matter how hard I try.