For quite a while now, I've been thinking about and talking about buying an MP3 Player. Not necessarily an Ipod but an MP3 player of some kind. I can totally justify my purchase - I need music to keep me motivated at the gym and when walking. When I used to borrow my son's Ipod, it really kept me going and going longer and harder (on the treadmill of course). Also an Ipod is rechargeable, so it would work out cheaper in the long run than buying say a discman and batteries. So, basically there is nothing to stop me from getting an MP3 player, right? Wrong.

See the thing is I decided to get the cheapest, nastiest MP3 player. I only need a 30-45 minute playlist to get through a gym workout so I don't need heaps of memory. And I could get that for under $100.

Then I thought some more. About how I ALWAYS buy myself the cheapest of anything. Even when I'm not trying to get my bills paid. Even when I can afford it. I have to justify any purchase by going cheap.

And suddenly this isn't just about MP3 players. This is about life and self-esteem and all those other things that tie into weight loss.

When I was a kid, my mum would spent lots of money on us for Christmas or birthdays then make us feel guilty because she couldn't afford it. Well me especially. My mum used to dump so many of our financial worries on me from the time I was about 10 years old, and we weren't even that badly off financial. Being a kid, I didn't realise that and I thought we were on the verge of bankruptcy all the time. So I never felt like I could ask for anything, never had unfettered joy in anything I was given. It was a constant cycle of extravagent spending then heavy guilt. And the worse bit was that most of the stuff we got was junk. It wasn't even stuff we wanted. I remember I wanted a good camera. That was all I wanted. I tried to tell my mum that I wanted one good thing instead of a whole swag of little knick-knacks but she didn't understand.

One year at Christmas, we got our usual presents but somehow my sister or I mentioned something about getting a trampoline so my parents went to the post-Christmas sales and got us one. Even those they "couldn't afford" and kept telling us we were so spoilt. If that wasn't bad enough, instead of getting the cheapo, reduced trampoline they intended to buy, we had to get a much expensive one so it would take my weight. Blerk. I remember sitting in the car on the way home, my forehead on the glass of the side window, staring out wishing they'd never bought the bloody thing and it would all just stop. No trampoline and no guilt.

So even now, I have these things ingrained in me - that I have to buy the cheapest and make do with that; that no purchase is without guilt. The whole stupid paradox here is that it is okay to buy stupid shit, cheap junk, to spend money you can't afford so long as you don't waste money.

I now know, in my head, that is okay to spend money on quality. But I don't feel it. I think that's why I'll go out and spend say $100 on shit that I don't need and deprive myself of the things I really do need (or want). I'm not in touch with my true wants.

I'm like that with food too. While I crave one thing, I'll make do with something else. And something else. And something else.

I think this is something that I will have to discuss with my counsellor when I see her.