 |
iDiet[a weight loss story]
*kathrynoh at nemesis dot com dot au* |
 |
|
|
::31.8.05:: Born To Be Wild I've had a number of things brewing in my head, maybe not so much brewing as being melded together in a mad-scientist-type environment. These pieces have come from sources like Renee's excellent post on American obesity, a comment from my shrink on how while trying to lose weight I need to replenish myself and work on my novel-in-progress - The Bad Girls Club (note to self: less blogging = more novel written, less novel in progress). The Frankenstien monster that has risen from these pieces is this: Inside us all is the need to be bad. That demon that sits on your shoulder and leads you astray. Bingeing, overeating and eating wrong can come from emotional reasons, from stresses and worries of life, from all number of events but sometimes we eat bad just because we want to be bad. We are sick to death of always doing the right thing - picking the salad over the hot chips, picking the fruit over the chocolate, picking the water over the wine. Not to mention measuring and weighing and counting and getting your butt off the couch and down to the gym. We know the benefits but sometimes we want to rebel. We want to overthrow the chains for goodness and just break out. Trouble is most of us do break out - we break out the chocolate, we break out the beer, we break out the chips. Often we get told to make sure we look after ourselves, to have some non-food treats like the ubiquitous bubble bath. But I think we need to go beyond that. I think we need to build some non-food naughtiness into our lives. Now I'm not advocating knocking over your local 7-11 or embezzling the company funds and running off Rio just some little everyday badness. A secret thrill that only you need know about. I don't mean doing anything wrong just something fun. Sitting in a sidewalk cafe with your best girlfriend oogling buttocks is fun, sleeping with your husband's best friend - that's wrong. Of course, we all have our limits and definitions of naughtiness. What causes a tingle of excitment in me might strike you as passe. Or have you gasping for air. But here are a few things I thought of, off the top of my head:
Okay, some of those are pretty lame and I'm sure you could think up much better things. You know when you're hit on something naughty but do-able. It's that idea that gets you right in the stomach. That gives you that "no I can't, but maybe I could" feeling. A friend once told me of a woman she knew who had a great way to deal with depression - she'd put on her best suit, do her face and her hair and head to a luxury car yard. She'd act interested in buying a porsche or mercedes and take one out for a test drive. How great is that? Sure bets the hell out of sneaking off alone to mope with a chocolate bar (or two). I'm going to try it anyway. No more snivelling "I'm bad, I ate some biscuits"; from now on when I'm bad it's going to be because I partied until dawn, dancing on tables and terrorising men (all with low-cal beverages, of course). LOL , i love the idea of dressing up flash & test driving expensive cars! fantastic! i agree, I feel the need to rebel at times, thanks for some ideas :P
I like the suspender idea...
By
Thanks for making me think about that !!! LOL, love most of those ideas EXCEPT : Don't stick a knife in the toaster unless the powerpoint is turned off - or you won't be here to write any more interesting and funny posts for us!!! Have fun.
::30.8.05:: Walking Against The Wind The weather here is insane. I walked home from work tonight and boy was it a workout. The winds were so strong that I could hardly move at all at time, like some demented mime. That has to burn calories. I didn't make it all the way home this time. I piked about 2/3 of the way, between the wind and the flying grit attacking me. Still a good effort though. Tonight I was talking to my sister. She is only 5 kilos lighter than me but 10 cm shorter. I think I am officially not the fattest sister in my family now. We decided to have a challenge between now and Christmas. My sister reckons she can lose 30 kilos but I told her that was stupid. She said people can lose 2 kilos a week and I told yeah but they don't keep them off. She saw the sense in that. The winner gets something that has much sentimental value to both of us to keep. At the moment, I'm trying to break my snacking habit. Snacking is good but not when it is constant. I can stay under my daily calories because I snack on healthy snacks but I'm making myself stick to allocated snack times this week. It's hard and several times this week already I've sat there watching the clock tick over so I can have my apple. It's hard but I think worth it in the end.
Hi Kathryn,
By
That wind can really dial up the resistance on the walking, no?
Just a question - if your snacking is allowed within your calories for the day - why are you worried about eating constantly ? When you eat it keeps you metabolism high which means that the fat is burning off quicker. At the end of it all I guess you really need to do what works for you. Yes the weather here is horrible too. I am sick of it. I too have lots of snacks, but as long as they are healthy I try not to worry.
Hi Kathryn,
By
Just to clear things up - I'm not trying to cut out snacks altogether just between-snack-snacks. I've managed to cut my snacking from high fat/high sugar to low fat/low sugar but I still have that impulse to put something in my mouth constantly throughout the day.
::29.8.05:: Swimming I went swimming tonight after work. I like the idea of swimming but when I actually get in the pool and do laps, I remember that it bores the pants off me (not literally, thank god). After about three laps, I start watching the clock. Every minute takes forever. Next time I decide to go to the pool, I must remember that. Swimming is fun when it's for fun, but for exercise it's the pits. Now I have to go eat. I've had dinner but I'm still starving. Swimming does that to me.
According to a recent article I read:
By
Good point Debra, although at least it's a healthy appetite and not just a craving for junk food. I think it is important to find an exercise that you really like doing. I hate doing things that are a chore. Don't blame you for being bored with swimming laps.
I'm with you on the swimming...doesn't do it for me either. Just remembered - it's called deep water running
I used to be a comp swimmer too, just like Jodie, and I remember I used to be starving after every session, yet if I run on the treadmill for 2 minutes (yep - 2 minutes) I can't eat for an hour. Weird.. Just did a big catch up and the study on the diet follow ups is really interesting. And it would make sense. Who honestly could live their lives being deprived of anything? If you follow a healthy-ish, balanced diet which incorporates treats as well as whole foods you are more likely to be able to stick to it longer term. Jaykay, I want to do deep water running but the only place I know that has it is the Albert Park aquatic centre and that is too far away.
::28.8.05:: Spud I've been craving a baked spud from the spud shop down the street for days. A couple of times I've cooked jacket potatoes at home but it just isn't the same, so today I got one for lunch. Then I came home and worked out the calories – whoa! By my calculations (which are a rough estimation at best), it was around 850 calories or 3400 kilojoules. If I'm at the supermarket looking at food and it has more than 2000 kilojoules then I drop it like a hot potato (no pun intended). That is a lot of kilojoules in one meal, but it was damn good. Still next time, because there will be a next time, I might make a few modifications. I usually get hommus instead of sour cream but I think if I got the hommus instead of the sour cream and butter it would cut back a lot of the kilojoules and fat. Also, if I get them to go easy on the cheese then I could cut out a lot more. Still I had a light brekkie, and if I have light dinner I should be right. I think I'm getting a relapse of the flu again. I have the chilly-sweats and keep sneezing. Worst of all, I have no energy at all. It sucks. I'd like to work that spud off but all I want to do is sleep. Hope you don't get a relapse. Yum, I love hot spuds.
Hope you are feeling better soon and don't land up having a relapse. Take care of yourself and hope you have a good week !
Hey, thanks for stopping by.
By Thanks guys. Lucinda, you must be a mind reader - that's where I got my spud :) Wouldn't it be nice if excess carbohydrates and fat made us feel like exercising instead of taking a nap? Anytime I eat something like a loaded baked potato, I might as well just turn down the bed because I'm headed to dreamland shortly thereafter. Hope you don't relapse. It's very debilitating to struggle with illness whilst trying to otherwise lose weight, work and live life.
By
Freaky....
By
Seriously, how is it that the traditional toppings for spuds include cheese, bacon, butter, and sour cream?? I'm going to try salsa or some other spices next time I make a baked potato.
By
::27.8.05:: Studies Show... Normally I'm not one to take too much heed of studies into weight loss - there are a lot of dodgy studies done and I'm sure if you worked it right, you could prove anything with your study - but when I was in at the gym the other night there was an article posted on the noticeboard with details of a study done by CSIRO who seem to be a pretty reliable source. The study initially tracked people on three different diets - low fat, low carbs and the diet recommended by the HeartSmart foundation - for 12 months. They found that there was no difference in weight loss between the plans, so long as you followed a plan, you'd lose weight. The article was about the follow up study. I'm not sure how much later they followed up but they checked if the people in the study had kept losing, maintained or gained. This was where the differences between the plans really showed. The people on the low fat and low carb diets hadn't stuck to their plans and had gained weight. Those on the HeartSmart recommended diet, which basically involved adjusting their normal diet to make it healthy, kept on plan. It's pretty understandable really - it is far easier to adjust your habits than change them completely. I can't even follow a plan. Any diet that says you have to eat certain foods on certain days losses me before I start. I went on that Quick Start diet with the soup once. I got to 3 o'clock and was craving a salad roll so bad I couldn't stand it. Then I thought about it - if I was craving chocolate or hot chips or pie then it would have been worth fighting, but how stupid is it to beat yourself up for wanting a salad roll. Mmm salad roll... I could go one now... one of those Vietnamese rolls with the marinated carrot stuff... Anyway, I should be getting some exercise. I've been a lazy-butt all day.
A bloggers convention this weekend in Albemarle
By
Oh, I'm not a spam fan! Ban the spam!
Today I didn't get to sleep until late last night so I was so tempted to stay in bed this morning. But I didn't. I got up and went to the market. And boy, was I glad I did. The market is so much more a pleasant place to be when you get there early - much less people and all the stall holders are chatty and happy. I did some good shopping - low fat mince and stir fry beef, some scrummy looking shaslicks. I also got a chicken breast to make Suzie's delicious Chicken Kiev recipe. I also got stacks of vegies - my crisper drawer is jammed full of them. I didn't get much fruit though - most of it was either cheap but unappetitising-looking or expensive. I also got some freshly made pasta. Yum. And a bunch of bright red ramnuculus. There is a pastry stall filled with all kinds of yummy Italian pastries. Normally I walk past, averting my eyes, but today I thought because I've been good with my eating mostly this week, I'd get one as a treat. I checked it out then decided that they really didn't look that appealing. I got a blueberry bagel instead and came home and toasted it then sat outside in the sun. I'd been planning to exercise today but I'm feeling yuck. I don't think I'm fully over the flu. I had a nap this afternoon and I really feel like I should go and appreciate the sun while it's shining but I'm so blah. I guess one day off isn't such a big deal and I'll do a good session tomorrow.
Oh, all that stuff sounds so good! I love getting to the markets to get awesome fresh produce. Don't do it often enough.
::26.8.05:: Friends: A Rant I have a few things to say about friends: first up I want to get something off my chest that has been annoying the hell out of me lately. You might have experienced it too. I tell you, the next person who tells me they don't have time to exercise is going to cop the biggest ear bashing. Exercise or don't exercise - I don't care but I also don't want to hear your excuses. I have one friend who works but has no kids and she keeps whinging to me that she wants to exercise but she has no time because she has to do housework. She actually says this with the emphasis as if she is somehow superior to me because I don't have to do housework (I'm not lazy, I just live in a share house where no one does the housework, I mean the house duties are shared). But, screw it, I started this whole lifestyle change while I was living with my son and having to clean a two bedroom house plus cook for him and all that. It was no big deal. She has a partner who is quite the SNAG so she is cleaning half a house that is living in by two adults. If she mentions it again, I might ask her just how filthy they are cos that's a lot of housework. Lets face it, people can run entire countries and still find time to exercise. People can amass fortunes and still exercise. People can raise a family of small kids and work and still exercise (and that's probably the hardest of all three). It's a question of priorities. Do you want to watch tv or workout? And, lets face it, you can watch Desperate Housewives just as easily while you're walking on the treadmill at the gym as you can at home. Trust me, I used to do it all the time when I didn't have tv. Somthing else that bugs me is how people react during food discussions. For example, I was having dinner with friends last week and they were talking about the delicious, calorie laden desserts they'd made lately (yeah, one of them was the friend that didn't have time to exercise) and I told them my favourite dessert at the moment was raspberries folded through diet mousse. They groaned and rolled their eyes. I wasn't saying it to make them feel bad about their eating habits but because it is my favourite dessert. And, might I add, much better than microwaved M & Ms (gross, you may as well leave the pack on the dashboard of your car). You know something, people talk about losing friends as they lose weight (in most cases it's just shedding useless kilos that DON'T show up on the scales anyway, who wants a friend that wants you fat). I can see that the jealous and wanting to keep the status quo is a big issue but I also think that people want friends that validate their behaviour. They want friends that say - yeah, no one has time to go to the gym, or why do you want to lose weight anyway? Have another Kit Kat. I'd never be rude enough to suggest that my any of my friends should do what I'm doing. If they are happy with their lives then what do I care? But I sure as hell am not going to be an enabler and accept their feeble excuses. By the way, I've never said I'm too busy to exercise. Too lazy, yes. I might have many bad qualities but I'm honest with myself. Edited: cos I meant to add that as well as working full time I also spend a lot of time writing my novel which is a gruelling and time consuming task (plus I have to fit in much web surfing. How the hell can anyone without internet complain about having no time?)
I have been following your blog for about a week or so now - please feel free to drop by mine from time to time.
By
**clap clap clap**
An interview with Adam Savage from Mythbusters
By
And there's this new diet fad: spamvertisement on your blog. :P First off, if you want to help prevent this, go to your Blogger settings, and under Comments there should be a Yes/No for allowing word verification. Set that to YES. Your Blog. It's nice . If you have a traffic issue, I'm sure you'd be interested in business lead generation . There's lots of information about business lead generation stuff.
By
Thanks for the nice blog - do you want to make
By Yes I was just lazy too! Thought I had excuses, but I didn't really. Yum raspberries and choc mousse sounds nice. Who needs all that cream! Not us! Isnt it funny how people react when u mention diet or healthy eating - maybe they all of a sudden feel bad they aren't careful about what they eat & try & make u feel worse? I do believe we should surround ourselves with supportive people when trying to loose weight & if people can't accept you are doing something for you, then they should gret a life! I'm in total agreeance with your rant!
Woah, go the spam! Damn bots.
Om Malik riffs on the Google OS
By
Sick Again I was going to walk home from work again today but around 3.00 got the worst headache/migraine. I'm not sure about the migraine thing cos I was getting the lights and the nausea and the loss of peripheral vision like with a migraine but the pain was in my neck around my under-ears. Damn it. I need to get this checked out - it's happened a few times lately. Guess I should be snuggled up in bed, sleeping this off instead of on the internet but it's dulled down a lot now. Must go to bed...
Hi, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!
By
Take That, Plateau. Blam. Whap. I thought I'd never break through the 93s. For the past through weeks I've been hovering around 93-94 and it's been as frustrating as hell, especially since my exercising has been limited by that evil flu. So I did my weekly weigh in today - 91.7. How happy I am? Well done on the great loss! Have a lovely weekend. Congrats on the results this week. I hate it when people sell something as "Lean" and it quite obviously isn't - ripped off. Not your fault though but does reinforce the value of having a points guide handy. Love your honesty and have enjoyed catching up on your blog.
By Yaaaay! Well done! *happy dance* Excellent stuff. :) Yaay for you Kathryn....
::25.8.05:: Weird Day Nearly every day I have sushi or rice paper rolls for lunch, except yesterday when I made the mistake of having a panini from Hudsons. Today I really fancied something a bit different so wondered around the food court near work (I can't believe I used to have that disgusting food in the bain maries every day for lunch, it makes me feel ill to look at it now). I wandered down the side alleyway and found a Sumos Salads so thought I'd give that a try. They had no nutritional info about their food so I thought one of the Lean and Green salads was a safe bet. I looked it up when I got back to work and the Lean and Green salads have MORE calories and fat than most of the other salads on their menu. So I sent off an email off to the company. That is just poor form. I could have had the Thai Beef salad instead of my Low GI Salad and had half the calories plus 4 grams of fat instead of 20! After work I had to go see my shrink again. It was an interesting session but I left feeling very drained. I'd tried to keep my calories (except for that salad) low today so I could have a Lean Cuisine lasagne for dinner but I just didn't have it in me to microwave it so I headed off to Pump Class thinking I'd eat later. I can't believe how weak I was in pump class - I had to use the lowest weights - but I'll bounce back. After class I called in to see my son and realised I was feeling incredibly weak and tired and spacey. Oops, low blood sugar. Doesn't happen to me much (low blood sugar is more prevalent for people with type 1 diabetes but can happen with type 2 if you don't eat enough or skip meals especially when you are taking medication to lower your blood sugar). My old method of dealing with it was to not eat - because I get too tired to even think about heating something and when I get like that, nothing appeals to me, or else to grab convenience/takeaway food and scoff it down. It's a weird feeling but I'd even get so calling a pizza was too much of an effort. That would mean, however, that I'd call a pizza but eat whatever was to hand while waiting for it. But this is the new and improved me. I was in the supermarket and instead of grabbing quick fixes, I got some quick and easy and good GI food - an apple to have straightaway and some baked beans for when I got home. I'm still feeling weaker than a new born kitten but a good night's sleep should see me bright and sparkly like new. Well done on choosing the low GI food. Have a wonderful weekend. Thanks Suzie :)
::24.8.05:: A Challenge! Cruising around the weight-loss-blogesphere, I often see people setting themselves challenges - the lose 5 kgs in 5 week challenge or whatever. I'm not really one for that kind of thing. To me, it's setting yourself, if not for failure, then to link your results to something you can't control. We all know how contrary those scales can be. I know I have my weight loss goals posts but, as they say in Pirates of the Carribean, they're more like guidelines really. Anyway, I've decided to set myself a challenge I can achieve, that is fully within my power. I call it the Week of No Stir-Fries Challenge. I'm a lazy cook and everyone knows that stir-fries are quick and easy and healthy and nutrious. They are pretty versatile too, just change the meat or the vegies or the sauce and you can have a new and exciting meal every week. For a while anyway. But it's gone on too long - I have stir-fry fatigue - I need something else in my life. So anyway, I think this challenge will help me to learn some new recipes and add some excitement to my life (sad, huh). This is what I've thought of so far:
Okay, that's as far as my thinking goes. If you have any good recipes then comment away, remembering that the only meat I eat is chicken or beef and maybe a little pork occassionally.
I love cous cous. plain, spicy, anyway. Yummm. And so easy. I am thinking about putting together some recipes so will hunt around for some for you. LOL! I stir-fry myself out, too, for the same reason - quick easy and nutritious and pretty variable. For a while! :) Do you use slow cookers (crock pots) down under? If you do, I'll send you some dynamite recipes that you prepare (quickly) in the morning and return home in the evening to nutritious and delicious and, best of all, done.
By Do you have easy access to a barbecue? We grill a lot of veggies and just have them (mostly sweet peppers and portabellos -- marinated in a bit of balsamic vinegar and garlic) with some grilled chicken or pork tenderloin. We often have that with a small salad or we make them into fajitas. It can be quick easy if you cut up the veggies and put them into the marinade the night before (or in the morning -- whatever works). Just toss it on the grill when you get home from work and it is done in no time. I'm so all about fast and easy when it comes to cookin'!
By
I love chicken parmas. Not the fatty ones my one!!
By
I don't have a slow cooker or a bbq :( I think it might be worth trying the vegies in the grill though esp doing them as fajitas! I didn't ever set goals for myself before I started on my weight loss journey, but I find it quite exciting now to try to achieve something that I normally wouldn't. Have a look at my recipes. You may find something. They are all easy, as that is the only type of cooking I can manage -easy recipes. Thanks guys. New recipes rock. One of my other limitations is that I live in a share house and I am too scared to use the oven or even open the oven door to look in it cos who knows when it was last cleaned. But the landlord is putting in a new stove soon so those curry beef filo rolls will be first on the list (and might cure my occasional sausage roll craving).
::23.8.05:: I Did It I walked home from work. All the way! I am the walking star. Horrah for me! It took me 80 minutes but I did it all. Woohoo! I'm on a high. I thought I'd be doing a good job to make it half way but I got half way and kept going. I got about 3/4 of the way and was going to flake. If you know Melbourne then it was at the corner of Smith Street and Alexandra Parade, outside the Officeworks. I could feel a few blisters brewing and the legs were getting very tired. I thought to myself, this is far enough. This is a grand effort. I could see the tram in the distance and I pushed the button for the lights on Alexandra Parade. Then I made a deal with myself - if the lights changed before the tram got to the stop, I'd walk the rest of the way. Damn slow old Melbourne trams. So I kept on going, much aided by the rockin' mix tape my good friend David made me. Nothing like a bit of TISM to get you going. I think it is about 5 kms from my office to home. I want to clock it in the car sometime when the traffic is quiet. Tomorrow I'm going to have a rest day - maybe go to the pool then Thursday I have another appointment with my counsellor straight after work but think I'll go to Pump class. Then Friday I will walk home again, this time even faster. Friday is the best day for walking home from work cos it's casual clothes day so I don't have to do the uber-daggy thing of wearing my runners with a work suit. I hate that look. Oh yeah, I also got my punk rock aerobics book I ordered from Ebay. I did 15 minutes of punk rock aerobics before breakfast. I haven't mastered many of the moves yet so mostly it was just spazzy dancing but the calories burn up all the same. There are two things I'll do differently next time though - firstly I'm not wearing a coat to work, no matter how cold it is in the morning and secondly, I'm going to NOT leave my water bottle on the desk at work. *** Updated to say: I just did a search on whereis.com.au and the distance was 5.61 kms and estimated travel time by foot is 1 Hr 56 Mins - ha ha - I did it in 1 hr 20 mins. I rock hard. Great Job, Kathryn! I'm thrilled you found your way home on foot -- the beginning of very natural thin person type living: looking for ways to exercise that fit into your natural day.
By It's so true. I'd have never done 5 kms on the treadmill at the gym. I'm bored to death after the first five mins. Fitting exercise into your daily life just makes more sense. And it only took me an extra 40 mins to get home - that would have been driving, getting changed etc time for the gym anyway :)
Wooohooooooooo - well done - what a grea effort ! Good job! Nice to see a diet blogger making some headway. I hope to join your ranks soon...
By You rock big time. LOL at leaving your bottle at work. Done that. Bugger. That is a huge walk. Well done. :)
::22.8.05:: Foiled Yesterday I went to Target - see I had this great idea. I was going to buy one of the short, slutty skirts I saw there in a size 18 then work towards fitting into it for summer. Only one problem - I got it home and fits already! Damn, what a problem... hehehe! Maybe I'll take it back and get a size smaller so I have the challenge. Oh I have another challenge for myself too. I'm going to start taking my runners to work and walking home - well as far towards home as I can. I am going to do it a couple of nights a week until I can make it home. Then I'm going to try to get faster. It will be a good way to workout without having to walk on the boring old treadmill.
Hiya I have been reading your journal for a little while now. And I find your writings very inspiring. Also the fact that you are being so open with your past. I enjoy reading about your struggle to get you to where you are now. And it has helped to inspire me to work on a few things that are bothering me in my life.... get closer sort of thing. keep up the good work, and being inspiring....
By I have been reading your journal for a little while now. And I find your writings very inspiring. Also the fact that you are being so open with your past. I enjoy reading about your struggle to get you to where you are now. And it has helped to inspire me to work on a few things that are bothering me in my life.... get closer sort of thing. keep up the good work, and being inspiring....
By Congrats on the smaller size. When I lived downtown Chicago I walked over 5 miles per day to and from work and weighed just a whole lot less than I do now (same diet). It's a fun, natural way to get the exercise in and I found it very inspiring for writing as well (my best thoughts were about 10 minutes into my morning commute).
By
Well done - I'm with the others - get a smaller size and set yourself the challenge for summer ! Thanks guys. And Jodie, of course it is okay, you can check back any time. Whooo hoooo for fitting in slutty skirts ;) - at any size!!
::21.8.05:: A Big Fat History Of Me - Part 3Reading back over what I've written, I realise that I may have given the wrong impression. While part of me, as a child (and even now), was a sensitive girl who loved to retreat from the world into a place filled with dreams and stories preferring the company of her own imagination, there was another part of me that was equally as strong and probably more visible to those around me. This other part was strong and stubborn and rebellious. I never had any great desire to act out or make trouble for the sake of trouble but, once I got an idea into my head, I was immoveable. For example, when I was in grade 4 our class spent one afternoon a week in the library with the librarian reading us a story book. A story book with pictures. Usually about cute, cuddly animals. I hated it. Hated it with a passion. It was so far below me. By grade four, I was reading at an almost adult level. So one day, I decided I just wouldn't do it. I just refused. Sat in my chair and wouldn't move. Nothing could make me go to story time. The teachers tried to threaten and cajole and bribe me. I ignored them. "I'm not going," was all I said, over and over again. In the end, they realized the only way to get me to the library was to pick me up and physically force me. That's the secret advantage of being a fat kid. People think twice about that shit. Well, maybe not. Maybe it was because teachers tend to be wary about that physical stuff. Not only did I win, but I learned that I could win. That I could just refuse. That's a powerful and sometimes dangerous thing for a kid to learn. Not that I did it often but when my sense of justice was provoked, I could stick my heels in. That complete sense of my own rightness was incredibly strong in me. When you combine that with a huge stubborn streak, it is hard for other people to deal with in a child. Trust me, I'm not just speaking from the experience of my own childhood. After my son was born, I got to experience both sides of that fence. The worst thing about this, for me as a child was when I clashed with my mum. My mum, god where do I even start there. If you've seen or read The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, you might start to get some idea. The mother in that, I can't remember the character's name, was a lot like my mum. Except my mum didn't have the cool sisterhood or the other fun stuff. She just had her insane, chain-smoking, gossip-mongering, motor-mouth friend A. It wasn't that she was a monster or anything like. Mostly she was good fun. My mum loved to drive. She was never happier than when she was in the car belting out a string of country and western songs. We'd go on crazy, wacky adventures that made no sense. She'd take on some new project, whether it was making macramé pot holders or hobbytex (remember that?) or baking Christmas biscuits and she'd throw herself into 110%. It would dominate our lives for weeks. We'd have the stove running almost 24 hours a day getting biscuits baked or the house in disarray while she redecorated. Then she'd be over it. Almost instantaneously. Then it would be back to smoking and drinking coffee and talk, talk, talk. Until the next thing came along. And, to be honest, she was damn good at most things she took on. She'd also do things that no responsible parent would condone but were damn fun. Like taking the day off school to the nearest big town and spend the day shopping. Or cooking up feasts for us at 1 o'clock in the morning. But then there were times when she just lost it. She'd strike out in this blind rage against me and my sister. We never knew what would trigger it. One day she'd be laughing about how messy our room was, the next day it would be enough to send her over the edge. Or she'd say it was fine for us to go on a bike ride then go back to her coffee and gossiping. When we'd get home, she'd scream at us because she'd never said we could. My sister's instinct was for survival. She'd cower and cry and Mum would leave her alone. Not me. I was in the right so I'd stand and fight. No matter what. Even though I knew I'd get a beating and god knows what else. It was as though I didn't have it in me to back down, no matter what the consequences. Afterwards, she'd tell everyone about the incident. Everyone that came to visit would hear the story about how bad I was and how she'd had to punish me. She'd make a joke of it. And I'd retreat to my room. *** High school. High school's tough. I mean, compared to some people, my high school years weren't so bad. It wasn't like my first serious boyfriend was a vampire who lost his soul the first time we had sex and then tried to kill me only to regain his soul, necessitating me having to kill him in order to save the world. Nothing like that. And, man, I have to stop watching so much Buffy. My first year of high school was awful. Just awful. I mean, it is for most people. Just going from your old school where you were one of the big kids, where you knew your place and that place suited you well to somewhere that shakes that all up is hard. You are groping around, trying to find your place. Suddenly I wasn't the smartest or the tallest or the most outspoken. The only thing I was, was the fattest. I had four boys in my class who decided straight off I'd be their target. They thought they were cool. They thought they were a gang. They thought they were the sweathogs. So they wanted to intimidate everyone. And I of course, didn't back down. So they tried harder. They threatened to beat me up after school. Our classrooms were on one side of the school oval and we had to talk across the oval to get to the school bus to go home. They'd sidle up to me between classes, in front of an audience of their hangers-on, and tell me they'd be waiting for on the oval after school. This went on for most of the year but after the first few weeks, I realised that they weren't ever going to carry out this threat. Then they found another way to get at me. I had a cousin at the school, a few years older than me. He was a big guy. Really big. Not just overweight but a real slob. He wore jeans that hung down revealing a huge expanse of butt crack and never bathed or looked after himself. I think he was a bit simple too. So these boys decided it would be really funny to call me by his name. I hated it but it caught on until everyone in our class did the same. Well everyone except my few friends. Outside of school, one of the most life changing events of my life happened. One of the best and worst things of my life, wrapped up in a bundle of red-headed screaming baby. My sister was born. I'd wanted a baby sister for ages but I didn't think I'd really get one. I mean it was like asking for pony. I thought I wanted a pony but if I'd got one, I wouldn't have known what to do with it. Unfortunately, you can't even send a baby to the knacker's yard. When I'd first moved back to Tasmania, we'd been staying with my Nan on her farm before she sold it. She'd told us that her dog had had puppies in the barn but they'd all died. We'd gone down to the barn to find the dog and hidden down between the hay bales was a little puppy, very much alive. I remember carrying it back to the house, yelling "Surprise, surprise," at the wonder of it. I don't think my mum and nan were quite as pleased but the puppy was mine. I'd saved it's life and I called it Surprise after the surprise he'd given me. Prizey, for short. I loved that dog. I loved that dog so much. He was my best friend for many years. By the time my sister was born, he was a much battle-scared little dog. He'd lost an eye and a leg. That didn't matter to me though. He'd curl up on my lap while I was reading or run along beside my bike. During the night, he'd curl up at the end of my bed and keep me safe. As a result of those injuries though, he'd become very spoilt. And when my sister was born that spoiling stopped. Prizey didn't like that. So maybe he snapped at her a few times. He didn't mean any harm by it. He was just being friendly like. But my mum didn't think so. One day I came home from school and my dog was gone. I looked for him everywhere. At first Mum wouldn't tell me what happened, then she 'fessed up. She'd had him put down because she was scared he'd attack the baby. "You didn't care about him anyway," she told me. Bullshit. I loved that dog. I couldn't believe that when it came to a choice between my dog and her baby, she'd never even considered the other alternative. Twenty seven years later, I look at my sister sometimes and wonder if my mum made the right decision. Back at school, things were getting worse. One of the gang of four had gone too far and been moved into another class to split them up. His friends wanted him back. So the teacher took a vote on it. He could come back if everyone voted yes. Everyone voted yes except me and my friend. In the end, even the teacher broke down and tried to get us to change our vote. They let him back in the end but we had lost any popularity we had. Things weren't always so good with my best friend either. My friend, I'll call her Jay for the sake of simplicity, and I were inseparable at times, the absolute best of friends. It was us against the world and we didn't care what anyone else thought. We knew we were destined for glamour and excitement and great things while the rest of our class were destined for two kids, a husband and a mortgage before they turned twenty. But then it would all fall to pieces. See Jay had another friend, I'll call her Pee for the sake of simplicity. Just when things were going fine, I'd be dumped and Pee would be the new best friend. Or if we fought, she'd threaten to dump me as a friend and hang out with Pee instead. Pretty shitty stuff but not that abnormal for high school girls. Still it didn't feel that way at the time. When your friend doesn't want to hang out for the afternoon, at thirteen your whole world crumbles. That was bad enough in itself but then I'd go home and my mum would start questioning me about stuff. She had this unholy knack of zeroing in your insecurities and making them real. If I called Jay to see if she wanted to sleep over or hang out and she said she had a family thing on or something. But I'd tell Mum and she'd tell me that Jay had no family thing. She wanted to hang out with Pee instead. That she was just using me when Pee wasn't around. If Jay said she could come over then it wouldn't be because she wanted to hang out with me but because we had a new TV or a she wanted to use our bikes or because mum was taking us to the movies. It makes me mad now to think about it because Jay and I were good friends. Our friendship was strong. I remember sitting on the verandah of her house in the summer holidays, painting and laughing. I remember the sunlight dappled through the big trees in her yard and the smell of the oil paints and how our eyes were always filled with the dreams of things we'd one day do. Then we'd go inside and hang shit on her brother for watching Monkey because Monkey was stupid and didn't make sense. So we'd kick him out of the lounge room and switch the channel to watch some black and white movie with swashbuckling pirates. At home, I never talked about dreams or plans or the things I wanted. No matter if it was to run for school council or enter a competition or come a fashion designer –those things weren't for people like me. They were for kids who were prettier, smarter, from better families. They were for kids who were thin. If I wrote things down, my mum would find them no matter where I hid them. She'd read them back to me and question me. Why do you say that? What does that mean? She found my journal when I was about thirteen and read it. Not my stupid diary with the very pickable lock that was filled with stuff like Did nothing today Had steak for dinner. She found my real journal, the one with the outpourings of my heart. The journal that was written on bits of paper, folded up into tiny squares and stuffed in hidden nooks. Eventually I stopped writing altogether. It was safe that way. I wrote in my last journal at seventeen. After she found and read that, I didn't write anything that wasn't a uni assignment or a work report or a shopping list for over ten years. I wrote stories in my head but never put them on paper. So I would draw or paint instead. That felt safer, more encrypted. Safer but not completely safe. Everything I created was held up for public comment – exposed and discussed. Maybe my mum thought she was encouraging me, but it always felt wrong to me. It seems strange to me when I read about people who had their creativity discouraged when they were young because I hated being encouraged. It was something private, something just for me, not a world that I wanted to invite everyone into. I didn't want to show my latest drawings to everyone that came to visit. I didn't want my sister's friends crowding around me, asking what are you drawing? Can you draw me? I learnt to be secretive, to be guarded and to scrutinise people's motives. I learnt to be angry. And I learnt to binge. We'd get home from school at 3.30 and mum would be waiting. She always had some errand to run and either my sister or I had to stay at home to look after the baby, while the other one when with her. Every night was a fight to not stay home and babysit. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes my sister would. Winning meant a trip into town with mum, and driving around and visiting people and getting treats for hours. Staying at home, meant looking after a crying baby and trying not to do something wrong. And there was always something wrong. Staying home also meant a full on binge. It would start with a sandwich after school then maybe a few biscuits or a slice of cake. Then the cake would be gone and the biscuits would be gone. Then I'd get the loaf of soft, white bread out and just pull the middle out and ball it up into a lump of doughy stuff and shove that in my mouth. I'd pull stuff out of the cupboards trying to find something, anything to fill me up. Of course, I'd be in trouble when mum got home for eating. But it didn't matter. If it wasn't that, it would be because I'd put a nappy on wrong or the baby was crying or I hadn't put on the spuds for dinner or I had put on spuds but she hadn't planned on us having spuds. It was even worse if she left my sister and I at home alone. We'd fight. We'd have huge fights, nasty and bitter and try to destroy each other. I'd end up getting so mad, I'd hit her or throw something at her and then she'd shut up and go away. Until dad got home. Then she'd tell me the whole story – her version of it anyway. And I'd be in trouble, again. I'd sit in my room and listen to David Bowie and make plans for getting out. Like most teenage girls, I completely screwed up my metabolism in high school. I'd starve myself all day, maybe having a yoghurt for lunch at the most, then I'd come home for the aforementioned binges. I never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch but would eat all night from dinner to bedtime. I still played hockey. I even started getting a bit fitter because my sister and I would practice hockey on the nature strip at night. Over the summer, we'd lay out in the backyard with our feed in our little sister, Lola's, kiddie pool. She'd been turning into a spoilt little pain and her biggest thrill was finding out stuff so she could run and dob to mum about us. So we invented a game for her. We called it Hockey Training. We were going to train her to be a top hockey player, like us (ha ha ha). We'd send her off running laps of the backyard then time her. We'd do this all afternoon, making her run laps around the yard and pretending to time her then telling her she wasn't fast enough and to try harder. That's how we discovered Lola was asthmatic. In year 10, I got a boyfriend. I think he was gay, thus setting up a pattern for the rest of my life. I bleached my hair blonde and wore stiletto shoes and a pencil skirt and stockings with a seam up the back. Every other girl in town wore adidas Romes and white jeans with a pastel windchetar and matching pastel socks. My boyfriend would come to visit and my dad would ignore him. My sister would call him names and tease him. We'd sneak off and pash and fool around. I'd go to visit him and we'd watch TV in his parent's bedroom and pash and fool around. Mostly at school, I stopped being teased about being the fat girl. We had a new fat girl, a fatter fat girl. She had greasy hair and secondhand clothes. She was so ripe for teasing. The crowning glory though for high school teasing was that her name was Glenda. Slender Glenda. I used to hang out with her sometimes. She was a nice girl, sweet and shy. Not bright enough to start at a new school and make her parents enroll her under a fake name. Not assertive enough to demand her parents change her name by deed poll. At least nothing rhymes with Kathryn. I hung out in the Art room where other kids weren't allowed to go. If other kids came in we kicked them out because they weren't talented enough to spend time in the art room out of class. Okay, I could be a bitch sometimes. I admit it. Because I lived in the country, my high school only went up to grade 10. After that, you had to move to the Big Smoke to do matriculation. A big adventure. A new life. Scary but exciting. I finished off year 10. My boyfriend had dropped out of school and got a job. We were having sex but not often. I went to the end of year leaver's dinner then a party and got drunk on Stone's Green Ginger wine. One of the boys who had so often threatened to beat me up in Grade 7 wanted me to look at his dick and got upset because I wouldn't. I got my school mag signed and said goodbye to people I never wanted to see again then spent a summer roasting myself on the beach with baby oil.
Wow. Just did a huge catch up - can't believe I missed 3 posts! If having the flu makes you write this stirringly, then write write write and don't worry about the exercise. You will make squillions then you can spend the rest of your days making out, I mean working out with your Personal Trainer. P.S. I do hope you feel better soon. Not exercising actually sucks! This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By Thanks m :)
Kathryn - reading this has been like reading about my own life. You've got a real gift.
By
This Week Okay, I'm still sick. It's been over two weeks. I'm not at all happy about it. I'll feel fine for a while and be all - woohoo... I'm cured - then a couple of hours later I'm sneezing and headachey. What the hell? If I'm not better this week I'm going to go back to the doctor and demand he do something. The worst of it is, for some reason when I walk (walk for exercise not just to go to the shops and stuff) I end up with bad headaches. Weird, huh. I'm not sure if it's because of the motion or maybe because I walk at night and my ears etc get cold. But it's not good. And I need to exercise. So, this week, this is the plan - try to do as much incidental exercise as possible. Since I can't do much else, the incidental exercise will have to be it. Also, I was doing 8 minute abs every morning a couple of months ago. I might try doing that again. Foodwise, the word for the week is citrus. I'm going to try and get as much vitamin C into my body as possible. It's me against the flu bug and I'm going to win.
Hope that you are feeling better soon - take care of yourself and get back to the dr if you aren't getting any better. Although a few people have said that this flu does seem to linger for quite a while.
::20.8.05:: An Attack of the Blahs Help! I need a serious pep talk. I'm sliding into bad thoughts! I feel so blah about everything. I've had a relapse with my flu so I still have not been able to start back on any exercise. I went for a walk the other night and that is the only exercise I've done in over 2 weeks. The next day I started feeling sick again. Not good. I pigged out last night. I've been trying to keep my calories low so that I can still lose weight despite the lack of exercise. That's been going kind of okay until last night. I went to a friend's place for dinner and she made ham in coca-cola (a Nigella Lawson recipe) with roast vegies. It was pretty yummy. Then we had dessert, then more chocolates plus wine. Too much food.... arrrrgh! I used to think that it was easier to not worry about watching the calories too much when I had dinner with friends - that if I don't eat too much and I've eaten well all week, then I could just sit back and enjoy myself. But I'm finding it not so. For one thing, I'm having dinner with friends on a more regular basis and for another, it is affecting my weight. And lastly (deep breath) I went to the hairdressers (well hairdressing college training salon) last night with a definite idea of what I wanted. The hair style I wanted was shoulder length and shaggy - very soft and messy. The girl just cut my hair into a bob which is nothing at all like the picture I took in. Nothing. Then her and her supervisor said they couldn't do the colour I wanted because of time restraints so I asked if they could just do an all over colour. Then somehow, someway, that I'm not really sure of, it ended up just being foils. I didn't want foils unless I was getting the rest of my hair coloured too. And instead of blonde they are a magenta red. It is a great colour but seriously does not look with my natural hair colour. I have a lot of grey in my hair at the moment and, instead of covering it, these highlights just make it more noticeable. I hate everything about my hair. After she finished, she spent about half hour or more mucking around, styling my hair so it looked more like the picture I took in but it didn't work because the cut was nothing like the picture. I am so mad. She kept asking me if I liked and I pretended I did but I hate it. I don't know what to do. Whether to go get it cut somewhere else or just leave it for the time being. I so absolutely did not want my hair cut in a bob. I spend ages looking for photos of hair styles that specifically weren't bobs. I just want to scream. It has no layers, it has no shagginess. And I don't know what to do about the colour. Maybe I should go buy a semi-permanent colour and put that through my hair so that it tones it all in more. I dunno. Maybe I should just wear my beanie everywhere for the next few weeks. I am going to go to a real hairdressers next time. It ended up costing quite a bit of money and because it is the training college, I felt like I couldn't complain. If I'd gone to a real hairdressers then I would have made them fix the cut at least. Every time I think about the groovy, blonde, shaggy hair I thought I'd have today, I want to cry. It is upsetting me so much. I don't want to have to go and spend more money getting it fixed but I also don't want to be seen with this hair. It is awful. Well maybe not awful but it is not what I wanted. Maybe I'm being stupid, but it is just so disappointing. Then I did my weigh in this morning and I've gained weight.
::18.8.05:: Therapy I saw my counsellor tonight for the first time. There was quite a bit of stuff come up, a lot of it buzzing around in my head. It might take a while to get it all sorted but there was some main issues that I need to think about. We talked about comfort eating and she asked me how I was comforted as a child. I'd never thought about that before but I can't remember actually ever being comforted. We also talked about not being in touch with how I feel, with eating and in other areas not having a guage to judge when I am "empty" and when I am "too full." I'm going back next week to deal with these things more. Which is good because I have much more to say about my mother.
Good for you for starting to confront your issues - I am sure that this will help with your weight loss. Take care and have a great weekend !
What a great thing to do. So many people never face up to their issues, and then never get to where they want to go. Be kind to yourself after therapy as it can muddy the waters before it all becomes nice and clear again.
Thanks and Things I'd like to thank people for their great response to my post's about my life history, and for not thinking I'm an egotistical knob. I've been finding it really helpful to sort through all my old memories. There's a lot of stuff I've never thought of before, especially in relation to weight gain and that type of thing. It's a good thing, not to dwell in the past but to get an understanding of it in order to learn and move on. Thinking about when I was younger has made me remember how much joy I got from drawing so today I went to an art supply stores and got a sketchbook and a very nifty pencil kit thing - it is a fold over wallet with colour pencils, lead pencils, rubber, pencil sharpener etc. I love it. I really want to get stuck into creating some Art. Well if not art, then something. I spent three years at art school just to realise that I care more about the process of creating, that feeling of being wrapped up in the actual doing, than I ever will about the finished product. It's taken me even longer to realise that that's okay. It is great to have things in life that you do for the pure joy of doing it rather than for any other reason. Finally, I posted on the forum over at Diet Club, but thought I should post here as well. I'm looking for people who are interested in going on some fun runs with me. If you live in Melbourne and are interested, then check out the Spring Into Shape fun runs and then leave a comment or something. Me, fun running, I mean walking. Who'd have thunk it?
I think it is great that you have something that you enjoy doing and the outcome is irrelevant. I find typing very therapeutic - I think on of the reasons some of my posts are so long !!!!! I miss mailing my folks every day because it was time I could just sit and let me fingers go.
Kathryn
::17.8.05:: A Big Fat History of Me - Part 2 I was in grade three when I moved back to Tasmania. I was fat and I was the new girl. Two strikes against me. But at my new school, I learnt the third leg of my outsider trifecta. I was also SMART! That's it, folks. Fat, new and smart. Not the best way to win friends and influence people in grade three. But before I discovered that, I had to be enrolled in my new school. That first morning, I waited in the glassed-in foyer of my new school, full of curiosity. Outside the grounds were lush and immaculately - already a big change from the gravel playground of my old city school. The only decorations in the foyer were two display cases holding dolls in traditional Japanese dress and some wooden plaques listing the school's honor students - my mum, my aunty and a heap of strangers. The tiled floor sparkled from frequent waxing; it lead to classrooms full of potential. Eventually someone to our rooms. I stood at the front, exposed and new and met my new teacher, Mrs Q. She hated me. Everyone told me to stop being stupid, I was imagining it. I tried to believe them but even years later, meeting her at my aunty's house, she still had that look in her eyes, still talked to me in that smarmy voice, still looked down her nose. Trust me, that woman hated me on first sight. One of our first lessons was reading. She got out the box of reading cards. Finally, something familiar. The same reading cards as my old school. She asked me which colour I was on, because the cards were graded by colour. I couldn't wait. Ever since we'd started using the reading cards, I'd had one dream. To get to the aqua cards. Aqua, the word fascinated. I'd never heard of aqua before. When I got onto the aqua cards my life would be sparkly and magical in some way. But, just as I got there, I had to change schools. Aqua, I told her, full of joy and expectation. But instead of magical sparkliness, I got a harsh lesson in the realities of life. I learnt something about working and achieving to reach your dream that day. See, she didn't believe me. She accused me of lying; no one got up to the aqua cards in grade three. To punish me I had to start again at the beginning. I think that's when the report cards saying Kathryn does well in class but she could try harder started. They could say what they liked, but I knew the truth. I was robbed. Robbed of my aqua cards. That's where trying harder got you. Of course, I didn't have to try hard. I was still top of the class. Not that I was super smart or anything like that. But the rest of my class, well they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you know what I mean. I cared about one thing, and one thing only. To be left alone to read my book. I'd race through my work so I could read. I'd sit alone at lunchtime to read. And later I discovered the best way to get reading time - play up in class and be sent out. I spent so much time on the bench outside the room that I became best mates with the cleaning lady as she pushed the big floor waxing machine up the hall. Because I went to a country school, we had classes up to year 9 and that meant we had a proper woodwork department. Once a week we'd go to the woodwork department for Craft. One week the teacher demonstrated that week's lesson but I was stuck up the back and couldn't see. I told the teacher and he said that I should be able to see, I was big enough. I had that feeling, that "prickly eyes, lump in the throat, I'm not going to cry in front of everyone" feeling while everyone else laughed. Even bratty kids like I was (maybe especially bratty kids) have feelings, feelings that are easily hurt by adults who are supposed to be grown ups and above petty teasing. Eventually, I found a way to make my niche. I'd write stories and bring them to school to read to the other kids. Stories about my classmates. Not just stories, but stories with rude bits. Stories about SEX. Of course, being in grade 3 meant I didn't have a very good grasp on the technicalities of sex, no one had told me to write what I know back then, but I learnt that sex sells. Especially in the school ground. I don't know why I stopped but I did (for a few years anyway). Maybe I got found out and told to stop, but I don't remember a big deal being made of it, maybe the other kids got bored. Maybe we all got coca-cola yo-yos instead. A new girl started at our school. I hated her. I was the new girl, not her. Boy, did it bug me that she was stealing my glory. We were dead enemies for a few months then best friends for many years. We were the artistic ones, the creative ones. It's so much easier to be an outsider when you have someone to be an outsider with. For years we cultivated that outsider-ness. We rebelled against everything that country town life represented. The only problem was that she was always just a little bit better than me at everything. Well, not school work or anything like that but everything that mattered. And she was thin, stick thin. She could eat whatever she liked. For me, there was diets. A constant round of diets, instigated by my mother, all starting off shiny and promising then slowly dwindling to nothing. I went to Weight Watchers for a while. That was fun. It was an hours drive away because we lived in the country and I got the afternoon off school. Bonus. The downside was that Weight Watchers in those days was very inflexible. I got weighed in a dark, musty room full of middle-aged women (because kids my age weren't fat). I'd get on the scales and someone would holler my weight across the room. Then I'd have to take weirdarsed lunches to school and eat liver once a week. I hated Weight Watchers. Another time, I went to a hypnotist, Dr X. Again I got out of school early. I don't know what I told the other kids but you can bet it wasn't that I was going to be hypnotised to lose weight. I'd drive there with my mum and her best friend and her friend's kids that had speech impediments. Mum and her friend would gossip all the way, punctuating their words with demands us kids shut up and stay still and chain smoking cigarettes all the way. Before the hypnosis session, I'd be weighed. I was twelve years old and on a 500 calorie a day diet of fruit and vegetables - yep, healthy and well balanced for a growing kid. Actually by then, I'd stopped growing, in height anyway. I was five foot six and the tallest person in my class. I was so disappointed when the boys caught up. I loved being the tallest. After I was weighed, the nurse would take the results into Dr X. If the results weren't up to scratch, if I'd only lost 2 or 3 pounds, Dr X would walk out to the crowded waiting room and yell abuse at me and at my mother because I must have been cheating. Then the whole group of us would go into a room to be treated for our assorted complaints. Yep, in with the bed wetters and the stutterers and god knows what. My mum and her friend soon put a stop to it all when they found at that a guy being treated for impotence was in the same session. Dr X was later disbarred. In between times, I don't remember eating an awful lot. That would come much later. I loved food, I adored it but no more than your average kid. No more than my rake thin friend, no more than my sister, no more than my cousins. But I was the only one that had a problem. We didn't eat a lot of junk, we lived in the country after all. We didn't even have a local fish and chip shop let alone anything exotic like pizza or Chinese. We never had many chocolates in the house and fizzy cordial was a rare treat. Still every occasion was celebrated with food. Even going to the shop for bread or milk was rewarded with chocolate. Saturday nights, we'd get our money and walked or biked down to the local shop. We'd work out how to get best value for our cash. The chewy longevity of the Buddies versus the 3 for a cent value of traffic lights, Cherry Ripes versus Crunchies. We'd try to make them last but we'd roll to bed after the Saturday night movie, stomachs bulging. Our meals were big country meals, lots of meat and potatoes. And the cake tins were always full of home cooking. I loved riding my bike, I played hockey. I even tried to play netball, a hideous sport but I didn't have much choice. With only six girls in my class, everyone had to join in. One year, we got rollerskates for Christmas. I was going to be like Olivia Newton John in Xanadu, floating along in a dainty white dress. Glowing and ethereal. Then, the hard facts hit. Christmas morning we had rollerskates but nowhere to skate. We lived in the country. There was no cement, no footpaths, no car parks. We tried rollerskating on the road but that didn't work. We tried rollerskating on the cricket pitch at the footy ground but got kicked off. We tried the concrete footpath but that got really boring. In the end we gave up and went inside to work out to set up the bats on our TV pingpong game so it would run for infinity. But at school I hated sport. I'd always have an excuse to skip PE. I'd be sick or I'd "forget" my gear or something. Having to run in front of the kids was bad enough, getting changed in front of them was even worse. I was the typical last one picked for sports and, not only was I fat, I had absolutely no co-ordination either. I sucked so bad at sport it wasn't funny, so like anything else that I wasn't good at, I just gave up. Missing sport was no hardship and it meant I got to sit inside and read my book. Most of all, I loved swimming. Still. Summers meant holidays at my Nan's shack. At the beach, I was at my best. In the water, I was equal to anyone. I began to discover that I might not be the fastest swimmer though. Those Olympic dreams were fading. Still at the beach, speed didn't matter. Even in the dead of winter, I'd jump in the water. My dream was to become a mermaid to spend my days in the water, weightless and divine. As soon as we got the shack, I'd want to spring out of the car, Nan's yellow Leyland, and run to the beach to check out my special spots - the Mermaid Cove and the Princess Rock and the hidden Smugglers Beach. The sun would sparkle off the water so bright and I could sense the foot scorching heat of the sand long before I reached the beach. But my Nan would stop me. I'd have to help unpack the car and change into something sensible and wait for her to put sunscreen on my cousins who had skin so fair they'd burn to a crisp in the sun. All the while I'd be jumping around with my impatience dance and she'd roll her eyes and tsk at me. My Nan thought girls should be thin and dainty and quiet and ladylike. Girls that were fat grow up to be like my great aunt, Mona, who was so fat that when she died her coffin couldn't fit through the door so they had to take it out the french windows. We'd run in at lunch time famished from a morning of swimming and running around the rocks. She'd tsk again and tell me that I thought of nothing but my stomach. My cousins, on the other hand, had proper appetites. They'd eat so slow, lunchtime would stretch out forever and there was so much to do out of the house. I'd stare at my empty plate and tell them to hurry up. After dinner, we'd play Monopoly and I'd buy Mayfair and Park Lane and bankrupt everyone then I'd have to go in and ask Nan for a snack because they were too shy. And I never thought of anything but my stomach. I wanted to be thin, I wanted to wear cool clothes like the other kids and to grow up to marry a Bay City Roller. But I hated the nagging. I hated being reminded that I was fat. Mostly I tried to ignore it. I'm only just starting to realise the worst of childhood is this: when you are a kid, if you are different you are held to blame for your difference. It doesn't matter if you are fat or you have greasy hair or you have short back and side when the other boys have their hair long and shaggy or you wear the wrong jeans, you are responsible for your freakishness. But you are a kid. You have no power to change these things. All the blame, no responsibility - that's why I mock people who say the school years are the best years of your life. Yet, despite my weight problems, despite the gibes from my Nan and despite the weird diets, I was mostly happy. I had a safe little world, with my best friend at school. I had a comfortable life at home in our weatherboard house surrounded by green hills and a whole army of relatives. I had a colour TV and a trampoline. I had my ABBA records and my sketch pads and oil paints to escape into. This was my world and I knew my place in it. But that was all to change. The pressure to lose weight was becoming stronger. I was about to start high school. And, as everyone told me, high school could be hell for fat girls. As I read this, I think of a little girl whom no one really knew and who kept herself from those who inexplicably abused her for no reason. It's a heartbreaker.
By
It is so sad to hear what people do to children - whether intentional or unintentional. I think that it is great that you are working through this and putting it on paper. Take care and be good to yourself !
This is compulsive reading. Reminds me so much of my childhood years. You are such a great writer. I felt like I was reading a novel, but then realised it was real and that the emotion and teasing and dieting was real, and I feel sad. Good on you for getting it out. And I hate your teacher ;)
::16.8.05:: Another Quickie You know what is weird? I keep thinking my weight is in the hundreds. Like I've read a couple of blogs with people who are in their hundreds and automatically thought 'Oh they are around my weight.' Then today when I was setting up my profile on Diet Club, I went to type in 103 instead of 93. I guess it takes me a while to cotton on. And something else. I made a decision while shopping yesterday. No more Plus Size/Big is Beautiful/Large Arse shopping for me. I have been hovering between plus and regular sizes for a while and while looking through the hideous fat clothes in Target last night, I thought I've had enough of this. If I can't find what I want in normal sizes, then I'll just go without until it fits me. I've been wanting a short skirt to show off my sex-ay legs and not finding one. I saw one in an 18 last night at Target but it looked on the small side. I think I'll go buy it and then work at fitting into it.
I whole heartedly agree re the plus sizes, seeing as my weight is dropping, I too will wait. If I never get to the next size down perhaps walking around nude will be enough to make me get moving!
By
Just a Quickie I joined Diet Club today. I have been using the site to check kilojoule counts and stuff for ages and decided to join today so I can put my diet diary on there. I like being able to see all the fat counts etc in what I eat. The only thing I don't like is that it works in calories not kilojoules. At the moment, because I'm still not exercising, I'm trying to keep my kj count down lower than usual. I'm still eating well and plentiful but cutting out all the unnecesaries.
::15.8.05:: A Big Fat History Of Me - Part 1 Once apon a time, I was born and I was a normal weight. I stayed around my goal weight for several years beforeI got fat. With all the talk about childhood obesity nowadays, I guess I was just ahead of my time. I don't know when I started to chub up; I was too young to remember. According to my mum, it began when I was around 2 years old. I had a ride on tractor, my toddlerhood pride and joy. One day I pretended to fill my tractor up with petrol from my dad's 44 gallon drum and the drum fell on me and broke my leg. Just at that age when other kids are running around, losing all their baby fat, I was laid up in plaster not able to move. I guess I've just never lost my baby fat.
{Me, at my thinnest. I still have that teddy, by the way} My first conscious memory of fatness happened when I was around 6 years old. My parents told me they wanted to put me on diet. I thought it was a good idea but I had one worry. I thought I'd lose the weight instantly and wouldn't have any clothes to wear. I couldn't understand how I'd get to the shop to buy new clothes when my old ones were too big. Those ideas of overnight success started early. Well, that diet didn't work. Obviously. More, please.
By
It is a beautiful photo of you. Yes, please tell us more! No more need to say, "You must have been a beautiful baby." You were. :)
By
Treats I had a Dolmio Vegetable Lasagna for dinner, only 1,090 kjs but it just wasn't satisifying, more like a soup with some pasta chucked in than a lasagna. I decided to pop up to the supermarket and get a weight watchers pudding for dessert. I needed breakfast cereal anyway. So I picked up a few things including some Sara Lee frozen raspberries. Man, I love those things. Then I got a Nestle diet chocolate mousse. I've heard good things about them but never tried them before. So I skipped the WW pudding and heated some raspberries and had them with the chocolate mousse. Oh my, it was the most delicious treat ever. Yummo. I'm still sick and not exercising so I am pleased that I went for the lower kilojoule treat. Also, with great strength and determination, I bypassed the heavily discounted chocolates - Guylan shells reduced to 0.69c and small packs of Cadbury Favourites for $1.69. I am the world's biggest sucker for anything reduced in price but I didn't need those chocolates so I looked at them a while then put them back. Go me!
Well done on not picking up the reduced choccies - good for you !!! Thanks also for the insight into your childhood - there are a few things there that I can really relate to ! I quite often have strawberries with the mousse. Such a nice dessert and it lasts longer when you add the fruit in to it. Well done for making the good choices. I've never thought to add fruit to the choc mousse. Adding strawberries sounds yummy!
::14.8.05:: Punk Rock Aerobics I've said for many years that the worst part of aerobics class is the suckarse music and now I've found this site - Punk Rock Aerobics. Okay Boston might be a little too far to travel, but they have a book and are bringing out a dvd.
Sounds like you are back on the road to recovery - just take it easy the first couple of days. Make sure you are 100% better before going back to gym as you really shouldn't put your body under too much stress while it is fighting off infection. Take care and be good to yourself !
Grateful I did my official weigh in this morning and my weight has stayed the same despite illness-related eating blow outs and no exercise this week and despite being higher when I weighed myself during the week. Woohoo. Now I just have to work on getting it down. So I'm grateful for the no gain. I'm also grateful for other things: being able to breath through my nose for starters and that my mouse seems to have gone away. I'm grateful that I can return to work tomorrow, although that is a mixed blessing. *** A while back, I moved this site over to my own domain and set it up in Word Press. Then the domain hosting expired right when I was having financial traumas and I lost all those posts. One of the things I lost was my whole background/weight history. I am going to rewrite that post sometime soon because I love reading that stuff on other sites. I feel like I know the person more having read through their history. It might take a while because that kind of thing is a loooong post. I so wish I hadn't lost those posts from that time. That is the problem with using something like word press, damn it. It is a couple of months that I can't go back and reread. *** Oh and at the moment I am loving Liptons Chai Latte sachets. They aren't exactly a low joule treat (around 400 kjs a pop, I think) but I love Chai so much and they are so yummy. I have a cornucopia of chai options here - from the chai powder you get from Indian stores to different chai loose leaf teas and I used to have chai syrup but the sachets are the most convenience way to get my chai hit. Congrats on maintaining whilst you have been sick. It is not a nice feeling to be blocked up and yucky. So well done to you. :)
Question Okay, in the US where sizing is different from here, you hear of people being like a size 2 or a size 0 but do they get any smaller? What I really want to know is if they start going into negative figures.. can you be a size -2? I also want to know where these people put their internal organs. My understanding is that if you're smaller than a size 0, you have to have your clothes specially tailored or go to girl's sizes. The reason for the Big Zero is because clothes are larger now than they used to be (I guess to flatter us into thinking we're smaller sizes). There are size zero women who look perfectly normal to me (being short and petite as well). They look fine. It's when the women who are 5'7" and above start heading for zero that you wonder where their internal organs are. Hope that satisfies your curiosity!
By I have heard of a size 00 which is smaller then a 0. Very scary.
That is why all the stars have those huge oversized handbags. They use them to store all their internal bits.
::13.8.05:: Thoughts On A Saturday Afternoon I have been thinking of going back to the gym. I guess that means I'm starting to feel better. I'm still not 100% though - I'll start running errands then just get a huge energy slump and want to go home to bed. Still got to go back to work Monday (if I don't work, I don't get paid - the suckage of contracting). And, as much as I'd like to get back into the gym, as much for the social aspect as the exercise because it gets kinda lonely being at home alone sick (thank heavens for my lovely commenters), I have decided that I'm going to take it easy this week. I don't know how soon I can get back into it but figure it will be good to workout on my own for a week. My monthly gym membership ran out yesterday, damn it. I have hand weights at home, the heaviest being 1.5 kilos while I was using 3-4 kilo weights at the gym but I figure I can do a week of weights using them until I feel stronger and also do some walking around the 'hood. That should be enough. *** I was in a cafe the other day and had an inspiration - they were using those oven proof ramekins and I think I want to get some. I sometimes find it hard to think up ideas for meals just for myself and I don't want to use the oven here - it is scary. But I have a little toaster oven of my own so if I had some rammekins I could make baked stuff in them, like shephard's pie or other things like that. Even some yummy low-fat fruit crumbs for desserts. Hoorah! *** My eating is under control now. Still not as good as I'd like it to be, but not insane like it was a few days ago. In fact I've had to force myself to eat today so as not to skip meals. *** I have a mouse. Little bastard, was chomping away on something last night and woke me up. Well, I wouldn't like to say I was obsessive, but I couldn't rest until I found it. I sat up half the night with a broom in my hand waiting for it to appear. Of course I had to play a few games of Spider Solitaire at 3.00 am because nothing scares meece like a game of Solitaire. I got some baits today so I hope that fixes it. I have a feeling it was in under the floorboards because I couldn't flush it out. Damn, I hate mice. *** I have no plans for tonight so I am thinking of having a girl's night in for one. I have a couple of face mask sachets and I might hire a girlie-girl movie to watch. Should be good. I know you mentioned this before, but I can hear echoes in your post of how much it sucks to be single when you're sick (of course it can suck when you're married too, and even worse, if your spouse ignores the fact that you're sick and expects you to carry on with the shopping, housework and cooking even though). Glad you're on the mend and glad that you're thinking about what would work for you exercise wise and otherwise. I'm going to try a light workout today at the gym myself and see how it goes.
By And all along I thought I had to get traps for the mice. D'oh. Now I know to play solitaire. Thanks ;)
::12.8.05:: Regrets, I've Had A Few Sometimes, when I get into one of those horrid, murky self-pitying mood, I feel upset that I never did anything about my weight until now. I feel like I wasted the best years of my life - those years when I could have been young and hot and thin (well maybe not thin but definitely not obese). I can even get into the mindset of 'why bother now? I'm too old'. I am the queen of self pity, I tells ya. I imagine that for the last twenty or so years of my life, my fat has created a barrier between me and the rest of the world, that it has stopped me living the life I want. That, because of my fat, I have missed out. But you know, that isn't true. It is a stupid thing to think. Sure it has held me back in some areas (eg. romance) but even then it hasn't just been the weight but a whole swag of emotional issues. In other ways, it has meant nothing. I had a very active social life for many years - well I still have a social life now, I mean, but when I was younger I was the party girl, going out all night to clubs and things. For quite a number of years, I worked full time while studying for my degree part time and raising a child on my own (and fitting in lots of partying in there somewhere ). That isn't exactly "missing out" now is it. That is really fitting some shit in there. At one point, I was running a part time business while I was doing all that. But there is one thing I really do regret. One reason why I wish I'd started making all these changes in my life sooner, much sooner. And that reason is my son. When my son was young, like toddler-young, I was very fussy about what he ate. No sugary treats, no junk. I used to shop at the local wholefoods shop and would guard over his eating like a hawk. So far, so good. But then the dark and evil shadow lurks into the picture. And this shadow takes the shape of my mother (not that I think my mum is dark and evil, except when it comes to nutrition, oh and her opinions/behaviour towards my ability to raise my own child, oh yeah and a whole swag of other shit, but anyways). This is what a typical visit to my mother would be like: Me: I don't want my son eating crap. Ma (to my son): Poor little thing. Does your mother want to starve you? Me: I just don't want him developing a sweet tooth. If he doesn't have those things, he doesn't crave them. Ma : Oh he can't miss out on all the goodies. Me: Don't give him lollies. Aren't you listening to me? Ma (to my son): Here you go. Have a lollie. At least your nan cares about you. Okay, lets play pick the issues in that scene * eye roll * So anyway, instead of sticking to my guns about these things, I caved and slowly my son's diet got worse. As he got older and I got busier, especially after I started uni and everything else, I'd get home from work exhaused and the easiest thing was to dial a pizza. I wish I had all that money I've spent on pizza and other takeaways now. Man. There would the chocolate treats after dinner and the extras thrown into the shopping (oh that was another thing my mum taught him - to throw things into the shopping trolley when I wasn't looking - because I did that to her as a kid). So it went on over time - bad habits that got worse. The thing was, I was the mother, I should have been in control but I'd cave in every time my son nagged me for pizza or fish & chips. He knew it wouldn't take much to wear down the egg-shell thin resolve I had. Now my son has a weight problem and I blame myself. I set him no example but taught him all wrong. I tried to curb it. We'd have takeaway night once a week and cook the rest, but even our home cooked meals were bad - heavy on carbs and fat, although heavy on fresh vegies too because I love my vegies (my son hates them, which always made cooking difficult hard). The stupid thing is that I'd think I couldn't stop these habits in myself because I'd have to deal with his tantrums and shit. But you know something, when I started changing my eating habits before he left home, he would do the usual "how about I go down the shops and get us a chocolately treat" and I just said "No, I don't want to eat chocolate any more". This went on for a couple of nights and then he just stopped asking. It was that simple. No fights, no tantrums. He just realised that things had changed. So yeah, that is my biggest regret. I don't know how to change this, how to redeem it, now. I try to talk to my son about eating well and take him to the market to stock up on fresh food but I spend years teaching him wrong and giving him the worst example. I did the wrong thing and I have to live with that. Hi Kathryn, Wonderful post. One word of caution: taking responsibility for the effect you've had on your son's dietary habits (and the way he might be using food for other than nutrition) does not mean that you need to assume the blame for his physical condition. At 18, he is already at an age where he needs to assume full responsibility for himself (again, not blame). If you continue to set a good example and talk to him openly and frankly about your thoughts and feelings about your own weight (and his), you open a door which only he can walk through, painful as it might be if he chooses not to.
By
My kids are 3.75 and 1. I am just starting to think about what habits I am teaching them. I make them finish their dinner before they are allowed to have a treat. Should I even be giving them a treat? It is so hard to worry about all the time.
I agree with Debra - if your son is 18 and has a weight issue the only thing you can do is talk to him and show him by example. He is now old enough to make his own decisions and if he chooses to ignore your advice - you can't blame yourself.
Getting There I followed my Rule of Three today (see below) and am starting feel like I'm clawing my way back out of the Lard Pits. Having three proper meals has helped - before I was not bothering to cook meals then snacking incessantly so, of course, by meal time wasn't hungry so didn't cook then kept snacking. Sort of sickness-ennui combined with comfort eating. The drink more water thing has backfired though, I think I'll be making trips to the loo all night. Still not well enough to exercise, but getting better. By the way, I weighed myself today - scary stuff. Well not as scary as I thought it would be. I have gained a little, but less than a kilo so nothing too devastating. Now I'm just going to try to hold my ground until I feel 100%.
Good for you - by taking it each meal at a time you will get there and it is so much easier to focus on getting through one meal rather than focussing on being good for a whole week. Take care and have a great weekend - look after yourself and get better soon !
::11.8.05:: Hell's Bells My eating is still out of control. I've got to do something about it. Got to stop this runaway train. Otherwise I'm going to undo all the work I've done. I was thinking today about my Rule of Three. This got me back on track last time I went off the rails ( I'm not sure what's with all the railway talk here, but anyway). The Rule of Three is just having three little things that I am going to do to get me headed in the right direction. I mean three little things is infinitely do-able. Anyone can do three little things. So the three things I'm going to do from tomorrow, considering I can't get back to the gym until I'm feeling a bit better are: * drink more water * eat real meals instead of snacking all day * only eat fruit between meals My main problems are that I am bored but can't do anything to alleviate the boredom while I'm feeling ill. I should learn to cope with that without resorting to food. When I first got sick, I wasn't eating much so I ate what I wanted when I wanted to eat. Now I'm eating all the time. The other problem is that I haven't been feeling up to eating regular meals so I have just been snacking, and snacking and snacking. Plus I've been feeling miserable. From tomorrow, this will stop. I also want to do some light exercise, maybe some walking. I was going to do that today but my muscles were aching so bad. At one stage, the muscles at the back of my legs were so sore I could hardly bare to stand. That can pass real soon. I don't want to blow this. Screw that. What I mean to say is that I am not going to blow this. I'm the one who is in control and I decide what I eat and don't eat. This is just a setback not a sentence or a curse. The other day, I was reading an article about exercising with the flu (ie don't) and it said that you should look at this as a chance to prove to yourself that you can get back into after a break. That's how I'm going to see it. After all I'd said about learning to trust myself, I now have the chance to demonstrate exactly that.
You are right on the button - you have the control and the power to do what you want to do and accomplish what you want to accomplish. And you are right - don't exercise with the flu (or any other illness) as it puts too much of a strain on your body. Take it one day at a time and if you can get your Rule of Three happening, before you know it you will be right back on track. Hang in there and you will get there.
This is such a great blog for me to read at the moment. I feel that I am putting one face out their with my plans and stuff, and another which is going slowly out of control. If you don't mind I may use the rule of three for the next week to see if I can pull my head in a bit.
::9.8.05:: Lose The Chair! There is an exercise that you often read about that you can use to conceptualise your weight lose - the one were you go to the supermarket or somewhere and get a bag of spuds or some tubs of lard or whatever equal to the amount you've lost and try to lift them. I've always thought that was a big hokey myself. Then tonight I bought a new computer chair. It was so heavy. I had to drag it in from the car (it was unassembled otherwise I could have wheeled it in, damnit) then drag it to my room. My poor little arms were aching and my back was killing me. I thought I was going to die. When I got it inside I noticed something on the box. The chair weighs 16.3 kilograms. That is just a little less than I have lost off my body. I used to carry a damn computer chair around on me! Sure that 16.3 kilos were evenly(ish) distributed around my body so it wasn't like my puny arms were taking the brunt of the weight but it is still a damn lot to haul around. And, to be honest, I'd much rather have my computer chair under my arse than on it.
Wooohooooo for those realisation times when we look back at what we have accomplished !!! Good for you. LOL. Brilliant post. It is hokey but shit it makes you realise what you have already done. Soon you will have shifted a whole furniture store. Well maybe not a whole one ;)
OH wow!!!
Mega Bingefest, Son of Binge-A-Rama Bad eating again today. This being sick is no good for me at all. I went to Ikea this morning (as you do when you're home sick from work) and then had meatballs and HOT CHIPS for lunch. Damn me. But I'm sick. I need comfort food. Blah. I was going to get a hot dog on the way but told myself to stop being so bloody stupid (in a British accent, no less. It seems to work better that way). Then, on the way home, I went to the servo to get petrol and bought a chocolate bar as well. That is so bad. One of my worst habits, the one I've been working so hard to break, is the need to get myself a chocolatey treat every time I go into a shop. And at home I've been pigging out on WW icecreams. Stocking up because I got them cheap was so much a BAD idea. Tonight I realised that it is no wonder I have been gorging myself on them. Aside from being yummo, they are the only quick and easy food I have around. And I am talking real quick and easy here - heating up a Lean Cuisine or a can of soup is too much bother. Emotionally, I'm a wreck also. After the big Ikea effort this morning, I went downhill rapidly. By late afternoon I needed a nap. So I curled up and went to sleep but kept waking up, cold and shivery. I wanted to put the other heater on, I wanted another blanket, I wanted my hot water bottle filled but I just didn't have the strength to get out of bed. So I got all miserable and self-pitying because I live on my own and no one cares about me (or, if they do, they live so far away that they can't do anything). Mostly I don't mind living on my own (well I have housemates but they don't count, I never hardly see them) but when I'm sick I really hate it. It is so nice to have someone not just to do stuff for you but to anticipate your needs and take that whole effort of decision making away from you. Tomorrrow I'm going to buy to some oranges and other healthy easy to prepare food. Maybe some juice. If I'm not starting to feel better by the end of tomorrow, I think I'll go see the doctor. This flu has gone on for 5 days without abating. That can't be good.
Hope you feel better soon - there is nothing worse than feeling sick and nobody to look after you !! Wish I could come and help out but I'm one of those people who live in the too far away to help category - sorry ! HAng in there - get better first and then tackle your weight loss - you are having a hard enough time as it is without putting any more pressure on yourself !
Oh yes, those horrible habits. Mine was always buying a chocolate bar (or 3) to eat on the train on the way home from work.
Awww Hope you feel better soon Hun.
No - it's not good. Go to a Dr girl. Or at least a chemist. The pharmacist may be able to suggest something. Then hog tie one of your housemates to make you some chicken noodle soup. On threat of vomiting on them. I bet they do it.
::8.8.05:: Habits of Thin People This morning I read this article on the 7 habits of slim people. Some of it is pretty old hat and damn obvious. Some of it is just stupid. Habit 1 - slim people don't diet. Well, der, they don't need to. Unless they have an eating disorder. And, actually, I have seen many slim people following some stupid Cosmo "Lose a Dress Size by Saturday" diet. So there. Habit 2 - slim people eat junk. Again der, of course they do. Because they can. Habit 3 - slim people don't binge. I don't know about this. I've seem some slim people stuff themselves. Habit 4 - slim people aren't obsessed. This one is a doozy. Slim people "don't count fat grams or kilojoules". Hey, new's flash, why the hell would they? If I was slim and had an eating style that maintained that weight then why would I start analysing my food? I think we can file this under "if it aint broke, don't fix it". If you are overweight, then maybe you do need to analyse your food. I mean, if my car was going well, I wouldn't take it to the mechanic except for a service and tune up. "A good place to start is to only think about what you're going to eat when you get hungry". Except that maybe you might need to plan your meals if you want to lose weight so you have the right food in the cupboard. Habit 5 - Slim people don't abuse food. This shit me. Really shit me. A total glib oversimplification of some damn complex issues here (as with 99% of all articles that deal with emotional eating. In fact, the only writing I've ever read that deals with these issues in any kind of depth has been on other people's blogs - go bloggers!) Habit 6 - slim people exercise - again an article telling us to use the stairs at work instead of the lifts. Grrr. I've said it before and I'll say it again - most people can't use the stairs! It's a security issue. I'm surprised she didn't use the old "take a bubble bath" thing for emotional eating while she's at it. Habit 7 - slim people enjoy life. Do they? Do slim people actually enjoy life more? I'm not so sure about that. So basically, slim people have their shit together while us fatties are just fucked up? We have all these issues that slim people don't have? I think many slim people ae just as fucked up as fat people. They just express it in different ways. I met someone recently who couldn't understand emotional eating or using food to deal with pain, but then I noticed when she was upset, she'd go out and buy heaps of shit at the stores. Like worthless shit she was never going to use. You can be slim and full of issues and self doubt. You can be big and love yourself and life. There is a girl at work who is definitely not slim. Not obese or even heavily overweight, but far above slim. She amazes me; she always seems to be so happy. And not just that, she seem to celebrate her body, wearing clothes that emphasis her curvy hips rather than hide them. She is an inspiration to me, she is so full of life.
Kathryn Hi Kathryn, Hope you're feeling better. You know these books have to be written to appeal to the lowest common denominator; otherwise, people would flee from them exclaiming they're "too deep" and "can't be understood." And, unfortunately, no one ever went wrong by seducing a fat person into thinking (a) there is a secret to weight loss, and (b) they have it buried somewhere in their book. Gah!
By
You have such a succint way of putting things. And it is oh so true. I have slim friends that have way more food hangups than I do. That is why they are slim. But they are not healthy. I am healthy. And becoming healthier. And will end up being slimmer with no hangups - thanks to blogs.
::7.8.05:: Sick and Tired Binge-A-Rama This whole thing of giving myself treats while I'm sick is going too far. I dragged my weary carcass out of bed to get food today and ended up at NQR (a chain that has discontinued, overstock, close to use-by-date food, there is prolly a name for that but I can't think of it). I got everything there I needed so avoided the happy family shopping chaos at the local supermarket. They had weight watchers icecreams, the yummy drumstick type ones, 3 packets for $5. Since they are usually $5 for one packet I stocked up. I also got other low fat icecream and lots of soups and some really cheap Lean Cuisines. Then I ate FOUR weight watchers icecreams today. Four. I am a pig. I just couldn't stop myself. I think the main problem is that I am too sick to do much more than watch dvds so I am bored shitless. Boredom = eating. Gotta stop that. I want to get back to the gym. Still, I lost a kilo this week. Hopefully I won't find it again next week.
You are right - just because you are sick doesn't mean that you can eat however much you like BUT you can give your body comfort food while it is sick. The thing to try to remember is that once you are better YOU HAVE TO STOP !!! I know how hard it is (having been down this road myself on numerous occassions - not necessarily sick but with other set backs) and it is like falling off a horse - you just have to get back up and try again. You can do it - you are so close to reaching your goal - what if you try to reach it BEFORE your birthday. Take care, be good and look after yourself !
Kathryn Needs To Learn Just because I'm sick, doesn't mean that I can "treat" myself to make me feel better. I've had chocolate for the last two days. I can't be eating chocolate when I'm not going to the gym. It's bad enough that I had to have cough lollies. I think I'll go stock up on soup and low fat ice-cream then take to my bed for the rest of the day. I bought a telly and a dvd player yesterday so I now have season 1 of Buffy to keep me amused.
Remember that sometimes you just have to treat yourself when you are feeling sick - the trick is to get back on track as soon as you are feeling better ! As the old saying goes, "under stress, we regress." I am feeling the same pull today as I have a fever and a horrible sore throat. I'm suspicious that my body is trying to resist the very good exercise program I started one week ago, but it's probably just being with friends who arrived from the UK with horrible sore throats and colds. I just had to hug and kiss them. D'oh! Feel better, Kathryn. :)
By
I think it is extremely unfair that we have to count cough lollies. Kj's or points. Not fair. We should be able to deduct the total off what we eat ;)
I think I'm taking treating myself to the extreme.
::5.8.05:: Yikes! Luckily I'm feeling too sick to eat much because I've just found out how many calories are in a Butter Menthol. Damn them.
It's amazing how many points / calories are in medicine - and it is supposed to make you better ??? Take care of yourself and I hope that you are feeling better soon !
How many calories are in a butter menthol?!
By
::4.8.05:: Slacker Me I haven't been to the gym for two days. I think I'm getting the flu, damnit. I'm not too concerned because I have been eating way under my daily kilojoules for some reason (maybe also because I'm getting sick). It's funny. I started counting kjs again last week and freaked at how much I was eating. So I worked out where I could cut back. For example, we have a cappaccino machine at work and I was having 3-4 coffees a day with (I assume since the milk is already in the machine) full fat milk plus one sugar. So now I have one coffee to get me going. That has knocked nearly 1,000 kjs off a day (around 250 calories). It really doesn't take much to make a difference. Yesterday I was struggling to get anywhere near my daily allowance and that was after eating a small packet of maltesers for afternoon tea. I'd much rather save my kjs for the good treats than waste them on things I care little for. ps. updated my blog design - I guess you either have been here before and knew that already or are new and don't care. Anyway, I made a super-delish dinner the other night - I'm usually hopeless at motivating myself to try new recipes but had all the ingredients for this one and it was dead easy - so thought I'd share it. Thai Beef Salad: 100 grams of steak (I bought a 200 g piece of steak, had half with vegies one night and made this the next, which made this even quicker to make) lettuce bean sprouts (I had none so I used grated carrot, capsicum and half a tomato I had in the fridge that needed using up - I love to improvise) coriander - shitloads mint - I skipped this shallots - ditto dressing: lemon juice - 3/4 tbsp garlic - shitloads (I love garlic) ginger - (this wasn't in the original recipe but I grabbed the wrong jar initially and put it in instead of the garlic. It worked) chilli - to taste fish sauce - I skipped this also Put the salady stuff in a bowl, arrange the meat, cut in thin strip decoratively on top. Shake up all the dressing ingredients in a jar and pour over. I worked it out to be around 1,000 kjs (approx 250 calories) and it was very filling.
Good for you on cutting back your kilojoules / calories. I have never been on an eating plan that counted kj or calories but am sure it works along the same lines as WW. Once you start to input less that you expend - you will see the weight start to drop off again. Take care and have a great day ! Like the new look; pretty colors! At WW the way that calories creep on you is sometimes called BLTs -- bites, licks and tastes. Gots to count every one cuz your body certainly does. :)
By
That was a great way to cut back the kj's. Who would have thought coffees could be so high? Great dinner you made. Yummm.
Yum-o @ dinner!!
::3.8.05:: Snuffle I have many things to say, but not right now so I am just going to post a bit of a rant instead. Recently I filled out Slimming Magazine's reader survey. I like to give my opinion and there was a nice prize up for grabs. As I started answering questions, it seemed to me that they were very skewed. Either you were fat and miserable and unhappy with your body - you were the "before" picture or you were thin and happy and loved your body - the "after" picture. There was no option for being the "during" picture, the person who is in the progress, the person who exercises and eats right most of the time, the person is happy with her body one day but not so happy the next. It seems to be a whole mentality - from black to white. They never show the grey. When you read the magazine (and I'm not targetting Slimming Magazine especially) the stories are always about how the success story was fat and unhappy and unhealthy and unloved. Now they are not only thin, but all their problems are solved. This just perpetuates the myth that all our problems are weight related. If only we were thin, we'd do better in our career, our love lives, our singing. Thin means happy. That is the greatest myth of our culture. Especially when you're fat. And it's easy to let ourselves believe it, isn't it? Far easier to think that we just have to diet to make the world right. Easier than dealing with emotions and feelings and deeply buried guilt. Just starve for a few weeks. Hey, can't do that? Well you must be weak and pathetic and greedy and lazy, hey? At the heart of it all, is the idea that we have to be thin to be loved. Even when food = love. We have to be thin to deserve having someone else care about us. That is my biggest issue, I think. So, after I got past that section of the survey, they asked who were the male and female celebrities I thought had the best bodies. Kinda dodgy I thought. Then it was which celebs had the best legs, the best chest, the best arm pits, the best pubes. Arrrrrghhhh! I just cut and paste "I don't care" for the whole 399 of those questions. I'm not even going to start on the implications behind it.
Yea, I totally get what you mean ~ pisses me off too!
::2.8.05:: Trust I was thinking today about trust, how if you don't trust someone you hold them tight but if you trust them your grasp is looser. Like say you are in a relationship with someone who had a history of cheating on you. So if they ring and say they are working back late, you pounce. You want to know the wheres and whys and the proof. Even physically you tighten up. Your jaw clenches and your fist balls. Or maybe you have child who says they are going to a friend's house after school but you find out that really they have been going down the creek sniffing glue. You tighten things up real fast - instead of freedom to roam, you want to know where they are every minute of the day. But, when you trust someone, the opposite is true. You don't mind your lover spending time talking to an attractive woman at a party because you know it's because he's interested in what she's saying, not her cleavage. You don't mind your child staying out late because you know they are doing the right thing. The rules become looser. You can leave a lover, dump a friend. If the situation becomes untenable, you can even kick your kid out of home (or send them to military school). Unless you are a siamese twin, you can always remove someone from your life if the situation is bad enough. Mostly we don't though, do we? We forgive, even if we don't forget. We hope that those pleas of 'never again' are sincere. But the option is always there. It isn't so easy when you can't trust yourself. When you are the one that constantly lets you down. And this, I think is the crux of my worries over the past few weeks. I feel like I can't trust myself. I have a bad history with me. I huddle like a wife on Friday night, keeping her man's dinner warm just so she can throw it at him as he walks in the door with the hangdog expression on his face and another woman's lipstick on his collar. So many times there have been the whispered promises in the morning... this time it will be different, this time I mean it. This time I'll live on a salada biscuit and a lettuce leaf. This time I'll do aerobics and weights and jog twenty miles. Every single day. So many times I've ignored the signs from the past and believed. A history of sloth and greed. So many times I've been let down. As the bright glow of mornings light fades into afternoon, the resolutions crumble like the residue of a Tim Tam. And a little part of me, the part that wants this more than anything, dies just a little. I need to rebuild the relationship with me. I need to gain trust. At the moment, if I have a legitimate reason to miss gym for one day, I don't loosen the strings. I don't trust that it is a normal bump in the road. Instead I tighten up. I get stressed and anxious, thinking it's all over. I've let myself down yet again. Even though I've made remarkable progess over the past 6 months, I've lost 16 kilograms and got my health under control and exercised with regularity and got rid of a swag of bad habits, I still don't believe its going to last. One chocolate bar could be the start of the end. One pizza, one block of cheese. If I can make that leap of faith, to really believe that this change is permanent, then I can start to loosen up. And that is what I need at the moment.
OH so very true all of it. You write beautifully. We all need to have that relationship with ourselves to move forward. Thank you for sharing this post.
You are very right in what you say - you need to learn to love yourself for who you are and not what you look like. It takes time and even when you do love yourself (in that special way - not the 'I am up myself' way - there will be days when you don't. Just like there are times when someone close to you makes you so mad you forget about how much you love them the rest of the time. But, if you don't love you it is hard for anyone else to love you. Don't be too hard on yourself - you need to give yourself a few breaks every now and again - your world will not collapse if you miss exercising one day or have something you shouldn't - just get back on track afterwards and don't beat yourself up over it - that doesn't help either ! Take care and be good to yourself - you ARE worth it - you have come so far - don't toss it all in now.
::1.8.05:: All Of Me Following on from my post of a few days ago, I've been thinking more about working on non-coporeal. You know the mind and spirit, not just the body. For the past few months, my whole focus has been on what I eat and what exercise I do. It has filled my world. But the other aspects of me are just as important. What good does it do a man to gain the world, if he loses his soul or whatever the saying is. So I'm making a few baby steps. I've booked in to do a meditation course over the next 8 weeks. The brochure says it helps to clarify your thoughts and give you an inner calm. So already I'm thinking how that will help with my weight loss - I'm obsessed, I tells ya. The other thing, that I'd planned a while back, is that I'm going to see a counsellor. Someone who can untangle this spagetti of repressed emotion and tainted thoughts. Hopefully. For what I'm paying her an hour, she should turn them into a lovely macrame pot hanger. I'd like to start something new. Something intellectually stimulating. I'm not sure what though. I am working hard on my writing but I'd like to do something social. Maybe learn another language. That's something I've wanted to do for years. I think I'd enjoy that. Anyway, I'd better get to bed. Since my meditation class is tomorrow night, I think I'll try to get up early and go to the gym before work.
Good for you giving something new a go.
Wow.
Good for you on signing up for the meditation course - I hope that you enjoy it. I have been to a couple and I really enjoy the time that I am there and normally come away feeling much more centred and able to cope with what is ahead - sounds like something I need desparately in my life right now !! Will have to see what I can do. Take care and have a great day !
What a great thing to do, to get some balance. And going to a counciller sounds like a really good thing to do. I go to a spiritual healer from time to time and it is like going to therapy. I always feel refreshed and calm and a lot more centred.
jaykay... I think Italian would be my language of choice. I picked up bits from when my son was learning it at school, plus Italian friends and I worked for a while at a job where we handed lots of documents from Italy. Also it would be a handy language in Melbourne. Oh and trip to Tuscany to make use of it would be such a hardship.
|
stats:current weight: start weight: total loss: goal weight:
measurements:boobs: 100 cm waist: 81 cm hips: 109 cm thighs: 50 cm
Weekly Goal Lifestyle Changing Challenge-A-RamaWeek 1 - Drink more water Week 2 - Cut out sugary treats *
previous:archives
|
