Management Day 1

Today I weighed in at 64 kilos precisely - I had reached my goal for starting management.

Tonight I had a small portion of grilled squid and two oysters despite the apparent extravagance of my supper it cost less than £1.50.

I am very happy - the hiatus on my blog here is because I am now running my blog from somewhere else due to the very personal nature of some of my bingeing episodes recently - and also because I wanted a more flexible blogging tool ast the focus moved off the weights and measures and on to food.

TadadadadadaDAAAAAAAAAA! TWO HUNDRED DAYS OF ABSTINENCE!

Do you know what – I really did feel like stopping today. Really, really did – there must be something in the air – I think it’s mainly the fact that I am exhausted, I am in turmoil and part of me keeps telling myself that if I went to see the company doctors today they would just tell me that it’s because I’m on LL – so it would be so easy to give in and give in today with medical backing!

I haven’t had a period for 8 weeks (don’t worry, it’s definitely not that) – was almost offended when my LLC suggested that it might be – as far as I am aware one has to actually – you know – in order for that to be possible and well – she should know from our counselling sessions that I just don’t do that!

I haven’t been sleeping well because my mind is a hive of activity and whirl and so many new doors have been opened in my mind and life – there are new opportunities for brilliance in my day job, so many millions of things and interests I can take part in outside of work that my poor little new body feels quite exhausted with it all – and I have to say there is a sense of vulnerability about being a small (but ‘stocky’ (tee hee) – of which more in a moment) person – there’s the fact that I am no longer a big strapping lass that can throw her weight around. I am having to use the weight of my personality to get things done rather than my physical mass. I also find that when I was bigger I expected myself to take things on – I felt physically broad-shouldered enough to carry it all – I think that big people are expected to – there must be some vestiges of our mother/goddess culture from thousands of years ago to make people around us feel the same way – that the big bosomy earth mothers are the ones with all the answers and the ability to handle all the shitty stuff. We are natural vessels, carriers – so people offload onto us. And now – physically and mentally I just don’t feel like I have that ability or desire to do that any more. I just want to do enough for me – I’ve not grown enough in my new body or walked long enough in my size 6 (used to be a 7) shoes to know what I am able to carry – I need to build up my muscles again to have the strength to do this.

So with the lack of sleep and the buzzing, flitting brain, I am trying to get myself to focus on one thing, one step at a time. Which I shall and I will get there – but I have to be exceptionally kind to myself over the coming months whilst I learn how New Sarah works and ticks (she has a worrying predilection for shoes and perfume and a rather charming interest in ceramics!) So I am going to take tomorrow off work. A whole day off work. I normally don’t allow myself such luxuries – I had been planning to come in at 8 so I could do a full day’s contract hours and then leave at 3 to drive to the West Country – but nah – I just don’t want to think about work tomorrow.

So – it would have been easy to stop today until I read that Mrs L was feeling the same way – so I just assume it’s a combination of slow weight loss and being squeakily close to goal as well as the fact that it’s a horrible grey day – and the thing is – I would need to go back into abstinence after the mouth op next Thursday anyway so there’s no point in stopping from that respect – and another thing – today – without noticing in the slightest when I woke up – is day 200. I have abstained – with the exception of 30 minutes during CHIPAGEDDON for an entire 200 days. Who on earth would have thought that it was possible?

The other thing I really have to think about here is the idea that our bodies cling to certain weights. The point where this whole mess, the mess of the battle between my body and my mind began in my mid teens when I could never see the number 9 on the scales like all my slimmer friends (most of whom were in the 8s) I was always 10 something. 10 something was the mark of the chunkier girl – the sturdy girl. Dare I say it – the stocky girl – and we were heading into the waifish 90s.

A person close to me described me as having a ‘stocky build’ last night. Normally I would be mortified or upset but I just laughed it off as male ineptitude. I know what I am, and it ain’t stocky – I can get my index finger and thumb around my wrists these days – that’s a light-medium build and I know it. ‘Stocky’, my arse. Or rather, my not stocky-in-the-slightest arse. And that’s how we should take any comments like that – as a signifier of the inadequacy of others to put our physical appearance into words and not as a finite definition of us and who we are. We should be grounded enough and assured enough about ourselves to be able to laugh off anything that doesn’t fit in with our own glowing, positive self-image.

So I am sitting here, clinging to 10st 6, my body not quite willing to release the final few pounds that would take me to that troublesome weight, the one I desired and never achieved apart from during a scary fortnight of anorexia in 1989. There is no logical reasoning for this, no real evidence for why this would or would not happen, but I do feel that I am somehow afraid of seeing the other side of 10. It would mean letting go of the secure successful world of LL and opening myself up to yet more possibilities and overwhelm!

I was hosting a lunch today and I under-catered deliberately by only asking to cater for 20 when we had about 30-40 attendees and there was still too much food by a long shot. And everyone was encouraging one another to eat. Yesterday my manager had a session for our small team of 4 including him and he brought cream cakes for us – I’m not eating, obviously and the other team member has a dairy allergy so we sat there looking at them and feeling bad.  In the past I would have happily eaten two without thinking and maybe had a third to make up for the one person not eating – making about a thousand calories of fat and sugar in my system. And the only reason I actually felt bad was that he’d been thoughtful and the fact that two out of four of us had to abstain for dietary reasons was a little embarrassing – and he’s a good friend – but what was nice was that he didn’t force the issue or just say ‘go on’ to me. So it wasn’t an issue and what was nice was that these days I can sit back and observe the comedy of manners that is British eating etiquette. Would I have the cream cake in three month’s time at the end of management? Ask me when I get there! I might have half of one – or eaten what I fancied. I think I will have the cream cake, but only as much as I want.

And then the sandwiches today? In the past I would have crammed my pockets with them, I would have had at least 2 rounds and gone back for more. Today – I haven’t even dived back here for my soup – I usually have it at midday but I haven’t even made it yet and it’s 1.30.

Food, I’m so over you – you really do have no power over me any more.

I think it’s something to do with reaching the point where food stops calling you – I had a little of that behaviour last night, but not terribly so…I overwatered my soup last night so it was tasteless so I added a spoonful of Marigold to it to give it a kick and then later (CHIPAGEDDON happened on a Wednesday so there’s something that happens to me on a Wednesday, I guess) I felt the need for something and rather than risk the crazy child getting me out of bed at 9.30 for chips and cake like she did last month, I make myself a cup of very strong bullion.

I said to a friend yesterday when I had my rebellious Coke Zero that this slight rule-bending is me beginning to accept something quite important – that I have succeeded and that I can be trusted not to go crazy when I bend the rules slightly I’ve known for a long time by use of logic and science exactly which LL rules can be bent because they have been set higher than they need to be, but I made the adult choice to stick to the programme to the letter despite my rebellious child having a field day mocking some of the explanations for why we can have some things and not others – I just let her do it and got on with getting on.

I did a personal development course last year where we discovered that they expected some of us to break the rules – and two of us – unusually, hadn’t (which kinda screwed up the point they were trying to make for us) but I learnt that I spend a lot of my life busting my arse to live by the rules when no one else seems to care. I set my standards aggressively high – so the fact that I can cut myself a teeny bit of slack without collapsing is as much of a lesson to me as any thought record.

Chipageddon taught me my most potent lesson this year – and the lesson that any addict must learn - the fact I could go through the emotional rollercoaster of a binge/purge and get straight back on the wagon with only a flinch of guilt and regret was the biggest eye-opener of my life – normally any sign of failure causes me to panic, beat myself up and collapse and give up. I am happy to accept my splendid imperfections.

I particularly enjoyed saying the following sentence to myself yesterday ‘Dude, I’m skinny – I can have a Coke Zero’. I note that this did not translate at any point to ‘Dude, I’m skinny I can have a sandwich.’ Whereas in the past I would have tried to use that logic to trick myself into eating.

Day 197 - Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.

Day 197

Anyway - I had a really weird day today - I feel hideously overwhelmed but I've had a couple of quiet victories to do with comfort eating - I had a slight panic attack at work the first thing I could think of to calm me was hot sugary tea - then on the way home I thought about pizza - neither of those thoughts were actually attached to the food - I was distant from the thought of the food - I just saw the thoughts and felt no sense of need or longing whatsoever - which is such a new thing for me - I think I have broken the cycle of addiction. I feel no emotion over food any more. I am now attached to moisturiser and exotic tea!

And then there was the lightbulb - the one I have been waiting for - the one I needed to hear (okay - and see!) before I knew I was ready for management. It ran along these lines:


'Food will not change any situation. It delays you from facing the present.  Now you know this, you are free from it.

You will never need or want to turn to food for comfort again. You don't have to be wary of it any more, you have let it go. You have won.'

It felt like the bit at the end of Labyrinth where Sarah says to Jared with the brand new thought shining brightly in her eys for the first time - 'You have no power over me!'

On a horrible day like today where I felt choked up by everything else in my life - seriously I am so overwhelmed by the number of things that are coming to me and presenting themselves as opportunities. I feel attacked by the sheer volume of thoughts and activities and things and stuff I have to do at work and at home and in my leisure time that I'm dizzy with it - you wouldn't believe this but it was - in part - triggered by the news that I may just walk into a new opportunity at work - the one I set for myself to achieve at the beginning of the year and the exact method by which I thought I'd lost the opportunity back in March has actually become the means by which I may get it (complicated, I know) but I'm kind of frightened at the way things I want just seem to be happening that I am terrified that if I asked for something I truly desired I might just get it.

It comes from the strangest places, you know - this sense of panic - You wouldn't believe it if i told you how overwhelming I found the management book when I received it!

I immediately thought I had to know about all of the exercises and activities RIGHT NOW until I took a deep breath and told myself to quit planning ahead so much, and put it down and leave reading it any more closely until Day 1 of management - I'll have more than enough time to obsess about it whilst I'm in the process - I keep on needing to be so ahead of the game all the time that I rarely enjoy the game (LIGHTBULB! - I rarely enjoy anything I plan because whilst it's happening I'm already on to the next thing!)

I tell myself I'm lazy and I get nothing done - the problem is that once I start doing, I binge on activity. (Ha - what was that about cracking addictions, again?!) If I sit down to read a book, I have to FINISH reading the book immediately so that I can pick up a piece of embroidery and learn how to play canasta and organise a trip to the Tate Modern. I exxagerate, but no wonder I get tired before I even do anything!

And I cycled and cycled through all the things I'm not doing, all the things I need to do and want to do and everything I get wrong - I came home to find a batch of junk mail dumped on my doorstep from my old address - with a note telling me to get it sorted! How can I stop junkmail going to an old address?! And I got quite upset about it - ridiculously so.

Stupid inconsequential things and some of the more important things - well - it just made me realise, if I move into management with a suspicious skittish eye ready to get easily upset - well - food and I are never going to have a normal relationship and that was always the problem - we've been enemies as well as bosom buddies for years and it should be neither. It's just food. I have choice from now on. I am abstinent and I'm okay with that - even on a horrible day. (I found myself reflecting, today - Tuesday - that I am not hungry. I really am not hungry for food any more.)

And so with all this dizzying tizziness, I realise that I had the same sort of meltdown this time last year - when I had to run away from the city and spend a few days in a fisherman's cottage that overlooked where I grew up and then walk across to Worm's Head and stare back at the hazy shore and watch the sea grass ripple and the gulls wheel by on their fish missions. And I realised that in the last year I have only had two holidays - one for 7 days last August that was half a festival in Holland where I caught a dreadful cold and then followed that up with a personal development course where I was working on myself from 10 in the morning to 10 at night for three days (with said stinking cold). And then the last vacation was Crete which was an obligation rather than a break and it was only actually 4 working days off. And it's just not enough. I need more time off. But I don't want to travel just yet...and I don;t want to spend any money - and I don't want to do something cheap like backpacking, camping or hostelling because that's just exhausting. Anyway - so I need a break.

Perfectionism - striving to avoid actually getting on with it
Heres the thing (this is a lesson I read from The Artist's Way on Sunday and did I take a blind bit of notice of it? No - it sent me into avoidance behaviour - so it must be an important lesson - so lets think it through...

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead.

So - knowing that, and knowing that I am not ruled by food any more. I am ready for management - but as the wisdom teeth come out next Thurs there's no point in starting today as I would prefer to stick to the LL liquid diet for the first week after the op as a matter of convenience and lack of effort - if I'm in pain I'm not going to want to be bothered about preparing meals and thinking about it and the like - and I didn't lose an ounce this week so this is a great opportunity to definitely lose the last half stone to get me into the 9s - the magic number I thought I would never see again. Once I see that, then I can have my first piece of John Dory.

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
Miles Davis.

Day 198

Good heavens, here already? How did it come so quickly? Almost at the end of 200 days...here's what happened today.

Accidental compliment
Today a nurse told me I was very nearly underweight. Oh it was only because she was looking at the wrong section on the BMI chart, but that's not a mistake you make unless someone looks skinny now, is it?

Every Good Girl Deserves Wine
Every Sensible Girl Wants For Nothing
Also - as I was washing up - I had run out of water glasses and had got down to my enormous wine glass so it was time to wash up...as I washed the wine glass I thought of something my aunt said to me whilst Iw as on holiday - after I had completed my 14 hour Odyssey down the Samaria gorge and made the hair-raising trip back over the mountains on a double decker bus she said 'Surely you deserve a glass of wine tonight?' I brushed it off at the time and said 'Yes, I do but I'm not going to' which was me just being a good girl. Today I have had a weird old day of it - I have been privately stressing about something i can't talk to anyone about - which highlights the fact yet again that I really should have someone I can talk to about this stuff in my life, but I don't. Bugger. Never mind - I don't let that stuff get me down these days, I'm quite chipper and looking forward to being back in the normal world again. Ah - I digress - I was talking about 'You deserve a glass of wine' To console myself for a rotten day and a two hour wait in a doctor's surgery I had my second Coke Zero this month (ooh look at me, the rebel!) Mainly because there was no other way of getting a quick caffeine fix - but yeah - as a sneaky treat. And so - holding the wine glass I thought about 'deserving' as a word. I do not 'deserve' anything. I have or I do not have - I am in possession of myself - anything that comes to me is no more or less than me. I will never treat food or alcohol as a reward again - it is what I have when I am hungry. Wine is what I drink with a meal to help digest it or savour the flavours more. An aperitif is a palate cleanser and aid to digesting the food to come - not something to knock back three glasses of to numb me before the procession of chat and food to come. I like food, I am fond of food, I am fascinated by food and the alchemy of flavours - but I do not need to eat everything to know what's going on. I can't wait to learn about eating until I'm satisfied!

Unwanted Compliment
How would you react if someone said this out loud in general as you walked past them in an office?

'Apparently you've lost more than 7 stone? Congratulations! How much have you lost now?'

And she said it in front of other people which I actually thought a bit off, so I blushed and said 'I'd rather not say' and accepted her compliments - but I just didn't like the way she shouted it out. I'll try not to analyse it too much (we are trying to get over that sort of behaviour round these parts), but I did bristle at her slightly because you just don't shout out weights, do you?

Day 193 - Communication

I went on a communication skills course at work today - don't even get me started - we covered Emotional Intelligence - which gave me a little food for thought - although I had already covered EI in a leadership course earlier in the week - and a million times before in my previous professional life - but what can you do? - Other than make them stop sending you on the set syllabus for your job level and come across as uncooperative.

I also did a lot of thinking about goal setting. I really was terribly non specific about goals you know - mainly because I had no idea what to set and whether it was realistic for me. I have goals all over the place - one says 9st 3 one says 9st 10 another 9st 9. I think all I can safely say is that I want to see what 9st something feels like.

And it's not just my weight goals - it's my life goals - I am terribly unspecific and unambitious with them - but now I know that I can achieve incredibly huge things in a very small space of time I want to set myself some big (but SMART) goals for the second half of this year.

I started work on this at work this afternoon - so my big goals will go up soon. This blog will come to an end shortly (I only really have it here to keep it out of the main blogosphere and relatively free of comments - I also like the measuring tools, so it's been a nice place to keep all that info) so my first mini goal will be to get my website sorted out enough to host a proper management blog (and the basis for my book).

I have terrible wind. I've been overdoing it on the water flavourings so I only have myself to blame!

I am also starting to get quite angsty about my missing period (I came on 2 weeks early in Crete (but round about the full moon which is usually when I come on like clockwork) and haven't had a period since so I assume it's just a 'been on LL too long' kind of thing) -  I can't possibly be pregnant  - but you know what it's like when you worry about this stuff.

Day 192 - Self 'Ass'essment

Despite the wobbly bits and the things that I was frightened of when I was fat – namely saggy skin and what my stretchmarks would look like, I can happily state that with practically no real method in my skin care routine but an occasional application of Lush products and Boots’ Mande Lular and copious amounts of bio oil in the dramatic wieghtloss weeks 1-8 and then a Universal Contour wrap series of 3 lots of 1 hour wraps when I reached the end of my 100 days, I seem to have ended up with the following breakdown of what happened to my problem areas.

Before

Stomach
Immense (I am not being ‘a girl’ about this) it was stretched and uncomfortable and I was starting to get stretchmarks running down to my lady bits that itched and were painful – pale red stretchmarks criss crossed it and it had the appearance of cellulite and there were lots of pale cream stretchmarks from when I first became obese 9 years earlier. My waist was about 42 inches and probably then some after Christmas. I even had cellulite on my upper abdominal area.

Arms
So big that most sleeves wouldn’t fit me and I had had to stop wearing shirts and jackets as they rubbed too much – my upper biceps were about 20 inches.

Bust
Over 52 inches, most high street bars didn’t fit me, the stretchmarks were very evident and due to the size of them (each one larger than my head) this was my biggest area of concern – surely losing 15 inches off them mean that they were going to end up around my waist like on some episodes of 10 years younger. Underneath was stretchmarked nad sore from years of ill fitting bras and stretching due to – well – not exactly fungal infections but it must have been quite sweaty and damp under there.

Feet
My feet constantly had some sort of weeping sores on them – I had athlete’s foot, my arches were under immense strain and I hated standing up for any length of time. The would swell up during the day in almost all my shoes and I had to sneak around work in my trainers most days because of the problems with them. Most of all they stank to high heaven. All the time. Nothing I could do would help with this

Legs
The legs were the dealbreaker of my little compact with my secret obesity demon – my inner thighs started to stretch to the point where I was in agony. I got chafing every time I didn’t just wear plain work trousers. The cellulite was so horrendous that I wanted to cry every time I saw it creeping down my legs. I could also tell that another stone or so would have seen my leg fat starting to roll down over my knees – so despite all the other warning signs everywhere else on my body, I think I secretly had told myself what my absolute limit was and it was the possibility of that that scared me into action..

Bum
Once my pride and joy, I had got to the point where my bum fat started above my waist. The cellulite was dreadful – truly dreadful and the more stupid articles that I read about how you never get rid of cellulite, the more I thought ‘what’s the point?’ It was so big that it had just become a square of solid fat.

Gait
I waddled. I didn’t realise it – I had always thought of myself as an elegant person – but apparently I waddled.

After

Stomach
Okay – there are three parts to this – I didn’t mention this in the before section but before I always found certain exercises very hard as I just couldn’t work out where my stomach muscles actually were underneath the fat – now I can see where they are and can use them properly – so that’s the first major difference.

On my back naked – well – if I lie down and suck myself in I have a scooped tummy – if I just lie there relaxed it just flops casually but doesn’t run off over my hips like it used to! Not exactly a bikini beach babe, but I can live with it. On my back in the bath the fat sort of floats into a cute little mound like the beginning of a six pack!

Clothed – You would never know that I had ever had a tummy! Especially when I wear tights and jeans.

Standing up, naked: Hmmm – yes – the word, is, I’m afraid, droopy. But considering the hell that I’ve put it through, you’d be compelled to say ‘Ah now, Sarah, that’s not so bad.’

Yes it’s gathered in the middle and if you wanted to be unkind you could say that it looks a bit like pink Austrian blinds. But y’know what? There are people starving and being tortured in the world – there are more important things in heaven and earth than my droopy tummy.

I have a fabulous brain and I look great in clothes and I absolutely refuse to get hung up about my battle scars. Life is too short. I’ll be dead in 100 years and I can promise you that no one will remember me for the fact that my stomach was a bit saggy – they’ll remember me for the things I say and do – and maybe, if I want to be vain, my lovely eyes and bone structure, poise and stupendous rack!

Arms
If I am honest about this, promise me you won’t get all upset? Right – well – it’s the bit of me I was most worried about - and with good reason – the old bingo wings are the butt of everyone’s jokes, aren’t they? Well – you see the after pictures of the women in the weightloss magazines and they always have what I call a ‘TS’ on (TS = Tactical Shrug/Shawl) and you think to yourself ‘What’s the point in losing all that weight if I have to wear a TS for the rest of my summers?’ I knew there was no way I could get away with it entirely – when you want to halve the circumference of something – there have to be consequences, right?

Well – lets just say, if you look into my overstretched armpits (weirdly where most of the damage seems to have done and also who the hell goes round looking into armpits?) it’s a bit of a wrinkly crevice and if I don’t arrange my arms correctly the wiggle fissures of some of the stretchmarks are visible at the back – but if I carry myself well and don’t flap the old ladies about too much you’d think I went to Pilates class with Madonna. It’s a case of ‘Hands up if you use Right Guard, hands down if you’ve done LighterLife’. The situation is improving, however, on an almost daily basis – so don’t take my tales of woe as gospel and do wait for me to get some muscle tone back into them over the next 3 months!

Bust
My bust has been the most surprisingly pleasing thing about this whole process – now admittedly there are days when the girls just look a bit wrong or like they should be in The National Geographic and if I’m not careful there can be ‘ruching’ (eeep!) and there are bits where the fat has gone down to the breast bone and they look a bit strange when I lie on my back, from the front and the side, although a bit lower than a girl of my age should really have, they are rather nice. I like them, anyway! And the way that they are now gives me hope for what might eventually happen to them – which at the beginning of LL – I really wasn’t convinced about. I’m a 32G, which is possibly one of the most annoying bra sizes I have ever been, but hey – tiny frame, big boobs – Hollywood here I come!

Feet
My feet are slimmer – maybe even half a size smaller – they’ll never be narrow, or pretty, but I have no problems with them, they carry me great distances and they only smell when I leave them in non natural shoes all day!

Legs
Do not believe a word you hear about cellulite being a forever kind of problem. Okay so I’m not going to be modelling swimwear anytime soon, but neither is the paparazzi going to get a shot of my lumpy thighs! They are good enough – and the horrible orange peel must be under there somewhere but you can’t see it any more. LL – I owe you one for this!

Bum
It’s a cute little peach with no cellulite! It does look like I am about 50 though and sort of wrinkles under at the back – it’s had a bit of a shock, poor thing – it’s a shame that we don’t really measure our bums (can you imagine?) because I actually think the poor baby’s done the most work and lost the most volume of any of my body parts. I’m hoping with cycling and a bit of food and TLC it will be back to the very pink of perfection by the end of the year.

Oh – and when I lie on my back it does sort of spread out under my thighs which amuses me, but will hopefully stop before I get any sort of a boyfriend.

Gait
I strut! I gliiiiide! I am a laydee!

Best bits

• My shoulders;
• Back;
• Collarbone;
• Bone structure in my face (get my cheekbones) and;
• Waist
• Most of all my waist.
• Did I mention my waist?
• I am a size 10
• My ankles feel slimmer than they ever have (I have naturally thick ankle bones - thanks, Dad)

Day 192 Time flies when you’re having none.

When I first started LighterLife in 1872  (ha – this was supposed to be a post about how time contracts in retrospect, but it really does feel like I’ve been doing this since the dawn of time) anyway – yes – when I first started back in January I knew that to get to where I wanted to go (at that stage my confidence in myself was so shaky that I set that original goal at 11 stone with a secret – maybe just maybe goal of 10 stone) I would need to do LL abstinence until the beginning of August and every day felt like an eternity.

So I chunked my time together – at first I tentatively clung to each day, just keeping the next Sunday in mind, just waiting until I could type my new weight in on my special spreadsheet on Monday mornings and forecast when I might be which size and weight and when by. Eventually as I gained confidence and achieved the first 28 days, I relaxed a little and began looking forward to the end of the next month. It’s only since June arrived that I allowed myself to look up at the finishing line and now I am staring it in the face and pedalling as fast as I can – I’m picturing myself on the winners’ podium as we speak. Anyway…I did a little shopping today. Three pairs of sale shoes in Dune – some size 10 work trousers – I almost got an 8 skirt but didn’t want to get cocky even though my 12s have started falling off me the way my 22s used to in week 2! And a few jewellery bits to go with my DvF dress. As I hurried back to the tube, I passed a place where I piquantly remember sitting feeling about as low as I could possibly go with a terrible hangover (hangovers! I barely remember ever having one now and I never want one again!) it was the place where I would secretly wolf a MacDonalds and a bucket of hangover cure Coke whilst feeling so alone and unloved before going to M& S and buying myself loads of comfort food to eat as a reward for braving the Number 29 bus and to fend off my lonely Saturday night blues.

Without hangovers, I don’t need to sit in tawdry badly lit and uncomfortable fast food restaurants, ashamed of the junk I put into my body the night before and the junk it would take to clear it out of my system. I can sit in more interesting places, not absorbed by food as a drug but choosing what I want to eat because it’s what I actually want to eat and not assuming that I am medicating myself as part of some incorrectly established ritual. Anyway – I smiled to myself as I remembered that distant girl that I am not related to any more – I don’t revile her or pity her – I am just at one remove from her. And distant though that girl may seem I smiled even more when I remembered the moment like it was yesterday and thought to myself ‘It’s been no time at all – that was in the January sales – it was round about the time I bought my MacBook. Look how quickly you can change your life!’

All the pretty clothes

Well – here we go kids – the dream we all dreamed of – Sarah gets to attempt to emulate Ms. Catherine Zeta Jones in the publicity poster for Intolerable Cruelty. I look nothing like her, mind – we’re both svelte curvy ladies from Mumbles in Swansea with long dark brown hair, but that’s about it!

I may or may not attempt to buy a red Vivienne Westwood cowl neck dress as seen here:

Lovely red dress - yeah

But we shall see what occurs this weekend. After last weekend’s crises I have no idea what might happen as I shall be hopping into a West End make-up boutique of some sort to have my makeup done and then I shall have a pretty photo taken – hopefully! I know it’s not quite at the end of my LL journey – but it is just about the end of my abstinence journey and I think any real money on grooming and making me look all shiny and polished should be spend once I have my muscle tone after management. But I do want a picture of what I look like at 10 stone seeing as I haven’t really been here since I was 15!

I feel blessed really.

An Exercise...in exercise - Day 190

So - today I cycled into work. I never normally have the get up and go on Monday to do that - but being so close to management and realising that I will have to start ramping up the exercise so that I can build the foundations for my strength and aerobic fitness after being very gentle with my exercise for 7 months. I got home feeling knackered and then went across the road to the gym for a 15 minute run and a minute of rowing (I hate rowing!) - wow! I'm impressed at myself!

I was always quite unfit at school - could never manage running around the track and was always slower/weaker than the other girls. I was good at aerobics, coordinated and quite flexible but that never counted for much in PE in the 80s. It was that lack of confidence around activity that kind of led to my self-esteem issues over my body so as I get slim, I'd like to feel more confident over my ability to run and cycle and swim and be more active rather than feeling like a big fat klutz.

I have been thinking so much about what I want to do and how I want to do it and I took the plunge and called The Body Doctor's studio in Primrose Hill (I live about 15 minutes cycle ride away from it - well if I was fit I would ) As before and after work sessions are in demand and as I don't want to start strength training whilst I'm in abstinence and I have a holiday booked in early september and the wisdom teeth in August, I am hopefully due to start in mid September meaning that I would be starting the 6 week programme at round about week 4 or 5 of management meaning that I would finish the programme and LL at approximately the same time - so I will be back in the world of food with a celebrity style honed body and the desire to maintain it. It also means that I will be finished with LL the week before I begin my OU degree conversion for graduate basis for registration in psychology.

I am opening myself up to so many things.

On Saturday I am getting a new hairstyle and maybe I will go and get my makeup done somewhere nice - I really need to find somewhere that will do a good job and then I need to be back here for 3pm for a photoshoot with one of those freebie places. I have no grand expectations but I may mention to them that I will return if they do a good job.

Change - everything you are, everything you were your time is now

The line above is from a song called Butterflies and Hurricanes by Muse. I remember listening to it at Glastonbury 3 years ago and knowing that I was on the verge of a huge change.

And so here I am, under 10.5 stone and very close to my goal although my goals are a little all over the place - not sure where or when I am supposed to be where I want to be. The only limit I have is that I need to be out of ketosis by the 2nd August so I can have the general for my wisdom teeth (although I might go back in again straight after the operation. We'll see) I should also start taking the extra vitamins this week to stop the bruising and aid the healing.

It's been a weekend of highs and lows to be honest - I've done a lot of very serious hard thinking about what I am doing and I really think that putting in the work at this stage will reap rewards later. I stayed after class yesterday and had a long chat with my LLC about my potential journey after management. She goes away after next Sunday for 4 weeks so I will be starting management without her unless I make the concerted decision not to do it until I am 9 stone which I think may be a step too far for me, even. So next week we will have the discussion about what it entails and what to do so I will be able to start planning my journey through management (you know what I'm like - it's all about the spreadsheets!) Anyway - the main reason I stayed was to ask her if she thought it wold be okay if I wrote a book about my experience on this diet and she was so supportive. I am really passionate about what's happened to me and how I've got here so anything I can do to share that journey would be great. The intention is to run a really sexy looking blog for the next year to take me through management and 9 months of maintaining and then I'll fel happy to publish. Which I think is a good amount of time and will give me plenty of time to write my history up til now and to do some research into the psychology of it and comfort eating.

This week on The Artist's Way it's all about money and we have to keep a money notebook which I've always been terrified of in the past, but yesterday all I spent was my money on my 2 litres of water to drink during class and £84 on food and flavourings. I might try extra hard to keep it frugal this week - not because I want my notebook to look good, as I'm sure next Saturday it won't (haircut and photoshoot) but I really don't need to spend money to feel good.

I tried on Christian Louboutin heels this weekend, and I wasn't that impressed. I will have to go to his shop I think to get the full experience. Maybe even the one in Paris. Tee hee.

Right - well - I'd better get ready for work - I really need to write up my feelings in more detail - I may well do that later  but I got off my arse yesterday and submitted my scripts to the BBC for a radio show. I very nearly almost self-sabotaged myself over it, but a concerted effort meant that I outwitted myself!

A different kind of thought record

I feel so very very weird and annoyed and grumpy and pissed off - I could sit here and list the whole gamut of things that is contributing to this feeling but I have just done that on the phone to a friend and d'you know what I'm sick of it all - I can't see what the breakthrough is going to be - it all feels so worryingly predictable - I am just sitting with my rage and being grumpy. I would assume I feel like this because I was close to a breakthrough. Maybe a breakthrough in both my creative work on The Artist's Way and maybe one in thought so I am fighting it. Maybe my long overdue period is finally due.

If I weren't on LL right now I would be drinking right now - if I wasn't drinking I would be eating. Instead I am avoiding doing the creative work I want to do because I have too many ideas and I am worried about where to start I am procrastinating over a big deadline and my body has learned to dread Sundays.

I want a cuddle. I want a silly conversation. I want a glass of wine - I want something nice to eat. (haha - 'nice') I don't want to be sitting here with this rage. This sense of emptiness. This not knowing what I want - this kind of futility.

I don;t know what I want and that frustrates me. Nothing seems worth having - and today really highlighted that. I got bored of watching the film I wanted to watch halfway through. I had two baths that I didn't need. I went shopping and wasn't particularly delighted. I keep obsessing over food blogs and recipe books and it feels unhealthy staring at what I can't have and enjoy for real. I am sick to the back teeth of doing thought records and thinking about myself and my stupid life. I keep wanting the most trivial, useless, pointless things. I am not satisfied with some of the choices I am making at the moment - I am happy, I know I am happy but I am angry about why I am happy - it goes against my values. I feel superficial for only being happy because I've lost the weight. I am angry at how much stock people have set by me being thin. I've realised that my Mum needs me to be thin more than I needed it - she wants to parade me in front of her friends. I hate that men are attracted to me. WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU TO BE ATTRACTED TO ME? I hate the way the world works. And yet, and yet - I can;t think of one sigle thing other than food that would assuage this for even a second - I guess that the lightbulb about to flash is this...

Food, like all the other things I've rejected as salves this evening, is no more the answer. It is a thing, no more or less innocuous than the baths, books, crap telly, comfy pillows, cups of tea that when I am in a mood like ths helps no more or less than any of those other things. It is not the solution. Maybe there is no answer tonight other than just switching off the laptop and just going to sleep.

There. That feels a bit better.

Rant over.