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.

*CLAPS*

And applause duly given.  Well done.  Now you're free of food's power, you seem so much happier and more relaxed.

checking in!

Hey you!  OMFG - you look stunning in your picture and you're doing so well!  HUGE congratulations!

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