10/29/2008 12:03
Quick hello : )
Hello everybody,
I hope you are all really well. Sorry I haven't posted in so long. I know some of you will have been worried.
I had a very bad relapse with my depression and haven't been doing very much at all.
Now I'm back on meds and feeling much better.
This is just a quick hello but I'd anticipate I'll be posting more in the near future.
Lots of love and well wishes to you all, I've missed you, and special wishes to you Raspberry because I think I've missed your big day and I am so so sorry about that.
Speak soon,
Rach xxx
09/23/2008 03:14
I am shrinking lol!
Thanks for all your comments on cosmetic surgery. Has really given me some food for thought! I'm sorry, guys, that I haven't been around. I have been busy! In the last 3 weeks I have lost...wait for it...13 pounds 
.
I am happy but sort of horrified at the same time lol!
I have been eating 1700 calories per day, and exercising moderately - usually a 2 mile walk each day.
Just shows how much I was bingeing before, huh?
Hopefully it'll slow down to a manageable rate now. Never thought I'd say that, lol.
I am now only 8.25lb above my lowest to date : )
R xxx
09/18/2008 06:10
Nip/tuck
Right ladies and gents...got a question for you this morning.
What are you thinking about cosmetic surgery these days?
I always used to swear I would never have it, that it was just wrong.
But now I've changed my mind.
I am in the process of getting my teeth whitened and straightened (I have fluorosis so it is *sort of* necessary...I just want them to look normal).
I am fair, and spent half a year in Africa, so I have sun damage - a little just starting to show on my face, and a lot on my chest and shoulders. I want it lasered off and plan to do that after my teeth.
I used to have nice boobs, but they sag now with my weight yoyoing. I will consider having them uplifted after having kids, but I am not sure.
And I would certainly have Botox.
Ok...I'd better get saving.
Seriously though, the reason I am happy with the idea of this now is that it's just becoming so much more common.
Partly there's an element of keeping up with everyone else. It's not just the celebrities who have a face lift for breakfast...it's the girl down the road who works in the pub.
But I guess at the most basic level it still comes down to self-esteem.
What do you think? Anything wrong with wanting to make more of ourselves?
Or a truly evil industry?
Or both?
Will cosmetic surgery become as normal as...say...braces. How fair is it that kids need braces to fit in?
All ideas appreciated!
Love R xxx 
09/16/2008 05:23
Please, noooooooo!
Something's gone a bit wrong...my tracker has changed and I now apparently have 308924754 days to go till I reach goal! Please, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
09/16/2008 05:01
Don't put the baby on a diet!
Today on my message boards someone was talking about putting their 10-year-old on a diet. Taking him to Weight Watchers.
This just horrifies me beyond comprehension. I can see how the woman got to this point. She has a son who is 30 pounds overweight. And she wants to help him. But she's overweight herself. So one thing she surely does know is the trouble diets can cause.
Imagine you're a kid. You go along, eating what you want, not really thinking about it. Then, one day, someone tells you you're fat. You're shocked and hurt. You'd suspected it, but hoped no one else had noticed. You go home and cry to your mom. And your mom takes you to Weight Watchers.
It's great, she thinks. A new start. You'll be slender in no time - and by the time you get to high school, no one will ever know you were fat to begin with. You'll have a chance. But it doesn't work out quite like that. By the end of the year, you've gained another 10 pounds. Fast-forward 20 years, and you're obese.
Huh? How'd that happen?
We all know how diets can mess with our heads. Imagine, then, how much worse that effect could be for a child. This is what happens when you take a child to a diet club:
He sits there and listens to everyone panicking about their weight. He gets infected. He realises weight is super-important in life. If you're not slim, you're nothing. And he is not slim. He feels inferior, as though something about him is wrong - even though all he's done to get to this point is eaten what his parents have given him.
He is given his diet books. He goes home and what he can eat has suddenly changed. He is taken on long walks and to swim lengths - no more Playstation with his friends. He is hungry and tired, but he is also losing weight. He is showered with praise. He knows he's done something very, very good.
But then he starts to notice he isn't eating the same things as his friends or even his family. He watches his sisters tuck into fudge cake after dinner. And he's absolutely starving - he's growing, after all. And he could just fancy some cake, or any of the other foods that are now banned. So he sneaks a chocolate bar on the way home from school.
Now he feels terrible. He is a Big Fat Failure. He'll never be like the other kids. So he eats another chocolate bar. And another one. All behind his mom's back - he doesn't want to get in trouble, and he doesn't want her to go back on all that praise. Eating stuff he isn't supposed to have - the nice stuff - makes him feel wonderful and terrible at the same time.
Mom can't understand why the child is gaining weight back. Or she can if she really thinks about it - she knows an entire tub of ice cream disappeared from the deep freeze while she was out - but she doesn't know what to do about it. She tries to get him to eat healthier meals, is in fact quite strict about what he is and is not allowed to eat. Occasionally, she feels really bad for him, and she'll treat him to a chocolate bar or ice cream. This confuses him even more.
He no longer exercises much. His dad, exasperated, has long since given up trying to get him even vaguely interested in team sports. Whatever his parents try, the weight just keeps piling on. And now he's being bullied at school. Every so often, he'll go back on a strict diet and lose a bit, and they'll both feel hopeful. But it always goes back on, and more. It continues throughout his formative years and into his adult life. He has periods where he is happier, and slimmer, and periods where he is depressed and heavy. But the underlying behaviours remain the same. And now the all-or-nothing habits, the bingeing for comfort, the shrivelled self-confidence, are so ingrained it would take years of therapy to break the cycle.
Ok, so all these things might not happen in every case, but in my experience it is a lot more common than not. Of course, there are no easy answers. Parenting is very hard. But please....don't ever put your child on a diet.
Your child learned his or her eating habits and attitude to food in the family. And that is where they need to start changing them. That means any changes you make as a parent need to be geared towards health, not weight, and they need to be changes for everyone in the family. Don't single your overweight child out. If adults in the family can't manage it, how is the child supposed to?
Don't do everything too quickly. Make changes slow and manageable, so that family members barely notice from one week to the next. Make healthier versions of their favourite meals. Take out a little cheese. Add in a few more vegetables. Make treats out of healthy foods - a huge fruit salad and a smaller plate of cookies. Switch them to diet soda. Little things add up - and no one feels too deprived to cope.
Make sure your child is getting enough food. Most older kids need to eat more than adult calorie allowances. They are growing. Five apples won't make them fat. Don't suddenly reduce your child's intake of or access to their favourite foods. Reduce the amount of junk food you buy slowly. And don't stop serving it altogether - serve a tasty full-fat dessert once a week, bake or buy cookies once. Deprivation = rebellion.
Don't use food as a reward or to relieve upset. Don't even serve it as a treat - serve it purely and simply as what you eat. Never make a child eat when they aren't hungry.
Encourage exercise, but make sure it is presented not as exercise but as something fun to do. Don't nag about it. Exercise together as a family, encourage your child to try out things they are interested in.
Be an example to your child. I'm not saying have perfect eating habits, or miraculously get rid of all your own issues around food. But you are responsible for building up your child's confidence - don't talk about how fat you are, or how bad fat is, in front of them. Teach them that fat or thin doesn't matter to good people. Hard as it may be, don't praise any weight loss they have, and don't criticise weight gain - focus on health.
And keep an eye on your child's habits. If your child were getting thinner and thinner, you would do something. But chronic bingeing is also an eating disorder. If you suspect your child is bingeing - if foods disappear without explanation, if they put on a lot of weight in a short space of time - do something. Now. Bring them to a doctor. Binge eating problems can be solved much more easily if they are treated early - they do not go away, in fact, they always, always get a lot worse over time if they are left unaddressed.
Ok, I am starting to sound really preachy now. This is an issue I feel really strongly about. But I shall stop with the suggestions! My main point is that as a parent, it's so, so hard. It's hard to know what's right. But one thing we EPers surely all know is that Diets Do Not Work. And to impose them on a child is a recipe for disaster.
Rach xxx
09/15/2008 10:00
oooh very strange!
I don't like new : ) LISTEN HERE EP...WE NEUROTICS DON'T DEAL WELL WITH CHANGE!
Lol seriously, I'll give it a go!
R xxx
09/15/2008 04:06
In shock
Not in a literal sense, I suppose, but deeply shaken.
One of our friends died last night of a heart attack.
It was completely unexpected. We were all busy planning our fancy dress outfits for his 60th birthday party in a couple of weeks.
His poor, poor wife. She works with my husband and has been an angel to him and his coworkers. She was up for retirement in a couple of years - unimaginable that both of them were nearing retirement.
So full of...life.
A year ago, they bought a pub to run together during their retirement. They'd made it such a wonderful place, put so much time and effort into the decorating, the atmosphere, the special events.
I didn't know her husband, K, quite so well. He was such a wonderful man, though. So kind, so friendly...really the life and soul of anything that went on at that pub.
He had a listening ear for anyone, he was incredibly generous, he was raised in Hong Kong and cooked wonderful Cantonese food.
No one saw it coming. He wasn't unhealthy, as far as I know. Just 'normal' for his age. Slightly overweight, drank and ate a tiny bit too much.
It's really knocked me sideways. I don't know what his wife is going to do now. All those plans for the new pub. Presumably she still needs to continue with them for financial reasons - but now without him.
I don't know whether to send flowers. I shall send a card, but they are/were such a popular couple. If my husband died, I think I would hate to have a home full of flowers, I'd find it totally overwhelming.
What do you think?
And any spare prayers for K and the family would be wonderful.
R xxx
09/14/2008 02:21
Pure self-indulgence...don't say you weren't warned ; )
I care far, far too much what other people think. In fact, I care far too much what you think, too, so I'd be very much obliged if you'd stop reading here. This is going to be one of those blogs that's almost embarrassingly personal. Anyway, you were warned.
Ahem...I care far, far too much what other people think.
I dress it up with vague feelings of superiority. Example: At a wedding breakfast, I sit next to a man who tells me he works 'in the City'. After about ten minutes of talking about his car, he asks me what I do. I tell him. A blank look spreads over his face, and he turns away to talk to his neighbour, also in the City. I feel sorry for this neighbour, who seems like a nice man, because he's forced to spend the rest of the meal listening to various amusing anecdotes poking fun at other people. You know, people who really deserve to be laughed at. Teachers, charity workers, those kinds of losers 
.
I don't get more than another two minutes of his attention, and one minute of that is when he's asking me to pass the butter. While I'm relieved not to have to talk to him, I never manage to find out specifically what he does. Either he doesn't want to tell me he's the tea boy, or he believes his job is so special my head would implode if I tried to grasp the complexities of it.
I'm really rooting for explanation 1. But it wouldn't explain the new flat in Hammersmith.
Anyway, I go home and laugh at him. He actually believes he's at the top of an all-important pile, because he thinks everyone else shares his ambitions. That the only reason they aren't on 100 grand a year is that they are somehow, shamefully, lacking. In ability, drive, inborn greatness etc.
I am not joking here. This actually happened a few weeks ago. Poking fun right back at the guy is a self-preservation thing. I didn't like him, but I still needed him to like me. And when he didn't, it became easier to laugh at him than face the pain.
Underneath my veneer of superiority, there's a sinkhole of sucking emptiness. Because it's been a long time since I felt at the top of the pile in anything. Even something really pointless.
I have cripplingly low self-esteem. Really, it's shocking. I can't pinpoint exactly where it came from - as far as I can remember, I've always been this way. I was one of those kids who would let praise slide off their back, but soak up every throwaway negative comment like a sponge, sucking it in, dispersing it throughout and letting it rankle away there for the rest of their lives.
Amplifying the problem is that my standards for everything are just too high. I'm a frustrated uber-perfectionist (see, you can tell - it's really worrying me that I don't know how to find an umlaut).
Basically, I think I am crap at everything and in every way. I didn't recognise the low self-esteem and perfectionism until a couple of years ago. Of course not - I just thought I was a useless lump. And yes, not knowing held me back, but I actually preferred it that way. Ignorance can be bliss. Because now I know - and now it turns out everyone else oh-so-cleverly knew all along ('What? You didn't realise? Oh...silly thing!) - not only do I have something new to worry about (I'm not just a useless lump, I'm a neurotic useless lump), but I constantly have to endure other people completely discounting whatever I say or want. 'Don't be stupid,' they say, exasperated, insistent. 'You're not thinking straight. You know you can't trust yourself.' Well thanks, guys, that's really incredibly helpful.
Then there's the realisation that my non-existent self-esteem has led me to chuck away almost everything good that's come my way. Exciting job? Offered to me over hundreds of other better-qualified, more experienced applicants (actually, better-qualified's a joke. I didn't even have a qualification). Anyway, great. Now I'll decide, based on no evidence whatsoever, that I am No Good at it, leave, realise promptly I was pretty darned good at it, then fail to get back into the industry.
Pretty? Reasonably thin? Yay! Or...nah, it's Not Good Enough. I'm Fat and Ugly. Enter a cycle of starving and bingeing - now I really am fat and ugly. Don't believe me? Of course you don't. Well, just ask my husband's work mates. Except, no, you won't believe me when I tell you what they said either, will you? I just imagined it.
Go home and write a book. In fact, no, write four. Impressive, no? But don't bother finishing them. Get to 80 per cent done, then start another project. Well, no one would publish them, would they? And even if they did, you'd be ashamed if anyone you know read them. Well...they're crap. And there's another kid from your class who's a 'proper' novelist now.
You can't impress yourself. So you start trying to impress other people. But you pick people who, it seems, can't be impressed.
Take the job, for example. You know, the one you got in the face of such stiff competition. A week later, you're on your way to visit your parents for the weekend. You meet your mum's friend in the shopping centre. She asks you what you're doing. You're surprised she doesn't already know, but you tell her anyway. 'Well, that's great,' she says. 'Well done.'
She's so gutted she looks like she just bit down on a lemon. She's always loved to compare you unfavourably with her own kids.
You laugh in the car on the way to your parents'. You find her jealously strangely affirming. And you don't actually care what she thinks. At least your parents will be proud.
Except, unaccountably, they're not. Their little girl. The one they paid so handsomely to put through private school (topping up the scholarship) and then university. And she's working at some little paper in a small town in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall, earning peanuts, peanuts I tell you. When a degree will get you anywhere you want to go (my parents were born in the 50s, they believe this).
When you tell them you were picked over hundreds of applicants, applicants who were prepared to move from anywhere - Scotland, Darkest Peru, yes, even London - to come to this town in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall to work on this little paper, it's like they don't hear you. 'But it's such crap money,' they say. When you tell them the professor you worked with told your boss you were one of the most promising journalists he'd seen in 40 years of teaching, they are confused. 'That's great, but why don't you get more money, then?' they say.
You are angry with them. But deep down at some more vital level, you feel bruised. You clock up another Fail mark.
Yep. I care far, far too much what other people think. Just to make it even worse, I am aware they probably aren't thinking all the damning things I ascribe to them. Because, as I've been told, I'm silly. I just can't trust myself.
Low self-esteem. Gotta love it. And a nice dose of self-pity's always good, too. Think I've had just about all I can take for one day , though.
Rach xxx 
09/13/2008 02:35
Balancing the books
Uuuuuuuurgh. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Hrrrrrrrrrrrumph.
Sometimes I hate being a grown-up.
So much to think about, so much to balance.
Including the bank account.
We've worked so hard at budgeting this year. We've thought about it every day. Made lots of effort with planning, even included a generous chunk for a pension fund for the first time. We've been paying back my Dad the money he lent us towards our house deposit. Basically, it's all been going well.
I was happily polishing my halo. Until yesterday. When we found out our car has to be scrapped.
Yep. Now you ask, that is the same car we only bought three months ago.
I am not going into the story (one or two of you have suffered through that already).
However, I will say the fact it was undeniably our own fault - caveat emptor and all that - has only served to make the whole experience all the more galling. Not to mention removed any useful possibilities of Improving Mood Through Revenge.
Moving on (I wish I could)...we needed to buy a new car. But there was a small problem. We had no money left in the car account.
Well, we had just bought a new car. Remember that one? And we'd already shelled out a lot for repairs on it (still, at least it'll go to the scrapyard with shiny new tires. Wouldn't want it to be shown up on its first - last - day).
So we had to look at the rest of the budget to find ourselves some cash.
Errr. Yeah. Well, any other time, that would be fine, but actually, I've been spending rather a lot lately. Well, I was proud of myself for doing all that saving. And it was in the budget, so why not? New clothes, things for the house...in other words, we had no buffer zone left.
Right.
No prizes for guessing where we finally got the money for the new car. Yep. The brand-spanking-new pension fund.
Ah well, at least we made £7.11 interest on it before emptying it out. Enough for a couple of McDonalds' in our old age.
Aaaaaaargh! With all the best intentions, with all that effort, we had ended a year in which DH earned what some people would describe as a huge amount with absolutely zilch to show for it.
It's been hard for me to understand exactly how it's happened. It's not like we've been splashing the cash everywhere. I'd call our lifestyle normal - actually, really quite frugal in a lot of areas.
But then, I'm sure 95 per cent of people who overspend on their income would say the same. It's not the Mazeratis and the Rolexes that break most people, is it?
So after much soul-searching, this is what I've learned:
We had a great plan - but we didn't change our everyday lifestyles that much to match it. Sure, we cut back a bit, but we also often used the budget as an excuse to overspend.
ie. There are £500 here allotted for clothes. If I go out and spend £350 on an unfortunate rainy Saturday in March, I'll just make it up by buying less later in the year.
Errr. Ooooooohkay.
Basically, we hadn't cottoned on to the fact that meeting our money goals was going to involve some tough choices.
A fancy plan ain't gonna get you anywhere unless you make the everyday, on-the-ground decisions that back it up.
You can help yourself a lot by making the plan realistic, and by remembering you are doing it because you want to. But the reality is that no spreadsheet in the world will work for you if you don't get into the spirit of it.
And no spreadsheet in the world can substitute for good, plain, everyday common sense.
Yep. I hate being a grown-up. But, while adult life may be a pain in the proverbial, at least it's consistent. Because can't all the same things be said about weight loss?
Love Rach xxx
09/11/2008 10:09
Can you hear those sleighbells?
Yep, it's official.
I'm a nutcase.
Sure, you already knew that, but I can now offer you an extra bit of proof. You see, lately, all I can think about is Christmas.
Yes, yes, I know, we're barely out of August. Maybe it's that we haven't had that much of a summer. Maybe it's that I just preordered Nigella's new festive cookbook. Maybe it's that my new face cream smells vaguely of cinnamon (actually, it's making me kind of hungry...)
But you all know the main reason.
Yep.
THERE ARE ONLY 15 WEEKS LEFT TO LOSE WEIGHT!!!
I adore the build-up to Christmas. Well, let's face it, it's three quarters of the fun. And, for me, the build-up starts not with shopping for gifts, not with making a card list or baking my Christmas cake, but with the Traditional Annual Pre-Christmas Diet Extravaganza.
It comes around about this time every year. And I honestly enjoy it. Sure, sure, it's repetitive, painful, protracted (rather like some of my blogs 
).
But at the same time it's somehow so comfortable, so nostalgic. Like wriggling into a well-loved sweater (only more exciting, because come on, this is Christmas! And vaguely linked to clothes shopping, parties etc.).
Eeek! I am getting excited just thinking about it. Because this, ladies and gents, is going to be The Year (even though I say this every year, and am always disappointed, I still believe this. Humour me.)
This year will be the year it is all perfect. Holiday Dreams. In no particular order, this is what's on my Christmas List for 2008 - thin, sleighbells, carols, glorious hair, thin, snow, church, delicious food, stars, Santa, thin, reindeer, new clothes, lights, mistletoe snogging, family, mulled wine, parties, thin.
We'd all put different things on our list. Perhaps you're more into church, less into family, or all about the mulled wine. Many of you probably don't want snow as much as I am praying for it (I'm cursed (blessed?) with a mild coastal climate).
But there's one thing that'd be on all our lists. We all want to be slim for Christmas.
Why does weight assume an extra importance for so many of us during the holidays?
There are many reasons behind it, I'm sure. It's just none of them are very good.
But let's go with it anyway.
In the next couple of weeks, I expect many of us will be coming home with a special sheet from our slimming club. You know the type of thing. At the top, it'll say something like 'Be a Christmas Star!'. Then underneath there'll be a picture of said star, divided into segments, one for each week until Christmas.
Every week, you get to colour in a segment as you lose weight.
There are variations on the theme - cracker (slogan obvious here), scarf ('Be a Christmas Scarf!'?), Santa ('Look Like Him!'), but the principle's the same.
Simply colour those segments and hey presto! You'll look like a goddess by Christmas Eve, just in time to stuff your face.
Easy!
Or is it?
I've carried home one of those blummin bits of paper every autumn for years now, so how come I haven't had a skinny Christmas since I was 22?
Because, when I say I enjoy the Pre-Christmas Diet, I only mean for the first two hours.
Yep, strip away all the glitter, the tinsel and lights and it's just the same old boring diet I've been trying to do since January. A diet which, basically, doesn't work because it's not as fun as a bacon sarnie.
Except now it's even worse! Now there is the added stress of a deadline for which it is IMPERATIVE I lose four pounds a week 
. It's enough to send me right for the eggnog and candy canes (it's not too early, they've been in the shops since August).
So often a quick fix for a long-term problem. As exemplified by the fact I wrote a much-more-excited-than-this Pre-Christmas blog about this time last year (I'd link it, but again, I have issues with technology). At that time, I was 15 pounds lighter than I am now. Wow, how depressing is that?
Anyway, it's so much buildup all for one little day, after which there's nothing much to do but join the queues outside the slimming clubs on January 2nd (not the 1st, I'll be in bed).
It all seems so pointless.
In fact, it almost makes me think...this year I could do with a different approach.
Perhaps I'll forget the deadlines and the gimmicks and concentrate on living in the present. Making healthy choices as I go along, and just seeing where I'm at by December.
But then, I'm not Scrooge. And I'm certainly a sucker for a gimmick. And heck, I can't help it! I'm just too excited!
Anyone got a gold pen and some glitter?
Love Rach xxx
