Well, it's been a while since I posted and I'm not afraid to say that right now I'm reaching the end of my tether. Well, maybe that's the wrong way to put it. Let's just put it this way, things don't get easier on lighterlife. I thought I'd get into my stride and stick there but all you do is get more and more bored. I just want normal food. I just want a cooked dinner. Something hot and filling and chewable. Just one chinese take away and I'll hop back on the wagon.
It's silly because I say all this and I spend hours at work listing the foods I would like to eat but I know in my heart of hearts that when it comes down to it, I wouldn't eat it. It's like I have a cut off switch, yesterday my daddy was eating a jacket potato and it smelt good, looked good, I wanted to eat it (sort of, there was a desire to eat it there) but that's where it ended. Kinda like an ingrained 'look but don't touch' thing in my head.
I've become fed up with those crisps I used to make. I've become fed up with most of the milkshake flavours. My days now consist of bar, strawberry milkshake, vanilla milkshake, veggie soup plus lots of tabasco and pepper.
Good news though, on Wednesday at group I got my second kitten sticker! Hooray, two stone off.
Yesterday me and my dad went to a motor museum as part of a classic car display. We got free entry and a voucher for the cafe while my car was put in an arena for people to look at. When daddy got hungry we went in to the cafe to see what he could get with both of our £3 vouchers. He decided to get two jacket potatos with cheese, so that it looked like we were both eating something and so they would accept both vouchers. I added a bottle of water to the tray and daddy got a bottle of Fanta. I went to find a seat by the window that looked out on to the arena partly to feel smug at people looking at my car and partly to monitor whether any small children were vandalising him. When daddy came over with the tray he said that he had to put...wait for it...FIVE POUNDS towards his lunch!! FIVE POUNDS?!?! How can two jacket potatoes and two drinks cost £11? Dios mio!
I know it's not food related but seriously, I am never entering my car into another display. I spent six hours cleaning his sorry ass (and my car wasn't dirty in the first place) - that's from when I got home on Friday night until it was too dark to see and from 7am on Saturday morning until we had to leave to take him to the museum. It's a lot of effort for not very much return. We had to stay there until 4pm but we had already finished looking round the museum and had several lengthy chats with members of the public about my car by midday. The thing is about putting him on display was that I didn't know who was going to be looking at him. VW aficionados, for example, would know every possible weakness, flaw or blemish my car is likely to have and seek them out. They would scrutinise and critise everything they see because they are used to seeing absolute perfection at VW shows. My car gets driven every day and I have no qualms in telling you that I've scraped past a few railings and drainpipes in my time. He's not a show car (any more), he gets used, he doesn't live in a garage, he's not a plaything. This weighed heavy on my mind when I was preparing him for the display and so I cleaned and scrubbed and polished like a woman possessed. I thought I was going to get blown out of the water by hoards of VW know-it-alls but silly me, I was the only Beetle there surrounded by gleaming pristine middle aged mens' toys. People cooed and beamed and gasped in admiration at the near mint interior. Small children asked me what the buttons did and little boy informed me that my car had two gear sticks and ten gears. I am glad I put the effort in though, I felt like I had earnt the nice things that people said about my car. Never again though, oh my, never again. And certainly never ever at a VW show.
Oh a brilliant thing has happened! (If you managed tor drag yourself through the car related moaning.) My feet aren't so fat anymore!!! I can wearing high heels all day at work. Some of my old shoes that used to cripple me are now wearable and my old shoes that fitted sorta don't but hey, I can buy new ones! Shoe shopping used to make me cry (honestly). I love shoes and believe that a pretty shoe really finishes your outfit and makes your look complete - shoes, however, do not love me. Everyone where I work is an eagle eyed shoe obsessive. They all wear different glossy, brightly coloured sky-scrapping shoes everyday and quietly monitor your footwear. Whenever I emerge from my desk wearing anything with a slight heel (in the past, not very often) I am pounched on with 'Are they new?', 'Let me see', 'Where are they from?', 'Oh there nice, you should wear more high heels', 'Good for you, you are wearing heels!' extremo patronising etc.
Whenever I used to go shoe shopping the thought of the shoe vultures from work and my own impossibly high shoe aspirations (I'm not into tacky, tarty shoes that scream high-street...like some of the shoe vultures, I say quietly. The shoes I love are very prim, proper, high, austere...y'know brogues etc. The shoes I imagine Maggie G to wear in Secretary or that you see in those bizarre Vogue work photoshoots. Prim and proper with a twist.) used to hang over me like a dark cloud. I have grown up with wide feet and obviously being morbidly obese did not help the situation. My feet aren't long, they're not big but they are wide and so I would find a shoe I liked, jam my foot in it, it wouldn't fit...I would repeat this exercise for as long as my battered self esteem could take it and then either leave the shop in tears or buy the shoes anyway and never wear them. I longed to wear nice shoes, wearing shit ones does nothing for your confidence but quite simply they did not fit. When I did manage to force my fat feet into a pair of 'nice' shoes I would feel ridiculous and reflections of myself in mirrors looked like a huge lumbering pig upright on tiny little trotters. That's honestly what they looked like - trotters. The overall roundness of my obesity did not sit well with teeny, tiny tottering shoes. When the shoe vultures loomed I felt awful. I wanted to wear the shoes but didn't want to be noticed because I felt ridiculous. I was convinced I walked like a man in drag and would repeat to myself 'heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe' as I walked down the corridor.
I feel a lot better now. There's less weigh pressing down on the balls of my feet and my feet are a little less fatty boom boom. When I see my reflection now there is definitely less of a trotter element. I feel like I fit now. I can wear the lovely houndstooth wonders and not feel like a laughing stock. And I've seen the reflection of myself walking down a corridor now, I do not look like a man. My posture is good, my shoulders are still and level, I look fine - good even. Certainly better than sloping down in a pair of worn-out flip flops.
Good things are happening. I am feeling better. Even if LL is beginning to wear thin.
