Wednesday 12 May 2010

12.v

Haven't posted for a bit as been faffing about with the elusive goddamn scales, and forgetting that the odd nibble here and there actually registers. No lying from them. Though clothes are literally hanging off me. Wonder if 119 might not be a good place to stop before I look skeletal - not too attractive at my age...

Anyway, am low low low and re-motivated today to stick to what we KNOW works - soup, diet coke, coffee and the odd handful of grapes.

8 stone 7 for my birthday on Saturday?

Tuesday 27 April 2010

27.iv

Medica, your lovely comment pretty much sums it up. Though in fact, my husnband has been saying how wonderful I look and how proud he is of me.

I would like to pretend to be nice through and through but I am very much anjoying seeing my friends and hearing all their lame excuses about time, too much to do, other priorities, not vain enough etc.

Then one by one they approach me - what's your secret, how do you do it, is it hard?

Nope, just don't eat. Want to be thin more than feed your face.

Easy.

Thursday 22 April 2010

22.iv

OK, so 123 on today's scales. Have posted it on the sidebar in a talismanic-cosmic-touch-wood that it won't whizz back up to 1,0004985462384 the next time I step gingerly onto my fate.

Fuck, that's my lowest adult weight. Probably my lowest weight since I was about 11.

Now all I need to do is NOT panic. NOT suddenly inhale lard and NOT do death by pastry in case anyone is pissed off that I have left their comfort zone.

Oops, already did that. Have to say, not everyone is pleased about this. One less thing to feel superior about for my family.

Not my problem. I'm not staying fat just to make my family feel smug - I am cleverer, more honest and more ambitious than all of them, and now I have stopped being The Fat One. So funny watching them all pretend not to notice.

Well guess what? I didn't do it for them , not any of it. Call me dull and self-obsessed because I want to be skinny? Think that says rather more about all of them than it does me. Time to spend a LOT less time around them.

Wednesday 21 April 2010

21.iv

Future perfect? Way too much of the future tense in my head - when I'm thin, I will...

Bollocks to that. I am thinking of myself as the skinny one from now on. That will inform all my choices. I am skinny because I choose to exist on diet coke, coffee, fruit and soup. I am skinny because the fat-oozing cakes and cheese and everything else hold absolutely no appeal to me.

I am the skinny one in my group of friends not always moaning about being fat, being hungry, having a crap metabolism, whinge whinge.

I might not LOOK like the skinny minnie right at this exact moment, but if I keep sabotaging myself by thinking I am waiting until I am thin for my life to start, I'll be here a fucking long time.

Suck on that, stuck scales...

Tuesday 20 April 2010

20.iv.

Need, need, NEED to get back to the iron will of a week or so ago, that says a steadfast, tight-lipped 'no' to every mouthful of shepherds pie, lemon cake and other little nibbles I think don't matter when in fact, here they are, stopping that elusive number from leaving 125 and getting into proper acceptable waters.

It's hard finding the resolution some days. Today I have stuck to liquids as I did yesterday, but the weekend was a fucking fiasco.

I fit into a size eight, but am too scared to go and buy anything in case I balls everything up and wake up suddenly clothed in the kilts and jodhpurs of fat that I wore for so long.

I even had a dream of myself last night at University; laughing with a huge fat tummy, surrounded by thin thin thin girls who didn't need to pretend they were happy.

Friday 16 April 2010

16.iv

Seems like weeks and weeks since I posted; in reality I escaped for some quiet and walking and am now officially at 125, which makes me both happy and anxious.

I thought that being under 9 stone would make me less instead of more critical of this body, but as the fat melts and the bone and muscle shows, I feel that my skin tone is pretty crap and there is way too much sun damage.

I just did a typo - 'sin damage' - think that's probably nearer the truth and I am going to love myself more...

Friday 2 April 2010

2.iv

Saw 125, then had to go away for a few days which included specially-laid-on trip to Chinatown and old favourite Italian ice-cream shop in Soho. Felt calm though, knowing that purging was completely out of the question, so I dug deep, mentally shrugged and found some shreds of self-control. Managed to get rid of lots of my little icecream geberously handing it round for tasting so avoided the self-loathing and fuck-it attitude that usually brings.


Also, was walking about with size (UK) 10 jeans trailing off me, literally falling off without being undone. I might be ready for an 8, but I have never ever been that small and it feels like such a huge step. Do I really deserve to be so small and not covered in this disgusting lard that gives me an excuse to hide and explain away why I am so hard to love? I am actually afraid. It turns out that actually losing weight is not really this issue here...


Amazing comment about husband and family reactions to my loss from the incredibly intelligent and perceptive Medica - there is something changing, inside you and on the outside, and they were not involved in the decision making. It´s a little bit about control, too, don´t you think?

Oh yes, in every single way.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

30.iii

Damn scales stuck again at 126, grrr, how can this same number inspire both elation and frustration?? hoping

Clothes really loose now, husband noticed that formerly skinny jeans pretty baggy, is hoping I will stop.

When I am thin, yes I will.

My mother and sister, who are both like sticks, said ooah, you are so thin - nowhere near as thin as either of them are and in weird voices - well I am messing with their comfort zones by not being the clever fat one, so they are bound to feel threatened.

But frankly? I long long ago stopped giving a flying fuck for what they think.

Friday 26 March 2010

26.iii

OK, lowest weight in about 15 years, feel like Bridget Jones - yesssssssssssssssssssssss.

128, must must must keep this up. Am miserable as fuck which actually helps.

Read a wonderful thing over at trithin's great, honest and touching blog - again I parapjhrase because I am old and my memory is screwed. Essentially, she said that deciding NOT to eat for the day removes SO much anxiety - what will I eat, when. what if I'm offered something that makes me want to shove the whole table down my neck etc etc.

So today, I won't eat anything except soup and coffee.

Tomorrow, probably more of the same then I might have something on Sunday.

It's good to have a plan. Especially when everything else is so painful and uncertain.

Thursday 25 March 2010

25.iii

Managing to stay purely on liquids, low calorie soups and coffee coffee coffee...

I do think half the battle here is boredom-management. We all seem to be fine during the day when we're busy and active and as soon as we are home and at a loose end near the fridge, the danger starts.

Think I might need to find more absorbing stuff to do after work and before I can realistically piss off to bed.

Have spent the day talking loudly in meetings to drown the sound of my gurgling and empty stomach and being super-busy returning calls over lunch to avoid the wonderful buffet. A lady followed me with some cake, it was my favourite kind EVER. I sent it back, though she said 'I didn't see you have lunch.' I told her I suffer from IBS, that shut her up.

Looked good, but my increasingly baggy (gah, and very expensive) suit feels much better than it would have tasted.

Stay strong and willowy ladies.

Wednesday 24 March 2010

24.iii

Didn't eat a huge amount over the weekend but felt utterly stuffed and uncomfortable when I did. Also drank a shedload, which inevitable showed on yesterday's scales, but a day of fasting is making inroads into that. Will fast for the rest of this week as I am away on business which always makes it easier - hotel gym and no room service. Bliss.

I also laughed so much over the weekend, have almost forgotten how to do that.

Will check in properly with everyone's blog later today. Hope you are all well and happy.

Friday 19 March 2010

19.iii

Lovely comments, thank you so much. What a difference it makes to log on and see that the outpourings and mad little thoughts have resonated somewhere.

Scale has settled on 129, couple of days post-target but we'll take it.

Got a tricky weekend of celebrating a couple of lovely things, but have offered to do the entertaining which works on a lot of levels:
  • It's my menu, my safe choices are in there, even if I eat 'normal' amounts, it will be clean and healthy fish and veg and rice
  • I can belt about getting drinks and making up beds and burning calories
  • I will not be guilted into eating fattening stuff that someone else has slaved over

That, and reading a lot of these blogs, makes me so happy I am older and not longer under my parents' roof.

Thank fuck.

I wish you all a lovely weekend - be kind to yourselves and strong, remember the bigger picture and that there are so many wonderful non-food related things to do in this world.

Thursday 18 March 2010

18.iii

Scales, inevitably, stuck. Crap. Still, we know this is normal and we look at the inches instead. A waist is appearing. Panties are too big. This is good. NEED to remember this and not let the goddam numbers win...

Husband and I took my nephews out to eat last night so had to have a bit of steak and salad. Moved it about on the plate more than I ate, and was super-animated so nobody noticed.

Back to miso soup and coffee today, it's Thursday fuck it and I need to see some 20s appearing.

Old shirt on toady, feeling loose which indicated someof the dreaded disgusting back fat is melting.

Hope that you are all feeling strong and wonderful.

Tuesday 16 March 2010

16.iii

Read this somewhere recently, am paraphrasing:

"Have you ever noticed that when people comment 'you've changed' what they mean is that you no longer live like they do?"

Yup.

This year I quit smoking, drinking and pretty much eating.

A lot of people are taking it VERY personally. Well, fuck them.

The sun is out, I stuck to liquids yesterday and will do it again today AND tomorrow. Fleeting glimpse of 129, want it in my life so I can get stuck into the 120s for March.

April and May will be tough, want to be in the teens. I am small, so it will really show and everyone is used to me looking like a short square thing not someone willowy.

However, we will get there.

I know one way I could dump 13 stone overnight, and I know it would free me up to be myself. All this drama. Am so fed up with it taking up my thinking and dreaming time.

Monday 15 March 2010

15.iii

Another sodding pound gone. And stay away too.

Am starting to feel very tired, but that may also be the ridiculous amount of stuff I have been doing, partly because I have to and partly because while I am busy, I don't think about food.

Need to fast today and tomorrow though. Hard to concentrate when lovely things are in the fridge. Need that iron will back. No food, just liquids. Need to see more of those bones now. Ghosts of ribs and hipbones. Flat stomach, indentations in my thighs.

Have thrown away jeans that were too small for me last year and are swamping me now.

Will keep occupied tonight taking winter clothes out of the closet making lists of things I can buy when I am finally at 112.

Friday 12 March 2010

12.iii

Still losing, but can feel iron resolve dissolving in face of baguette scents and hot steaming bowls of stew. Need to read and be inspired by some of your blogs and remember how very temporary this all is.

I need to be in the 120s by the beginning of next week.

Distractions? Thinspo. Walking. DVDs. Fresh air. Dog. Organising clothes - winter ones put away.

Read an inspiring post a while ago from a girl who harnessed the perfectionism and obsession we have within us, and used it in her professional life - competitive, driven, focussed, single-minded. Wonderful and positive way of looking at this.

Hope that you are all coping and feeling strong and beautiful.

Wednesday 10 March 2010

10.iii

Christ, the scales are still telling me the right thing - I know this won't last, but it's good to see the restriction working so effectively.

I find reading all these other blogs so motivating - it's such a taboo subject, especially if you're supposedly an adult like me, that we should be setting all the 'love your body, accept yourself' Disney crap examples to other girls.

Fact is, in my youth the French, whom I spent a lot of time around, did this all the time and made no bones (ha) about it. I spent many holidays in a very chic family - the elder duaghter worked for French Vogue and was an elegant bag of bones - the mother chain smoked and picked at tiny bits of delicious stuff and my 11 year old exchange mate starved herself so she could have hipbones like her sister. They hated fat people for looking like shite in nice clothes and when I lost weight staying with them, they gave me gorgeous hand me downs and made up my face.

Clothes are looking better on me even though I am still technically a porker, but I am really enjoying the feeling of control and emptiness such minimal consumption brings.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

9.iii

Another pound gone - hope it will stay away and isn't just fibbing scales. Clothes considerably more comfortable and still loving that fasting feeling of cleanliness, lightmess and amazing amounts of concentration.

Want to get rid of sooo much. Things, mainly. Crap I've mistakenly thought would make me happy. Clothes that remind me of that fat unfitting feeling. Stuff people have given me because I never throw anything away - give it to me, off your conscience and into my bottomless one.

And my favourite, not, countless pairs of too-tight trousers given by my mother, smiling - 'These are just hanging off me.' Screw you, mama.

And don't even get me started on the emotional clutter...

Sunday 7 March 2010

7.iii

Fast lasted til I had to go out on a business dinner and ended up having a cocktail and steak. Otherwise, nothing but liquid all week then broke it with a huge salad last night and have been in agony ever since. Have now learned from all your experiences that it was a stupid plan and should have been slow and little.

Was travelling on business last week and not eating makes time so much more elastic and easily manageable. I read, watch movies and dream, feeling the horrible lard melt away.

Am also more sharp-tongues - colleagues, friends, all getting the blunt side not the dressed-up kindness. Am I an arsey bitch because I am hungry or am I feeling less that I have to do that craven fat-girl thing of 'please love me?'

Whatever it is, there are some very fundamental changes afoot in my life. It has to do with spring as well as losing weight. I want my surroundings to be clean, simple and beautiful. I am sick of all the mental, emotional, physical clutter I am trying to carry and organise. So I have done my washing from last week, cleared out the fridge and the old papers and am now making pot of chicken soup.

My house smells warm and safe.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

2.ii

Mood bit teary and bonkers today, due inevitably to hormones, though am glad for once that I recognise this instead of my usual mid-tears-and-snot rant thinking 'oh, wonder if my period is due..'

Scale back to 135 again, oh joy. Am slow and steady as a tortoise though. Will not be derailed and am trying very hard to stay under 300-ish calories a day. I don;t feel hungry or deprived and I must say that thinking big-picture long-term is a huge help. Two people commented today how much weight I have lost (over 15lbs since January). Told them I have stopped drinking. Didn't mention I have stopped eating too - they are way too plump-mummy and would force-feed me biscuits in seconds.

Was very pleased though as am in new size 10 Topshop jeans which I shrugged comfotably into. I should really be a size six though with my dwarfy height!

Remembered in the car today a night in my teens when my (as usual) drunk father was crashing on my bedroom door telling me I stank, I was a slut and I was fat and lazy. Amazing what happens behind nice middle-class intellectual doors after 8pm.

He and my enabling head-in-sand mother live very close to me. I see them less often than they would like but enough for me to not suddenly think 'Oooh, good plan, I'll just go back 20 years and drag it all up so you can see how shit you were and understand why I will NEVER be a parent like you pair were.'

No, I will finally believe with all my heart that I am gorgeous and that I can be thin and that I truly deserve lovely things.

Monday 1 March 2010

1.iii

God, the utter utter bliss of sunshine - March at last, Easter on the way and spring around the corner.

Scales, fuck, gnash, fell fleetingly to 134 on saturday and whizzed back up to 136 today. But I know that this is to be expected and slow and steady wins the race.

And today, after a month of hardly eating a thing, I am wearing a beautiful skirt with a massive belt hoiking it up. The last time I wore it, last winter, it was snug. Today I look like an orphan.

Any clues on the effects of fasting on mood? I have been feeling wonderful today, despite the naughty scales and I wonder if it's more than just a glimpse of sun?

I feel so much more sorted, in control. Less blown about by the whims of every other fucker and actually writing my own story. As though control over what I eat (and don't drink) translates into the ability to concentrate and achieve in other areas.

I have really enjoyed work today. I bought a hyacinth and an unusual silver pot to keep it in on my desk.

Saturday 27 February 2010

27.ii

Scales. I've despised them for years, those fucking awful mornings morphing into weeks, where the numbers just scream 'you obese bitch,' and off you go to stuff the disappointment and despair down under bread, cereal, more bread and butter, whatever isn't nailed down basically.

So what the hell was I thinking buying whizzy electronic all-singing all-dancing ones this week? Well not stuffing my face any more, starving and restricting, means that the numbers, at this point anyway, are going downwards in a beautiful symphony.

I know that this rate will not continue. But while it does, the music makes me smile secretly all day.

Especially this morning when I watched five friends eat sandwiches, sausage rolls and crisps and drink full fate lattes, after breakfast and before they went home for lunch.

I know I am unkind to feel it, but the sense of superiority as my stomach rumbles and they shovelled crap down their necks (and two of them have cried on my shoulder about being overweight) was the nicest taste I have had in weeks.

I have had miso soup and normal soup all week, picked at some salad and chicken when I had to go out for dinner and I believe that each day has been well under 500, probably under 300, but always best to round up, eh?

I'm now going to lie on my bed and watch a dvd - have walked miles with my dog and I'm frozen.

Reading the inspirational posts you brave ladies write makes me feel that maybe this will finally be my time to be thin. Ribs are already showing and my stomach is flat. Odd, given that I weigh tons still. But I want to be thin so I can finally buy the beautiful clothes I have always lusted after and only buy them ONCE.

In a TINY size.

Friday 26 February 2010

26.ii

So why be thin? I wouldn'y know, never have been. I did once, years ago, through a judicious combination of bulimia and laxative abuse, get down to about 9 stone, but that must be the lowest ever.

My sister is thin; I've never seen my mother eat lunch. Or breakfast for that matter. She put me on a diet at eight. At sixteen, she encouraged me to have black coffee and cigarettes for breakfast and wouldn't make me sandwiches to take to school. Instead, I got a bag of cheese and peanuts. WTF? Hello, fat content. Needless to say, I'd scarfed them by recess and became the most helpful person in the school canteen so I could get something to eat which I'd try and throw up later on.

My father would sit at the table at supper, staring at me eyeing the chips and pizza which was the plat du jour many jours, chanting 'resist it, fight it.'

What a twat.

No wonder I have fucking issues about eating.

What a pathetic and sad little tale.

Thursday 25 February 2010

25.ii

So here is the introduction. There is whispering, it is faint. Quieter than the long years of voices who chorus in a cringe, 'big girl, fat thighs, you don't deserve nice things, slut, drunkard, great big belly, lose weight, be thinner like them then maybe someone will really like you.'

But they don't. I hid behind the fat-jolly-don't-care face I have fashioned from hurt and just pretend. Pretend I don't mind, that I haven't noticed how monstrous I am, that I haven't noticed all of them noticing how fat I am. Years in a T-shirt on a beach, being the best swimmer so I could hide my bulk under water. So I could stay in the pool instead of lumbering around the thin girls.

Enough. My turn in the sun. I want to be skinny, make them all jealous. All those girls who skipped about, sniggering, choosing me to highlight their slight frames, their elegant limbs.

They are older. We are older. They are married, their bodies gone slightly to seed - they no longer push to be the alpha skinny one; they have mated.

Well I will have the last laugh.