Well, that's a bit of an anti climax

Today didn't really start off like I expected

Last night after I blogged: 1 large glass and 1 small glass of red wine

Breakfast: Oats so simple Golden Syrup porridge pot with blueberries

Lunch: Wholemeal pita bread, 1/2 a pot of houmous, raw pepper and handful of tomatoes

Dinner: BBQ Chicken breast with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber

Snack: Bakewell Tart nakd bar

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to a pub for a pint of diet coke, or in my case, a glass of red wine - a large glass of red wine, which turned into 1 large glass and 1 small glass of red wine. As I don't drink very often, I was rather drunk and after a nice 1.5 hours of chatting in the pub, he drove me home and I spent the next few minutes working out what I could eat as I had the munchies... 

I've been quite good in not having any chocolate in my house, so I'm not easily tempted to shove it all in my face - With that option unavailable to me, I did manage to find prawn crackers and frozen gyoza dumplings. 15 minutes later, I had 8 dumplings and some prawn crackers and was eating them with sweet chili sauce whilst watching 'Googlebox'. I then went to bed and slept for a few hours, before waking up in the middle of the night as my flea / mosquito bites were itching, scratching my leg, my leg bleeding and falling back to sleep...  I woke up this morning with dried blood on my leg - Lovely :-S

Do I regret eating more food than I needed? Not really, no - People do it when drunk and I'm human. The old me would have berated herself, felt like a failure and have thought 'Well, no point in continuing my healthy eating as the scales won't show a good number for ages, now.' and that would have usually signalled the end of my diet. The new me is looking at this a bit more pragmatically - Yeah, it wasn't ideal, but these things happen - It will happen again, I'm sure. I'm going to fancy a drink at some points in time and at some other points, I'm sure I'll get the munchies. I can't go back and change what I ate yesterday, but I can change what I eat today and as such, it will be back to normal with the healthy lifestyle :-)

I got into work really early this morning as I needed to print off, sign and scan in all the new job documents and there were quite a few. I wanted to do it early so no-one asked me what I was doing, nor managed to look at any of the documents. With that done, I emailed my Boss, asking him for a meeting as we usually have one on a Monday, anyway. Unfortunately, he emailed back and said it would be tight and could we have a phone call in the afternoon? Sure, I replied, but it would be good to talk to him today, whenever is best for him.

As it turns out, he arrived at work at 10:30 and suggested we have a quick catch up - As I wasn't mentally prepared, I rushed what I was trying to say which was basically 'Not happy, want to leave, please pay me money if you want my resignation now'.... 

I appreciate that some people might not agree with my approach. 'Why bother?' Just resign as you've got another job' and if I hadn't have been subjected to such horrible behavior over the last few months, that's exactly what I would do. However, I've worked my absolute butt off, over the last 5 years - I've opened offices overseas, undertaken office moves, sorted out things that weren't working on Bank Holidays, I was even running the company when my Boss's son sadly died last year - None of which was within my job description, but I did it as it was needed. So to witness my Boss have 'super secret' meetings to coach the woman I assume he's been sleeping with and take away various departments and responsibilities from me and give them to her, just isn't acceptable behavior. Being excluded from meetings I've attended for over 2.5 years without being told why, isn't acceptable and being pushed out from the company isn't acceptable.

So my plan is to see if I can get my Boss to pay me to resign. He doesn't know I have a job offer and as I have 10 days to accept it, I can play for time. Also, my mental health is a lot better knowing I won't be working here in a few weeks. So worst case = Boss says no to paying me, and I resign. Best case, Boss says yes to paying me and I resign. Either way, I'll be leaving soon. After I garbled my words out, my Boss asked for time to think about it, saying he didn't see the point of garden leave and he'd consider what I was asking and we'd talk again on Wednesday.....Watch this space!

Work was really, really, really... boring. I don't have a lot to do at the moment which is a rarity, but as such, I find it soul destroying to sit at my desk and not actually, well, work! I mostly emailed my friends and read online forums which isn't exactly good practice, but I've totally checked out of this job now, so it's just playing a bit of a waiting game. Thankfully I got to walk into town with my lovely work friend at lunch time, even if it was just to grab some salad bits for tonights dinner. 

After work, I headed back and marinated some chicken breasts in BBQ sauce for the makeshift BBQ I was planning to do with my Boyfriend, watched 'The Last Ship' (a post Zombie apololyptic drama, directed by Michael Bay so loads of things blow up) before heading over to my Boyfriends house. We sat in his garden, chatting, whilst the chicken cooked on the BBQ and I told him what had happened at work and how I can't wait to leave in a few weeks time. 

Dinner was really nice - I love BBQ's and anything marinated in BBQ sauce gets my vote instantly :-) Once finished, we headed inside and found something on TV that we could both watch 'Shed of the year', which is this weird program where people in the UK make crazy things out of their sheds - A Japanese Tea House, a World War 2 land Girls hut, a 1950's diner... Crazy stuff! We also cuddled a lot, which for me is really enjoyable as I've felt a lot closer to my boyfriend over the past few months - probably because he's been really supportive over my work stress. 

I'm now back home watching South Park and am looking forward to hopefully getting a really long sleep tonight as it seems to be a bit cooler? 

So unhappy

Today has been really tough so far.

I’m feeling really sidelined and pushed out at work and sitting at my desk, for 9 hours plus a day, pretending everything is OK, is incredibly draining. My Boss cancelled a meeting that all Senior people had once a month. He then recreated the meeting under a different name and invited everyone except me. Seeing everyone else get up, walk towards the meeting room whilst I was trying not to cry was really hard.

It’s so stupid – in the ‘grand scheme of things’ it shouldn’t hurt so much, should it? However seeing meetings happening between others about Departments you’re supposed to manage and not being invited to meetings you were once involved in all builds up in your head and you’re left with a constant sick feeling in your stomach, wondering what’s going to happen to you. If I could sum up everything in one word, I think it’s ‘unsettling’. You don’t expect after 5 years, to be petrified about losing your job in such an underhand way and at the moment it’s as if everyone else is in the ‘cool club’ and I’m sat outside in the cold, wanting to join in but can’t and don’t know why.

In the past, this is the moment I’d turn to food. I’d drive home via Tescos, pick up a massive rack of BBQ ribs, maybe some chips, certainly a large bar of chocolate and I’d sit on my sofa and eat all of it, whilst feeling really, really sorry for myself. I’d then feel guilty about eating all of the food and think ‘Well, I may as well eat more junk as I’ve spoiled my healthy eating’ and rather than re-setting my head the next day, and once again eating porridge and blueberries, I’d go down to the canteen and buy a bacon and sausage roll for breakfast, maybe a high-calorie and fat sandwich at work, packet of crisps and chocolate bar for lunch and then decide to get a takeaway for dinner….

My body wouldn’t be thanking me for it, I’d feel more lethargic, I’m sure my bowels would let me know they weren’t overly happy and my mood will drop further, not only feeling a total failure and social pariah at work, but also feeling like a failure in my personal life as I can’t control my eating. I’d then get fatter, more unhealthy, hate myself and my body more and be back to square one.

I just can’t do this any more – I can’t continue to turn to food even though I have done exactly that hundreds and hundreds of times in the past.

How will eating rubbish help me prepare for the stuff I have to deal with at work?

How will eating rubbish help me prepare for interviews?

How will eating rubbish help me sleep at nights?

How will eating rubbish help me feel positive about myself?

I’m pretty terrible at asking people for help. I find it really hard to contact my

friends, family or even my boyfriend and say ‘I feel unhappy’ – I know they all care for me, but it’s hard, especially when sometimes all I want them to do is listen, but they want to give advice ‘Look, all you need to do is X, Y and Z and then do this.. and then that’

I think that’s another reason for starting this blog – as I can write about how I feel, which will hopefully make me feel better, which will then stop me from turning to food. It’s also non-judgemental and isn’t going to give me advice that at the moment, I don’t want or need – I know what to do: Get a new job… However that’s not done overnight and in the mean time, as I have bills and rent to pay, I’m stuck in a job I have sadly grown to hate, not knowing what I’ll be doing in 2-3 months time. Will I still be here? Will I have resigned? Will I have started an amazing new job?

I’m going to be heading out to lunch in a moment with my work friend and I’m going to try incredibly hard to stay motivated, say focussed and not succumb to eating any rubbish.

It won’t help me.