I'm an idiot

Only a brief one as I'm off out in a few moments.

Yesterday was pretty dire in regards to the weather. I had planned to go to a nearby National Trust property and walk around all the gardens and lakes - I'd worked out that this would have taken a good hour or so and I'd have done about 3 miles of walking. Due to the rain, I sat on my arse inside and mostly watched TV all day. 

I did do something interesting.. I went out and bought food - However it wasn't healthy food, it was biscuits and potato wedges... Hardly the worst crime of the century, however where has my Mojo gone and why am I reverting back to what I have always done? 

I saw my gastric band friend last night and she had bought over a number of size 16 suits for me to try on - despite her being a lot shorter than me, she hadn't taken any of the suits up in length as 'They were too big for her within weeks', which is amazing for her - she asked if I wanted to try them on, before she sold them on eBay. It was really nice of her and I tried all of them on. Sadly they are all 'skinny' suits and I tend to prefer bootcut or wide leg so they didn't look overly nice on me - equally, a couple of the suits were tight, so I need to stop kidding myself that I'm close to getting my arse into a size 14 - that will happen, but it needs me to stop eating rubbish.

Then we went out - My friend suggested curry and I said 'sure'... I haven't had a curry in ages, but despite trying to choose the healthy options, I completely failed and had a keema naad bread with a lamb korma - I think that's probably THE most unhealthy option you can choose and whilst it was nice... I just feel really frustrated with myself this morning. This isn't helping me reach my goal, this isn't helping me fit back into nice clothes and this is going to mean once again, that I'm playing Russian roulette with my jeans which is something I have no desire to go back to.

I've got another 3 weeks off work - something I know would make a lot of people jealous and I'm sitting on the sofa, eating rubbish.... It's really embarrassing. 

I don't have anything unhealthy in my house, so it's all eating out and I need to try and stop it. I'm worried as I'm staying over another friends house tonight and have no idea if she wants to order Take away... I think it's times like these that are the only times I genuinely do want to hide away from the world and scream 'No, no more food!' however life revolves around it...

I could have updated my Blog yesterday, but I felt really embarrassed - How is someone going to feel reading this if they want to become motivated to eat healthily? I know I'm pretty blunt and lack empathy sometimes.. I think I'd be screaming and wanting to bang my head against the wall 'Just stop eating crap, you idiot!' Well..yeah.. that's it really, isn't it?  I guess by acknowledging that this is a journey and there are bound to be fuck ups along the way helps - the question is, how big a fuck up this is.

So far, I've just had 2 poached eggs on wholemeal bread... No butter and nothing else. I'm hoping I can find something healthy to eat for lunch with my Boyfriend and we'll have to see about tonight. If I can veto Pizza, Chinese and Indian, I may be able to find something that's moderately OK and come back tomorrow and either go for a massive long walk or even venture to the gym. 

I'm not going to give up, but I am going to try and get through the next 24 hours before trying to be more active and not eating complete rubbish that's bad for my body.

I stepped on the scales again

At least my headache seems to be going

After a really nice night with my work friend where we made Vegan sushi, watched the last episode of Geordie Shore and the first 3 episodes of ‘Judge Geordie’ – where Viki Patterson (from Geordie Shore) goes around the UK, helping people by ‘judging’ their relationship problems (We loved it), I headed up to bed and tried to sleep. Unfortunately I slept really badly and kept waking, worrying about the fact I had my annual appraisal today with my Boss at lunch time.

I think I got about 2 hours sleep last night and when I finally managed to get to sleep – my alarm woke me up. Getting up, I had this massive sense of panic and felt completely useless about everything – my life, my job, my healthy eating… I even started worrying that my boyfriend was going to leave me. It’s not a normal feeling, but it felt so intense. I felt like I needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t useless and decided to step onto the scales and see if my continued healthy eating had paid off.

The figure was lower and I felt a massive sense of relief – I’m not useless, I can do things right. However I then felt cross with myself as I’m depending on a plastic and metal calculator with batteries to provide some of my self worth. After putting my jeans on, I noticed I had to pull them up more, they appeared looser and when looking at myself in the mirror, I definitely think I’ve lost some of my ‘fat rolls’ around my waist. Wow. 93.9Kg. That’s 6Kg or 13.2 lbs – that’s so close to a stone and I’ve still got another week to go to achieve my desire weight loss target.

Getting into work, I did my normal routine – Porridge with blueberries with a nice cup of tea, job hunting online and replying to any emails that any of the overseas offices had sent overnight. The morning went quite slowly, although I was constantly aware of the time. It reached 12:00 and I started to feel sick, at 12:30, my Boss said ‘Right, appraisal time?’ and so it started….

Considering how I’d imagined it in my head for months, it wasn’t as bad as I had thought, however it wasn’t good. My 2 major failures are within 2 departments and whilst I can do good things, do exceptional work, support other areas – my failures outshadow any good things. One of my departments will be taken away from me so I can focus on the others (I have lots… I don’t think this is a good thing, more a curse) and my Boss needs to see results quickly. He wasn’t as horrible as he was a few months ago, when he sat me down on the 31^st March and said ‘I needed to reconsider my position at the company’, but he wasn’t happy with my performance….

Outcome: I’m not sacked.

Outcome: I feel really demotivated

I didn’t leave the meeting until after 1:30pm, so was really hungry for lunch. I headed into town straight away to clear my head and managed to effectively ‘sleep walk’ to Marks and Spencers to pick some things up. I actually think it’s a really positive thing that my default lunch options are healthy choices, even if they are a bit boring day after day.

Back in the office, I had more recruiter calls and I’ve now got another face to face interview set up for next Wednesday. I’ve also got another telephone interview so things seem to be moving in the right direction. Unlike things for my ‘Drama’ friend who sent me messages and screenshots of her conversation with one of the men off OK Cupid, berating the fact they were replying to her with one word answers… STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE, DRAMA FRIEND!

Tonight, I’ve got my counselling session and then I’m seeing my boyfriend and cooking myself a really nice dinner of ‘lightly smoked mackerel’, new potatoes and steamed vegetables. I don’t think I’ve ever done mackerel before, however it was reduced to £2 in Marks and Spencers so I thought I’d try it and also use up some of the vegetables that were delivered in my vegetable box last Friday. I’m then going to ‘prep’ for my SIX INTERVIEWS tomorrow in London – They start at 09:30 and finish at 16:00. I think I’m going to be knackered!

Mantra: I’m not sacked, I can still pay the bills and I WILL be leaving the company soon…. 

Remembering bad times

When you feel like you're stuck and can't see a way out?

Today has been a little better than yesterday and I’m wondering if it’s my hormones? My period had just finished and considering I’m usually pretty happy when the sun is out combined with the fact I’m eating much healthier than usual, it was odd that I felt, well, ‘odd’ yesterday.

Talking to my counsellor yesterday, we touched on my last job and how unhappy I was as an I.T. Consultant, living and working away from home for 5 days a week (Sunday to Thursday). This was when I was at my heaviest – 19 stone and a size 22/24. I remember it well and also remember driving home , buying 1 -2 bottles of wine a night and some incredibly unhealthy food including BBQ racks of ribs, massive bars of chocolate, chips, pizza, full fat chocolate milkshakes, before eating it all on my own and feeling so unhappy and alone. It was a really dark time for me and I just couldn’t see any way to end the cycle.

1. I was unhappy, so I’d turn to food for comfort.
2. After eating so much I felt sick, I’d feel guilty for eating so much
3. I’d wake up in the morning (usually with a headache after drinking so much wine) and feel really lethargic and unhappy, so would have a croissant or a bacon sandwich for breakfast to cheer myself up.
4. I’d feel unhappy at work as I wasn’t really recognised for my achievements and felt so self conscious as everyone else was a ‘normal size’
5. I’d leave work feeling unhappy and…  Repeat first step.

My boyfriend tried to help me, however I didn’t tell him how I was genuinely feeling and ended up pushing him out completely. I think he was frustrated at the lack of communication but also because he couldn’t ‘fix’ my unhappiness (not that I’d have let him, I was, and still am, incredibly stubborn!). So after driving 3 hours to see me during the week for over 2 years (he worked shifts so had 4 days off at a time) and then 3 hours back the next morning, he realised he couldn’t cope, so ended it with me….

… We got back together a year later after a year of total no contact and even today I don’t blame him for that. Looking back, I was in a total, total pit of despair and an incredibly self destructive cycle – I utterly hated how I looked, I hated my job and didn’t tell my friends, nor my family, nor my boyfriend how unhappy I felt. Food was a comfort to me, it didn’t judge me and I felt good when eating it….

Despite the fact that my work at the moment is a lot worse than it was 7 years ago, I’m determined not to allow the same cycle to happen again. I am a lot more open with my friends and family and I’ve received nothing but support and kindness – from one of my lovely friends bringing me flowers, to another sending me a random postcard through the post, to others sending more frequent emails… and even my lovely sisters making time to text / email and phone me. I’ve also tried to be much more open with my boyfriend, which is hard sometimes as he really does love ‘fixing’ stuff and with me being so headstrong, I don’t want to be given advice on how to ‘fix’ things, just for him to listen and give me cuddles (which he does in abundance and also tells me I’m awesome, which is really nice and welcome).

So how have I managed to stop myself from getting into the same self-destructive cycle? Why am I not on a crash course to 19 stone again, filled with BBQ ribs and copious amounts of chocolate?

      That’s not what my body needs at the moment – I’m going through a massively tough time at work and my body and brain need to be in the best working condition that they can be. Filling my body with rubbish is not going to help me in any way, shape or form.

• It wasn’t a solution – What does eating loads of unhealthy food get me? How does that help me with my current battles in life?

• I’m not alone – I’ve been much more open with my friends, family and boyfriend about my feelings and they’ve been really supportive. I’m human and it’s usually me who supports people. Learning to ask for help has been incredibly tough, but saying ‘I’m upset, can you talk / email / meet me for a coffee?’ has been met with lots of ‘Yes! Of course’.

• I want to be able to love my body – I’ve (hopefully) got another 60+ years on this earth and I don’t want to spend all of that time hating myself or being unhappy when I look in the mirror. I want to change my body image and eating unhealthy things is not going to help that

• I’m trying to not feel guilty when I eat unhealthy things – This is a massive one and I’m still working on it. There’s been so much guilt and judgement around eating food my entire life and I know I’m not there yet, however if I do make an unhealthy choice, I’m trying to not beat myself up about it – after all, tomorrow is another day.

This morning, I had a lovely pot of porridge for breakfast and lunch was the same as yesterday – houmous, pepper, tomatoes and pita bread. My friend and I walked into town just to get out the office and despite it not being as sunny as yesterday, it was still a lovely day. Despite my Boss being in the office AGAIN, I’m coping quite well and am looking forward to going to the cinema tonight and not thinking about work :-) Not sure what I’ll eat – I might grab some sushi from somewhere, but will try and ensure it’s heathy, whatever it is.

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.