My liver hurts today.

Last night was a big night out with work mates: Birthday Party for two colleagues and the leaving do for another. I left the bar at 2:30 which meant I wasn’t home until 3:30 and it might have even been a bit later.

Working with twenty-somethings is going to kill me.

I was already thinking about going on the wagon in September, but last night but the final nail in the coffin. I haven’t been drinking as much as I used to. . . but the volume has been too high again.

And so, starting Monday, I’m going to not have anything to drink until I lose the next stone. Nada until the scale says 134 pounds.

Today I had an all new weigh-in low. I lost 1.4 kg from last week which means I am now 148.3 pounds. I haven’t been in the 140lb range for a long, long time. I’m really pleased about this. It’s not far enough into the 140’s for me to do a Snoopy happy dance but I am doing a little Kermit wave.

Here’s what each week in pounds since I started.

21/12/2009	180.4
07/01/2010	177.4
11/01/2010	175.6
18/01/2010	172.9
25/01/2010	174.9
01/02/2010	174.9
08/02/2010	172.7
15/02/2010	170.5
22/02/2010	172
01/03/2010	171.4
08/03/2010	168.1
15/03/2010	167.9
23/03/2010	163.5
29/03/2010	166.6
06/04/2010	165
12/04/2010	164.9
19/04/2010	159.6
26/04/2010	163.5
04/05/2010	159.1
10/05/2010	159.1
18/05/2010	160.7
24/05/2010	153
01/06/2010	156.5
14/06/2010	152.5
21/06/2010	156.5
28/06/2010	150.5
05/07/2010	153.4
12/07/2010	153.2
19/07/2010	151
09/08/2010	152.7
16/08/2010	151.4
23/08/2010	148.3

This weekend I did a big assessment of my wardrobe and put everything aside that is too large for me to wear.

 

There were a few size 14 skirts that I thought about keeping but added them to the pile when I realized a skirt sitting on your hips rather than your waist is not a proper fit no matter how much you like it. In the pile went the UK size 18s, the 16’s, the 14’s. I also had to add some of my US size 12’s, my winter coats, my Hobbs trench and my silk dress coat. I will soon be finding you all new loving homes thanks to Uncle eBay.

At work one of my colleagues Simone Schuurer wrote an excellent article for the adCenter Community blog talking about opportunity for advertisers to bid on plus size keywords. She sites statistics from Mintel that “one in five British women are now a UK size 18 (a US size 16) or over, that 4.9 million women. They also predict that by 2011, 6.4 million women will be a UK size 18 or above, an increase of almost 40% compared to 2006.”

Some men at my pod were a wee bit shocked when they heard this statistic.

“Size 18?!?”

“That’s huge. . . Isn’t it?”

They thought about it for a moment. “How big is a size 18?”

I turned from my computer, “It’s what I was before I started losing weight.”

Crickets.

“Oh, well, then it isn’t THAT big.”

“I don’t know guys. You’re being nice. It’s pretty big.”

I’m all for us ladies embracing our curves and letting loose our internal Joan from Mad Men (who I have read is a US 10). . . but there is a huge difference between that and being okay about needing to wear a size 18.

I am so grateful that I took action. I am no longer one of 1 in 5 British women that is a size 18. I am so pleased that my scale has me in the 140’s again. . .

Now roll on 130’s.

Yesterday I knew I needed to do a quick grocery shop before I went home as there was nothing in my fridge other than mustard and out of date yogurt.

I was starving, which is never a smart time to shop for food and all I really wanted to do was grab a ready meal and a bottle of wine and curl up in front of my electric fireplace watching the idiot box.

I however did not do that.

I wandered up and down the aisle of the store thinking, “Quick, healthy and tasty. What can I eat that is quick, healthy and tasty?” And then I saw it. In the fish section, a piece of purple red tuna.

I knew what I was eating for dinner.

I minced some red onion, sautéed it in a bit of olive oil, added some garlic and ginger root. Then when my nose and eyes told me it was ready added a couple of minced tomatoes. (if you are fussy about how your sauce looks, remove the skins first. If you are starving and you don’t care how your sauce looks, forgetaboutit) Let it cook on a low heat for a couple of minutes add salt, pepper and if you like a bit of heat, red pepper flakes.

I have a pan with ridges that I heated on high for a couple of minutes then I cooked the tuna steak a minute each side so that it was still pink on the inside. Served it with the tomato ginger sauce.

Quick, healthy and tasty.

 

 I had an interesting week last week. But first things first, I lost 1.3 pounds from the week before so we’re on track!

 

I didn’t get any proper exercise clocked but that was because I was too busy having a nervous break-down. Not a real nervous breakdown, just a controlled fraying of the edges brought on by not sleeping well, panic attacks and my internal critic giving me a bit of a workout.

I am a big believer in being self-critical. I don’t have a lot of time for people who refuse to take a hard look at themselves and say “Okay, this worked and this. . . well. How could it have been better?” I’ve attended a few classes facilitated by Nicholas Bate and he says, “There’s no failure, only feedback.”

The problem is the internal critic isn’t interested in giving you feedback. The internal critic wants you to become so paralyzed that you do nothing but sit in the corner, rock back and forth while eating oreos.

I didn’t get (quite) that bad.

By the end of the week I had gotten over myself and felt better about my place in the world. Amazing what a really good cry can do to re-set the engine.

I put myself forward for a job that the Internal Critic told me I wasn’t good enough to even think about looking at and I got some good news about my play* that The Internal Critic had told me a few years ago I wasn’t good enough to even think about writing.

I told Internal Critic to go suck eggs. She wasn’t happy about that. . .

That night I dreamed that there was this large group of people watching some footage that a woman had filmed. She had filmed real people and situations and then she was having actors act out the documentary and she was filming that as well.

The documentary was filmed in France. I assume it was France because everyone was speaking French but maybe it was South Ken. There was a young woman flirting and laughing with a group of friends and then she started to sing and the group of friends started to dance and sing with her.

Ssscccrattchhhhh!

The Documentary Filmmaker stopped the reel. Pointed at me and said, “You do it!” She pointed the camera at me.

I don’t sing. I don’t dance. Other than knowing how to order a glass of red wine, I don’t speak French. I tried to imitate what I had just seen, but it was. . . well, there was lots of room for it to be better.

“Stop, stop stop!” She stopped filming me. “That was terrible!”

“Of course it was! I haven’t practiced. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know the words or—“

She glared at me. “Well, then learn it! You’re never going to get a job if you don’t practice.”

My dream then turned into a segment from Glee. Everyone around me knew the words and knew how to dance and everyone could sing and I felt like Baby holding a watermelon.

The alarm woke me up.

I had to laugh. I had just met my Internal Critic up close. Of course I wasn’t going to be able to sing and dance without the proper amount of practice. Of course I wasn’t going to be able to do it right away. She was trying to scare me from even trying.

What is your internal critic scaring you from dreaming about? What songs is she saying you can’t sing?

*A bit of self-promotion… I had submitted my play Stealing Gnomes to The Bush Theatre and I got the news recently that they have selected it as a Bush Pick on Bush Green.

I’ve mentioned before that I am not a runner. I did try to be in track when I was in High School for twenty seconds as a way to do something that was healthy, but I was really bad at it and I stopped before I could get really good.

A couple of days ago I ran from the front of Victoria Train Station over by platforms 1-8 over to platform 12. Now it isn’t a huge distance to do a sprint, but it’s a good bit to hop quickly.

I dashed to the train, (of course the doors were locked and it left 30 seconds later) and after a quick grumble to myself realised I wasn’t even slightly out of breath. It was the first time I felt the changes inside my body rather than just seeing the physical changes on the outside.

It felt good.

My weigh in yesterday had a 1.7 lb increase from the last weigh in on the 19th of July, which when you consider I have been on holiday and haven’t exactly been limiting my intake of certain food groups, that isn’t so terrible.

82/69.3/56.8 kg

180.4/152.7/125 lb

 

Things are going generally okay with me. Well other than a couple of panic attacks and wondering what in the world I am going to be when I grow up, and feeling fairly certain I am destined to be alone from the rest of my life with no one to talk to other than the squirrels in the park, but other than that, I am fine.

I had a couple of dates lined up last week and I have decided I like the idea of having a date rather than being on the actual date. The actual date is torture. Only, except. . . you know. Different.

Date The First: Man that I met at my birthday party. I broke one of my rules that evening and we exchanged numbers. I normally tell men that try to pick me up in a club that I am married, which isn’t strictly a lie as I am not yet divorced.

The date was. . . ok. . . but I could tell it wasn’t going to work. He could tell too as I got the old chestnut text: “I’m too soon out of a relationship to start something. Sorry for messing you about” a couple of days later. While I knew it was doomed, it was a bit disappointing as I was rather hoping I would get to sleep with him first, but what can you do.

Was telling a friend about it and he said, “Maybe you should have told him you are easy.”

“That would have been one way of going.”

Blind Date: Knew no within .005 milliseconds. The guy pitches for the Yankees and I am the bat girl for The Las Vegas 51’s. People that are that attractive don’t breed with people like me. There is some genetic code or law that prevents it.

Sometimes, when I meet people like Yankee Boy (who was very nice but I read in his eyes the moment we met, “How the hell long do I have to hang out with her before I can leave?”) Sometimes, I wonder if they see me from six months ago- Like I give off the energy of someone who is wearing size UK size 18 rather than 12/14.

Does that sound crazy?

Yeah. It does.

So yeah, the weigh-in wasn’t that fantastic and dates = dudsville. But it could be worse. I could have gained 7 pounds over the three weeks and be stuck in a loveless relationship. . .

So actually I’m copacetic.

I leave you with a picture from my 40th rather than from the weigh-in on Monday because. . . well. . . I look pretty.

"It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk. The anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers. What lives undimmed in Clarissa’s mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and its perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other."

–The Hours by Michael Cunningham

I’m sitting outside with a cup of coffee, my 2nd and was slightly surprised when I looked at the bill that they did not charge me for it.

If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend I am in California. Almost because the conversations around me aren’t about trying to get an agent or screenplays but I can feel the sun turn my arms brown and there are adorable baby monsters playing on a toy car at the restaurant next door while their impossibly attractive mums watch them from behind Victoria Beckham sunglasses. It’s California-ish.

I want to smile at everyone today. I am smiling at everyone. A few cynical Londoners are even smiling back. I might start a trend.

There are a few reasons for this, my smiles. I’m on holiday, my folks are still here for a few more days, good weather, better friends. . . but all that isn’t something I can examine under an electric microscope, break down the properties for a recipe that I could concoct again, add water and stir.

You all know that I can have my dark moments where I listen to the demons that live under my bed, but I really do have far more of these waves that I can catch and stay on top of, these moments of happiness.

I know this makes me sound like a bit of a new-age toasted gluten free flake, but I think noting these flashes, feeding that part of your soul that is asking for something beautiful and as simple as drinking a cup of coffee in the sun is as important to weight loss as watching what you put in your mouth and exercising.

What are you going to do today to feed your soul?

I’m on holiday for the next week and a half so I’m not at work today to hop on the scale. . .

I could go in to the office and pop in to the Heath Centre to do it, but I’m a little scared to since I’ve been going a little nuts on the food last week with my folks visiting and with it being my birthday. Folks are still here, but I need to start watching things again.

No more cakes and back to being super aware of portion control and stopping eating when I am full.

Meh.

I am taking the parentals on a tour of Parliament tomorrow so perhaps I will swing by the office before to see how much post celebration damage I have done…