Upcoming events and fitness stuff

hello all! I’ve been off doing the usual - falling over my own feet, training with mistress pain and seeing my private braincare specialist. Oh, I’m also training for the upcoming Canberra MS Megaswim as part of the HypePT team. So far we’ve raised over $900 in sponsorship and it would be great if you could sponsor us so we could get over the magic $1000. I am looking forward to this as swimming has become one of my main forms of cardio training, as my injuries etc are really restricting me. Stay tuned for further news on the team and event.

In other news, I have made some real progress when it comes to changing my attitude towards myself. I have come to realise that the way I have treated my body in the past (eating badly, not exercising etc) is a form of self-abuse - some people use drugs, others alcohol and others even harm themselves by cutting into their arms etc. I do it with food and lack of self-care. Not attractive and in the end I am hurting myself as well as those who I love and care about. Not attractive and really, really unhealthy – physically and psychologically. Next step is to see how I can cope with changing my attitude to myself and food – you know, all of the small, simple steps first

Where the bloody hell have I been??

Ok so you MAY have noticed that I dropped off the radar a bit for there. I needed to take some time out to get my head in order. Sadly I went through another manic phase and needed to see my private braincare specialist (aka a shrink), do a lot of sorting out and get my head back into some kind of working order. The whoopass was also put on hold (somewhat) and  I have just returned to training. Literally just returned – I went back to group training with Mistress Pain yesterday and I am walking around as though she kicked me repeatedly in the bum for 45 minutes.

I am still amazed, even though I have been diagnosed with anxiety and depressive disorder for over 3 years now, just how sneakily it can creep up on you and have you on the mat before you even know what’s happening. The anxiety is awful – you doubt every positive thought you have about yourself and in the end I have found that what I do to escape is to abuse myself with food. Some people use alcohol, others drugs and some even literally cut themselves to escape the “noise” that builds up in your head. Me, I eat shitty food. Not as a treat but to punish myself – to show just how bad a person I really am. I deserve to abuse myself this way because of the crappy person that I am. Hey, I’m not saying it makes sense, I’m saying this is what can happen in a  crazy person’s head and there are times when my thoughts are spinning so fast it feels like I have 20 rats running around up there. Very unpleasant, frightening and there are times when I would do anything to escape it. Eventually the feeling of self-hatred is overwhelming and I eat. Easy and as crazy as that. 

Sooooo it was back for a crash course in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and to do a lot of sorting out. Still a bit of a work in progress but I’m getting there – the bingeing episodes have settled down and I have better control when it comes to the “punishment with food” response. The truth is that I have had to realise that I DO have to be strong all of the time until I can break this really destructive pattern of behaviour - it’s at times like these I can see why people would do something like Biggest Loser – you get to be in a place where all you have to do is focus on yourself and really get back to basics with no outside responsibilities. That said, I don’t think I would have the mental stamina to actually do it, so I am going to have to do it by myself. I mean the mental sorting out – I have so much support from friends and family it is amazing.

 Stay tuned – I am off to have my happy pills and set some rat traps.

Iron man has a new side kick!

As I have had a few days to do lots of thinking ( for those of you who don’t know, my iron levels have not come up and so on Thursday I was grounded by my dr) but 3 days bedrest will do that. Anyway, among my ruminations on how much it will cost to repaint the bedroom, what I think of Tony Abbott’s affirmative action stance when it comes to ironing and the climate change crisis etc, I started wondering about what was in store for me (besides not much iron. ha ha – I am sooooooo funny). I found that a good way to cheer myself up was to think about what kind of superhero I would be, taking my anaemia into account. Logically, the first one to compare myself to was Wonder Woman, but when you think about it, I don’t have pointy ta ta’s, a gold lasso and I doubt that she ever needed to hop into her invisible plane thingy just so she could take a quick kip as she was feeling a bit pale and interesting. After a few more candidates, I settled on Iron Man – makes sense really. Then I thought that as I was Anaemia Girl, maybe I would be his arch nemesis, but a nemesis who can’t get out of bed for a few days is not much of a challenge for Tony Stark. Sooo after a few more cups of tea and a nice 2 hour snooze, I came ot the conclusion that sidekick is more appropriate when you look at the history of sidekicks, they usually balance out something in the main hero.  Batman and Robin, Itchy and Scratchy, Captain and Tenmile… the list goes on. So, sidekick it is.

When you think about it, this is a winner in so many ways. Iron Man is muscular and macho to the extreme, with a bit of the old Hugh Heffner about him for good measure. As Anaemia Girl, I would help to temper that and provide a quite, pale and somewhat exhausted partner who would tell him to pull his head in and for heaven’s sake, cook me some spinach. I also think that the best way for Anaemia Girl to work on iron absorbtion would be to lick Iron Man at any given opportunity, so she would have to stay at his side (front, back, whatever) most of the time. This would help Ironman from getting himself into trouble with those shenanigans that seem to crop up at the worst time.  In closing, I think what makes this whole idea so appealing is the concept of being able to say

“ROBERT DOWNEY JR, COME ON DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

To all the foods I loved before…

Yep, those of you that are either nerdy enough or old enough are now hearing the classic tune immortalised by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias (and yes, I had to look up how to spell Julio’s last name). I was wandering around the local shops today and whilst standing there, slowly salivating down the front of the cake cabinet of the bakery, I began to wonder exactly HOW “bad” or “good” a food can be. How do you define something that is “bad”? Well, there are the obvious, such as selling your kids on the internet (although there are some days where this is just almost too tempting to ignore) or stealing stuff, but when it comes to food, I have noticed that some people react to it in quite weird ways.

An example: sitting at a café with friends, a piece of chocolate mud cake arrives. The person who ordered it then sits there under the eyes of the others and tries to prove why they can eat this “bad” food. This has always puzzled me, as I am pretty sure that most of my friends don’t give a rat’s bum if I eat the cake or not. Well, they might, but because they know I don’t need extra padding and a fruit salad would be a healthier choice, but NOT because they think I am about to condemn my should to hell by eating chocolate cake. Therefore, is food really “bad”? I just find it strange that when it comes ot food, it seems you are either on the side of the angels or devils and I am wondering about what falls into that no man’s land in between – what I like ot call “food purgatory”. When I think that something is bad,  it is because it has done a wee on the carpet or nicked off with the rent money. I like to think of my food in terms of the level of affection I feel for it. This has, however, started to be re evaluated in recent times, as even though I am fond of a certain food, it may not in the long run be helping me. Kind of like that “friend”you make at the work christmas party because you gave them a lift home when their taxi didn’t turn up, but now won’t piss off no matter how much you drop hints that their personality and different attitude to hygiene just really aren’t things that you like.

Confused yet? Ok, this is what I mean in the food context : I love chinese and turkish takeaway food. I reckon that if I had the money, I would eat it at least twice a week. On the affection scale, it is a very deep like, bordering on infatuation. Sooooo when I found out that one of my favourite chinese dishes, Beijing Chilli Beef, has 1500 calories PER FRICKEN’ SERVE, the affection meter slipped to a mild interest. If I eat that meal, it means at least 120 minutes on the step machine or a whopping 4 hour swim. The food isn’t BAD, per se, but the after effects of eating it aren’t that grand. I must also admit that my attitude to veggies is somewhat luke warm on the old affection scale, but they’ll do for now and I am willing to work on the relationship. There will just be days when I don’t care how “good” they are, they will still piss me right off and no matter how much affection I have in reserve, it just isn’t going to work.

I guess what I am trying to explain here is that for me – and I suspect others like me – changing your attitude to food is like changing how you see a relationship. To all of you who just see food as fuel and don’t have any emotional attachment to food, what I am talking about now will make no sense to you at all and you should just go and chomp on some mung beans. Changing in a relationship can be hard and at times, the trauma is not worth it. I will stick with it though. I am hoping to move celery up my affection scale from “you’ve got to be joking?????’ to “not so bad”. Does this mean I need vegetable counselling? I hope not.

Born again dieters

Good news – I’ve signed up to weight watchers online. I looked at the different options and I know that meetings work for some people, but they really aren’t for me. There are a few reasons why and if you want to know, leave a comment and I’ll fill you all in, but online is letting me ease myself into this, um, whatever this is. It is also heaps of fun to an online junkie like myself and has the added benefit of doing all of the maths and conversions for me. I enjoy maths almost as much as I enjoy doing the ironing (those that know me have probably realised by now most of my clothing is either non-wrinkle or rumpled) and counting calories, converting kj to cal, fat content blah blah blah absolutely shits me ot tears. The online tracker just does it for me and lets me know if I am making good or bad food choices. Makes it a lot easier to keep track of what I am eating and also is keeping me amazingly honest – you really think twice about the KFC large chips when you see that it blows about half of your daily food allowance. Most of the time.  Early days.

Another reason why I don’ attend meetings is that I invariably run into what I like to call born again dieters. For some reason they get infected the same disease that people who give up smoking do – suddenly they are the evangelists that look askance at the person heading off on their cigarette break or eating a piece of cake in the tea room, when only last week they WERE ONE OF THEM!!!!!!! Whilst I like to celebrate weight loss and good health as much as the next person, I find the idea of potentially being trapped in a  room with one of these people for an hour once a week  just a bit too much at the  moment.  It is said by many sensible people (you know, the ones who wear tweed jackets and conduct studies involving mice and stuff) that knowing your limits is really important. Well, this is one of mine. I tend to find that these born again dieters either (a) shit me to tears or (b) make me feel guilty about my less than herculean efforts compared to their evangelistic zeal.  Or both. Which adds (c) makes me want to hit them and then eat a whole brie by myself.  So at the moment it is the online option for me. Oh, and any webpage that ASKS you if you want to access your tool has got to be fun.

So, onward Christian (I mean dieting) soldiers. Slap on that armour and grab your horse. Giddy up!

NOT new year’s resolutions

Welcome to 2010, BOOBS followers! Hmm, thinking about it, that little line might get me some interesting redirects from Google.  I know it has been a long, sometimes torturous and on the odd occasion, downright frustrating ride since last June. The weight has not come off and I put that solely down to the fact that although I told myself (and the rest of you) that I really wanted to lose weight and get fit, in the end it was all just talk on my part. Not that I didn’t try, but I found that after the euphoria of enthusiasm wore off, all that was left was a great bit bag of self-doubt, self-hatred and frankly, a lack of faith in myself as a person. Throw in a few setbacks such as my foot injury (more on that later) and all it meant that in the end, a lot of navel gazing got done but not a whole lot else. Whilst not happy on the lack of weight loss, this amount of time has allowed me to do some really serious soul-searching, as well as some intensive therapy. There was a lot of anger and lack of belief in a lot of things, but most of the anger and negative thinking was directed straight at myself. Sadly at other times it was also directed outwards and I have really hurt some people by lashing out. I am lucky and on the whole, people have been a lot more understanding than possibly I deserved to be, but this in itself has restored some of the faith I have in myself. Odd how things work out, eh?

I am not a big believer in ne year’s resolutions – I reckon we make them because we think we are supposed to, not so much that we really want to. As my shrink puts it, January 1 is just another day and although it’s symbolic, not really any more than any other. It is about what is on the inside, not a date, time etc that determines how you succeed. So during this year this is what I’ll be dealing with:

• Working around my foot injury. As I have blogged about before, it is just not getting better quickly and the latest prognosis is that it will be August before I can think about any kind of serious impact work. This means that swimming, cycling, weights, ab work and anything that does not mean impact on my foot are the main parts of my exercise regime.
• I am not going to set dates on progress. You are welcome to ask and I will put them up when requested, but mainly I will post them at random now. After a lot of psych sessions, these kind of things I set myself so I can have something to fail. An actual “negative” target. Don’t ask, it’s really hard to explain. Just take it for granted I am a bit nutty and don’t see goals the same way as other people.
• I am going to join weight watchers. After my nutritionist quit I took this as a sign that everything is against me and I should just give up, all support I have just vanishes blah blah blah. Some support is important, but I am finally becoming self-reliant. This is a huge step for me and I will have the odd shaky moment, so something like weight watchers is like a  backup for me. And because I am married to the most amazing man in the world, Tim is going to join me. Champion.
• Please let me know what you would like to hear about. I will continue to crap on as always, don’t worry.

See you soon!

How hard can it be????? (warning : swearing in this one too)

As you are probably aware, I am struggling, struggling, struggling to make the changes I need to in order to get myself in a space where this whole diet thing just “clicks” and becomes a little bit easier. The exercise stuff is easy and I now enjoy it (which means either a new attitude in that area or I have completely lost my mind) but where I am still feeling as though I am making little to no progress when it comes ot changing my eating habits. I start, do well for a while and then crash again. This cycle is upsetting, frustrating and really starting to piss me off, as I KNOW what I need to do, I just can’t seem to summon up the mental strength to be able to push through the “down” phases when the last FUCKING THING I want to do is be on a diet or even give a rat’s arse about what I am putting in my mouth. At the risk of sounding like I want to blame anything except my will power, I would like to put some perspective in here.

As you all know, I started this in June, went well and since then have not made much progress on the weight loss front. Well, 2 kg and 16cm is something I am happy about, but I was hoping to be so much further along by now and I’m just not. It is really hard not to be down on myself for this – I try to look at this objectively in the fact that I am changing 34 years worth of shit house eating and thinking habits, but FUCK FUCK FUCK – I wish some one had told me it would have been this farking hard. OK, they did – I WISH I had BELIEVED them. The exercise has come together beautifully but the attitude to my diet is in such a state of flux that it could be used in a physics class right now. Now, this si the bit where the excuses come in – take them or leave them:

1. I have plantar tendon facitiis. This has taken months and months to get under control and we aren’t there yet. Basically any impact exercise I do causes it to flare up and basically it feels like someone is driving a white-hot nail up through my heel. I still have a way to go but at least I can train now without crippling myself for days afterwards. Physically I can deal with it, but mentally it has really crapped on my resolve. It just seems like one more thing that fucks up in my life and means I will always be fat and unfit. You can imagine how much this helps me feel when it comes ot being enthusiastic about carrot sticks.
2. My husband is having an absolutely SHIT year at work. He is a teacher and was transferred to a new high school this year. This school has a large number of students who have anger management and other issues and as a result, he has been the victim of 3 serious assaults so far – 1 involving a broken bottle and the other required him attending an ER for x-rays to make sure he didn’t have broken ribs or shoulder. THIS IS SO NOT OK WITH ME I DON”T HAVE WORDS, SO I”M JUST SHOUTING INSTEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tim has PTSD from a car accident he was in over 8 years ago and this kind  of shit doesn’t help. As a result, home life has been hard and tense, which is taking a lot of my energy. As you guessed, the diet takes a back seat when we are in survival mode. It’s not a good excuse perhaps, but before you knock it, try it. This is not a fun place to be.
3. Emotionally, this has been a bit of a roller coaster year. 2 of the reasons are above, but others include the fact that I really underestimated what a huge change this would mean and just how strong and resilient I would have to be to do it.  When you have other stuff piled on top of that, it can feel like you are drowning, which is how I have felt on and off. I very dear friend of mine is struggling desperately with severe depression (as in and out of hospital) and it has been so hard to watch. I love her dearly and there is absolutely nothing I can do to help her feel better – having been on the slippery slope of depression myself, I know that in the end there is very little I can do to help her get better, but it still hurts to see her suffering so much. I also have my own mental health issues (stop laughing, I mean the ones that I am medicated for) and at times just the concept of getting out of bed seems beyond me, let alone measuring out 170gm of low-fat yoghurt and blending it with fruit.

So there you go – a few excuses. What I can give you is this – I will never, ever stop trying. One of my favourite expressions is one my shrink gave me. When I told him that it was really hard to believe positive things about myself, he just told me that was fine, just PRETEND you believe them. eventually, your bluff will become belief. I am still in the bluff stage – promise to let you know when it becomes belief. In the meantime, I will keep trying, I will. And I’ll give those carrot sticks just one more try.

What I want to do

So for a while now I’ve banged on about WHY I am doing this, but I thought I’d share WHAT I want to do before the chap upstairs decides that it’s time for me to step back from the roulette table.  In a page on my site I’ve written about what my goals are and some of these overlap, but others are just random things that I’d like to do. The reason why I’m listing then here is because almost all of them are much easier/more enjoyable/possible without lugging around the weight I’m carrying. Enjoy.

• Go to work in my PJs – at the moment my PJs are a size 22 – not flattering at all and for some reason, PJ designers seem to think that the thing that would make a fat girl feel better about herself is to  put cute pink PIGS all over the PJs. That or cows. Really does wonders for the self-image. I would prefer to sleep naked and my workplace is NOT READY for me to turn up in THOSE PJs.
• Walk the Kokoda trail the year of my 40^th birthday – this is 2010 (next year). Goes without saying that if I have to carry 45kg I want it in a pack which I can take off, not trapped under my skin.  UPDATE due to circumstances waaaaaaay beyond my control the trip to Kokoda will now have to be for Tim’s 40th in 2011. Long and quite tedious story but don’t worry, as a friend of mine pointed out, it a chance to get uber fit and sexy (becuase sexy is what is most important when walking Kokoda).
• Run the city to surf - I actually did this twice (not on the same day) in my early 20s and I loved it. See reason above about shedding the extra weight.  If I fell over backwards on heartbreak hill I might actually squash someone to death at the moment, although this is kind of moot point – wouldn’t make it up there in the first place.
• Do a triathlon – why not? If I have slaved for 12 months to shed my bus sized arse, I want to be able to show it off in lycra when I’ve finished.
• Get my final qualifications in massage therapy – I only have one certificate to get. I really, really enjoy doing massage for people. I somehow find it incredibly relaxing and it’s nice to know you are helping someone feel just that little bit less freaked out and sore.  Obviously I can do it now, but it would be nice to stop worrying the whole time about accidentally brushing my gut against them when I am working on their back. Mmmmm rubbing fat. Oh sorry!
• Learn how to dance the tango – you can tango when you’re fat, but there is nothing more demoralising that whipping your head to one side and feeling your jowl(s) rush to catch up.
• Run a half marathon – to prove to my trainer that pain IS NOT weakness leaving my body, it is just FRICKEN’ PAIN.  No one would dare say that to someone who had just run 21km.
• Go surfing at Byron Bay – used to surf a lot as a teenager. I completely sucked at it and got hit in the head a lot with the board (which probably explains a lot really) but I always had great fun. And Byron is awesome. I also don’t want to have to suffer the indignity of the hippie surfer dude on the beach suggesting I grease myself up with lanolin so I can get my wetsuit on and off easier EVER AGAIN. True story.
• Write a story that gets published in a book- don’t get me wrong, I love blogging. But seeing your name on the cover of a book is kind of awesome. Unless it has the word “unauthorised” on it as well. Also, if I want publicity, being somewhat aesthetically pleasing is a good idea. Sad but true.
• Write down all of the great stories my family has to tell – I am sure everyone has at least a few great stories in their family. Our family seems to have an over population of nutters, so there are LOTS of stories and they are really funny (mainly because I am not in them). It is always sad when no one gets around to writing them and then the person who knew the story best is gone. This is probably one of the few things I could do no matter what weight i am.
• Travel to Europe, especially Scotland and Ireland – I did do the whole travel after uni thing back in the  dark ages but I didn’t make it beyond the tanks at Heathrow at the time (first gulf war). The airport was in chaos (more than usual) and in he end it was just too hard to get anywhere without an internal examination and 17 character references. I would like to go back with Tim (and the kids, if they want to come).
• Sail around the Barrier Reef – hopefully it won’t all die off in the next 12 months. And yes, YOU BLOODY PILLOCKS WHO DON”T BELIEVE IN IT,  global warming and polluting is fucking it up royally. On the weight side of things, I really can’t imagine the misery of being a fatty on a sailboat. Monumentally sucky is a phrase that comes to mind.
• Watch the sun come up one day a month – when I was younger this used to happen on a regular basis but this was due to me drinking all night and being too shickered to know where my house is. Sober and less liver damage is the aim with this one.
• Drink real champagne – I am a huge fan of sparkling but I would LOVE to try “proper” champagne once. Looking vaguely glamorous as I do it is a huge plus.
• Learn how to meditate – honestly, I reckon this is in the “pushing shit uphill with a fork” bracket. Those of you who know me are well aware of my ADHD tendencies. I sit there and go “concentrate on your breathing, relax… I wonder if I put saffron through my hair it would go orange or look the same? WHat? oh yeah… breathe, relax, ducklings, Bryan Ferry is old enough to be my father but still sexy, breathe, relax, breathe, why is William so obsessed with his penis? Because he’s a boy, relax, breathe…”
• Believe I can achieve the goals I set myself – well DUH. Sounds like a no brainer? Try it.
• Learn to be proud of what I have achieved See above.
• Do 50 pushups non stop – I want to be able to do this without my BOOBS and my STOMACH hitting the ground well before anything else should. At the moment my trainer yells “make sure you hit at least 90 degrees on this”. Not possible – stomach hits the ground waaaaaaay before that.
• Wear a beautiful dress and feel fabulous in it for my 40^th birthday – enough said
• Drive a tank – in the famous words of the geek from “Transformers” who hasn’t. Also see lanolin comment about surfing in Byron.
• Fire a canon – see above.
  
• Eat a degaustation meal – I have never done this and as one of my best friends is a chef, I feel I should. And I want to do it without guilt. For those of you who understand what I mean by that statement, cool. For those that don’t, you’ve never felt fat or felt guilt about eating great food. Ping off.
• Learn how to cook beef Wellington – my all time favourite meal. I am sure it is so much more complicated than I think.
• Learn how to sew – my mother is a n excellent seamstress and so was her mother. Feel like I am letting the side down.
• Learn how to knit - my mum can knit cable knit jumpers in front of the Wimbledon telecast. This absolutely stuns me and has led to some very interesting interpretations on jumpers patterns. I am willing to forgive this as an absorbing moment in tennis history.
• Learn belly dancing - give it a wiggle baby is what is supposed to happen here. Not let the “flubber fly”!
• Travel to Canada - my oldest best friend lives here. I miss her heaps and want to go and see her. Being comfy on the flight is a top priority.
• Climb to the top mast of a square rigger – as sailors are known for their razor-sharp wit, avoiding comments such as “ge a move on lard arse” would be great to avoid.

Questions people don’t ask – or shouldn’t

Whilst on the quest to lose weight, get fit, save the world from hunger and fathoming why they make hipsters aka “low rise” jeans in sizes above 10, there are times when I have to answer various questions. Mot of them I pose to myself, you know, along the lines of “why is there air?”, “why does rain fall down and not up?” and “Why does that guy think that me being able to see his jeans hanging around his crotch and his Pepe le Pew boxer shorts is a turn on?”, sometimes I have to answer questions that people actually pose to me. I got some absolute rippers a few weeks ago and thought I’d put them (and my replies up here) so no one else as to answer them. Now, I realise that when you have a friend that is obese, you want o help them and make sure that they are ok. I also realise that there are questions that you may want to ask but know you never should. Now, thanks to a person who I work with that has no idea about social conventions, people’s feelings or has not read ‘topics NOT to bring up around the tea table” here are some answers that brings new meaning to “chewing the fat”.
Q. Do you enjoy being fat?
A. Love it!!!!!!! Wouldn’t have it any other way!!!!! There is no greater joy in the world than having your thighs rub together so much that they need two litres of sorbolene on them to ensure that they do not spontaneously combust when you walk. This gets the rating of “Question most likely to get you killed because it is sooooooo stupid”. No one likes being fat and anyone who says they do is either delusional or have a very different relationship with their body. This is not fat bashing by the way. It’s just the plain truth – carrying extra weight around is about as much fun as having a Brazilian wax done by local butcher’s apprentice after he’s had a night out on the tiles. You cannot get clothes to fit, you start to dislike or even hate your body because it is socially unacceptable to be fat and it starts to totally dominate your life. None of these are on my “woo hoo, sign me up for double helping of THAT” list.
Q. Why don’t fat people just lose weight? It’s not that hard.
A. Oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for pointing that out!!! My life is changed forever you STUPID NOB!!!!!!!!! The main reason why it is so farking hard to lose weight is that most of the changes you have to make are mental, not physical. The same way changing from being a STUPID NOB to PERSON WHO THINKS BEFORE OPENING MOUTH is so hard – for every unit of physical effort you put in, about 10 units of mental energy have to be used as well. Very hard and let’s face it, you to end to have a not so great opinion of yourself when you’ve stacked on the kilos.
Q. Does being fat ever depress you?
A. Can’t you tell I am the most well adjusted, happy, balanced and together person on the planet? All of the little birdies are singing in my garden of happiness and my ocean of calm is a deep, calming blue. Is the sarcasm coming through at all? There are day when the fact that you are fat does not bother you and there are others when it sucks balls. This will, on the odd occasion, get you down.

Hope this has helped answer those questions you may have always wondered about. If you ever want to spark an interesting tea room conversation at work, bring it up with Helga (the lady who looks like she used to do shot put for East Germany) one day over coffee. Only after you have established she can’t hurt you. Good luck.

B.O.O.B.S survival tips

Ive been asked a few times now what are the things that seem to help me the most with keeping the B.O.O.B.S. campaign going, rather than retiring to a room with wine, cheese and a bad attitude. I’ve blogged before that it’s taken June and July just to get my head straight and then most of August to find my motivation, but things are FINALLY coming together (known in management bullshit bingo as “convergence”), so I can now let you in on my “weapons of choice” when it comes to keeping me going;

1. iPOD – exercising without classic tunes such as “The Whistle Song” and “Jump around” to spur you on basically sucks. Music is great because it spurs you on, helps pass the time and covers up the gasping noises I tend to make when I’m 10 minutes into a 30 minute session on the step machine. if the song has  a catchy beat, I also try to distract myself by getting my fat to wobble along to the bass beat. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it – my ultimate aim is not being able to do it at all.
2. a good sports bra – cannot emphasise enough how important for me. My trainer has moved me onto some higher impact stuff now and last week I was not wearing the right over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder. Ow. Also incredibly distracting for anyone else in the gym. even if it is all girls. In the same way that guys all make that involuntary noise and bend over a bit when they see someone else get hit in the nuts, girls get sympathy pain when they see a pair of boosies trying to set a new record in the “bounces per minute” stakes.
3. motivation – this has waxed and waned since I started, but I can honestly say that this is now picking up and I am no longer wanting to give up and walk away all the time. Sometimes, but not all the time. I checked on ebay and no one seems to be selling any, so I’ve just had to work it out myself. Bugger. Canned motivation sounds great.
4. A sense of humour – can’t place enough imporantce on this one. Seriously, if you are having anxiety attacks every time you walk past the cheese section in Woolies and spend some serious time pondering on the value of pizza, if you can’t laugh at yourself, you are fucked. It also helps to practice laughing at yourself when you are as unco as I am, as trips, slips and just general clumsiness make regular appearances every time I exercise.
5. Support – at times having people standing there cheering me on completely stresses me out, but to be honest, I would have thrown the towel in long before now if I didn’t have my support crew backing me up and telling me I am talking crap when I sit on the floor and blub about how hard everything is, I can’t do it and why is life so unfair????????? WAAAAAHH!!!! Having someone march over wearing a “team B.O.O.B.S.” t shirt, kicking me up the arse, giving me a hug and then pointing me in the right direction (salad, treadmill, chill pill) makes a world of difference. Thanks, guys.