Not so useful questions

So I get that I am not supposed to do negative self talk and thoughts. I am working hard and that and getting better at it. After all, this blog is about me stopping to batter myself.

I have been adding journal prompts to my blog. I want to have a whole list of great questions which make me pause and think before I answer them. They can often lead to great insights. The quality of the question determines the quality of the answer. I thought I am pretty good at this, you know being a trained coach and a bright open minded person and all that. Then I listened to one of my favourite podcasts 'Weightloss and the mind' . There are often real thought provoking gems in these podcasts. I nodded along with them when they were talking about their topic of great questions - 'yeah, yeah I know all that and totally agree' I thought smugly.

They stopped me dead in my tracks when they started talking about bad questions. Like: 'Why can't I lose weight?' I know I often ask myself that very question in my head (try to imaging the whining voice and an undertone of self-pity and desperation) My answer usually includes: 'because I am lazy' and 'I have no self-discipline' and 'I am useless' (imagine slightly higher pitched whiny voice and lower lip quivering now with self-pity) How useful are these answers? If my aim is to give myself a hard time: VERY! If my aim is to lose weight: No use whatsoever!

My thought police has got clear instructions: Spot those unhelpful questions!! 'Why' questions simply do not help to come up with quality answers - be that in your own head or if you ask somebody else. They often sound like an accusation or judgmental (you can really only get away with them as an inquisitive child). Why do you wear your skirts that length? Why did you not call me? Why can I not get that right?

still dawning on me

I have this thing about food and drink that has been opened. Who the hell invented wine stoppers? Why would one need them? An open bottle of wine is an empty one. A loaf of bread started is a loaf of bread finished. Boxes of chocolate or cookies do not often make it into the house but if they do, they do not have the pleasure of my company for very long - they need to be destroyed! And I am the worlds bestes finisher of what is on my plate.

What is that all about? Some is definitely a hang over from childhood. 'Finish your plate, there are starving children in Africa' and we were actually not allowed to get up from the table until we finished our plate. But also a healthy respect for the cost of food (we were 5 children and my father a factory worker). So the good that came out of it is, that I can make a mean meal of any combination of left overs. The not so good that I still have a strong urge to finish my plate and all my trials to leave some on every plate I eat have failed miserably so far - I simply forget that I wanted to do that and my long practised habit to clear the plate kicks in.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen subtle changes. I am just leaving food on my plate when I have had enough without having to think about it (I am surprised every time). Instead I am now offering the left overs on my plate to Gary (I am compensating, ok!). He is trying very hard not to have second helpings and I am not helping with my new tactic. Gotta stop that.

I have tried not to have bread in the house for years and to make it the devils work in my mind (remember the spittoon?). That had the effect that when I bread is in the house, there is no stopping me. I will eat and eat and eat until it is gone. Not a good relationship. So I baked some bread, cut it up into slices and put them in the freezer. Yesterday I bought some butter as well. Now I have the ingredients of my 'last death row meal' in the house. Warm bread with butter. I had one slice yesterday and it was heaven. This is my training for the next couple of weeks. To have s o m e, now and then. Not shovelling it into me like there is going to be a world shortage any time soon (mind you - listening to Gary talking about the price of wheat.............)

On top of it all I have PMT. Proof was the dessert I conjured up for us after dinner and that box of Jaffa cakes that had made it into my shopping basket. I admit (slightly ashamed) that I opened the box of Jaffa cakes late last night and normally that would have meant an empty box. But they were not very nice (not something that would have bothered me a couple of weeks ago) the base was dry, the orange topping to small and not smooth enough and the chocolate yucky. I ate three, realised that they were crap and the rest of the box went into the bin (it is still there and will not be retrieved either!)

It is hard to be brutally honest with myself in public. I think any overweight person is also a master at kidding themselves.

New dawn??

I am very careful these days with any claims I make around possible success regarding my weight loss journey. But I have to report a period of reconciliation with my inner child. I have found a way to communicate and make up for lost time. One of the most important things I have done is to set an anker (NLP) where I can find a great deal of comfort for the two of us by just rubbing my right upper arm. I agree whole heartily with any cynic out there that that sounds like I have developed a split personality but it feels very right.

As I am in the lucky position not to have to worry about much else I want to start over again with new vigour and focus. I have been looking at local personal coaches and will start an intensive programme of strength training. My 3650 km challenge continues with a bit more ummphhh to build my endurance.

In the back of my mind there are of course my past failures and the thought that I will make myself look like an even greater moron if I mess this up again. Amazingly I feel myself having a very strong response: It is contains a couple of expletives and basically expresses that I will not be stopped by what other people might or might not think of me. I know that only the times when I do not try will be lost days.

My strong need to do well in certain peoples eyes is a childish notion. It is very normal for a child to grow through encouragement and acceptance. I think I did not get enough of that when I was a child and became a chronic people pleaser in my teens and early 20's until I realised I had to find my own personality and will instead of being a flag in the wind, changing direction according to who I was around. Up to now I thought I had dealt with this and the chapter was closed. Now I realise that I had dealt with it up to a point but brushed some really important bits under the carpet.

Writing this, I realise why I became such an independent person, trying not to rely on anybody or anything. If you do not let anybody too deep into your life, they do not matter that much and I do not need them to think highly of me. So I changed boyfriends regularly and poured all my effort into work where I did really well and therefore moved around a lot. I took great pride in my work and everybody thinking that I was really good at it.

My whole world came to a crashing hold when I encountered a new boss who did not think that I was good at my job. I worked my little socks off as only I know how to - it had never failed in the past to change somebody’s mind of me. But with him nothing worked and I started to compensate by eating, eating, eating ,eating. Eventually he put a stop to the whole sorry tale by making me redundant (read: he sacked me with sugar coating on the top). He was not very clever doing that because it was illegal and I was going to take the company to court over it. He had to apologize to me (nearly choked him and did not give the satisfaction I had hoped for) and I got the big company promotion I had been after and deserved. But somehow the damage had been done - since that time I have a great capacity to put on weight. I took it off four or five times but always put it on again.

A cathartic entry I will post here thanks to the wonderful messages left after my light bulb moment. I think you are very special people too!

Weight loss journal prompt

Use these prompts as inspiration for an entry in your weightloss journal

Probably nothing in the world
arouses more false hopes
than the first four hours
of a diet.

Dan Bennett

Week 7 Results

Enough said yesterday!

On a positive note, I have completed 10% of my walking challenge for this year! go go gooooooooooo

Light bulb moment?

My first draft of this entry was about how pathetic I am, managing in six weeks of my weight loss program to put on a pound (not exactly in the spirit of this blog). But I scrapped that after I wrote this:

I had quite a (light bulb?) moment at the kiniesologist this week when I slightly lost it and cried my eyes out. Not something I like doing in front of anybody other than perhaps my husband and then I don't like it either. I would prefer that everybody thinks of me as a very strong person. (I do not see tears as a sign of weakness in other people by the way - this is just a standard I have set for myself !?!)

So talking to the kiniesologist I connected some dots from the past and how I have such strong emotions around food. I am of course aware of all the individual experiences but had never made the real connection. And as much as it chokes me to say it, I think I have some healing to do because (never thought I might say this either) I am carrying a rather hurt and hyper sensitive child around with me.

What I could not understand all this time is how I could have such a great life (thanks motte!!!!!) and be a pretty happy woman and then have such dark moments around food and not get a grip on it. It just did not make sense and I have been on a relentless war path with myself for so many years. The harder I fight (myself), the more weight I put on eventually.

Kind of makes sense when I put it this way. I have read a lot about weight problems and their supposed link to the past. But to be honest, I thought is was a bit of an excuse for fat people to whinge about how bad their past was and not take responsibility for themselves today. And anyway, my childhood and youth was not bad, so all this stuff I read about never applied to me.

Where I am now with this is that I am acknowledging that I have been through some unusual and challenging experiences in my childhood and youth. If I thought that any child I knew had to go through them today the way I had, I would be horrified and would do my utmost to protect them.

Overall I am very happy with who these experiences have helped me become and I would not change anything. But at the same time I need to acknowledge that my relationship with food and my self confidence are fragile creatures because of them. So I have many facets to my personality, one of them - my inner child has a strong need to be acknowledged, nurtured, loved and needs to come out and play without having to carry the responsibility for my weight on its shoulders. This all could of course be total bollocks but early indications are good.

Better hit the publish button before I change my mind to tell the world that I might not be perfect

Week 5 Results

Don't ask!



The counter is back to zero and I could cry but self pity is so unattracive. Brought it on myself and am fed up with myself and this %"£*$(&&^$ weight thing.

Apart from that I had a wonderful week visiting a great friend, attenting a thought provoking workshop and doing quite a bit of work.

If I do not want to continue emberassing myself publicly I will get my back side into gear eventually.