The weekend started full of promise
Friday began well. I hit the scales at 8:10 and was looking forward to Lovely Girl #1’s 19th birthday dinner.
On each of our birthdays my mum makes the birthday person their meal of choice. Lovely Girl #1 chose curry.
I should probably explain that my mum is, without exception, the best cook on the planet; although the Bridget Jones voice in my head adds ‘but Raymond Blanc is also very, very good’. Mum has an encylopedic knowledge of cookery and owns enough recipe books to start her own an epicurean version of the Bodlean.
In addition to a genuine passion for cooking my mum spent her time in the 1970s and 80s as a military wife. As a result she encountered a large number of international military wives. She taught them to cook roast dinners and in return she learnt how to make proper curries, paellas and dim-sum to list but a few dishes
I love the idea that in some far-flung corner of the planet there’s a septuagenarian lady who makes the best Yorkshire puds on their continent because my lovely mum taught them!
The commencement of the curry jamboree
My mum’s curry-fests start with days of grinding spices and making bases for all of the different dishes and her house is filled with the aromatic promise of the meal to come.
Dinner was, without doubt, the best curry that I have ever eaten and I enjoyed and savoured every single mouthful. It was the kind of meal that I will lie in bed and think about in 15-20 years time. I had unapologetic seconds without hesitation.
The birthday person also gets taught to make the puddings of their choice. A couple of hours with my mum in her kitchen is one of the best presents. Lovely Girl #1 requested sticky toffee pudding and a low sugar cottage cheese cheesecake. Mum is coeliac so everything is always gluten free.
I’m not a fan of sticky toffee pudding, but I’d sell both of the Lovely Girls for a piece of my mum’s cheesecake.
I do, of course, set out all of this background information to justify the choices that I made this weekend…
Saturday morning
After Friday night curry, Saturday weighed in at 8st 13lbs – two pounds up on the day before. I KNOW that you can’t put on 2lbs of body fat overnight – so I wasn’t worried. I probably didn’t drink enough water and just consumed more salt than usual.
Lunch on Saturday was leftover curry; let’s face it, every single meal was going to be leftover curry until it had all gone. I also had another slice of cheesecake, as I’m not one to intentionally offend my mum when she’d put so much effort in!.
Now, Saturday evening was where things went a little off piste… I should have had protein and veg but Lovely Girl #2 and I were home alone; she had come down with raging tonsillitis and the only thing that she felt like eating was a home-made pizza. I couldn’t let her pizza alone so I thought “what the hell…”. We also managed to sneak in another slice of cheesecake before bed.
So this morning I stood on the scales with some curiosity.
The scales never lie – or do they?
I have had lots of conversations with friends and Luke about the use and abuse of scales. Some of my friends don’t weight themselves because it will ruin their day if things go in the wrong direction – and I used to be the same.
However, over the this last year my relationship with the scales has changed. I weigh myself every day, mostly out of curiosity but partly to keep my focus. I know full well that weight is meaningless and has no bearing on how fat or thin you look.
Muscle is heavier and denser than fat, so a person with more muscle will be smaller than someone with less muscle who is the same weight.
So this morning when I weighed in a 9st I didn’t panic that I’d gained 4lbs in 2 days. I ignored the maniac within who was running around, clutching her head and screaming that her life was in ruins. I simply listened to the calm little voice that said ‘you’ve got this, drink more water today, eat more veg and you’ll be back to normal in no time’.
And in that moment I realised, for the first time in my life, that I might actually have ‘got this’.