Today was always going to be a challenge. I was the designated ‘person in charge’ for the day and had to be physically in the office. It required serious food related organisation.
I woke at 05:11, an hour before my alarm was due to go off, and I had the same thought as last night going round and round in a loop in my head. Why are you doing this?
I threw on some clothes and headed out of the door with my dog, Georgie. We did a 2 mile walk and had a leisurely breakfast. Manic food prep followed. I’d made an extra salad last night, so lunch was sorted. I’d eaten early so I made a second breakfast of porridge and blueberries and put it in a flask. I then whipped up a smoothie for an afternoon snack. I knew that my desk drawers were packed with oatcakes and almond butter sachets so they were on hand if needed. Two flasks of herbal tea completed the picnic.
About 9:30 I was feeling hungry and then I realised that my lovingly prepared second breakfast was still on the side in the kitchen. The day was dismal and I continued to be tortured by the question of why. By 3:30 I’d determined to give it all up and take the blog down. I realised that I was fine with the idea that people who really knew me would read my nonsense and, curiously, the same with strangers.
The thing that was bugging me was those fortunate/unfortunate souls who only know me in passing. The ones who are taken in by the façade of confidence and think that I’m tough; the ones who know of me and don’t like me; the ones who judge me because of how I speak/look. If I ever decided to publish my progress photos could I deal with the fact that our IT guy would see them? The answer was no.
These thoughts whirled around and around in my head until I couldn’t think straight. To add insult to injury my afternoon smoothie tasted like blitzed slugs.
My journey home was diverted by Lovely Girl #2 needing to drop off a birthday present to a friend. I hadn’t seen the girl’s mum in ages and we had a wonderful chat with me sitting in the car and her sitting on the garden wall. Before I knew it an hour had passed. Bugger. I was late. Today was cardio and the drive home was 20 mins.
I walked through the door just before 7pm on the horns of a dilemma: to eat early and slack off the cardio (after all I’d done a walk this morning) or do the cardio and eat late. It was hot, I had a headache and some bastard had lit a bonfire so all of the windows had to be closed. I got myself into a right grump and I fell out with everyone including the dog.
It was day 60, I hadn’t yet missed a single day’s training. I had a word with myself, saying that I would put my kit on and get on the exercise bike for 10 minutes. If I really didn’t feel like continuing after 10 minutes it would be ok for me to stop.
One hour later, with sweat dripping off my arms, I felt amazing. Right decision.
I had a quick dinner and switched on my laptop. Another lovely friend, Catherine the Great, had left a comment on my blog. She said that my ‘letter to my body’ had made her cry, that she needed to do something about her own weight and suddenly the noise in my head stopped.
The clouds parted and I knew what my motives were: to make my friends laugh; to show that women are lied to, and set up to fail, by the diet industry; to demonstrate that it is possible to enjoy food and get fit; to hold myself accountable and prove that there is hope for overweight, peri-menopausal women.
Today’s food and exercise journal:
