Diary of a fat seamstress

Weekends are always a challenge. Thankfully my family are all eating fairly healthy at the moment, which makes things easier. Plus I had an actual whole day off!!! Including a lie in until 7:45!

I forgot to take a picture of my breakfast – whoops. As a life long overeater it amazes me that I am now running away from that over full feeling. I am much more conscious of how I feel when I ate this week, even compared to last week. I find it interesting that I noticeably put less on my plate than last week (see pic below) yet I still didn’t finish it all (I think I left the potato, most of the onion and a few bits of roast veg) and I still feel like I over ate. Especially with the baked oat/flapjack thing after.

So maybe this honesty thing is working, but I wont say it is for sure until we pass day 21, as I’m usually fine until midway through week 3, then I loose it, fall off the wagon and search for a better plan.

I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to drag my ass out of bed tomorrow and walk round the block, then do some yoga or something, but my track record with solo exercise is not great. As they say, the key is…

Oh yes its a Saturday and day 8.

Enthusiasm for eating in a way that is good for me is in seriously low supply.

I’m starting to get worried because my work is no booked up for the next full 3 weeks, which is ridiculous because I do have enough work in and I’ve been desperate for enough time to do the website and get the social media sorted. At the same time I’m disappointed that I didn’t deliver the two shirts I was going to do today, which makes me feel like I’m failing when I’m not. As it is with everything – my reaction is to want to eat.

Today has not been my best food day. I find it difficult to know if I’m being unrealistically hyper critical of myself or if I’m slipping.

This is what I feel like I’ve done this evening

Can you see the slightly unhinged look in her eyes? That’s cos shes gone cheese mad!!!!. In fairness today has been trying, not just because it was busy, or because I feel like a failure, but also because firstly:

-one of the studios in my building asked me several times if I wanted prosecco, orange juice, sausages, cake, sausage rolls, some healthy vegetable crisps, mini pizzas! And I said no to all of it – even though I wanted a bowl of my own and to take giant handfuls of everything and take it back to my room o sit and eat on the couch. Then I weakened and had two squares of pizza.

And secondly:

– I have officially got my second day of spotting and defiantly have period pains!!!

I can not tell you how unhappy I am with this. A while ago (about 6 weeks) I had an implant and have not had a period since!!!! It’s been – BLISS!!!!! I was hoping that the worst I’d get is a bit of spotting, but its almost as if as soon as I cleared my food up – my body decided to have a period to punish me. After 6 weeks without one I am now dreading that they could be worse than when I was on the pill, I’m dreading the moos swings, the tiredness, the back ache and the gnawing background pain. I guess time will tell. I was just feeling so… stable. It was lovely.

So I completely missed yesterday (day 7), however the food wasn’t that bad;

9:15 – 1 pack salami, 1 pack feta. Courtesy of Asda temptation, but lets face it they sell doughnuts, so I’m not mad. I’m done being punishingly strict with myself. I’m all about decreasing the bad habits and increasing the good.

2:20 – Tuna and bean salad

18:40 – powerball – love these things

19:10 – turkey meatballs and veg

1 coffee and 45min walk in the pool.

It was all in all a very busy day – I swam, went to Asda to pick up extra stuff because mum gets worried about grandad, went to the studio to pick up work , got blocked in but the NISA delivery truck and was at mum and dads for 9:30.

Grandad (who was supposed to arrive at midday) was already round at the next door neighbours having a cuppa. I unpacked the shopping, got my stuff out and cleared the table ready to work. Then I skimmed the fat off the stock and put that in the freezer.

Grandads back and milling around by now, subtle as a brick and as undemanding as a small child. I then dealt with his need to find a tv (among other queries) and packed him off with the next door neighbour to Truro. I then ironed 6m of fabric, cut out two shirts and drafted a cuff placket pattern. Then I dealt with work enquiries and house mate enquiries, and spoke to my brother.

Then I made 1.3kg turkey mince worth of turkey meatballs, and 4times the recipient for power balls. Grandad arrived home at some point and I’d made him lunch then tidied all his stuff away. My the time the parents we home I was most of the way through cooking diner for all of us and up to my elbows rolling power balls (these magical things my dad loves but has no idea how they appear in the fridge.

After dinner was done I then had to go to mine, prep for todays food, oh and clean my house ready for a housemate visit tonight (who is not coming tomorrow).

All in all I was fairly blooming knackered after my ‘day off’ lol.

Unsurprisingly I failed at being a grown up a bit today. I was an hour later than usual going for a walk in the pool, almost late picking my student up from the station, was very lethargic and inefficient at work, not to mention easily distracted.

That being said things could have been worse.

Get to know your eating habits – question 2

What do you think triggered them?

Along with the above I have a major sugar/carb/cheese thing going on. I lean on one or the other of them whenever I’m trying to change my eating habits, as usually one is the black sheep and the others are seen as not so bad. Either that or I feel so restricted that I hit the F**k it button and eat a lot of them. I don’t thing there was any particular one thing that triggered my weight problems, its part social, societal, genetic, lack of self esteem. It’s impossible to blame any one thing.

With that – thank you and good night.

Today I can feel the initial enthusiasm waining and my stress and life problems having a greater pull, so I’m going to aim to answer the ‘Get to Know Your Eating Habits’ one at a time. Before that – todays food diary:

Get to Know Your Eating Habits – Question 1

When did your weight problems start?

My weight problems started with puberty. I’ve never been that confident and had been bullied for most of primary school. When puberty hit and I grew hips (Im naturally very pear shaped) and I didn’t understand that I was just an unusual set of proportions for standardized clothing – I just thought I was fat, and in the 90s fat was still a dirty horrible and disgusting thing.

Shopping became a traumatic nightmare! I went from children’s clothing to adults clothing at age 11. Because standardized clothing makes no allowances for hips and thighs I quickly made it up to a size 14. Up until I was 20 I was at least two dress sizes between by to and bottom half. Every time I went up a trouser size my poor mother would have to put up with a perfectly fit and healthy daughter (I’ve seen pictures – I was normal) breaking down in tears over her trousers in a fitting room. My low self-esteem meant that by 16 I was overweight, because I self-comfort with food and I went on my first formal diet at 17, starting negative yo-you spiral of dieting.

Now I get to go to bed – Yay!!!!

Good news: I lost 3lbs in the last 2 weeks (probably more this week and a gain last week) so I’m made up.

Bad news: I have a serious weigh in day eating habit I need to break. I managed to avoid the extra block of cheese from the co-op and the McDonald’s (because weigh in days don’t count) trips on the way home. However I had the frying pan on to cook tomorrow’s halloumi and reheat the asparagus. Somehow convinced myself that it necessary to cook some polenta, because I’ve never tried it like that. And then convinced myself that I might aswell cook it all as otherwise it will go off. 🤭 then of course I ate until I was stuffed.

Anyway – I’m going to try and put it on the live and learn list. Here is the rest of my food etc for today

Breakfast Lunch

Dinner

Well…. today has pros and cons.

Food diary is a little disappointing:

Not preparing is a trigger to eating badly that o know about though. As is eating later than planned. Which for some reason drives me up the wall!

Which brings me to the good stuff of today – the plan is done!!!! I have planned out the next 7 days and I’m actually quite looking forward to it. So I’m still feeling very

On the other hand I have definitely not got my head around all of the #honestydiet ways. One thing at a time. So overall- it’s s mixed bag today.

Summary of day 1:

Today has been stressful, and manic and I have only just stoped working at home before going to bed. I have also been boiling hot and was seriously hungry by 12 and by 5. However I managed to eat only 3 meals, So I am pleased with that at least. I have no food plan for tomorrow, so that is a little worrying. I have arranged to go for a food shop Sunday and to arrange a meal plan for the week too. So hopefully tomorrow will be the last day without a food plan.

– yes thats correct – run in the pool.

I am pretty lucky, in that I have access to a pretty sweet pool, that is chest height all the way along. I’ve been walking lengths for 30min every day I can for the past couple of months. It’s been great, a bit of morning yoga in the pool, especially in the hot weather we’ve had.

So it safe to say that I’ve gotten in the habit of getting up and going to a place of exercise first thing in the morning – bonus points for me. The problem with it is that I dont push myself particularly hard while I’m there, and I usually end up eating crap (inc takeaways) for breakfast.

This morning – inspired by Lisa Riley I pushed myself for 40min and went at it hard. I ache I’m not gonna lie, but I did it and actually enjoyed it thanks to Chris Evans and his Serious Rocking coming through my Bluetooth ear pieces.

Wish me luck for tomorrow.