Wednesday 24 June 2015

Weigh In - Week 8

First things first: wow - I must get better at doing weekly weigh in posts on time!  Ooooops!

So last week's results were .... surprising.  I had fully expected to stay the same, as it hadn't been the best of weeks, eating-wise, but then I stood on the scales and BAM!!! 

2.25lbs off.

Thank you very much, I'll definitely take that!  So that puts me at 13st 10.5lbs.  

There's a small part of me that thinks "8 weeks and only 6lbs lost ...", but I remind myself that I said all along that this was no race, and I had no timetable.  Plus, 6lbs is nearly half a stone, which is an achievement all in its own right, and if I think that really I wanted to lose somewhere between 1 1/2 and 2 stones, then half a stone is a good landmark in that goal.  Another part of my brain also realised yesterday, that in another 2lb's time, I'll be back to the weight I was before last ski season, which is also satisfying, as I can view my loss as rolling back time.

Re-framing and all that.

Here's another piece of re-framing for you, which I picked up whilst watching the documentary Hungry For Change last week:

Instead of thinking "I WANT IT but I CAN'T have it", try looking at it as "I CAN have it, but I DON'T WANT it".  I've had a couple of times in the last week where I've been eyeing the kitchen cupboards up, with a little voice whining in my head, and then I've flipped the way I looked at it and walked away.

Talking of walking away, and moving away from the weight loss side of life to the job side of life, I may have done something very stupid this week.  After 2 months sitting around searching for jobs, and going off to occasional interviews, I got offered a job on Monday.  And I turned.  It.  Down.

What the hell is wrong with me?????

This may well be one of the most idiotic, risky things I've done for  ... well .... quite a long time.

I just turned down a job worth nearly £70k a year.

Oh Jesus - I feel a bit faint thinking about it.

But you know what?  I didn't feel right.  I jumped out of the rat race last year, and I feel like if I'm going to jump back in, then it has to be on my terms. And this job?  This job felt like everything was on their terms.  From the way they kept changing the length of the contract (it was advertised as 6-9 months, and they were trying to get me to sign an 18 or 24 month fixed term contract in the end), to the way there holiday policy was so restricted, that they tried to make me go from a day rate to on their payroll, and finally that they only gave me 45 mins to make a decision before they were going to offer it to the next candidate.  You know what that made me feel?  Backed into a corner and like this was going to be a lot more hassle than it's worth.  So I said no.

Possibly crazy, but I was getting bad vibes from them when the first interviewer, who would also be my line manager, said "I just want someone who won't give me any hassle".  Way to make the candidate feel like you'll be working in a supportive environment, eh?

So now we know that people rate me for work, but I've decided to be picky.  Thankfully my dad didn't throw a massive hissy fit about me chucking a well paid work opportunity away and is standing behind me on this one.  I can only pity my poor recruitment consultant!

Saturday 13 June 2015

Painful Eating

Why is it I sometimes eat until I'm in pain?

Am I the only one that does this?

I did it on Friday night - had takeaway, which was more food that one person needs, and continued eating until it was all gone, despite that fact I knew I didn't need it.  Despite that fact that I was full way before the end, and was really having to force the food down.  It wasn't pleasurable, but more of a gentle compulsion to finish.

Now I'm not a binge eater in the way some people struggle with it.  I don't go into the kitchen and inhale the food with no clue what I've eaten accompanied by true feelings of being out of control.  This is more something subconscious that happens when I look at a plate of food.  Doesn't matter what size it is, there's a need in me to finish the plate.  At some point in time, it became drilled into my head that you must finish the plate.   You must eat it before it's taken away.  Why?

And this is the problem, I literally have no idea why.  I think my parents told me to finish my food when I was young, but I didn't have siblings who would literally whisk the food from under my nose. I've never really gone hungry either, not the sort of hunger that would ingrain this behaviour.  So I really can't figure out where this unspoken fear comes from that if I don't finish the plate something bad will happen.

This is why when I sometimes say it's a victory for me to have stopped eating something when I'm full, it really is a big thing for me.  It's an odd sort of behaviour, because it seems to be linked to a specific portion rather than general eating and is maybe linked to "wasting" food - if you put a family sized bag of crisps or something else in front of me - I could quite happily eat til I'm satisfied (which would probably still be more than I "needed" because I'm greedy and all) and then put the rest away in the kitchen somewhere for later.  But put a plate of food in front of me, and I'll eat the whole thing, maybe because I feel like it will go to waste when it goes in the bin otherwise.

Friday night was one of the stronger examples of this.  I ate the two dishes I'd bought - I ate all of it.  Because I thought the food I had wouldn't reheat well?  I don't know.  But I regretted it later, because when I went to bed I suddenly realised that I was so full I felt sick.  I could literally feel the food trying to come back up because my stomach was over-full.  And in fact, in spirit of honesty, and I'm sorry if it's too honest, I was a bit sick.

Why on earth would our brains think that it's a good idea to eat so much that we're actually sick later?     This isn't getting enjoyment from food.  Does anyone else ever have this problem?

As with everything, I guess that the more I understand the problem, the more aware of it I am, the more I can do something about it.  But I do want to know where the bloody hell it came from!

Weigh In - Week 7

Weeeeeell - it was a gain this week.  A tiny gain, the smallest it could have been, but a gain.

0.25lb on, taking me to 13st 12.75lb.

So what happened?  A mix of things, I think.  Obviously, there was the weekend, which took me over my points for the week.  Then there's the face that I've been feeling a little bloated recently, and I don't know if this is down to lack of exercise, but I feel in my gut that it might be.  And then there's the chocolate in the goddamn kitchen.

One problem with living at Dad's is that he keeps snacks, lots and lots of sweet, sugary snacks, all over the damn kitchen.  It drives me insane.  And the one that drives me the most insane?  The constant open bag of Cadbury's Wispa Bites or similar that lives in the fruit bowl on the side.

Do you know how hard it is to ignore that????

That fruit bowl is right by the fridge, the microwave and the light switch.  I've realised that I've been grabbing one or two little bites nearly every time I wander past for whatever reason.  Given the layout of the house, that could be when I'm in the kitchen for food, or for laundry, or going past to the downstairs bathroom, or into the study behind the kitchen.  It suddenly occurred to me yesterday, that I have no idea how much chocolate I've actually been eating that I haven't been recording.  It could add up to an entire standard chocolate bar a day, or more, for all I know!  Ouch.  Which means if I didn't change last week aside from just subtracting the chocolate, I might have had a small loss for all I know!

Oh for the love of god!!!  Arrrrrrrgh!

So, starting yesterday, I'm not having the chocolate.  I have plenty of small snacks of my own in the cupboard, if I need to satisfy a sweet craving, so I definitely don't need that chocolate.  I had a bit of a blow-out day yesterday, and used up most of my flex points for the week, but other than that, there's no reason I can't have a good week this week - there's a christening tomorrow, but that's not really an occasion to go nuts with food.  I also want to try and go swimming and do some yoga this week in an attempt to slowly ease myself back into exercise.

Keep going!



Thursday 11 June 2015

Weigh In - Week 6

I am being RUBBISH at writing at the moment.  In fact, I'm pretty much being rubbish at doing anything at all.  I have entered a lethargic can't-be-arsed spiral of unemployed-ness that basically means you're lucky to see me present my face to the world pre-11 am.

Yep.  That bad.

Which means it's Thursday and I haven't even posted up last week's weigh in yet .... and it's already nearly next week.

Rubbish indeed.

So last week was a lb off - all good and moving in the right direction.  13st 12.5lb and moving slowly downwards.

I suspect this week won't be so good, as the weekend definitely wasn't.  Well - it was awesome in terms of entertainment, just crappy in terms of food.  We wondered off up to Wrexham at the weekend for time spent with friends just before the birth of their first baby.  Given our friend was 8 months pregnant, the weekend was pretty sedentary and involved quite a lot of food.  And booze.  Because whilst our friend, Nia, is pregnant, her boyfriend isn't and was enjoying the chance to have someone to drink with again!

Then on the way home, we dropped into Shrewsbury to have a quick catch up with more friends, and popped out for lunch.  The original plan was to wander to the local pub for Sunday lunch.  Somehow this ended up as a walk towards town, which was supposedly 20 mins away, which then translated into wandering straight through town to a pub that then turned out to be overrun with tourists from a local fete.

The quick trip to the pub ended up more like a 5 mile walk (especially after muggins here managed to drop her hoodie somewhere and we had to turn back to find it) and 5 miles in flip-flops does .... bad things to the feet.  I had that queasy moment whilst walking across a field when I took a step and felt something pop on the bottom of my foot and thought there goes that blister.  I didn't look until I got back to the car as I thought I might be too squeamish to walk on it if I looked before!  So yeah - I was hobbling round for a couple of days waiting for my feet to seal themselves back together.

Last night, I decided there was only so much laziness I could take and went to the local pool for a swim.  After the first two lengths I thought I was going to DIE!!  18 months of no swimming does not a fit person make!!!!  I eventually pottered my way to 40 lengths and then pretty much wobbled my way to the showers via the steam room - I definitely need to find some fitness again, since I'm supposed to be running a 5k race (albeit a fun one with obstacles, foam and colour) in a couple of weeks time - eeeeeeek!

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Set Back

The most frustrating thing happened today - I rang to chase the rather-too-quiet recruitment agents to see what the current situation was (i.e. give them a boot up the arse), and after not reaching my agent the first few times, I let the phone ring through until someone else picked up so I could leave a message.  Except it turns out my agent left the company a couple of weeks ago .... which must have literally been a few days after I went for my meeting.

Helpful.

Sooooooooo ..... current situation is that I am on the books for the agent covering West London, who got me the interview with England Rugby, but apparently no one in the Central London team is looking at my cv.  I was promised a call back from that team this afternoon to establish a new contact.  Nada.

Basically, this means that I'm rather too close to being right back at square one and without an agent *insert scream of frustration here*.  I'm giving them one last call tomorrow morning to try and sort this mess out, but I've rather lost confidence in them right now, so I've already started asking around friends in the same business for any recommendations they have for actual, decent agents.  Better luck next time, huh?

So whilst all this job-hunting rubbish is going on, I remain pretty much trapped at my dad's house, at least during the week.  I can't plan anything in case I need to hoof it to London on short notice for meetings / interviews.  I can't really afford to spend any more money as I'm going through my new savings with alarming speed.  And.  I'm.  Bored.

Good things:  it's taken me until today (Wednesday) to use up all my weekly flex points on Weightwatchers.  This is something of a victory, as I've usually done that by Saturday or Sunday (for a week which starts on Friday).  I know, I know - the point of the flex points usually is to not use all of them at all, but ... well ... I'm just never that strict with myself.  So I'm celebrating my victories where I can find them.  I also channelled all this afternoon's frustration into another ruthless bout of decluttering, and shovelled 3 bin bags and an old hi-fi into the car to jettison at the tip.  I can almost see some of my bedroom floor now; a minor miracle, I can tell you.

Bad things: I have to yell at agents tomorrow morning, or rather try really hard not to yell at them, whilst simultaneously eliciting some sign of life from them.  Testing .... really testing.  And I still have way too much stuff which I need to declutter - even after the 5 bags of trash, 3 bags of donations to the charity shop and the hi-fi - my belongings are definitely breeding when I'm not looking.  Oh yeah - and I just found out today that my bonus from my ski season, which I could really do with right about now, is coming 2 weeks later this year, so won't be arriving in my bank account until the end of the month, not the end of next week.  Ugh.

Aims for the end of the week: some progress on any or all of the job hunt, the scales and the uncovering of the floor in my room.  And tomorrow I'm going to go and spend the afternoon with a harassed new-mummy friend, and we'll compare which of us slowly going more insane.  Probably over cake.

That is all.

Monday 1 June 2015

Rejection

It's funny, isn't it, how even when you've already told yourself in your head that you didn't get the job, you're still disappointed when someone else tells you that for sure.

I didn't get the job.

And even though I'd been sure that there would be better candidates than me, I'd secretly started making little plans in my head for how I'd get to work every day (cycle - how exciting!) and how good it would be, because that's what we do.

I think more than the disappointment of the rejection from this job specifically, I'm depressed that it's been 5 weeks of job-hunting and I've got nothing whatsoever to show for it. I'm right back at square 1, burning through what savings I've got and with the whole process to start again. And because I'm living at dad's to save money every time I get an interview I have to drive across the country to London for it which is more expense.

The job was with England Rugby at Twickenham, so was pretty damn exciting, what with it being the World Cup this year. It wasn't meant to be, but I can't help feeling that any other job opportunities from the agent will be distinctly less exciting than that one.

For extra funsies, my flatmate-to-be has just been headhunted for and accepted an amazing new job so is all excited and wants to be excited for me too .... except I can't provide that. I'm super pleased for her (utterly genuinely - she deserves that job as she's amazing at what she does) but getting a bit depressed by hers and everyone else's texts every 5 mins asking if there's any news.

If there were news, I'd tell them.

So yeah, sorry for being a bit bleak this morning .... turns out being unemployed makes me feel like less of a person. Fingers crossed for a breakthrough soon please, before I cease to exist altogether.

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