Learning to Love Cooking Again

One of the biggest changes for me, since I gave up on dieting, has been slowly learning to love cooking properly again.

I always used to enjoy cooking; trying new things out and producing a properly presented and tasty meal, but going on Weightwatchers (or Slimming World - pick your poison) killed that for me over time.  Most recipes from normal books worked out too heavy on points to be allowed or even contemplated.  The recipes suggested on those plans were, for the most part, underwhelming in some fashion - either they were tiny portions, or tasted artificial because of the substitutions made, or just tasted flat and empty because there was no fat in them.  And then of course there was the fact that, over time, vegetables and even fruit came to seem like a punishment because they were basically all I could eat when I'd gone off plan and had to restrict heavily to feel like I was in control still.

At first, when I started a new plan, it felt like an adventure trying to figure out how to make normal recipes work but, after several years, it just felt like a burden.

I got to a place where I was eating the same 6 or so meals on rotation because they tasted ok and I could make them quickly.  No wonder I'd then spiral off into binge land!

For the first 2 years after giving up on dieting, I ate whatever I wanted.  I ate macaroni cheese, takeaway, pizza - just reacquainting myself with everything that had been forbidden whilst I was away dieting.  I also put on, at times on and off, about a stone during that time - just to be real with you about what leaving dieting and getting to grips with my emotional eating meant.

Finally, in 2017, I felt ready to start reintroducing healthy food on a regular basis and I started looking round for inspiration.  I wanted simple meals, loads of flavour, balanced nutritionally, accessible.



I've found a few books that have been instrumental in finding my balance as well as joy in the kitchen again, and thought I'd share:

Lean in 15 by Joe Wicks- any of them.  Hear me out on this!  Yes - technically, these are part of an eating plan, but I do not follow that plan.  I do however cook from these on a very regular basis as they are actually brilliant.  Most meals are ready within 15-20 mins.  The ingredients list is varied but also accessible - lots of reliance on store cupboard essentials and spices, lots of variety in the proteins used and a mix of traditional carbs (pasta, rice, potatoes, quinoa) and lower carb meals that are still highly satisfying and keep you full.  The instructions are clear, the pictures are bright and the results are good - I've only found one or two I wasn't personally keen on.  Also - most of the portions given are for one or two people, so you can easily scale up, but don't have to do the annoying calculations to try and scale down that often occur.  I have the red and blue books, plus The Fat Loss Plan and will definitely be buying the others at some point.

The Food Medic by Dr Hazel Wallace - I have the first one, and will no doubt be getting The Food Medic for Life at some point soon.  Truly inviting looking recipes that scream health and nutritional balance, but also deep, full flavours.  It's also given me brilliant ideas for sweet snacks as well like energy balls.

I also dip in and out of Gizzi's Kitchen Magic by Gizzi Erskine and pretty much anything Mary Berry, as well as referencing BBC Good Food site often.








The thing these books all have in common is that they aren't overly "clean eating" - they're not vegan, or even specifically veggie, but they are all about making your food from scratch at home and knowing what's in it.  I often batch cook now and started taking leftovers for lunches.  I even make snacks to take to work with me, including energy balls, home-made hummus and little yoghurt pots.  And I got comfortable with the idea of using protein powders to add oomph to my breakfasts which has massively helped break my snacking / sweet food addiction cycle.

By learning to love cooking again and taking the time to do it, I've been able to get more efficient with shopping and save money, as well as turning my diet around into something entirely more satisfying ... which in turn has meant I'm not constantly looking for the next opportunity to binge on forbidden foods ... because nothing is forbidden in the first place.  I have a full biscuit tin and 4 half-eaten tubs of ice-cream in the freezer, but I only go there when I really fancy it these days.

Everything pictured here is something I've loved eating in the last 12 months and regularly cook again and again.

How do you feel about cooking??  Love it or hate it?

Weightwatchers Plus - The Anniversary

Helloooo!!

I realised today, completely by chance, that exactly a year ago I started my experiment in doing Weightwatchers my own way - it's been a year of Weightwatchers Plus, as I dubbed it at the time!

A simultaneously eventful and completely non-dramatic year - here's the run down of what happened when I decided to track and get curious about myself and how I eat, without there being a diet in sight:

• In lbs - 14 gone.  At one point, just after Christmas I was down 17lb, but right now it's 14.  One stone gone without dieting.
• In clothes and inches - some gone.  I couldn't tell you how many, and I'm pretty much still the same official clothes size as last year, but what was once uncomfortably tight is now fitting properly.
• In miles run - a fair few.  One of this year's tentative goals was to get back into running and, in a fit of enthusiasm over Christmas, I entered a 10k for this month.  I did it in 1 hr 16 mins on a very hot, sunny Sunday a few weeks back, but the most important thing was it encouraged me to start running again, and also to get over notions of how a perfect run should look - sometimes I run hard, sometimes I have lots of walking breaks, some faster, some slower - but I count them all as good runs done.
• In realisations about how good exercise is for my mental wellbeing and my emotional resilience to life in general - profound.  Once I stopped having any notion of what exercise I should be doing to lose weight or tone up or burn calories, and started concentrating on what I actually enjoyed and how I felt, I realised that moving is good for me in more ways than the obvious.  I couldn't honestly say how much it's contributed to the lbs or inches lost, but it's definitely helped me sleep better at night and just generally improve my mood.
• In learning to accept myself and my body - leaps and bounds.  Not strictly linked to doing Weightwatchers Plus, but once I decided to let go of the idea of a dramatic weightloss makeover, I realised that I had better learn how to live with myself how I am and like it - I did a lot reading around self-acceptance, turned my Instagram feed into a stream of body positivity love and inspirational people of all sizes, bought myself some lovely clothes that actually fit - which is revelation for anybody that's ever struggled with waiting to fit back into the clothes they used to wear - and basically filled my head with the idea that my worth as a person is not linked to my weight or size.  It's percolating in slowly, and it's heavenly to be able to say that I haven't looked at myself in disgust or anything approaching it in the first 5 months of this year.  I've stopped trying to suck everything in and pretend I'm smaller all the time (like that ever fooled anyone??), and I'm getting easier around photos that show me and not the filtered version I'd like to see.

So you see - small changes, but also profound ones.  It's weird to say that I probably feel more at ease with my body and like myself better than I have at any other weight or time since I was a teenager and first encountered the scale and social pressure.  When I very first set out to leave dieting behind I said to myself that it was time to either find a way to stop fighting the food and lose weight for good, or accept myself at the weight I was at .... I really had little belief that it would be the second one and just put it out there as an option whilst thinking really I wanted to lose the weight.  But the reality is that I've ending up working on both together.

I lost pretty continuously from last June until January this year and then I had a bit of a blip where for 3 months in a row my weight fluctuated up slightly.  At the time I put it down to different things - in February when it first happened, I thought it might just be Christmas catching up with me late and I'd had a short break away all inclusive as well.  In March, when it happened again, I shrugged and told myself it was my week's ski trip in Italy and I just had taken my eye off the ball a bit.  Then I had a further tiny gain in April and the doubt's started niggling in that I was doing something wrong or that maybe this was the weight I was meant to be.  In May I started losing again, but it wasn't until I was reading a blog today that something clicked with me - the author was talking about giving up dieting and how she maintained for the first 3 years, then without trying the weight started dropping away.  First 10 lbs in 6 months, then another 10 over another 2 years .... and it occurred to me that weight loss has never been a straight line journey and I'd conveniently forgotten that.

Weight loss, as the author reminded me, is the product of many environmental factors coming together - calorie intake, type of food, activity levels, sleep quality, stress levels, hormone and chemical balances in the body - and it suddenly makes sense to me that I might not lose and might gain in the winter.  As the winter progresses and all the excitement of my November birthday and Christmas wear off, I tend to get a bit lower - less active because it's so dark and cold outside, craving heavier comfort food, sleeping more or just curled up on the sofa.  In the spring, my activity levels naturally go back up again as I want to be out in the sun and fresh air, and I start work on the garden and DIY projects - it therefore makes perfect sense that I might have a change in my weight during that period.  I find the fact I might have a natural rhythm to the year to be quite comforting somehow!

And so I go into a second year of this experiment excited to see what happens.  I'll tell you one thing though:  I'm going on holiday to Bali in 3 weeks time and shopping for some holiday clothes, and in particular a bikini, has been the most stress-free and non-judgmental process this year - that alone is worth its weight in gold!!

2018 - Happy New Year!

Last New Years Eve I decided that I was totally over the whole New Year, New Me movement and wouldn't be making any resolutions beginning on January 1st.

That's not to say I didn't have goals for the year, but I wanted them to be longer term and more organic than trying to reinvent myself on an arbitrary day of the year in a fit of guilt at not being good enough and having overeaten over Christmas.

And do you know what?  It was the most relaxing start to the year as a result.

I still lost some weight, and regained some fitness, and made some progress on money goals ... just not in January.

I liked it so much that I'm doing the same again this year.  My goals are boringly non-dramatic, but feel like they're authentic to me, so I'm still excited to see what progress I make this year.

It's become a tradition that my friend Jo and I sit in the village pub on Boxing Day night, having a break from families, and reflect on the year that was and what we want to achieve next year.  We make our goals in our own ways - hers are more drastic diets and fitness goals for January and February because that's how she likes to operate, and mine are more gentle actions I want to take over the coming year.  I tend to focus mine around the 5 areas of my life that are super important to me: love and relationships, career, money, health and travel.

My health ones are to keep doing exactly what I've been playing around with the last 7 months - getting to an honest, neutral, peaceful relationship with food, taking the emotion out of my eating and learning to appreciate the body I've got already.  To continue experimenting with exercise and activity until I reach a comfortable middle-ground of things that I love doing and feel great.  And I'd like to incorporate a bit more mindfulness and meditation into my life as a whole.  Also making sure I'm getting enough sleep.

In career terms, I'm still not entirely sure what lies ahead but I'm still thinking about doing the next part of the coaching course I did in February this year, so I'm going to save towards that, and also read some more coaching books.  I'm also going to keep an eye on my day rates and not be afraid to ask for an increase on future contracts if that is sensible - I'm adding stuff to my CV with every contract and I want to make sure I market myself at what I'm worth.

Under money, I want to clear my last outstanding credit card balance and put some money towards an overpayment on the mortgage - boring but very sensible, especially as I re-mortgage for the first time in the second half of 2018 and, the better my equity to loan ratio, the better the rate I get next time.  I'm also experimenting with taking my "non-essential" spending  - e.g. my social and shopping budget - and giving it to myself in cash.  I've been spending more than I want to the last few months, and admittedly while some of that was Christmas, it eats into how much I can save and it's not a habit I want to get into.  The overspend is 90% my non-essential stuff, and my theory is that I'm always much more hesitant about spending cash as it's so obvious how much you're spending and how much is left.  So, starting in January, I'm taking my allotted budget out in cash each month, and we'll see how that impacts my spending habits.  

Love and relationships are tricky because you can't force them, but one thing I can do is expand my social circle a bit.  I've let my Bristol circle of friends shrink right down, especially in this last year when I've been hermitting in the house.  So I'm going to make an effort to return to the surf club, and investigate what else is out there in Bristol - basically I've challenged myself to get some proper hobbies because I seem to have actually forgotten what I like doing.

And travel - possibly my favourite category!  I've got a few short trips in the works at the moment for early 2018 - I'm going to Amsterdam and Bruges for a few days in February with my friend Bridget, and I'm hopefully booking skiing in Italy soon with Jo.  But my big goal this year is Bali and Lombok.  I really want to go, and I've been having a serious case of itchy feet recently to go somewhere exotic so, whether it's with friends in the summer, or on my own in the autumn, I'm going to try and make that happen this year!

What do you have planned for 2018?

Christmas Survival Guide

It's nearly the end of another year - Christmas is just about done and dusted and ready to be put back in the box, and it's that time when I tend to get a bit reflective over the year that's just been.

I sometimes think that when you're wallowing around in the muck of the year, it's all too easy to get discontented and think "I don't have enough / do enough / make enough progress", and it's only when you look back over the 12 months as a whole that you can really see all the highs and the journey so far.

It's been a good 12 months, I'd say.  I've had some brilliant holidays, which is always good in my book, but I've had a kind of gentle bubbling layer of contentment at home too.  Partly because the house I bought right at the end of last year is now starting to feel like a home.  It's not shiny and beautifully presented like those ones you see on Instagram (and stalk on Insta, if you're me and hungry for inspiration), but it's my safe space from the world and it's starting to look like me.  Which I love.  I didn't do quite as much home improvement as I'd hoped because ... money ... but what I did do I'm happy with.  Main bedroom and living room painted, new carpet in the main bedroom, guest bedroom feature wall done, and furniture starting to appear where it should be in the living room.  I also grew things in the garden this year - actual things!!!  There was a parsnip that survived from seed to fully grown (which is a bloody miracle, let me tell you!), and I learnt a lot that I can apply to my little garden next year.

Otto the Cat came to live with me, and I learnt that I could in fact take care of another living being successfully.  He's covered the house in fur and takes up 75% of my bed on a regular basis at night but he's taught me that you can't be a perfectionist about everything .... and if you paint two rooms in your house he'll choose those two to sit in the windows of and leave grubby paw prints on your nice new paintwork.  Sigh.  Good job I'm slavishly devoted to the furball, eh?

Probably most importantly to this blog, I feel like I made massive strides in my quest to end my battle with food.  Something clicked in May - a combination of yet another weekend away overeating leaving me just over 15 stone on the scales, and the after-effects of coaching and all my reading and investigation bringing me to a place where I was ready to take responsibility and had the tools to do something about it - and I embarked on a new chapter.  I dared to rejoin Weightwatchers but with the confidence to try doing things my own way and 7 months later I've gently and pretty effortlessly lost over a stone.

Despite the annual Dieter's Doom that is Christmas, I've lost weight in December.  I've put on less than 2lbs over the Christmas week itself, but I've been able to enjoy everything I wanted to.  I've not felt out of control, or deprived, or binging over the period at all.  Although I have to come to realise, especially as I was hosting for the first time this year, that there is an extraordinary amount of pressure placed on Christmas being perfect that originates from food.  Was your Christmas perfect if you didn't have an extravagant Christmas lunch followed by Christmas pud and brandy butter?  Did you do it properly if you didn't have a full spread of a Christmas evening tea?  Did it even happen if you didn't have the cheeseboard and port, the mince-pies, the mulled wine, the chocolates, the chocolate biscuits, the canapés and whatever else we associate with Christmas?

The answer, I've discovered, is "yes".  Christmas is whatever you choose to make it, but the food isn't make or break, and if I'm hosting again next year, I'll choose to tone it down - especially as it's just Dad and I, because I've been eating leftovers for a week now and I'm bored!

What saved my festive period, was meal-planning the busiest weeks.  I marked down exactly what meals I was out for, and I planned and batch-cooked my favourite healthy comfort food around it - and honestly, that saved me falling into a pile of unnecessary snacks multiple times, because I knew I had great food to go home to and I wasn't starving when I arrived at events.  It allowed me to switch out of "celebration" mode between events and just carry on as normal - well-fuelled and guilt-free.  I also made sure I got plenty of sleep.

In fact, my whole December has felt pretty good on the health front.  I made a decision early on that the best way to tackle it was to think like a naturally thin person - I imagined that they would indulge a bit at Christmas, enjoy the good bits and probably be a lb or 2 heavier at the end of the month, but they wouldn't turn it into a month long binge.  So, I decided that the honest tracking absolutely had to continue - if I was going to gain a bit I wanted to be able to honestly say "I know how that happened".  I also wanted to not feel any guilt about seeing higher than normal totals on my tracker at the end of the week - no food is "bad" or "naughty", I've worked hard to get to that point and I didn't want to undo that - so I resolved to just view each number neutrally and observe how I felt in myself after eating the richer food of the Christmas season.

I've had my two highest total weeks on the tracker in 7 months in December - Christmas week and New Years week - and I think that's probably exactly how it should be.  There's a lot of treats still in the house but I'm able to leave them be and just have a bit now and then.  Most of the actual Christmas food has now either been finished or binned because it had lingered too long.  I've done a fresh meal plan and shopped and I'm back eating normally and looking forward to see what 2018 brings!

I'd call that a success!

Getting Ready For Christmas

Well, this poor little corner of the internet is truly a little sadly neglected these days, but actually, for once, it's not because things have gone completely tits up with the weight loss, but rather that things are just ticking along in a very undramatic fashion, which doesn't make for the most interesting writing!

Just over 6 months since I adopted my new approach, and I'm now about 17lbs down, and I'm just slipping out of the 14 stone bracket and into the 13s again - a fact that makes me very happy.

I fully expected December to be a month of pretty minimal losses, what with the festive season in full swing, but committed myself to at least remaining absolutely 100% honest in my tracking during that period, so I could make sense of the gains and losses that occurred.  Instead, a week and a half into the month I appear to have had another little jump forward on the scales and have lost nearly 4lbs. Go figure!  I expect that the final figure at the end of the month might end up a little smaller after all's said and done, but I'm content with how things are going.

17lbs means that clothes that were tight are now loose, and trousers that really didn't do up are now being worn regularly.  It's made quite a different to my confidence (or learning to trust myself and making some final peace with food has - I'm not quite sure which at this point!) and I'm feeling pretty ok with life.

My only concrete New Years Resolution that I know I will be making yet is that I will be continuing to treat myself with love, respect and a little dose of honesty well into next year, and see where it takes me.  That, and making a trip to Bali and Lombok happen.

In the meantime, the house is looking very Christmassy - I probably spent waaaaay too much on decorations last month in preparation, but I don't care too much as they'll last years - and I've been baking Christmas goodies (Swedish Christmas Biscuits! Mince pies!) and getting organised with my present buying.  I'm feeling pretty chill, if a little broke, and pretty organised at this point.  It's a bloody Christmas Miracle!

Even better, my dad is coming to me for Christmas this year!!  This is another Miracle with a capital M because Dad hates being broken out of his comfortable routines.  But with my own house this year, which he helped buy and hasn't yet been to see, plus the fluffy majesty that is Otto to think about, I suggested that it might be nice if I host this year, and after a bit of persistent "suggesting" he gave in! I'm super excited!

It's going to be a good Christmas - I have a very positive feeling.

And I have a feeling that 2018 might just be a corker (as long as Trump doesn't start a new world war).

October Already?

This year is just flying past!  I can't believe that it is October already and Autumn is firmly upon us but life is not too shabby at the moment.

I've had a fab holiday in the Pyrenees - 2 weeks going coast to coast from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic full of relaxing by the beach and taking in the amazing scenery of the mountains.  We walked loads, stayed on a yacht  and enjoyed the local speciality of tartiflette pizza (bacon, onion, potatoes and cream on pizza - what dreams are made of).

I'm still bumbling along with my Weightwatchers "Plus" approach to eating and ... it's going quite well.  I've lost 11lbs since the end of May which is slow and steady, but definitely adds up as time goes by.  Admittedly, I lost nearly 7lbs of that in the first month, and the losses have been slower after that (and I went up a couple of lbs after holiday) but the losses do keep coming.  Which is awesome.

I've also kicked my activity up a level over the summer and as well swimming and a bit of yoga, I'm now regularly incorporating HIIT into my routine and have even started running again in the last couple of weeks.  I'm not doing it to speed up weight loss, or even inch loss particularly, but because it makes me feel good, and empowered, and I've actually noticed a difference in my fitness and strength.  It's taken a while to build up to it, and I think the fact I've built up to it slowly has meant things like running have actually been less painful to re-introduce.

Having said I wasn't doing it for the inch loss, that has been one of the nice side effects.  My clothes are fitting better already and my weight and size are better than they were before Borneo last summer.

The house is coming along and it's slowly, slowly starting to look like a home, and one I can be proud of.  I have a good contract currently with people I like and it looks set to run until sometime between the end of the year and next March which is good news.

I think, in short, life feels pretty good right now.

The Return To Weightwatchers

I’m extremely conscious that over the last 18 months or more, I have written on more than one occasion that I really think that this time I’ve found the key to losing my excess weight without returning to dieting.  And yet here I am, still carrying that excess weight round with me.

I read a lot around emotional eating and different coaching approaches, make another little breakthrough with my understanding of my emotional eating and for a week or two I’m really conscious with my eating and the scales start to drop.  Then life happens, as it tends to do, and my mind wanders back into its old patterns and I’m back where I started, or occasionally a little heavier.  So it is, that in the 18 months since quitting Weightwatchers and dieting as a whole, I have ended up about 8-10 lbs heavier than I was on quitting.  My mental state and my attitude to food is undoubtedly better now, and I have detoxed myself of the fear of certain foods and re-normalised most things into my diet, but I have still not shifted the excess.

After a gorgeous long weekend away in Wales with 4 friends at the second May Bank Holiday, I came home feeling bloated and a few lbs heavier than I left – extended social occasions are always the toughest on my eating – and this time something shifted in my brain:  I absolutely did not want to return to dieting, but I fully recognized that I needed some extra tool that was missing from my repertoire to help me … and so I signed up to Weightwatchers again with a plan that this time things would be a little different.

Let me explain:  whenever I did Weightwatchers previously (let’s call it Weightwatchers Original) or any other diet, I always approached it as the Solution To All My Problems.  This Plan would tell me everything I needed to do to make the weight fall away and as long as I followed it faithfully (and perfectly!), success would surely follow!  I would contort myself into whatever patterns the diet told me to, cut back my intake drastically and for a while it would probably work.  Then I would get resentful of the restrictions, fall foul of feelings of deprivation, over-eat a bit, decide that if I couldn’t do it perfectly there’s no point in doing it at all, beat myself up, eat everything in sight, beat myself up some more for good measure, and eventually viciously restrict myself to get “back on track” and “make up” for my dieting indiscretions.  I gave all authority to the diet and assumed I could make myself fit it.

A model, I think we can agree, that is clearly flawed.

Enter my intended new way of doing things, which we shall call Weightwatchers Plus ….. otherwise known as utilizing the Weightwatchers tools to suit me personally.

During my time away from dieting, I have come to conclusion that I get easily distracted from what I have consumed throughout the day, and I wanted a way to stay aware of what I’d eaten.  A way to track my food and therefore make fully conscious decisions.  What I didn’t want was the accompanying set of standard rules and regulations – I want to trust myself to work out for myself how many points I need and to take a more flexible approach to how I eat them throughout the week, rather than falling into the increasingly extreme binge and restrict cycles that I ended up in by the time I quit Weightwatchers back in 2015.

I am choosing to sacrifice fast, “guaranteed” weight loss in favour of conducting some research on myself over a series of weeks to build a picture of how much I can eat in order to lose weight, maintain or gain.  I’m trying to become my own expert on me and take responsibility for the results of what I eat.

It’s been 4 weeks since I started this new Weightwatchers Plus approach.  For the first couple of weeks, I haven’t intentionally restricted my food at all, but I have faithfully tracked everything and consequently I sometimes find myself making more responsible decisions based on what I’ve already had that day.  I’ve started writing down at the end of the week how many points I’ve consumed in total and calculating a points per day for that week, recording what deliberate exercise I’ve done and what weight I’ve lost, and I’ve kept an eye on those stats.  They’re pretty fascinating.  Weightwatchers Original plan would have me eat 37 points a day on average (including my Flex allowance) – that first week I averaged 47 points a day and lost nearly 3 lbs. 

It turns out that, at the moment, I can lose weight by eating anywhere between 45 and 55 points per day on average, and over the first 4 weeks I lost just shy of half a stone.  So this is what I’m now calling Weightwatchers Plus – my own personalized plan.  In the first month, I have religiously tracked everything because I don’t have rules on how much I can consume so I don’t need to be embarrassed or disgusted at myself about anything.  There are no bad days or bad food.  Curiously, since taking this new approach I haven’t had any of those binge days that used to plague my original attempts to follow Weightwatchers, no days of 100 points or more or even close to that.  It always fits into my life, because it’s completely flexible.  I’ve noticed that the items I’m least keen to have to add to the tracker are the things I’m debating eating due to something other than physical hungry and the thought of it seems to be enough to slow me down and have a think many times.

I am conducting an experiment in Me.  I will continue eating roughly as I am, and tracking the results of that, until the current losses tail off, and then I will look to just reduce my intake a little bit – maybe even just a few points a day on average, until I observe losses picking up again.  

I have bought quite a few habits with me from my time off-dieting, including not being afraid to use a healthy chunk of points on breakfast and things like avocado or peanut butter which pack a hefty number or points, but also happen to keep you full for ages.  Consequently my snacking levels are still down and it’s rare for me to feel super hungry.  I’ve started cooking properly again, including batch cooking dishes so I can bring leftovers for lunch and I’ve recently been rekindling some affection for moving a bit more and getting some activity on.

I have no expectation on what kind of losses, or rate, I can expect, and in many ways I’ve resolved to focus on what I’ve already achieved and be grateful for it, rather than get hung up and impatient about the next target to reach – it’s so unsatisfactory and negative to always focus on what I don’t have rather than what I do.

Life Lately

Once upon a time I was a good little blogger and actually wrote posts on a regular basis.  Looking back now, I thought it hadn't been as long as it clearly has since I last wrote, and also - I was much better at posting last year than I thought I was! Huh - who knew?

But anyhoo - apparently it was January when I last wrote something and I'm not really sure where the time has gone since then.  If it's any comfort, it's seems to have really flown by in real life too!

In just 2 days time, it will already be 4 months since I got the keys to my very first house.  4 MONTHS!!  It's certainly looking homier than when I moved, and yet I've also not got as much done as I dreamily thought I would.  Mostly because I've discovered that a) I hate painting.  I only did one room so far and that was quite enough for me - next time I'm getting a decorator in to do the main slog for me! and b) everything costs a lot more than you think and buying a house is really expensive and basically I ran out of money for now.  Probably not helped by the fact that I slunk off for a 5 star week skiing in Switzerland in January - oops.

What I have managed to do though is completely paint the front bedroom and get new carpet laid and when I finally have time to drive a van to my dad's house and collect my bed from him I can actually think about moving in there - well done me!

I've started hanging my pictures, bought a sofa and a coffee table (the tv stand is still a cardboard box though) and spent endless hours pouring over the internet trying to work out what style my house will be and splodging paint samples in different rooms.  I've planted a few things in the garden which miraculously haven't died yet and I bought some seeds to plant a few vegetables - ambitious I know!

I have a cat! A giant, fluffy, black and white called Otto has come to live with me and we're just about getting to know each other and find a rhythm now.  He throws up hairballs and tries to trip me up when I walk down the hall and I baby-talk him and freak him out with feathery cat toys which he thinks are trying to kill him - it's delightful.  But all is right with the world when he curls up next to me and delicately puts a paw on me to check I'm still there / ask for a scratch behind the ears.

I went skiing at the end of January and got to tick a new country off the list - I loved it but goddamn it, I really miss the mountains.  One week a year is not enough.

I handed in my notice on my job - I have two weeks left to go and I am so ready to be out of there.  It was way past time for me to do it and I'm enormously looking forward to a short break and finding my next opportunity.  Speaking of which I did the foundation course for coaching in February with the Coaches Training Institute in London.  It was an eye-opening 3 days that challenged me more than anything in years and made me realise that I hate getting something wrong, but that it also doesn't kill me.

And finally - because it's sort of the point of the blog - I'm hoping that I'm slowly turning a corner with my eating and my weight.  It's slow, slow progress, but I'm consistently a few lbs down from where I was at the end of last year.  Of course, I'm still up from where I was when I quit dieting but I'm happy if I'm slowly heading in the right direction.  I've not got far on the scales yet, but have noticed it more in how some of my clothes fit and someone actually commented today that they thought I'd lost a little.  I shall take that comment and run with it!

A lot of the work I've been doing recently has been around working out what triggers you to eat in the first place and working to remove it - quitting this job and figuring out a better long term career plan are big parts of that ... of course I also gave up alcohol for Lent, so that could also have something to do with the loss - I don't know but I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks!

In the meantime - I'm super looking forward to the long weekend for Easter, spending time with Otto, good friends and my Dad, sleeping, watching films, reading old favourite books and pottering in the house and garden.

And on that note, I'm about to fire up Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and sit back and watch.

Enjoy the bank holiday!

Joy

One of the books I was reading recently suggested the idea that a common reason for eating more than we physically need is due to not enough joy in other areas of our lives.

It's an interesting idea because, in a weird way, it means I've got kind of lazy.  It means I basically stopped making the effort to find what I actually enjoy doing, and resorted to food for easy-access joy.  

Since making that realisation, I've started questioning a lot of the times I find myself at the cupboard.  The result has been turning away from the kitchen a lot of the time, and on other occasions taking a little bit of something and really savouring; knowing full well that I am eating it for joy, not fuel, and accepting that.

The scales are currently creeping down by tiny increments.  I'm working on not expecting any particular results by a specific time - this is part a work of self-acceptance, and part a realisation that changing my habits and beliefs takes time, and therefore the external symptom of my habits and beliefs will also take time.  It's hard though because we're all conditioned to want the result right now, and I have to put the work in to get the results.

On the positive side, with the scales dropping slowly I'm experiencing the opposite of what normally happens.  The weight that usually insidiously creeps on, that you don't really notice (or deliberately deny), until suddenly one day your jeans don't fit - well, that is basically going the other way.  If I can keep my impatience in check, and just keep going with the self-acceptance and the mindfulness, I will wake up one day and find my jeans don't fit for all the right reasons.

So I've been working on bringing joy back into my life - recognising what makes me happy, actively monitoring my boredom levels and setting myself activities to occupy myself - not distraction so much as actually filling my time well - sometimes that's practical stuff around the house like decorating, and sometimes that consciously sitting down with a good book or tv show to enjoy, and I have to say, if nothing else comes out of it, my house is slowly getting decorated and I'm feeling generally pretty content!

That Was The Year ... 2016

2016 sure went quick, and here we are on it's final day already.

If there was one word that stood out for me this year, that summed up how it felt for me, then it would be "progress".  It felt like many strands of my life, things that I've been working on for a while, suddenly took a leap forward, and it's been pretty amazing.

For a start, I sit here writing this from my dining table in my kitchen.  My OWN kitchen in my OWN house because, guys - I finally got a foot on the property ladder!  The house completed mid-way through December and I managed to get in before Christmas, and there is such a sense of accomplishment in that, especially when I look back on the years in the financial desert not that long ago.

In my career, I've continued contracting which has put me on a more positive cash footing for now, but I've also taken the first tentative step into where my career might go next and booked the first part of my coaching certification for early next year.  I don't know yet how my career might unfold, but I've had some enchanting, frightening, exciting ideas on that this year and I have the sense of adventure to go looking, and we'll see what happens next.  I know how I want my life to look, and I'm going to go and find the pieces that make that vision come to life.

My weight loss journey feels like it took a tiny but significant step forward in 2016, and particularly December, too.  Having spent this year exploring my emotional eating and trying to figure out how to resolve and re-normalise my behaviours, something clicked in December.  Despite the month holding the move out from my rented flat, a couple of weeks of long commutes and spare room surfing with friends, and the stress of completing on the new house, plus all the normal socialising around the festive season and Christmas itself, I lost 2lbs.  To anyone else that might seem a non-achievement, but like a lot of people I normally put a few lbs on in December (or, you know, half a stone), and without even really trying I've done the opposite.  If I can do it under the super-pressurised circumstances of December, then I hold a great deal of hope that I might have turned a corner and can do it in other months.

Of course, there's also been some amazing trips and holidays this year - skiing in France in February and March, my amazing trip to Borneo and Brunei in the summer and long weekends in Wales, Cornwall and the Peak District, and the wonderful friends that have accompanied me along the way.

All in all, I feel pretty grateful at the close of this year and throughly excited to see what lies in wait for me in 2017.

Advance and Retreat

I love this time of year!  Christmas is approaching, I’ve just had my birthday so I’m usually still feeling the glow of the love I get from my friends around that time, and it’s a time for being cosy at home and enjoying the brisk chill in the air outside, and all the lovely twinkliness of Christmas lights and decorations.

Of course, this year – just to be different – I’m currently between homes so I’m a little like a long distance traveller in transit at a big airport.  I don’t quite feel settled, and I can’t wait to get to my destination, but I can still enjoy all the festive feel-good spirit around me even if I can’t have my own tree and lights right now.  

I decided to give up the lease on my rented flat at the end of November and, as my house purchase hasn’t quite completed yet, I’m bridging the gap by putting most of my stuff in storage and spending a few weeks staying at Dad’s home in Worcestershire.  It means long drives to work in Bristol (nearly 70 miles each way), and living out of suitcases for a few weeks, but it’s worth it to avoid overlapping the two properties and having to double up on rent and mortgage for a month as well as not having to try and do a handover of a flat at New Year.  With any luck my sale completes on 15^th December and I’ll be living in my new house in time for Christmas!

In the meantime, I continue to look for the positive in the situation – saving money, spending some time with my Dad, having the opportunity to see friends at home, getting in the festive spirit with Christmas tunes in the car, taking advantage of the quieter shopping near Dad’s to avoid the Christmas Crazy in Bristol and having a handy parcel-collector at home for when the postman calls with my Christmas shopping.  See: lots of positives!

I’ve had brilliant weekends away recently too.  I had 3 night break in Cornwall at the end of October with one of my best friends which was heaven.  Cornwall was full of Autumnal walks by the coast, exploring local towns and shopping for souvenirs in the little boutiques and gift shops, eating clotted cream teas and pasties, and enjoying quiet drinks and card games in the hotel bar each night whilst chatting rubbish and putting the world to rights.  We meandered around Looe, Polperro, Fowey and Polruan, hopped over rivers on ferries and generally relaxed and unwound.  We especially loved relaxing in the spa every evening before dinner.

Then at the end of November, just before my birthday, I went to the deepest, darkest Cotswolds for the Sacred Rascals retreat.  I had been looking forward to it for months, ever since I had an unexpected tax refund and decided that I damn well deserved it, and it definitely lived up to expectations.  The weekend was a mix of hardcore relaxing, being looked after in amazing style in a beautiful country house near Tetbury, and group coaching sessions with some amazing leaders and a fabulous bunch of fellow retreaters.  The group work sessions were enlightening and empowering, and whilst I might not have had any earth-shattering revelations, I came away feeling like there had been a subtle but definite shift in my outlook.

I felt relaxed, more centred and balanced, enthused to follow up on some plans I’ve had brewing for a few months, and I’ve been sleeping better ever since.  Pre-retreat I’ve had generally broken sleep and restless nights for months now, and could probably count on one hand the number of nights where I’ve slept right through and felt well rested in the morning.  That started with shoulder niggle that made it uncomfortable to sleep on my right side last summer, but even after that slowly healed my sleeplessness remained.  Since the retreat, I’ve been sleeping much better – most nights I drop right off and I’m pretty solidly out until the morning.  I’m unsure what changed, but wonder if it’s because I’ve put some plans in action for a part of my life that has been really frustrating me and so my brain just feels calmer?

And what were the plans?  Well, after some conversations with the coaches, I finally made a decision on whether to book on some coach training myself, and I did it!  I had originally been looking at one of the American programmes that you attend long distance on the phone, but I’d had doubts about it which I couldn’t place my finger on.  After some suggestions and research, I’ve found a programme that feels like a much better fit for me, for where I am in my life right now.  And I booked it!  I do my foundation course in February in London, and it’s a bit terrifying, because part of the homework is to do a practice coaching session straight away after the first day – eeeeeeek!  BUT .... whilst that feels outside my comfort zone right now, I have faith that they won’t make me do anything I won’t have been given the tools for, and I have people in my life I can ask to be my guinea pigs.  

I still don’t know what I intend to do with this coaching training in the long run, and I’ve decided not to worry about that yet.  Hell, I might not even want to continue after this foundation part of the course, but it feels good and right to be exploring the options and trying something new out.

On a food front, I’m still exploring my eating demons and trying to find ways to deal with them.  No recent moves on the weight front, up or down, but given I historically always gain most during periods of change and uncertainty, I’m happy that this house move hasn’t caused an upward trend.  Nor has my birthday or my weekends away.  I feel like I’m getting more comfortable with what my triggers are, even if I’m not perfect with dealing with them, and this increased awareness of my emotional state – whether it’s fatigue, boredom, frustration, or anxiety – feels like it should be the underpinning of learning to sit with them or respond more appropriately than just eating them.

The Little Yellow House

Writing on here is a bit more sparse these days than it used to be, and I think some of that comes down to the fact that I journal privately now, a habit which I only picked up last year – which is awesome for me but ... not so great for the blog!  I’m not quite ready to give up on here yet though, so you’ll just have to suffer with more infrequent updates (if anyone still reads that is!).

I’m very glad to say that after that the cliff-hanger ending of my last post, the mortgage crisis all sorted itself out, and the house purchase is back on track.  Since then there have been several *exciting* evenings of paperwork in order to support and document my mortgage application, many emails and calls booking various surveys, a thoroughly depressing call around life assurance and critical illness cover (I’m sure he kept going on and on and on intentionally just to wear me down until I screamed “yes, just insure me for everything and let me go!!!”) and today I have a fun appointment with my solicitors to get my shiny new will signed.  

The world of Adulting is overrated.

But hey – at the end of this I’m going to have a house!  And it’s even an actual house not a flat.  A house with stairs and a loft and a garden with a shed.  I considering getting a cat.

So ok, maybe Adulting can be quite awesome.

I can’t remember how much I said about the house before potential disaster struck.  I know I’d written a glowing post of gushing contentment at finally getting to have the stability of a home of my own, that wouldn’t be subject to the whims of flatmates leaving or landlords being a$$hats about stuff, but I’m pretty sure I hadn’t yet posted it when The Mortgage Crisis struck and therefore deleted it in a fit of depressed pique.  So yeah – you can just imagine all of that.  

Instead I shall tell you that my new gaff will be a little 2 bed Victorian terraced house on a quiet cul-de-sac.  That I’ll be moving across the river from lovely, smart regency Clifton where I rent now, to fashionable, in demand, up-and-coming Bedminster / Southville – it might not have the classic graceful architecture and boutique-filled Village of Clifton, but it’s full of families and young professionals and has a buzzing high street full of independent shops – and more importantly I can afford a whole house rather than a poky, converted flat which is all my budget would stretch to in the exorbitant prices of Clifton.  I’m sure they’ll let me back in to visit Clifton once in a while though.

What’s Victorian on the outside is thoroughly 90’s on the inside (probably why I could actually afford to buy in an area that is “middle-classing” faster than you can say “log burner”), but that’s actually good from my point of view.  Pending my structural survey telling me otherwise, the house is in immaculate condition but dated, which means I have a great excuse to completely redecorate but a very easy base to start from – the plaster’s in good condition, there’s no heinous wallpaper to strip, and the bathroom and kitchen are completely clean and usable until I have the money to replace them.  Thanks to some nifty remodelling somewhere in the house’s history, I also have large lounge and a large kitchen diner downstairs instead of the original small lounge / small dining room / tiny kitchen combo that would have originally have been there.  Perfect.

And just because buying and moving house is not enough to deal with, I’m also unexpectedly contemplating a job move.  My current contract runs until December, so I hadn’t really thought about doing anything different until then, but was contacted earlier in the week asking if I wanted to apply for a promotion / payrise on a new contract with people I know from previous jobs.  It’s the kind of unexpected situation where there’s no harm in applying so I have done – no worries if I don’t get it and if I do, then I get some extra money and experience, and it will help pay for the coaching course I want to do in January.

Eating-wise – well, everything is stable.  Which is good and bad I guess, but I’m trying to look on the positive side.  I’m eating a more varied diet and more satisfying food than I used to.  I’m working on my sense of self-worth because that’s pretty much what underpins everything – nothing works if you’re constantly operating from a standpoint of hate and fear for your current situation, it has to be from love for yourself ... which is a lot easier said than done.  I’ve quit the gym (pretty much) but started doing regular yoga at home which I’m enjoying.  I’m still plodding along, but accept that I’ll need to buy myself a new winter coat this year because my others are too small – whilst I’m not putting on weight currently, I haven’t lost the extra little bit I somehow gained after holiday, which means what was tight last winter (because I hadn’t bought anything new after several ski seasons away) is really tight now.  Even though I’m only 7lbs heavier that last winter, everything dates from a couple of stone / years ago when I was at my very lowest.  I won’t punish myself for the variations in this journey and where my body’s at though, so I’ll just buy a new coat and enjoy it!

Oh Calamity (Maybe)

I was in the process of writing a post about how I had some awesome news, and after spending just 6 weeks looking for a home of my own to buy, I had had an offer accepted on a lovely little Victorian house in Bristol.

I had already dubbed it the Little Yellow House, mused on how lucky I was (ha!) in the ferociously competitive market in Bristol to have found somewhere and managed to successfully bid on it in such a short time.  I had even mentally started the renovation project in my mind (and on Pinterest).

I.  Was.  Ecstatic.

And just 3 short days after getting the brilliant(ly unexpected) news about the offer acceptance, I had an equally unexpected and much less welcome call from my mortgage broker on Friday:  there was a major issue with my mortgage application, and when I asked if I should be genuinely concerned I got the very ominous answer of "yes".

At this moment in time, I honestly have no idea whether we can rescue the purchase and I'll have a house all of my own in just a few short weeks time, or if everything is going to come grinding to a halt and I'll not only have to let the vendor down, which I absolutely hate to think about, but I won't be able to even start the process again for another 18 months or more.

Distressed is really not the word.  Although numb and resigned occasionally comes close, as does panic.

Somehow, and I don't even know how this happened, I sailed through all the initial questions from the mortgage broker about my financial situation and got a provisional green light from the banks, and it only emerged on Friday when the broker took the actual real-deal mortgage application to the bank, that  there is a HUGE issue with my having been out of the country on my ski seasons.  Yeah - I don't get it either.

It would appear that at some point in the last couple of years, a lot of the banks decided that anyone who had lived abroad in the last 3 years automatically got benched in the mortgage game.  Where this gets super annoying for me is that, although I did technically live and work abroad and so put a French address in my address history, EVERYTHING to do with my credit, financial and work history during that period remained in the UK - my banking, my salary from my UK employer, my tax arrangements, my loans and credit cards and phone plans, my ability to vote, I wasn't even on the lease on the work property I was staying in - so the reason why they won't touch people who've lived abroad (gaps in the credit history so they can't judge the application properly) doesn't apply to me at all.

My broker and I are now desperately trying to work out a way round this, so that someone will give me a mortgage, but I don't know how long I actually have given I'm now in a chain.  It seems ridiculous that someone with my salary and credit score (significantly higher than the national average on the first and about 10 points short of the maximum possible out of 999 on the second) could end up in this position.

Cross all your fingers and toes for me if you will!!

The only good thing in this whole scenario is that I can tell that my tendency to stress eat is well and truly behind me now as there has been zero inclination to binge or snack outside of normal during the whole thing.  In fact, I'm actually on a pretty great eating kick at the moment, but I'll save that update for another day.

The only weird behaviour I caught myself indulging in was mentally finding sneaky ways to try and blame myself for what has happened, when it CLEARLY outside of my zone of influence. I found myself thinking it was my fault for celebrating too early, or of course I didn't deserve to have the house go through, and other weird inner-mean-girl-in-my-ear thoughts.  I told her roundly to shut up and eff off - I deserve this damn house and I'm going to fight for it.

Send all your good mortgage / buying vibes my way if you will!

Positivity

I feel really positive right now.  Which is weird, but entirely awesome.

Somewhere between mid-July and now, I feel like someone changed my batteries and my lightbulbs and now I’m energised and sparkly again and feeling wholly refreshed and rejuvenated.

Winding back to mid-July and I had, I think, hit full flaming burnout.  I was sluggish, apathetic and constantly tired – I had no energy, couldn’t face the gym, had no interest in anything but curling up in darkened rooms and sleeping.  I even got to the point where I cancelled seeing people because I just didn’t feel like I could put my mask on and act like a proper human any longer.  I recognised it and acknowledged it and set about trimming back my social engagements and trying to rest myself a bit better, but all I could really think about was holiday and getting away for a couple of weeks.

Oh boy, holiday was amazing.  Two and a half weeks in Malaysia (Borneo) with the first few days of that spent unwinding in 5* luxury in neighbouring Brunei.  We climbed 4,000m mountains (never again), saw So.  Much. Wildlife and visited surreally beautiful landscapes like perfect tropical islands where we sat on the beach and watched the sun rise over the islands of the Philippines as the final green turtles finished laying their eggs in the sand and scooted back into the glassy blue sea. 

Somehow the sense of peace of being away in such quiet locations has come home with me, and I feel quietly positive about life.  I’ve still got a bit of jetlag, but instead of getting frustrated with waking up too early, I’ve been using the time to enjoy leisurely breakfasts before work or go to the gym to swim or do yoga.  I’ve set about gently rearranging the flat now that my flatmate has moved out – spreading out slowly from my over-crowded bedroom and making the stark open spaces where all her stuff has now gone homely and warm again.  I’m on the hunt for possible future homes again, and taking my time and being patient with the process.  

I’ve been cooking properly – making fresh soup, eating fruit and pasta with homemade sauce and (a sign of the progress I’ve made) I'm not really fussed by the open packs of crisps, chocolate, biscuits or icecream in the kitchen from before holiday.  

I also decided against weighing myself on the return from holiday.  I was re-reading parts of The Goddess Revolution whilst I was away, and am generally feeling quite a peace with my body right now, so realised that the scales couldn’t really tell me anything useful at this point in time.  My clothes fit, my skin looks healthy and tanned and I feel strong (well, my dodgy back feels good, my ankle still feels a bit tender after rolling it 3 times on the way down the mountain), so the scales can only either tell me what I already know if I tune into myself, or ruin that.  I choose blissful ignorance and trying to trust myself.

Recently ....

I had a couple of posts queued up to upload but yeah .... life got in the way and suddenly I was sitting on the coach to Heathrow airport and they didn't happen. Soz and all that.

So instead, I thought I'd just do a quick catch up post, as it's been a busy couple of weeks.

Sooo - I didn't get the little house I fell in love with. I was just pipped at the post by another bidder - I was really disappointed about it, but after a few days (and a little search for everything that had sold in the area I like in the last 6 months) I felt comforted that there had been a good few houses that I think I would have liked and it will all happen in good time.

In the meantime I've buggered off on holiday and I'm currently sat by the pool at 5* splendour that is The Empire Hotel in Brunei, flying over to Borneo this evening. This trip has both come round very quickly and also seems like it's taken FOREVER to arrive!! However it's nice to be away with the girls again and fall back into the old comfortable patterns of chat and chuckling.

Elsewhere in my little world, I had a flirtation with what seemed like an actual, real life, nice man ..... which lasted exactly until he told me about his wife (back away, back away!) and discovered that my invoicing has been wrong all year and I've been substantially under-billing my current contract. This could have been a disaster, but my agency have been very sweet and helpful and I'll be getting all my missing back-dated fees since January as a lump sum while I'm away. Which is really pretty awesome as it means I'm getting an unexpected boost to my house deposit and a lovely pay rise going forwards.  For the first time in my life I feel really quite well off and well on the way to financial stability.

That financial stability will be super important and significant going forward as I still have every intention of signing up for my coaching course in January next year and exploring the options to become fully self-employed (and more fulfilled by my career). The extra money makes it easier to save for the cost of my course and to start saving a really good sized safety fund to help smooth any future transitions in my work.

So all in all, things are positive .... or I'm choosing to take the positives out of events. I will find a house and now I know how the process works and feels. I had a fun flirtation with a guy which reinforced that I'm a perfectly normal, not unattractive person and the fact that he had zero morals has no reflection on me (and I responded in a way that means I can hold my head high and know I did nothing wrong). Bizarrely, despite being still being bigger than I had been for a while on holiday, I also feel more confident in my bikini that I probably ever have - all this work on my emotional eating, self love and acceptance might finally be kicking in.

So I'm wishing everyone a happy August from here in Asia and I'll see you on the other side for more adventures in emotional eating and house buying.

In Suspense

I HATE hanging around like this waiting for news.  Especially news that is life-changing.  I have enough trouble waiting for exam results and this is that same nervous flutter, except that this time there’s no studying or anything I can really do to improve my chances.  I guess I hate the feeling of powerlessness, and the spectre of potential failure, though in this case neither really reflect badly on me.

So, today I’m sitting with this nervousness, much as I’m trying to learn to sit with all those other uncomfortable feelings.

I want this house so much, and I’m also scared of the commitment at the same time.  I guess a house of my own feels like security and the start of a new phase in my life, so for me it represents so much more than just the literal bricks and mortar, and maybe that’s why this feels like such a pass or fail transition in my life – that it’s pass or fail moving to the next “level” of being an adult and successful.

In all honesty though, I love that damn house.  Something about it just called to me, I got that click when I went in.  And yes, it’s a standard 2 bed Victorian terrace, but I can see in my mind’s eye how cosy it could be, how me.  After 14 years of near constant moving I just want a home now – somewhere I can stop, settle and finally breathe out.

And so, even though I’m 90% expecting the call to tell me I haven’t got it, I suspect it’s still going to feel like a kick in the teeth.  I know, I know, that everyone keeps telling me that it’s only the third house I’ve seen, and by the 20^th it won’t seem that special, but there are people I know like Hannah, who back me up that sometimes you just know.  And I’m sure there will be others out there, and that realistically that is the future I’m facing, that I will have to keep looking, but I know that aside from the practicalities of the constraints of my budget, this is somewhere I could be happy.

Sp please all cross your fingers and toes for me that this little dream could come true xx

Dreaming About Jobs

I feel excited about my career prospects for the first time in a long time.  More specifically, since about this time 3 years ago when I first realised that maybe I could do something much more exciting with my job than purely sitting in a big office all day, and applied to be a resort accountant in an Alpine ski resort.  That fateful day, when I submitted my application, kicked off one of the most exciting adventures of my life – it led to me achieving several life list goals and spreading my wings, and was a chapter of my life that was one of the happiest I can remember.  I lived abroad, developed my language skills, learned that I have what it takes to successfully financially manage a small business, independently work on my own from home and adapt on the fly to a highly challenging environment.  And I loved it.

As I made that decision, I really wasn’t entirely sure it was a wise thing to do, but it felt right.  Logically speaking, I would earn much less money than my sensible, safe banking job.  I would have to turn my entire life upside down to move abroad for 6 months, including leaving the lovely, affordable home I had fortuitously found at the peak of my personal debt crisis, and indeed putting back the date of me finally repaying all that debt by another 6 months.  I would be moving to a place full of perfect strangers, and would be at least partially career-dependent on a bunch of potentially flaky teenagers and ski-bums.  On paper, it was a horrible choice for my career, and some people including my beloved Dad thought I was nuts and it was too risky.  But a surprising number of people expressed envy at the freedom of my choice, and I followed the excited, fizzing sensation in my gut and the swelling feeling in my heart that told me yes.

Several years on, things have changed somewhat but I’m still not fully satisfied.  I’ve done two winter seasons and they were great, but ultimately not the long term solution to my career I’d hoped for.  I’ve now swapped to contracting, which definitely ticks a few more boxes but it’s still not right.  I think for the longest time I’ve known I felt dissatisfaction with my career, but doing the work on dealing with my emotional eating has really bought it uncomfortably to the forefront.  The problem is I’ve had no idea what to do to solve it.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent some time visualising what my dream job would look like, and it looked awesome, but sadly not in any way realistic. I mean, I’m sure companies exist out there like it, but to find a job combining the qualities I’m looking for, a salary I can afford to live on now, and in Bristol because I don’t really want to move from here ... well, let’s just say my weekly single Euromillions Lucky Dip looks more promising.

Something cool is happening now though.  I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been thinking about it honestly, admitting my hopes and fears when it comes to my career, and being open to the possibilities, but I feel like one of those possibilities is growing into being Something.  Something that makes my insides fizz with excitement again and makes me shout a great big instinctual yes! inside. In fact, I feel a bit like a scientist that realises that they’ve been looking at the confusing evidence all wrong, and if they re-arrange it something startlingly clear and completely different emerges.  I’ve been looking at the problem from the conventional wisdom of seeking a single job to satisfy all of my needs.  What if the answer isn’t one single job.  What if it’s two (or more!) strands of what I’m good at, all woven together to make a flexible satisfying whole?

Even writing this down and putting it out there feels like a great big “eeeek”.  I mean what if it’s too much?  What if I freak out and retreat back into my shell and don’t believe I can do it?  What if it’s yet another thing that I get all excited about and then it all fizzles out?  But I do have two actual career strands in mind, one of which is a natural extension of what I’ve already been doing all my working life and the other is .... not.  The other is way out there, totally outside my comfort zone, but something that definitely intrigues me.  Something I would need to train and study for and make a real commitment to but I can very seriously imagine myself doing. Something that has ironically been suggested on every single personality or career test I’ve ever taken. 

The funny thing is it was the way-outside-the-comfort-zone strand that came to me first, but one of my biggest fears that has held me back has been stepping away completely from my financial career – I trained 4 years for it after all, and there are aspects of it I do still really enjoy, and what if I’m wrong and I can’t go back???  I’ve also worried that for every career I’ve thought of, I can’t imagine just doing that full time and feeling satisfied with it.  I don’t seem to have the commitment to do just one thing, all of the time.  But then the strangest, most reassuring thing occurred to me this week – why I can’t I be making money from more one than one thing at the same time?  Why can’t I utilise two completely different skill sets in parallel to earn my way in the world?  Hell, I might even find that some weird synergy ends up forming and I actually end up with a blended business coming into existence, or it might evolve into something completely different from my two potential starting points.

Even better, having two potential business plans to run side-by-side means I could potentially dip my toe into the pond gently, one thing at a time, and ease my way into it, rather than having to abandon my current career in one big, bold (terrifying) step.

For the first time in years, I feel like I have something I can aim for, and having the aim means I can start dissecting that down into A Plan.  I have things I can research (I loves me a bit of research) and baby steps I can start to take towards seeing if this is something that can truly work for me.  It feels both big and bold and ambitious, and yet totally more manageable and realistic than anything I’ve done yet.  And it combines elements of everything that I had in my Dream Job visualisation.  It feels true to me and deeply satisfying.

I couldn’t be more excited.*

*I apologise extensively for the vagueness of this post – even putting the basic concept out there and saying I want to do it feels like an almighty big first step.