Aspects of Self-esteem

OK, I'm officially rubbish - I started this post yesterday and never got round to finish - there's a few of those knocking around in my drafts box at the moment - must do better!

It's funny isn't it, how we can have such conflicting opinions of ourselves.  My feelings about myself, whilst changing all the time, also range between the emotional responses and the logical assessments - it's just a shame I can't iron them out into one overall opinion!

How is it possible for us to have positive objective series of thoughts about ourselves, and then somehow come back to an overall negative subjective opinion? It just doesn't make sense!

Have an example if you will - I have, at various points over the last week had the following thoughts:

• I have a great curve from my waist to my hips;
• My legs looked great in my city shorts on Saturday night;
• All my features are int he right place and a nice / shape proportion (yeah, don't laugh - I do think that way) - my face is "pretty";
• My hair looks great;
• Proportionally, I look a pretty healthy weight these days - I'm a normal size;
• Although smaller than it used to be, my wardrobe contains a good mix these days and I dress well, and I'm great at accessorising (just going on what people tell me - honest!); and
• I come across as confident, friendly and outgoing (again - this is feedback from other people).

So please explain to me, People of Wisdom, why it is that I still think of myself as unattractive in an overall fashion, and am convinced there is something heinously wrong with me.  Please.  Anybody?

And when I say "unattractive", I do mean actively "unattractive", rather than just neutrally not "attractive", if you follow me.

I am at my wit's end - for all the positive talking I do to myself, pointing out my advantages and good points, after professional councelling and endless reassurance from friends, acquaintances and near-strangers alike (until they're blue in the face, poor things), I still can't move from my default setting.

And annoyingly, when I pin down the source of my conviction, it's bloody men.  Doesn't matter that everyone else in the world (ignore the slight exaggeration, please) thinks I'm fine, it would appear that my mind is fixated on the one point that there isn't one specific someone telling me that.  Gaaaaaaaah!!!! 

I have in fact, recently given up men.  For the benefit of the last two remaining shreds of my sanity (one of which is already severely frayed), I have gone cold-turkey on dating.  I am trying very hard to move away from my dependency on external validation that I am allowed to love myself.

I felt great at the beginning of this year when I was seeing London Boy for a while, and now feel worse after being dumped.  But mostly I dislike that I've allowed it to get to me.

Can anyone please give me suggestions on how to get it into my concrete-density head that I am in fact, just fine.  Anyone??

*Sigh*

Hideous But Fun

That is the best way I can describe my eating this weekend! 

We've been celebrating Jo's 30th birthday, and the diet has gone out of the window in favour of spending time with friends and marking a waypoint in our lives.  And that is absolutely fine .... as long as the bad eating stops there and doesn't continue into the rest of my week.

I didn't post my weigh in on Friday because I stayed the same.  Although I saw a new low weight in the early part of last week, I bounced back up: this is the result of my good-during-the-week-bad-during-the-weekend eating I tend to resort to.  And last week wasn't even a terrible weekend. 

I do need to get this a bit more under control.  I tried popping my own corn tonight and it actually turned out really well - it's nice to eat it and know exactly what's gone into it from start to finish.  However, I did make the mistake of not measuring out the portion first, and at the bottom of the bowl, I found myself licking the surplus sugar / cinnamon combo off my fingers when I realised I was just eating sugar for the sake of it.  I don't need it, and I want to lose weight more ... I need to remember that more often.

Anyway - the cake, karting and one-off drinking fest of this weekend is over now - onwards with some decent eating and exercise for the week!

Sweet Roasted Roots with Grilled Halloumi

Since a couple of you commented that this recipe sounded pretty good, I thought I'd actually post the (very simple) recipe for your delectation.

This was taken from the Weightwatchers magazine this month, and is a great weeknight supper that reheats well (hello tasty lunch today!).

The original recipe serves 4, but being the greedy sod I am, I split mine into 3.

Sweet Roasted Roots with Grilled Halloumi:

3 fresh beetroot, peeled and roughly diced
600g butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and roughly chopped
300g carrots, roughly chopped
3 tsp oil (the recipe says olive oil, but personally, I use rapeseed oil)
1tbsp balsamic vinegar
250g halloumi, sliced (the recipe suggests light halloumi, but I couldn't find it so just used regular - there's not much difference in terms of fat content)

1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 / 200 C / fan 180 C.  PLcae the beetrooot, squash and carrots in a large roasting tin and add the oil.  Season well, combine and roast for 45-60 mins, or until lightly charred and softened.
2)  Drizzle the vegetables with the balasamic vinegar and stir.  Top with the sliced halloumi and pop under a hot grill for 3-4 mins to brown the cheese.


Yep - just 2 steps - best thing ever!!!

With my portion sizes and whole-fat halloumi, I worked out the points to be 8 points - pretty reasonable.  I served with broccoli and a side of raw spinach.  The recipe actually has suggestions for a salad as follows, but I didn't do this last night:

1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 tsp olive oil
1 bunch watercress
1 bunch spring onions, chopped finely

3)  While the vegetables and halloumi are under the grill, combine the lemon juice, mustard and olive oil.  Season and whisk in 1tbsp water.  Toss togerther with the watercress and onions, and serve alongside the finished dish.

The great thing about this dish is that the veg can be varied to suit whatever's in the fridge - in fact, I swapped in carrots instead of sweet potato - allowing me to up the cheese portion and keeping the points down - but any sweet root veg will work I should think!

Enjoy!! :o)

Today I like:  my resilience - you can try and keep me down but I have tendency to bounce back - I'm a natural fighter!

Ramblings and Musings

Evening all!!

Just for once, I'm glad to say that my radio-silence has not co-incided with dietry disaster (ooooooh, alliteration so early in the post .... pretty!!!!).  Which may come as a shock, but just occasionally it happens.

I seem to have regained my "I can be bothered because I want this momentum" this week, and I've been busy clocking points on my tracker and making the best of it.  My eating's been pretty solid, and I've been to spinning and done a run today, so is all is well on that side of things.

As far as the scales go, they seem to be pottering around a bit all over the place, and normally that would be leading to screaming frustration on my part.  What's different this week is that I came to one or two conclusions that help me deal with the fluctuations a bit more calmly.  Firstly, as often follows the weekend, the scales dipped on Monday / Tuesday, then bounced up this morning.  I've no idea why the weekend excesses (whether controlled or free-for-all) take a few days to show up on the scales, but by now I'm used to it.  Yesterday's number, in fact, was a new all time low for me (just), so rather than fret at this morning's spike, I reminded myself that as long as the dips get to new lows, then the little peaks don't matter.  After all, the peaks now as what used to be my lows, so there is very slow (but bumpy) progress in the right direction.

I decided that this week would also be a good time to resurrect my start-of-year intention to try more new recipes, so I experimented with one from Weightwatchers magazine this evening.  It was in the latest issue and is for Oven Roasted Sweet Roots with Grilled Halloumi.  Flipping lovely too!  You can play around with what veg go in, and I dropped the salad part as it had extra points I didn't need, but the rest was gorgeous.  Beetroot, butternut squash and carrots, slow-roasted for an hour, and then popped under the grill with a tablespoon of balasamic vinegar and the halloumi on top.  So simple, but I would never think of adding the vinegar normally, or indeed using the cheese instead of meat.   I'm totally adding that to my list of regulars though!

It did occur to me earlier, that giving up alcohol for Lent is actually going to be great for my diet.  If I look  back over the past couple of weekends, the amount of points I've lost to alcohol is just obnoxious - just cutting out the drink will probably save me around 30 points a week when it's a heavy social weekend.  Good for my liver, my purse and my diet???  WINNER!!!

The only other thing going on at the moment really, is my ongoing struggle to figure out how to get my debts repaid in something less than 20 years time.  The only real long-term way I have to make a real impact on the numbers is to move to a cheaper flat and save on the rent.  Problem is I love my little flat (even though it isn't cheap) and adore the location.  I've been vaguely chatting with one of the girls I work with about house-share options in Bristol, but it looks like that option's not available to me just yet, as I checked my lease this evening and it's for a full 12 months with no opt out - looks like I'm not going anywhere til the end of the year.  I'm not sure whether I'm glad I'm not forced to move out for frugal reasons, or depressed that yet another option has been removed.  Bank won't give me a loan, and I can't move to a cheaper flat.  For god's sake - learn from me, and look before you leap into debt!!!

I'm currently trying to figure out if I can get away with selling my car to avoid yet more bills on it, since it's proven itself to be the most unreliable heap of junk on the planet, and whether I could use a chunk of the proceeds to try and make at least a little dent in the mountain of debt.  Hmph - money-worries suck - especially if you have the added humiliation of being an accountant who should know better!  Thank god, I can at least afford to keep things ticking over for the moment, and I haven't reached critical meltdown point - one positive thing - it can always be worse.

It's funny how one person's life can go up as another's goes down, and they can still be upset about it though.  Whilst I scratch my head in depressed fashion over the money, and consider the total lack of anything exciting on my horizon in the form of holidays, spending, occasions, all whilst having made the positive decision to totally give up on men whilst I try and figure my self-esteem problem out (so add a total lack of any exciting dates in the foreseeable future too), Hannah is having holidays galore, and is off travelling round South America for 3 months in the summer, shopping like it's going out of fashion and has a new man.  And yet, there she was on my sofa last night after the cinema, in tears, because she still loves her ex, is scared about the prospect of the new guy, worried about travelling alone and is having fits over how much money she's spent even though it was all saved for a rainy day.  The irony is I'd kill for her life right now!

Hopefully, something fun and exciting (and preferably in a good way and cheap since I have no money) will come along to cheer me up soon, because right now my life looks like a slog of the totally-no-fun-whatsoever variety.  Ah well - keep fighting the good fight!

Today I like:  the shape of my calves between my pencil skirt and my heels.  Sexy! :o)

Monday, bloody Monday.

This weekend turned into an interesting balance of bike ride and very good food.  We spent Saturday in Bath and afternoon tea at the Pump Rooms, which was amazing, but cake-heavy.  When we finally recovered some form of appetite later that night, we had a late dinner at Goldbrick House - again - beautiful food.  The good thing with both of those though, was that very good food often comes in smaller portions.

What doesn't come in smaller portions is fudge from the Fudge Factory in Bath.  Absolutely phenomenal, but it turns out that there is a limit on how much you can eat before you feel physically sick.

All honestly noted down in the tracker though.  And then yesterday, we went for a 3 hour potter down the nearby Strawberry Trail.  Even a three hour potter on the bike earns quite a few activity points, so I've finished what was a very foodie weekend, without too much damage inflicted. 

Today's been pretty good, as I've been on the ball with my eating (although having a rest day on the exercise front), and I've even managed to stop when I'd used all my points.  Boo ya.

Oooh - and did I mention I've given up alcohol for lent?  Yes I have!

And continuing on from the previous post and bolstering my self-esteem - today I like:  my lips - the're a good shape - that's all :o)

Yay Me! No - Yay You Guys! Oh Sod It - Yay All Of Us!

I never fail to be impressed your most excellent cheerleading skills.  Although I have to admit that I genuinely don't want to write with the idea of getting comments or validation on any particular thing (believe me, you'll know when I do!), it is always nice to get comments like those.  So thank you (again), and I heart you all.

Claire pointed me off in the direction of the rather excellent Eat The Damn Cake.  And I have to admit, I rather liked it.  It's quite a mish-mash of different articles and thoughts around all sorts of points, but mostly with the focus of feeling better about yourself and not worrying so much.  What I liked best of all though (aside from the fact she's passionate about cake, which I wholeheartedly approve of) was the "unroast" that she has at the end of every post: a little unrelated line where she says what she likes about herself that day.  Ending on a positive thought if you will.

For me, yesterday, I liked 2 things - 1) that I got up at 6am and went to the gym, despite none of my clothes having dried properly so having to go in slightly clammy kit and there being no clean jeans so having to wear a mini-skirt instead because it was what was clean.  I had determination.  2) wearing that skirt all day gave me a healthy appreciation that I like my legs, because they're long (in proportion to my very average 5ft 6in self anyway) and strong.  They ain't skinny, and I like that I can see my quads moving when I walk and move, and that I have calf muscles.  A tiny bit leaner at the tops (which happens when I run anyway) and I'll be very happy indeed.

And another cool thing - I was looking at my running log for the year on Thursday (yeah, I'm keeping one this year, along with a workout timetable - I like being able to look back and see how much I've done), and my next run will take me over 60km run this year.  That's over a marathon (easily) in the first 2 and a bit months.  For a novice runner, that feels like a pretty awesome achievement.  Lots more miles in these legs yet this year.

I'm taking this weekend off from real life - being selfish and enjoying some R & R time.  This does not mean I'm taking the weekend off the healthy-eating and moving, because that's part of the self-love programme.  I enjoyed my food yesterday, including a long awaited Chinese takeaway for tea (I think vegetable Chow Mein and dim sum might be my new favourite menu - yum!), did a 6.45am spin class followed by 7.30am Abs yesterday, had a drink with friends at lunch, finished the piece I was working on in the office, and a very long chat with Jo on the phone yesterday evening.  I watched the tv I wanted (Grey's Anatomy - love, love, love it!!) and slept like the dead.

And now I'm going to get my lazy ass out of my pj's, have a shower and go walk to the station and catch a train to Bath for a lazy afternoon with friends.  And on that note - ciao!  Have a fab weekend, folks!

(Final note - my heart goes out to all those affect in Japan - I've been watching a lot on BBC News online, and it's awful - I can't believe how lucky we are in the UK).

Today's Self Love - I like that my hands, while not the most elegant, can do stuff.  They bake pretty awesome cakes, they play (or used to play) instruments and make music (grade 7 viola, thank you very much - bet you didn't know that!!), and they can draw (although horribly out of practice).  They have skills!  I miss being creative.  I should be more creative again.

Fear and Self-Loathing in the West Country

Deviating slightly away from the healthy thing on this post.

I have spent most of this morning (and in fact most of the last couple of days) feeling pretty down and miserable.  I haven't been feeling the best about myself the last couple of weeks, as I haven't really bounced back from getting dumped a couple of weeks ago.  I guess I've been sulking a bit.  Then something happened this weekend, which made me realise that there's another relationship in my life that's pretty toxic too, and was making me feel rubbish.

Those two things on top of each other, have well and truly pummelled my self-esteem into the ground.  I took the brave step (after a short delay) of ending that second relationship myself to save myself some longer term pain and I'm glad I did because I've known for a while I needed to but couldn't find the willpower to do it.

What both of those events have made me realise is this though:  other people don't care for me enough to either put me first.  Ok, painful.  But that eventually led me to another realisation:  I don't care for me enough to make other people feel the same.

I just don't like myself.  There's bits I don't mind, I'll grant you, but there's far more I dislike.

I know from my councelling last summer, that part of this boils down to the double standards I apply to myself and the world - the ones for me are far, far stricter.  I thought I'd started to move past that, but I guess I've backslid some.  The other part though, is pure and simple that there are aspects of myself and my life that I. Just. Don't.  Like.

So, what do you do when you feel like that?

Option A is sit and wallow.  Feel miserable, and pity myself.  Whine to my friends (my dear ever-patient friends), and drive them away.  Have people respect me even less.

You know?  While that might be tempting, it doesn't sound like it'll be fun for more than about 5 minutes.  And whatever else I am, I'm generally a fighter.

So that leaves Option B.  Option B is to figure out how to like myself a bit more.  Not an easy task to be sure, but I'm convinced that doing something will feel better than doing nothing.

It turns out that the internet is a wealth of information on this type of stuff.  A quick google reveals pages of articles and blogs and general scribblings on the subject of liking yourself and building self-esteem.

There seem to be lots of ways to approach it, but generally they seem to fall into 3 categories:

1. Focus on what you do like about yourself.  Make a list, write it down, appreciate the good stuff, and stop worrying about the rest.  Sounds a bit like denial to me.
2. Focus on what you don't like (yeah, I'm good at that), but do something about it.  Make a list, write it down, but turn into a To Do list and work at improving those things.  Hmmmm, confrontational and scary.
3. Scare yourself.  Apparently self-esteem is very closely linked to self-respect, so the act of doing something scary and conquering it bolsters your self-respect, and by default your self-esteem.  Ummmm - I'm not sure I like scary things.

But clearly I need to do something because sitting here miserable sucks.  And in a couple of months, Hannah's going off travelling for the summer and then I'm going to be even more alone, and it's a truth universally acknoweldged that sitting around miserable and alone totally sucks.

That's kind of as far as I've got with the thought processes so far .... a committment to trying to something, even if I'm not quite sure where to start yet.