Lies, Regimes and Ranting.

well, back at work tomorrow after a wonderful christmas and new year! Strangely I didn't eat too much over the festive period, my weight has gone down a little since I finished school on the 21st!! My festive miracle!! The photo is of me and Steve wombling about in the rain at Stirling Castle on New Years Eve with the lovely Lynne and Pete (photo courtesy of the wonderful Miss Lynne Osgathorpe).

No, tomorrow signals that start of the hard work I think. My biggest issue when I am in work is that I don't usually eat until I leave work. I know this sounds ludicrous and lots of people don't understand it, but I have never been one to eat breakfast. With my own drive, motivation, desire to do my job to the best of my ability and lets face it, stupidity, I rarely have lunch either. I often find I don't have time. I am no good at 'eating on the run', I like to sit and enjoy my food. Also, as I adore food so much, I don't often relish packed lunches. I certainly do not relish the idea of school dinners (I have actually seen, with my own eyes, chicken served with a cornflake crust!! And it's usually cold!!). So I basically wouldn't eat until I go home. Some days I didn't even notice that I hadn't eaten or drunk anything until 6.30 or later.

Lets face it, this is completely unhealthy. I believe my body was storing fat to compensate for the 'when the bloody hell are you going to feed me?' question it was constantly asking. And just as the special K adverts say, people with regular eating patterns tend to be healthier. So the hard task will be to force myself to have breakfast, even harder to force myself to actually sit down for ten minutes at lunch.

I'm not really inspired by our staff room either, which doesn't help. I don't like to eat at my desk - it's that full of crap I fear I might lose more tupperware (the cupboard elves manage to steal enough of it!). But no one really goes into the staffroom. It's not a close staff really, well not in the juniors. There are cliques and individuals. I like to see myself as an individual but that does mean you spend quite a lot of time on your own. Not to bother though, I don't have the most amount of time to socialise at school - I'm not complainning, I make my own bed etc etc.

Anyway, I'm waffling - so, it's basically learning to force feed myself during the day. This will probably boost my calorie count, but it will undoubtedly actually help me maintain a healthier lifestyle and a more balanced body weight. It will also stop me binging on my way home and stuffing myself when I get in. I have been known to eat two chocolate bars and a bag of crisps on my 20 minute drive home, then come in and eat half a block of cheese (with chutney), or slices of toast, biscuits, anything I could get my hands on. Then an hour later cook tea. Its a disgusting habit. I hate myself when I binge. But it happens. more often than it should though. I binge because I'm sad, or stressed, or hating my job, or hating myself, or feeling alone. Pretty much any negative feeling I comfort with food, but lots of it.

Earlier last year, Steve was away for a few weeks (China fo 3 with work, then shortly after Vegas in preparation for his new career as poker god!). Many nights I binged. But in my head it was 'ok' because a) I was going to the gym, and b) no one could see me. If no one could see me then it wasn't really happening. An example binge would be - M&S prawn cocktail (whole tub), a ready meal for two (e.g. moussaka or lasagna), garlic bread, an entire cheesecake (ok not in one go, but certainly in one day), and a whole jar of nutella (small one eaten with a spoon!). This was an evening. OK not every evening but it still happened.

I would also look forward to half terms as one day out of the week I would order a whole dominoes pizza and all its extras for my lunch. I am a disgusting pig. I haven't done it in a while, probably because Steve works from home now. He doesn't know any of this yet, so we will see if he is reading my blog!! Heehee! I'm being honest about it now because I need to be. But also because I know other people have done it too. A very good friend of mine was known to eat half a loaf of bread in one sitting even though alergic to it (I hope she doesn't mind me mentioning this, it's not as if its happened for a long while - i love you!!). But through listening to others I realised its not just me, other people are also going through hell related to food!

The press and tv etc has so much to blame for this. And possibly parents to some extent (everyone is slightly screwed up from childhood - lets be honest!). We all know we are in a culture where body image and foodhabits are at the forefront, particularly for women. Regardless of how many times a sensible, intelligent woman says, "Oh I don't take notice of that stuff, it's all rubbish, I know better," she still cares. It still affects her. Some people's aim is to make their stomach concave due to this. Other women lose confidence and dislike themselves because of this. Some women use food as a comfort because they don't have the confidence to believe they are worthy if they don't look like what society deems is acceptable. This may sound a little extreme but its true to some extent with the vast majority of Britain's women (and men, let's not forget our better half of society . . . . ahem.). Lilly Allen is a perfect example of todays culture. A gorgeous girl with fantastic curves and confidence, we all thought. "Screw them!", she wasn't going to be another clone, another stick. And look whats happened to her. Fame, fortune and the culture got to her. She lost weight, and yeah she looks good, yeah she's probably healthier and yeah she probably feels better. But something of a spark has gone from her. Some of her life and confidence. Ok, it's better than her trying to overdose, but I was so inspired by her two fingers up to the skinnies. Never mind.

Anyway, I'm not aiming for skinny. I'm aiming for happy!

Wishing myself good luck with the new regime tomorrow - will let you know how it goes.

Today's calorie count: 1200

Today's exercise: 1 mile march around Brookvale park.

Hope you're all well!

Nx