A New Year Dawns

So today's the first day of a brand new year - a clean slate, a fresh start, a chance to start anew...... Whatevvvverrrrrr.
Ignore me, because I suspect that it's the lingering whiff of New Years' past which make me feel a little, ahem, negative about New Year, and actually the entire month of January really, because it always meant a dirty word to me - DIET.

This will be my year - I'd tell myself every January - by July, you won't know me,  I'll be three stone lighter, and wear cut off shorts and a bikini top on holidays, like Daisy Duke with a Belfast accent, ginger hair and blue/white skin.....yep, I've always found that setting realistic goals is the key to success.

But thankfully, I'm older and wiser now, and I've long accepted that I'll  never be Daisy Duke...and hey, that's okay. (Sidenote- have you seen her lately? Let's just say, that a little sunscreen wouldn't have gone amiss.)

Yes, even though I try not to measure my self worth by my
weight anymore, its very difficult not to, especially at this
time of the year, with the relentless TV ads, the quick fixes, and the before and after photos in magazines. So I try and remind myself  that, statistically diets don't work in the long run, and that WeightWatchers and Slimming World and others, are just massive corporations, who make huge amounts of money precisely because of that. But it's a hard concept to embrace when my jeans are tight  and my muffin top is off somewhere livin' it large.

So what's the plan, Stan? Well, in 2013 I discovered that the 5:2 thing works pretty well for me, so I'm going to do that for a couple of weeks, just to restore the old  mind and body equilibrium, while still enjoying weekends and caramel squares on the side. No more Daisy Duke fantasies, no more queuing up to step on a scale, no more carrying my self esteem around on a card with numbers on it. Nope, I'm just all about balance and moderation now ...except of course when I'm not....and that's when the Spanx comes out.




Speaking of balance and moderation, as an antidote to all the December excesses, I've decided to go dry for January this year...starting on the 5th. Don't mock me, I would have started today, only Himself and myself are looking forward to a couple of cheeky nights away, minus the kidlets, so I ask you, what's a girl to do? It still means 26 days, which is pretty much February when you think about it. Yikes! To be honest, the weekdays will be grand - I don't usually partake during the week - but there's nothing quite like that Friday and/or Saturday glass of wine, or three. Yes, I know its mostly psychological, and perhaps herbal tea will scratch that itch, but I seriously doubt it, so wish me luck!

I'm poaching a little idea that's doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment, and thankfully involves no deprivation whatsoever - the 'jar of blessings'. Basically, throughout the year you scribble down on a piece of paper the  little things that you're grateful for, or have achieved, or just  make you LOL, and at the end of the year you take them out and read them all. I've decided to do a family one for the kitchen, and although I can foresee issues such as too large writing on massive sheets of paper, and one or two nosy people rifling through the jar long before Next New Year's Eve, I do think it's worth a try.

(I gotta say though, a jar of grudges might be a whole lot
more interesting to read at the end of the year.
'Ah yes indeed, remember that natty old bunch of flowers from the supermarket you bought me on our anniversary?' or
'How could I forget that special time when you hit the neighbour's gatepost and it cost us 500 quid to fix?' Good times....)

I'm also going to make more time for reading and writing this year.....I know, I know, I need actual plans and realistic goals to make this happen, and honestly, I've done sweet FA over Christmas, but on the plus side, I've signed up for Round 2 of my writing course AND I've a little notebook tucked into my bag for words, snippets and ideas when they occur to me....because that's what proper writers do, don't ya know.....so Marion Keyes and Anne Lamott tell me anyway.

Finally, I just want to say thank you for reading anything I've written over the last year - it means so much to me - and to wish you the very best of everything for 2014. I'll leave you with this gorgeous quote by Neil Gaiman, which puts it much better than I ever could.

 "May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

Happy New Year my loveliesxxxxx

Busting a Gut...

I stood on the scales last week. I hate standing on scales. I've hated it my entire life because the number that's on there, almost never tells me something I want to hear. So standing on, and facing that number squarely in the eye, has generally meant the start of yet another diet. And I REALLY hate diets... just about as much as I hate the scales.
 A few years ago, I decided to go a different way and actually listen to my body's needs- radical eh!? I'd done a lot of reading about mindful eating .....which is basically just relearning how to eat like a normal person, or at least the way a normal person should eat.
Eating what you want, eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're satisfied, not grazing, and hopefully, leaving all the good food/ bad food ideas behind in the process. The theory is, that as babies, we do this instinctively, but it was so very alien to me, I wonder if I ever knew how to do it at all!
It SOUNDS straightforward, but after years of training myself to eat according to the diet du jour, I'd lost touch with my own body and it's natural wants and needs. It's also bloody difficult, because it often feels like I'm swimming against the tide of our diet and image obsessed culture. Where every media outlet screams of the latest diet, and flagging careers are revitalized with a 3 stone weight loss double spread. It's depressing.
But at last, I felt that I was on the right track for ME, and more importantly, it led to a gradual self acceptance, and a growing confidence in my own food choices. And for the last few years, my weight has stayed stable. Not much of an achievement for most people, I realise, but pretty darn major for me.
 That was until last week, when I stood on the scale for the first time since June and saw 8lbs on. I mean, I knew I'd put on a bit, but 8 frickin' lbs! Clearly, the weeknight glasses of wine at the caravilla, and the accompanying Marksies crisps and dips had taken their toll, but to be honest, it knocked me into a bit of a tailspin. I think I panicked, that I was somehow on a slippery slope back to the bad old days, and it made me doubt myself and this approach to eating and food that I've worked so hard on.
Magazines dispensing weight loss tips, other people's diet successes and advice - before I knew it, I was making plans for no carbs and juicing, and feeling more and more down in the process.
 Because all of that feels like a step back for me. At the first sign of trouble, I was ready to put all my trust in ANYONE except myself. I had to tell myself that EVERYONE puts on weight sometimes, and it doesn't mean that I've failed completely- I just have to keep doing the very thing I've been trying so hard to do... trust ME.
So yes it's true, maybe a few bad habits have crept in, and maybe it IS time to revisit the mindful eating principles, but I can do this on my own. I WANT to do this on my own. And hopefully, gradually, that 8lbs will go... and maybe a bit more besides. What I don't want, to put my life on hold in the process, which I've always done to a greater or lesser degree, with every single diet I've ever been on. I'm choosing long term tweaks over short term fixes, which will (hopefully!) lead to lasting results. That's the theory anyway. Wish me luck!

Food For Thought...

We're at the end of another year- 2011 lies behind us, 2012 is waiting to start. It's traditionally a time for New Year's resolutions and I've personally made the same unsuccessful ones dozens of times over the years. They're all an unimaginative variation on the same theme, inevitably born out of the guilt and tightening waistband of an overindulgent December. The 'I'm DEFINITELY going to lose a stone/ go to the gym 3 times a week/ stop drinking wine because I'm a big fat shite' variety. Very negative, very depressing and pretty much guaranteed to fail by January 11th...at the latest.
So, after my increasingly reckless December foodfest, instead of greeting the New Year with anticipation, I greeted it with dread. My only new beginning involved becoming a cottage cheese and crisp bread eating hermit and of course,the ads on tv don't help. Apparently, Weight-watchers is spending £15 million on a 3 minute ad to be aired on all the major channels on New Year's Day. Never mind Slimming World, Lighter Life and the rest!! What chance do we guilty greedy suckers have in the face of that??
It's not that I'm a totally changed woman- like most people, I still eat and drink more than is good for me in December, although perhaps not as wantonly as before because I now know that the tap isn't suddenly switched off come New Year's day. I also actually believe that after the excesses and festivities of December, our bodies naturally crave simpler foods as normal routine kicks in again.
If I'm totally honest, I do hate the fact that my waistband digs in a little tighter in January, and my gut reaction,('scuse the pun)is to sign up for another diet that THIS time will  work for me. But I'm not going to because I've been here too many times before. Most of the time, I now know that what works for me is listening to my body, as it asks for simpler wholesome foods when it's hungry, and not because another tin of Quality Street has winked at me from the back of the cupboard. And slowly, gradually as a cold bleak January wears on, and because I'm not going half crazy with diets and calories and the resulting weekend blow outs, I'll start to feel more comfortable in my clothes and in myself. That's the theory.
Some might say that I'm just not motivated or determined enough. Or that I'm too fond of the dreaded carbs, or that I just haven't found the right diet. Maybe they're right! Perhaps I have lowered my expectations...Or maybe, just maybe, I've raised them?