6: Disgrace – My Arse

I am so fed up with myself. I wish I could work out where I am going wrong with this whole thing. The week started off so well. By Friday, I had already written the blog in my head – it was going to be called “The Raisin” and was all about how wonderful it was to have stopped eating sugar and how sublimely sweet a couple of raisins in your porridge can taste once you’ve stopped eating other sugar. I was going to wax lyrical about the amazing life lessons I have been taught by this – be satisfied with less, enjoy what you have, excess is awful, blah blah blah.

What happened next, I can’t explain.

Fridays are generally a tricky day for me – I have to get my son to an appointment that he doesn’t want to go to, so it takes a lot of effort, patience and a certain amount of stress to make that happen. This Friday was no different, but I managed it and all was looking rosy. Then the phone rang. My mother-in-law was having some health problems and I needed to spend the afternoon with her. No problem. By now it was nearly lunch time and I was really hungry. So when we went through the Macdonald’s drive-thru to get my son his reward lunch, instead of just ordering a black coffee as I usually do, I ordered a veggie burger and chips.

In itself, I don’t see this as much of a problem. The odd fast food meal is perfectly okay in my book. In fact, I was glad I had done it, because it would be a long while before I finally got home and could have something to eat. But why, oh why did I need to buy that bottle of wine on my way home? And the slab of chocolate? And why, oh why did I need to drink and eat them in addition to a generous dinner? Okay, so I was a bit tired, a bit disrupted, and a bit in need of reward and comfort. But really. That was ridiculous.

But it wasn’t a disgrace. And it wasn’t the end of my dreadful weekend.

On Saturday I had to be up early to get down to the cycle track where my son’s club was holding a big fundraiser. I worked there until 2 pm after which I met my husband and daughter and hopped on a train to go into town to watch a comedy act at a festival next to the river. I completely failed to eat breakfast or lunch, so by the time we got there I was ravenous and had a slice of pizza as my first food of the day at 3 pm. And a big glass of wine, because the sun was shining and we were next to the river and it was all so lovely and sociable and blah, blah, excuse, excuse. Then, guess what? They let you take drinks into the auditorium. So, I had another glass. And after the show, we decided to have dinner, and I proceeded to order some really crappy and not very filling and another glass, and then we went home and this happened…

Disgrace.

Also, it turned out that one of the nasty, unhealthy meals I had inhaled during my day of badness had something wrong with it, and I woke with a churning stomach-full of acid at 3 am, and proceeded to throw up for an hour.

Double disgrace.

I just don’t understand myself. I really do want to lose some weight. I am already enjoying the benefits of eating more healthily. Why would I do this to myself? Am I just a pitiable weak-willed moron? What should I do next? I seem to swing from one extreme to another. And the minute I allow myself a bit of smugness at success (as in being pleased with myself for stopping eating sugar) I seem to need to sabotage my efforts. It is so damned frustrating.

I know that if I was reading this blog I would want to give myself a slap and say, “Don’t be so ridiculous. Just stop yourself. How can you say that you really want to be thinner and at the same time not be able to stop yourself putting fattening stuff into your mouth? It’s not rocket science. Are you lying to yourself? Is there a deep, hidden reason that you don’t want to be thin?”

Whoah!!! Just a minute. What exactly am I saying here? I consumed a slab of chocolate, a packet of biscuits and a couple of bottles of wine. So what?? Big bloody deal. I am acting as if I had murdered a small child. I cannot believe I have dived headfirst into the trap whereby my entire sense of self-worth and well-being is based on what I do or do not put into my mouth. Ridiculous. I completely reject this view. The only “bad” thing that has happened is that I am now feeling a bit sluggish and have shocking indigestion. I didn’t even put on any weight.

I have no idea what I am going to take away from all this and no idea what I shall be writing about next week. I hope I lose a bit of weight, but I do NOT want to lose sight of what I believe is really important in life – and that is definitely not the size of my arse.

Stats:

• Week six: No weight gain or loss
• Total weight loss: Minus 3 kg (6.5 lbs)