my future is a blank canvas

Yesterday I resigned from my job.

I've got a month's notice to work, including finishing off the stressful project I'm behind on, followed by a week's as yet unknown project, then finally two more weeks back in Perth. A month's more stress but then that's it, this will take me to Christmas Eve and then... nothing.

Nada!

Total freedom and an absolute blank canvas.

As you can probably assume from my absence for so long, life carried on going downhill for me. My stress levels got higher and higher, surpassed only by the speed at which my weight also went up. I curled up in a hole. It's easy to disappear when you're in a new city.

I need to learn how to manage my anxiety levels and at the same time reduce the source of that anxiety. This week I made appointments to see both a Career Coach and a Counsellor. I hadn't planned to resign with nothing to go to, but somehow just those two actions, and the support of a loving husband, seemed to give me the strength to do just that.

I had also never planned to be in the industry I'm in. I just found something I had an aptitude for and I followed that path blindly into a highly stressful, highly competitive role. I've no passion for what I do, no antidote for the way my job has been swallowing my life. It's time for a totally clean break and, for the first time I'm my life, to take a positive action instead of following the way of passive least resistance.

I've no idea what work I'll do and how long it's going to take me to decide on a direction. But I'm going to be as open as I can in finding out my true strengths and values, and in learning how I can apply them to a job that will fulfil me, even if it takes a while and I have to stack shelves in the meantime.

Thank you to those of you who've checked in on me, your thoughts have been so heartening. I know I can lose weight - I've done it enough times (and as exhausting as it is I'm going to have to do it all over again (!!)) - what I don't have experience in, is losing stress. I have a weight problem, but food has never been at the heart of the issue. When there's no stress or anxiety, there's no desire to stuff my face. I've tried for a long time to tackle my reaction to stress but with mixed success (as you've all seen by my public meltdown and disappearance) so here I am, and I'm humbly trying again.

with added salt

It's 11:30am, I'm standing in my PJs and slippers making myself a cup of coffee with what's left of the milk after my opportunistic cat took to lapping it out of the jug when my back was turned. Life is back to normal.

Well *close* to normal. I'm still 106kg and so exhausted and fragile that I cry at anything, my eating and exercise is all over the place, it's months since I last took photos, wrote an email to a friend, caught up on blogs or did anything just for me, and even today I'll be spending what's left of it working. But it feels close, like I'm almost there.

Seriously though with the crying thing. Yesterday at lunch, my dark rye and roast vegies toastie was being made up and the cafe woman started spreading avocado onto both pieces of bread when I'd really wanted pesto onto the other side - the tears welled up behind my eyes. A couple of nights ago when I'd gone out to pick up a coffee and they told me at the counter they were shut - more tears. The morning of my birthday - LOTS of tears. Anything and everything is making me cry at the moment. I wonder if flushing out that much salty water might have a detoxing effect?

Thank you for sticking by me and for your kind words, I'll pop by to yours and say "hi" soon enough.

birthday blues

It's my birthday. Hubby has been an absolute sweetie and done all he can to make me feel special - pancakes for breakkie, coffee on demand, dinner AND the washing up - but all in all it's been a benchmark birthday for all the wrong reasons.

It's the first birthday I've EVER worked. In previous years I've always taken my birthday off as annual leave and never so much as opened a work email. This year - a SUNDAY - I've spent the entire day sitting at my laptop finishing off the document from last week's Perth job, despite having worked on it on the plane yesterday and back at the house in the evening before falling asleep. I guess I'm just a bloody slow document writer.

Unsurprisingly then it's also the first EVER birthday when I haven't had that special warm and fuzzy "it's my birthday" feeling. 36 warm and fuzzy birthdays isn't' a bad tally though hey?

Age-wise, this birthday also brings me into my "should-be-a-Mum-by-now" age. My mum was 36 when she had me, the youngest of three children. For years now I've had it in my mind I'd be 36 when I had kids, can't explain why, just always seemed poetically right somehow. Today I turned 37.

A couple of days ago Facebook played it's part in reminding me just how far behind the curve I am on this one. It's the start of a new school year back home in England. On this day 32 years ago, I celebrated my 5th birthday with my first ever day of school.


That's three girls from my own class in school and note how we're talking high school already for their kids.

Me? Well I set myself the limit of 100kg and a healthy head before considering parenthood and you'll remember how I triumphantly reached that target in April. Now, just five months later and the healthy head's as much a distant memory as the sub-100kg weight. It's going to take a lot of effort and energy to turn it around again and I'm flat out of both.

Now I really am just feeling sorry for myself hey, but it's my party and I'll cry if I want to [target reference for 80's gals out there]

The good news is I'm back in Melbourne and shouldn't have to go away again for two weeks now. The bad news is tomorrow's no longer a leave day. I've got my annual review, a document to finish and a meeting in the afternoon - holiday cancelled. And yes, I plan to do all that I can to voice my concerns and rectify my current situation. Tuesday I'll most likely still be finishing off the work lose ends.... but Wednesday that freeeeeedom is still safely on my schedule.

This year's birthday has been postponed, schedule permitting.

the view from my corporate hotel room

I'm still travelling.

Adelaide finished last week and this week it's Perth again. I never intended to sign up for a job that meant I only get to see home at the weekends, especially when I only moved into that home in one of those weekends and am not entirely sure where "home" is.

15 long hotel weeks.

I'm still unsettled, still overworking, still hating my job (there I said it! why am I so scared to admit I hate my job?), still bingeing and still repeating that record.

Last week I worked until 2am on two nights, 3am one night and a magical 4am on yet another. Clearly no boss expects this of his team members, so I can't help but take a large dose of responsibility for letting it all get so out of control. However many mistakes have been made by those around me to lead up to this; the project was over-sold and the client under-resourced and quite frankly in cloud-cuckooland, yet I still took all the pressure upon myself to deliver.

I'm just so darned hard on myself. The perfectionist in me wants perfection - it's one of the few times in my life where there really is just a black and a white - there's to be no allowance for doing the best job I could possibly do given all the constraints. Oh no, it has to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t. And it's my responsibility to work myself to the death to get there. Of course for that I torture myself too, telling myself that it isn't right that I should admit to my bosses how hard I'm working or charge the client for my time; they shouldn't be asked to pay for my inadequacies.

Funny thing is, while I'm in the midst of this, I don't see it as perfectionism. I just see it as what I have to do.

This isn't a life. I flew home from Adelaide on Friday night, worked on Saturday and Sunday (as I did last weekend and the one before that) then flew to Perth on Sunday afternoon, working on the plane and then again when I arrived at my hotel until 11pm. Today I was at a new clients where I took a workshop attended by 17 managers and senior managers. The workshop thing is an odd one - you'd think people who do that kind of thing might have a glimmer of self-belief?

Everything's suffering and I'm failing to find the balance that will allow me to get through it all, while also figuring out a plan how never to find myself here again.

I've taken a week's leave next week. I'm fully prepared for the first couple of days to be swallowed up tidying up the lose ends of leftover work, but then I'll be free. FREE!! Jeepers, listen to me, it's not like I'm the only one who's ever had to travel, ever had to put in an extra effort at work for a couple of months - woe is me, boo hoo.

There seems such a connection in my work behaviour and beliefs as with those in every other aspect of my life. I feel like there is probably a very simple cipher, just the one single key to unlock everything. It's all so inter-related.

When I was a teenager, my mum need only look at whether my bedroom was tidy to know whether my homework had been done or how my eating was. If any one of them was a mess they all were, if any one of them was in order, they all were. When I can feel good about work, I know I'll feel good about myself again, and vice versa, if I could feel good about myself perhaps I could feel good about work.

Next week I have my annual review with my boss (yes in my week off!) and I intend to start putting my plans into action. I don't want to change employer, just change role.

Anyways, for a first post in a while this is a bit of a rambled one. Three months of solid travel hasn't served me well. I truly hope that when I look back I can spot all the lessons I need to learn.

I get back to Melbourne on Saturday afternoon and shortly after that I plan to get back to me. I miss me. I miss feeling good, I miss all my new discoveries, I miss how fantastic it is to feel healthy, I miss how great it feels when food's not the enemy, I miss being open and I miss my skinny jeans.

Thank you again for popping by and checking in on me. I sure do get a smile when I see your messages.

left behind

This is the time when I need a blog the most but I ran away. I'm sorry. Thank you beautiful people for checking in on me.

Life's still at hiatus, I'm now in Adelaide and still working around the clock at a job I'm not sure is right for me. I didn't manage the 2 good days I talked of in my last post during that week, but I did manage 4 good days last week. This week's not so hot, heaps of stress and heaps of food. I'm seeking help and I'm looking into my options work wise.

I'm trying, I really am. Problem is my virgo sense of perfectionism says any effort just isn't good enough unless the result is perfection.

I'll do my best to be back.

panic

I originally made it through lunch without excess and as I walked back to the office I started to think about how I should pop my head back up out of my pit and post about it. I thought a little about how ridiculous my story is – triumph followed by crash, rinse and repeat – but those thoughts didn’t stop me, I still felt OK, a glimmer of control and positivity. What did stop me however, was the thought that if I post, I can’t binge this afternoon. That single thought sent shivers of panic through me and I practically ran out of the lift to the cookie jar.

Food has once more become my crutch. It’s not even a very good crutch, I’ll be the first to admit. But the idea of taking it away seems horrific to me. Logically I know it might only take a few days of fighting this discomfort before I gain momentum and build up strength again, but I’m not getting there anytime soon.

I’ve ballooned back up to 99kg, I look tired and bloated. Babies are back off the agenda, I’m unhappy and very lonely (both of which I know are in my head and my doing, people have reached out to me but I’m unable to come forward, I don’t know how to right now). I’m still spiralling and I don’t know how to short circuit it.

I’m still away on business and my work is suffering badly. This in turn is affecting my insecurity as I know I’m letting myself and my client down with a substandard effort. I need a break but I’m not sure that in my current state of mind, annual leave at home on my own is going to be the best course of action. I get to go home on Wednesday night and won’t have to travel again until at least a week. I have a meeting with my manager this Friday and plan to ask that I don’t have to travel again for as long as possible. It might be a career-limiting request but I’ve learned I’m just not suited to it, this is the 9th week out of the last 11 I’ve been away from home (though moving house in the middle has only compounded matters).

My goal for the week is to have 2 good days. That's all my new trainer asked of me at the weekend when I showed up 2 kilos heavier than when I'd met him for the first time just the week before. Today was to be one of those days. He said for me to plan intentionally which days to aim for so I didn't run out of week. Of course in my perfectionist-thinking head, I was only paying lip-service to just two silly days, no e-v-e-r-y day was going to be perfect, two days just seemed silly and too forgiving of the other 5... see how All or Nothing tips the balance for Nothing every time!

again

This is what self destruction tastes like.

• banana bread
• caramel slice
• slice baked cheesecake
• 6 arnott's cream biscuits
• slice regular cheesecake
• chocolate muffin
• 2 pizza twists
• 6 mars bar cookies
• 8 chocolate chip cookies
• a box of Sarah Lee baked cheesecake bites
• regular onion rings
• boost bar
• salted kettle chips
• timeout bar

I'm becoming such a cliche.

So blind to myself.

My day started well. I was feeling really good, wearing a new dress, reading the newspaper over breakfast at my fancy hotel, feeling quite the city slicker. Sushi rolls for lunch, all's good. But then as the afternoon drew on I started sinking, feeling out of control, wanting to stick my head in the sand because I haven't got enough to show for the time I've been on-site at this client's. Starting to feel the weight of all the work I've to do and not knowing how to get a handle on it.

As I started to eat I told myself that I have to be 100% cognisant of what I'm doing. If I was really going to do this, I had to make it count, learn from it, understand the processes at play and make it right, learn enough to see it coming and know how to avoid it next time.

I spend my working life telling clients the folly of fixing a short term need without consideration of a long term strategy. Yet that's exactly what I'm doing, satisfying an immediate food fix despite the negative long term outcome. So what exactly is the short term gain? What is it the food does for me? And how do I meet that need without food?

Is it just giving me space? Letting me stick my head in the sand? When I'm eating I'm not spinning, not thinking about all my worries. Is that all it's doing? If so, there are many far healthier ways to relax, why don't they occur to me?

What's going on? I had 4 good days then fell at the very first hurdle again. Why give up so easily? Why when I've been doing so well and feeling so good?

The more I was spinning and getting anxious about my work, the more every aspect of my self-belief was being eroded. It's no wonder I gave up so easily. In that moment I had zero confidence in myself. In my head I was already a failure. The very same feel-good-city-slicker-chick from the morning, now seemingly worthless - can't both be true.

How do I give myself the space to see all this for what it is, right there in the moment when I most need it? The moment when I have the choice whether to eat or not, whether to deal with an immediate need in a way that also helps towards a longer term goal.

associations

So far so good. A clean day. I've just ordered room service from the "Healthy Selections" section of the menu and the road ahead is looking clear.

I decided on a change of scene. Instead of the apartments I stayed in last week, I chose to come back into a CBD hotel. It means getting a train to the client every morning, but this hotel was the location of my triumphant couple of uber-stress-filled-but-ultra-healthy weeks last month, and I could do with some positive reinforcement right about now.

Association is a very strong force for me.

When I used to smoke, which I did for 14 years, I had strong cigarette associations with all sorts of things: coffee, phone calls, car journeys and of course beer. I'd put the phone down after an hour of blethering away to a friend and there'd be two or three fresh cigarette butts sitting in the ashtray that I'd barely even registered smoking.

The associations were so strong they were sub-conscious. When I gave up, I tackled one associated habit at a time. I'd still go out with the girls for the morning smoko break (read: "gossip") but I'd keep my hands and mouth busy with a clementine instead of the cigs. The coffee fag, the driving cig, the morning smoko... each association, one at a time all the way to the booze sticks - the hardest ones of all.

I knew myself, I knew cold turkey wouldn't fly, Telling myself I can't have something is a sure fire way to ensure that's the very thing I'll gorge on, a spot of those deprivation issues you talked about Chub?. For 3 whole months after my last cigarette I still carried a packet around with me, telling myself "if you want one, you CAN have one.... you're just *choosing* not to". I think that half full packet is probably still sitting in a drawer somewhere.

I regularly ponder how to apply those same self-aware principals to my eating. Six years after I kicked the habit, I can still get an urge to have a smoke, but I haven't - not one single cigarette in all that time. Why can't I do that with food?

Some weeks I literally cruise by, whole chunks of time can go by like a breeze, at other times it's a little more touch and go, a tightrope balancing act, and then there are weeks like last week. Last week, all associations were negative. Everything was a binge trigger, a sweet taste didn't mean a pleasurable treat, a full tummy didn't mean satisfaction, everything meant binge. All paths led to food.

I'm hoping for some better associations this week. They've even put me in a room just along the hall from the hotel gym, there has to be a message in that.

the morning after

It's evening and actually a few days after, but I finally feel like the foggy cloud is lifting and I can see a little clearer again. This is a side to me and my life that I wouldn't talk about with most of my closest loved ones, let alone friends and colleagues. It's quite confronting, despite the anonymity, just how public I've made all these private thoughts here. I cannot thank you enough for treating them - and me - with such respect. Thank you for your support and for being so understanding and thoughtful in your responses.

My own thoughts are still a bit of a muddle though I do feel they've been going in a useful direction. The weekend has been clean. I fly back to Sydney again at the crack of dawn and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm rather apprehensive about slipping effortlessly back into the bad habits I practiced all last week.

lost

I have no idea where I'm going to go with this, I just feel the need to get it out there, offload and tell someone - anyone - everything. For that reason I must apologise that I have no idea what I'm going to say and whether it will contain details you'd rather not read.

I'm sitting in a busy food court, in a shopping mall, in the middle of Chatswood, NSW, having just binged then purged in the restrooms. How the feck did I get here?

The day started clean, I had toast and coffee for breakfast and was taken out for lunch. Lunch was disgusting taste-wise, but it wasn't too much of an issue health and fat-wise (next time anyone asks me if I like Yum Cha, please remind it's an emphatic "NO"). I was hanging out for my afternoon coffee to take away the taste. I had slight concerns that the lack of satisfaction I felt about lunch might present a potential danger for me, but it didn't prove to be a problem. I ordered a skinny cap, didn't give a second glance to the cakes and cookies and happily went back up to my desk.

So what happened?

A bloke came around the office with leftover cakes from a training course is what happened.

The tray was mostly lamingtons with a few friands sliced in half. Now I hate dessicated coconut, so if only that whole tray had been lamingtons I may have gotten through just fine, not even tempted. But no. I took a piece of friand and that's the very moment where I gave in. The first of many moments in fact, there were numerous turning points presented to me and I chose not to take the right path at each and every one.

At the taste of the almondy muffin, my brain just clicked into binge mode, "oh goody, we're bingeing, fantastic! what's next on the menu?"

I'm just so damn fragile at the moment. The slightest thing triggers the slightest thought, and then that slightest thought assumes enormous power and control.

Just two weeks ago my brain was quite happy to cope with the taste of a cake and would know to leave it there, enjoy it, but don't let it spoil all my good work. But not now.

So where was I? "what's next on the menu? I happen to know there are cookies in a jar right next to the kettle"

Off I trot to the kettle. Logically I know this is not something I want to do. Logically I know this does not meet a single need or fix a single problem. Where's the logic?

I ate 2 cookies.

I'm still reasoning with myself, telling myself just to leave it there, "it's OK, so you ate half a friand and a couple of cookies, that's OK, stop now. It's simply not a problem".

But I couldn't leave it there. It was a problem (where's the fecking logic????).

I took the lift downstairs and went back to the cafe whose cakes I'd previously ignored, ordered a toasted banana bread (indeed, bingeing on things I let myself eat when I'm being clean - now there's a personal rule broken and a line crossed) and a strawberry cup cake on the side - for while I'm waiting for banana loaf to cook of course.

At this point, I realise I'm bingeing (how passive "I realise", really? ) and there's no return so I'd best try and do something about it to make sure these calories aren't going to ruin a perfect 2 day run. This is broken perfection, this needs to be righted. I go into a second cafe so I can buy a drink "to help the medicine go down". Oh and while I'm there I might as well pick up a giant chocolate cookie.

Now I'm committed to the binge, I might as well make it a good one: eat a few of the things I've been missing and "enjoy" them (as if you actually can enjoy a binge). So I pack up my laptop and finish for the day. As I'm walking out of the building, I'm feeling pretty bloody pathetic. I was telling myself what a disappointment I am and how I'm letting myself and my husband down. Did you see how fantastic he is? That's not going to last, why would I do this to myself, why would I do it him? But telling myself how weak I am being is only serving to reinforce the weakness, it's not giving me the strength to overcome it.

Even despite the gaps in the process where I'm arguing with myself I'd decided I'm in this for the whole hog now. I go into a bakery and buy a piece of cheesecake and a caramel tart. Once consumed I scout the streets for more cafes and shops and in the next bakery I buy a second piece of cheesecake and a second caramel tart (nothing if not original). While I'm still eating, I continue to walk and find a shopping mall. I zone in on the food court. Here I order a banana crepe with banana and chocolate. I'm starting to feel pretty full and disgusting now, but still not sure if I'm quite full enough that the purge is going to be as easy as it could be. A giant caramel muffin seals the deal so that I'm fit to burst and can make my way to the restrooms to get rid of it all again.

Here's another danger point. This can end in one of two ways. Either I feel the joy of an empty stomach and the high of being back in control again after having had my cake and eaten it, or it could end with me feeling a little full and a bit of a failure, like I didn't achieve a thing and the whole process starts again. This wasn't a particularly big binge to begin with.

Like I said - how the feck?!

So what's different this week than a couple of weeks ago? Why am I stuck in this way of thinking again? What happened? How do I get back out?

I've been wracking my brain trying to work out what's going on. OK, so I'm on a stressful project (again!), I'm away from home (again!) and I've just moved house (again!) but is that really what's at the heart of this? Problem is, whatever the cause is, it's something I'm not dealing with, I'm not emotionally connecting and processing the issue, so when I question myself whether I've hit on the root cause, I'm so emotionally detached, it doesn't feel real.

I've been through eating disorder counselling of various types as well as general counselling (a fantastic counsellor I left in Perth but have reconnected with via email and the phone from time to time). I'm very self aware but yet there's a giant white elephant standing in my way that I simply can't see. I'm hoping that someone else out there can help me put form to it.

I know I'm testing everyone's patience, I'm not helping myself, I'm letting my husband down in ways that break both his and my heart. I know you'll get sick of the wolf-crier who keeps tripping up over the same damn mistakes and falling in a heap. But what do I do?

Now I'm going to stop writing and hit publish. I expect I'm going to feel very fragile and exposed after blurting out all this nonsensical rubbish - AGAIN - but I feel the need to bring my problems into the light and get a bloody good look at them.

What the fuck?!!!!!

2 clean days

Hubby says I'm to celebrate my successes where I can, but I cannae help feeling a tad disappointed to be celebrating something I'd gone back to taking for granted.

I'm a smart girl repeating a lot of dumb mistakes.

But hubby's right. In fact these last couple of days he's not only been right, he's been down right adorable.

I've been having another tough time over here in Sydney. First the airline lost my luggage, then things started not going to plan with my project, I couldn't even begin to tell you how badly one of my presentations went. You know the rest.... I binged bad on Monday, but then on Tuesday, this is what I received in my inbox right around danger time:

Hi Ani Pesto!

This is your 11am motivation ping! I hope you're feeling great, we are!!!!

Feeling tired or a wee bit tempted to try a muffin with your elevenses coffee? Stay away from Bad Mr Muffin and try Miss Nice Fruit instead!!!!

Miss Nice Fruit will give you the energy you need to make it though to lunch, without adding to your hip line! Now isn't that great!!!!

Have am AWESOME day, and we'll be seeing you for your mid afternoon ping!!!!

* This email was brought to you by the *great* folks over at We Smile and Exclaim Too Bloody Much Corp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then come afternoon tea time:

Warning! Warning! Ani Pesto! Danger time approaching!

Chin up, sweetheart. You can make it though the day. xoxo.



Dr Smith says:

When attempting to take over the universe, it's important to always keep your end game in mind. Being constantly thwarted by 10 year old brats and idiotic robots can wear one down, so always come back to what it is you *really* want to achieve, no matter how distant it seems at the time. Oh, and never monologue your plan when you *think* you're alone.

How gorgeous is he?!

Too funny!! He may kill me for showing you these, but they quite literally made my day, so I just had to share.

And the good news is - I did make it through the day.

parting lines

This is how my weight chart is looking:

Orange line is my weight, green line is my target. Look how beautifully aligned they both were until just a couple of weeks ago.

First day back in Sydney and I binged again – at lunch time, downstairs from the client’s office. If they knew what a personal f**k-up they’ve got for a consultant they might question the $$ they’re paying per hour for me :-(

I’m being accountable but doing it anyways. Hardly the point.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, around the areas of control and trust. I’m aware that I’m passively following a direction I don’t actively want to go in. As *Fitcetera* said, it’s got a lot to do with thinking I have no control in this. My clean day on Saturday is testament to that, I reminded myself in the morning that I have a choice about how I would like to approach the day and each twist and turn it brings. It worked. Come Sunday and the anticipation of being on a tough new job meant I instantly forgot I had that choice. I felt stressed, I felt out of my depth and subsequently I felt out of control.

I don’t trust myself to take charge when things get hard. That might sound a little crazy. "I" don't trust "myself". I’m exhibiting multiple personalities here, if sensible-me’s not in charge and stressed-out-binge-me has the reins, it’s still all ME right?

I think it’s no coincidence I’ve never had a career plan. In my career I’ve passively followed opportunities as they’ve arisen, climbed the ladder slowly and then wondered why I’m more junior than my less experienced colleagues (don’t have to look far for the answer to that when you see what I do in my lunch hour though hey.... hrmm too funny, even when I’m writing about having no belief in myself, I feel the need to demonstrate why I’m not worth believing in).

Personal dreams, career aspirations and the simple daily stresses of life. In all of it I'm exhibiting the very same fear of failing. Not only do I not aim high for fear of falling, but I genuinely don’t believe I have the right to either.

I see so many contradictions in all this it’s hard to write about. I say I don’t believe in myself and don’t deserve to achieve high things and yet I get defiant and frustrated with my lot – if defiance isn’t the action of someone who believes then what is it?

I don’t know that any of this is making sense. It’s a scrabbled mess of thoughts being typed very quickly, disguised as an email while the client’s not looking (so not a good professional look for me!).

Hopefully I’ll come back to make sense of it all later.

checking in

Thank you for words of support. I think like many of the comments said, it was very much a pressure cooker reaction which hadn't fully blown until after I'd made it safely through the stress.

The last few days haven't been all that much better. Another big binge Thursday, a mini one Friday, a clean day on Saturday (and finally a fabbo ride on the motorbike with hubby discovering a nearby winery - very very nice) and then more stress-grazing today.

I'm off to Sydney tomorrow morning (K not Kay I'll be in touch - would be great to meet up again) for another 4 weeks straight (home at the weekends). I'm in denial about it, I haven't booked the 4:30am taxi or even thought about packing yet. It's also looking like it will be another stressful project, more overblown client expectations and pressures. Oh joy!

I'll do my best to check in. I sure do need the accountability. Despite my doubled-up gym membership I've only been 3 times in the last fortnight, I've stopped wearing my GoWear fit and my food and bingeing is back out of control (3kg gain and counting).

In a perverted way, I'm secretly hoping that the pressure of another 4am start and a new project will click me back into a sensible food frame of mind.... how backward is that?

losing it

I'm totally losing it right now and I don't mean the weight. I binged again yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.

I fully lost it in the car last night. I had an appointment with a tax accountant to lodge my (extremely overdue) 2008 return. Despite possession of a map and a GPS, I just couldn't get to their office. 50 minutes for a 5km journey. I screamed my throat roar when I found myself back on the freeway once more driving in the opposite direction to my intended destination.

I seriously all-out screamed, a deep-throated, guttural, horror-movie, scream. And then I just couldn't stop screaming. Screaming and swearing and screaming and cussing and screaming. I pity the poor folk I accosted for directions. I was a crazy woman, a total banshee.

I don't understand how I could cope so well with what was probably the most stressful period of my entire career, only to fall apart when most of the stress has disappeared.

However, today's another day. I'm here and accountable. And I promise to try harder.