dreams

Bit of a busy and anxious day at work today and I'm not expecting it to get better any time soon unfortunately.

I even woke up this morning right in the middle of a really anxious dream. Dreams are such funny things. If they really are your brain's way of working out the day's issues, then my subconscious mind is no more inventive or better at problem solving than my waking one.

In my dream I had started to eat big and was planning to turn it into a full-on binge. So I'd found a way to leave whatever it was I was doing and go to the store. I'd planned my binge out fully in my head but when I got to the supermarket I bumped into my husband. At the point where the alarm woke me, I was lying to him to cover what I was about to do and planning how I was going to get away with the deception of buying my binge food. It was such a horrible feeling, really distressing to wake up with all those emotions so fresh in my head.

As a teenager, any time I had a good dream all I cared about was trying to remember whether x-y-z good thing had happened to a skinny version of me or the real, blobby one. It was a rare hope, the answer was always the blobby one. At the time I believed my mind just wasn't creative enough to imagine a slim version of me.

It's something that has stuck ever since. I'd always had trouble visualising my goals. I couldn't picture where I wanted to go, I just couldn't picture a healthier slimmer me, it felt too cruel and unreal to let my mind go there.

After all I went from being a tinsy-bit chubby kid (not even chubby judging by some photos) to being an overweight teenager and a severely obese grown-up. My adult mind never developed a concept of what it might feel like to be healthy and slim.

Well that's all changed now. I've got that picture there in the right hand column.

There I am in my wedding lingerie and hoop, pressing my tummy trying to contain my excitement as I wait to have my dress lifted up over my head. I was only 15kg away from my goal, my lowest ever adult weight. I felt good for all the weight I'd lost but at the time (the general time, not the *actual* day, there was nothing could shift the smile from my face on that day) I was equally disgusted with myself for not reaching goal. Oh to be able to take that back and slap that girl, because instead of becoming yet another photo on my way down, that photo and that weight there has become my target.

For the first time though it's a target I can picture, I can imagine and I can actually remember.

...

Eeek I've babbled for pages yet again and it's not what I meant to write about, it just sprung from thinking about that dream. Over the last few days I kept thinking of things to blog about but couldn't catch a moment to get them out. I'm back eating my normal eating plan but after my week off I'm having to watch myself like a hawk. Now that I'm letting myself have that skinny cow ice cream, low fat chips and afternoon cappuccino, I'm having to curb my desire to have them all at once.

So far so good though. It was a big weekend food-wise. My mother-in-law came to stay, I made a banana cake - VERY yummy! - hubby made a Jamie Oliver bolognaise - with bacon, beef mince AND pork mince... VERY VERY yummy - all served with a beautiful glass of wine and at the end of a day that had started with pancakes for breakfast. I did good with my portions though, filled my plate up with veg and kept it under control so I could enjoy it all without feeling bad. We'll see whether the scale agrees with me tomorrow.

Oooh and other fab news of the last few days was that I had coffee with the lovely Kathryn of iDiet. So great to be able to put a real person behind the blog, thank you Kathryn.

Righto - I should be working so as to lessen the stress of tomorrow...