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.

snakes & ladders

It's a good news / bad news day today.

The good news first: I have interwebs!!! Woooohoooooo!! There's a whole wide world out there just waiting to be surfed.

Still no ADSL and no cable, but after a ridiculous amount of time wasted in daily phone conversations to my favourite TelCo [grrrr! grumble mumble... nasty-horrible-lack-of-customer-service-gnarly-monsters that they are] the wireless dongle I bought a week ago has finally been activated.

So for the bad news: I've re-opened Pandora's food-box again, lost control and binged my way back up the scale a couple of kilos.

I've had such active internal dialogues, reminded myself very clearly of my goals and that my actions are contra to reaching them. But the problem is, in that very moment, my goals don't feel tangible. My immediate desire, nae "need" to shove my face full of food, does.

Time to start putting one foot ahead of the other on that ladder rung again.

340 unread items

I finally opened my RSS Reader for the first time in weeks. You've all been busy, I can't wait to catch up. So funny, I feel like I know so many of you, I've been wondering how you're all doing, how the stories have been developing.

I'm sure I've probably got a few stories of my own I need to tell too. My first week back to almost-normality has proved difficult food-wise. I guess it's what happens when you let your guard down and feel as though you have permission to relax. I'm going to be keeping a tight reign on it for a wee while, the scales have stayed the same this week which I don't like one bit after all my recent triumphs.

I've joined a new gym close to our new house. In fact for a 3 months overlap I'll have gym membership both at work and at home for no extra cost - bargain! I tried out the cycle class last night in their swanky blue-lit, neon, cycle-room. It was one hard work out and and all the more worth it for the lollies she handed out at the end ;-)

I'll be slowly making my way through the posts, so I look forward to seeing you all soon.

almost normal

I'm back in Melbourne, the Sydney project is done and dusted – mucho relief all round. The big house move is tomorrow but I've yet to finish all the documentation for the Perth job and promised the client they'd have them the beginning of this week. Hence why right now I find myself sitting on the floor of an empty house with a laptop appropriately on my lap.

Turns out too that I'd tempted fate with my “internet in the new house” comment. We can't get ADSL! There aren't any ports left at the exchange so they say. There's no cable in the area and no other providers. We've been trying to bend our heads around the prospect of either dial-up *gulp* or potentially robbing a bank to fund the extortionate wireless dongle options that lock you into a 36 month contract and are darn slow as they're so over-subscribed by all the other poor folk who can't get ADSL in the area. Hrmm. Hobson's.

Best be getting back to work. One day very soon, life will return to normal once more, I can practically smell it.

skinny jeans

As a mens size 36" waist, they're hardly "skinny" for most folk, but when I bought them nearly two years ago, they were the skinniest jeans I'd worn for almost 20 years. Yet, only 6 short months later and they were once again relegated to the untouchable "too skinny" pile.

Well guess what? Yesterday I WORE THEM ALL DAY

The last time I tried them on was about two months ago, I'd wanted to see just how far (or close) they were from me. There was a wasteland of flesh between the button and its buttonhole, and no amount of contorting would permit the zip to budge.

When I chanced my luck to try them again yesterday, I was expecting a similar story, but hoped just to feel reassured they were getting closer. I certainly hadn't expected them to fit!

I'll be away again for my official HYC weigh-in, so in the midst of my skinny-jean-celebration-dance this seems like a rather appropriate time to check in:

today's weight: 95kg / 209.5lb / 14st 13lbs
loss of: 3.9kg / 8.5lb (since 12th May)
total loss this year: 21kg / 46lbs

There are even a couple of major milestones in there:

• Lowest Melbourne weight. I'm now 0.1kg lower than I was when I arrived in Melbourne a year ago. A whole year of frantically running just to stay still.


• BMI under 35, making me just plain "obese". No longer "severely" and a long way down from "morbidly". Next stop "overweight" oooh how I long to leave obese behind.

Feels bloomin' great I must say!

I'm still a work-brained fuzzled mess and we're also mid house-move. Most of our belongings have made their way to the new house (thanks to my fabulous hubby for all his hard work), with only a few boxes and all the furniture left to make the trip. We've lots still to organise but yet again I'll be away for most of it and trying to live by remote control. I'm back in Sydney all this week but at the moment it's looking good I might get to slow down a bit after that. Fingers crossed.

I've let my life become such a dishevelled and disorganised mess while I've had my work-blinkers on - I missed my sister-in-law's birthday, my cousin got married last week and I still haven't been in touch and I'll even be without a driving license next weekend as I've let my Western Australia one expire without having had a chance to organise a Victorian one.

I'm just so grateful that while everything else has been a mess, for once my food's been under control - so far touch wood!

Have a great week everyone. I've made a date with myself to catch up on how you're all doing next weekend so long as the internet's connected at the new hoose of course. Looking forward to it.

not run away

Quickly popping by to say I haven't run away. Sorry for my prolonged absence. The work hiatus is yet to subside, I'm still eagerly waiting to get the "life" part of my work/life balance back.

The Perth job is finished, well not actually "finished" I'll be spending my long weekend doing even more documentation - joy! After a brief day at home in Melbourne with my husband I've flown back to Sydney and am once again holed up in a hotel and back on a stressful project and oh my goodness if only I could talk about just how stressful this one is! Is there any other kind these days?

Unlike my previous blog absentee periods though, things are going pretty well food-wise. Despite the stress levels I've not binged - very proud of that!! I've been missing the gym but walking a little more than usual.

I did weigh myself on Sunday night for the first time in over two weeks. It was a good number, but it was also straight after a long flight when I tend to dehydrate and my weight can bounce all over the place... I'll wait until I'm back home again to get a more reliable and consistent number.

My attempts at hotel food aren't getting any better. Tonight was comical. Typical but comical. The steamed vegetables on the menu in this hotel are described as being served "with Little General olive oil". Knowing that these hotels seem to justify their high prices with complex calorie per cents calculations, I figured I couldn't ask for just "no oil" or they'd find some other way to drown my veggies in calories. Instead I ordered a plate and asked for the oil to be on the side.

I very specifically said "just plain steamed vegetables, I'll add my own oil thank you". So what turns up? Oil in a bowl on the side as requested and steamed vegetables that taste of butter. When the menu says they're served with oil, it really didn't occur to me to have to specify "absolutely nothing but vegetables please, no oil and no butter". Seriously!?! At least it was truly only a hint this time and not a flood.

Anyways, excuse the garbled typing. I'd best run, it's past my bedtime and I was up at 4:30am today. Can't wait to be back to normal. I have so much to talk about. We're moving for starters. In fact my marvel of a husband is carrying the can right now and organising the whole lot on his tod - he really has been fantastic while I've been so work-blinkered.