A freak and a hypocrite

Woah what a day. A day that started at 5.30am too because on a Sunday morning I work on a market stall as part of my busines. It’s a regular market and it is held every Sunday. It is an early start and a very physical start with loading & unloading, building the stall and setting everything out. I’m also right next to one of the many mobile food vans and as a vegetarian for the past 21 years, the smell of bacon cooking will do it for me every time. It’s almost a relief not being “allowed” to eat it!! I do live vicariously through the smell of it though!!

It is always so very easy not to eat anything on a Sunday because I am usually always busy so I don’t even need to think about food, but I had my 10 year old daughter with me and she has her own body issues that I really REALLY don’t want to make worse. I actually caught her sitting on the sofa the other day prodding her belly and I can’t help but wonder how much of that has been influenced by me and I hate myself for it.

She is a perfect and healthy 10 year old with nothing but a bare whisper of perfectly normal puppy fat on her that is hardly there anyway and shrinking as she grows taller as nature intended! I want her to grow up healthy and confident but I can already see the start of ED behaviours in her (obsession with healthy diet, but love of sweets & candy, ritual staring at herself in the mirror etc) and that scares the crap out of me. I hide what I go through as much as possible and never EVER talk about being fat or overweight or anything like that in front of her. I do NOT want my daughter to go through this. She is already such a fragile and emotional thing and I do my utmost to encourage her positively and to build her self confidence. Shame I can’t do the same for myself eh!

So anyway, when the bacon smells hit her little nostrills and her eyes lit up this morning …. I bought her a bacon bap and I bought myself a cheese & onion toasted sandwich too (NOTE ONION … THAT’S A VEGETABLE – THAT’S A WHOLE FOOD GROUP!) and I made sure that she saw me eating it and I was making all kinds of noises about how hungry I’d felt and how it was SO good to have something to eat, and how tasty it was … all a pile of crap and nonsense of course … it felt rough and dry going down my throat. I was full and bloated after a couple of bites and even an entire bottle of water didn’t help wash it down.

BUT my daughter saw me eating.

I had to eat in front of her at dinner as well … although my husband and I are in the process of separating it is still amicable and knowing I work out on the market all day with our daughter, he had cooked dinner. I usually feed the children early on a week night and then tell them I have my dinner when they are in bed. Anyway, he’d made spaghetti bolognaise for the family and he’d made me a huge portion of penne pasta with some mushrooms, grated parmesan cheese and a few slices of garlic bread.

My husband doesn’t understand my eating disorder. He does know I blame him for a lot of it but he just tells me I look fine and rolls his eyes when I barely eat a mouthful. Did I ever mention I HATE to eat in front of people??? I ate the mushrooms that were mixed with the pasta and I tried to count how many pieces of the penne I ate but with conversation over the meal (a great way to hide the fact you aren’t eating much – talk LOTS) … well I lost count.

I feel like such a hypocrite. How do I carry on my quest to be thin without screwing up my daughter?!?! My husband and I currently agree that after we separate, they will live with me … but if I go too far, how can I argue that I am the best for my kids? How do you know when too far is too far when you have been fat, ugly and overweight for so long?

Trade on the market wasn’t so good today and I wondered how much of it was me? See, when you are out there all day in the public eye – you get to see all sorts of people from all walks of life. You see the uber skinny and the hugely fat. You see weird shaped people and people who look okay from the back until they turn around and you see that it’s actually a woman not a bloke and her tits are drooping down to her knees.

Men notice me – a lot more. I’ve definitely picked up on that. I don’t wear half as much make-up as I used to either, so it must be from the weight loss. I used to hide behind a lot of eye make-up and rarely ventured out without lipstick. Since I’ve lost weight, I barely slap on a little mascara and some lip gloss! I had so many more men than usual come up to my stall, and I swear it was just to engage me in conversation. It didn’t make me feel good because I knew they weren’t going to buy anything.

I sell mainly to women. My “target” customer is 18-55 FEMALE. I sell around 10% to men. I noticed today a lot more “skinny” women come up to my stall now … and the more overweight ones walk past. Do the fat ones see me as a threat because I have lost weight? Do the skinny ones potentially see me as not just another fat person anymore?

This isn’t good for trade when the majority of the public is overweight!! I wrote a post just a couple of days ago about how I suddenly felt more judgemental about the way I looked at people … and I spotted then how people were looking at ME differently. Today being out there in the public all day, I REALLY noticed it.

I wore my new jeans today … the first time in a scary number of years that I have been as small as a size 12… a “perfect” size 12 too apparently even though I NEED to be a size 8. Funny, I always feel the need to quantify that as a UK size 12 – I believe that is actually a USA 8. I love how US sizes are smaller … I also now feel a need to book a flight and go shopping for size 8 clothes! hehee!

It was actually a beautiful day today and the sun was shining. I had a vest style top on under my zip up sweater, and it was actually WARM and when I walked the length of the market up to the toilet block, I took my sweater OFF. Okay that may sound weird, but when you are wearing new “tight” jeans that fit you perfectly, and a slim fitting top with no wrap or cover-up … you feel VERY VERY exposed!!

I had a smile on my face (it was a nice day!!) and almost felt confident as I felt the warmth of the sun on my back and the cute guys looking at me and smiling back.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Why can’t I be happy with that? Why can’t I be happy with being technically textbook perfect weight for my height? Why is it the more positive feedback I get the more I want to lose. Ugh it works the other way too when my friends say that I look great but probably shouldn’t lose more … WHY not? What’s wrong with not wanting to be average? What’s so wrong about enjoying the fact that although I have lost weight … I’m still fat (yeah ok in my eyes, but size 12 isn’t exactly skinny either) I want to lose more. I have a goal in mind and that’s where I’m heading.

On the upside … I posted yesterday that my weight hadn’t changed in 3 days. I did NOT weigh myself at 5.30am … fuck ok that’s a lie … I weighed myself at 5.30am when I got up, and was horrified by the gain of a pound, but quickly justified I’d drank a fair amount of alcohol before going to bed and hadn’t been to the toilet since I’d woken up. I weighed myself tonight and I was the same tonight as I was in the morning before … so that should mean a LOSS of at least one little tiny pound by tomorrow morning. Phew … I worried that I had hit a wall there!

Clothes shopping with an eating disorder

It is so weird to wear something that actually fits me. I like it … no, really I do. I like the way that these new jeans hug my figure, show off my shrinking body and frame my backside. I like the way they are tight and I can see the gap at the top of my legs.

Okay that is all a lie – except for the bit about the gap at the top of my legs. I do REALLY like that.

I DO like the jeans though – hell for £25 I’d better do – I don’t exactly have money to waste … and I’ve had a lot of positive compliments on how good I looked wearing them today which has helped with the self confidence thing, but UGH I have to admit I miss my baggy clothes. Wearing clothes that almost fall off of me make me feel so much thinner.

These jeans fit perfectly, and if my clothes fit me perfectly then I need to lose more weight so that they are baggy so that it is visually obvious that I have lost weight. Although they do fit “perfectly” I look so FAT in them. I am also not yet the size that I thought/hoped I would be by now.

Going shopping was always going to be a strange experience … not reaching for the larger sizes but at the same time not being entirely sure what size I was … and knowing that no matter WHAT size I ended up buying, it would never be small enough.

I took a UK14, a UK12 and a UK10 into the dressing room. Before my eating disorder bit me on the behind, I was a very unhappy and FAT size 14-16.

I tried on the large size first and immediately felt fabulous. I didn’t even bother doing them up because it wouldn’t have been worth it – they would have fallen off anyway.

I wanted so so so so desperately to fit into the size 10, but I didn’t even try them on in the end. I knew that it would just upset me if they ended up being too tight because then I really WOULD feel fat to try to button it up over a muffin top blobby stretch marked stomach and I am not that thin yet.

Instead … I confidently (yeah I know – weird!) tried on the UK12 and they fitted. Actually they are a little large around the waist band, but they are stretch denim, and the fact that they are a little big gives me the boost to my ego that I need.

A UK size 12 is apparently perfect! Can you believe that? It’s the ideal figure for UK women (well, the ones I’ve spoken to anyway and ones who don’t have eating disorders). If you are size 12 then you are officially something that others are jealous of.

I don’t give a frigging monkey’s left armpit what other people consider perfect and ideal. I couldn’t give a hoot if people are jealous of MY body because *I* hate and detest it and am working on changing it. It isn’t about what the rest of the world think … it’s my life and my issue. My problem – period.

The calm after the storm

Ohh I drank a LOT last night. I was so very ANGRY with my husband for everything because I realised that so many of my body issues and the way that I feel NOW go back years and years … and I blame him. He has said some really cruel things to me without meaning to or intending to hurt me at the time, and I have come to realise that some of those things have caused my deep seated anxieties, the issues around my weight and my whole self confidence problem.

** Is that a control thing? It’s easier to blame someone else for my eating disorder than myself?

The funny thing is … I had such a blindingly good day today considering the night I had and the GUILT that I felt over eating that bit of pizza last night. Ohh and I justified that to myself today by only having a sandwich, so I HAVE eaten, but I’ve also compensated for a pizza yesterday. 

Funny, I don’t ever count my alcohol calories … it’s like they are the only necessary food group that I have!

I wore my “comfortable knickers” today. One of the only pairs of underwear I have that still fit me!! (I SO need to go SHOPPING!) from M&S (UK chain store) and they are the black seamless stretchy lycra kind. Not exactly “sexy” but not entirely “unsexy” either, but they ARE the most comfy knickers in the world … Just had to mention that as it’s kinda relevant to what happened later …

I saw AP (my affair partner) today. I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks since my husband found out that I was still friends with him. Incase you haven’t read my back posts or don’t know the story, I had an affair that started around September 2006 … it lasted around 4-5 months and eventually ended up as a pleutonic friendship when the sexual side dropped off. I haven’t had sex with AP since the affair ended at the start of 2007 although we’ve stayed friends and always been a bit flirty since then. AP always did boost my self confidence – it’s why I fell into an affair with him in the first place. 

There never was anything “romantic” with AP and I never did have any illusions about a life with him if I ever did leave my husband. We were two people who met – who had a need for each other in our respective lives at that time. I wasn’t the only one dealing with self esteem issues either – AP went through a lot of shit with his ex girlfriend… but at the end of the day we always did talk about how there never really was a future for us – it’s why it developed into a friends thing.

The sexual side ended between us because ultimately he wants to settle down and be part of a family … and I was a married woman who represented the things he could never have. But … we’ve always carried on our friendship and a kind of flirting – we’ve always been attracted to each other and I’ve always let him. I guess it’s the self confidence thing… but damnit I always did find him so f***ing attractive!

Anyway, AP didn’t DIDN’T comment on my weight today or hassle me about how much I had eaten. He just asked me if I was okay, then asked me if I was sure … and then he kissed me.

AP’s kisses are something else. They draw me out of whatever world I may be daydreaming into and no matter how much I battle against the thoughts inside me telling me not to kiss him back … I can’t help it. If you have ever been kissed the way you WANT to be kissed, then you know what I am talking about.

Soft at first … gentle and ohh so tender, but with a passion you know is just waiting to get started. Slowly it builds and you both feel it as the desire rises and you feel those fantastic warm glowy feelings that start at your tingly toes and work all the way up and then float right out of the top of your head.

Yeah … it felt good, and for the FIRST time in weeks I actually had a smile on my face!

Nothing happened … well other than a whole lot of kissing … AP has his own “body issues” that he deals with … he has a lump on his groin area – nothing to worry about and nothing infectious – purely a cyst … but he feels uncomfortable and doesn’t want it “seen” or be sexual until he has had a chance to get to the doctor about removing it. .

If anyone understands body issues and not feeling sexual because of the way you look … then I do!

The funny thing is … and this goes back to my comfy knickers that I mentioned earlier … it has been a pure co-incidence that whenever I have worn this particular pair … AP and I have ended up being flirty with each other and I’d mentioned that to him before. He spotted what I was wearing and laughed, telling me I was even wearing my “I’m gonna get horny” underwear! The mad thing is – these are such comfy NON sexual knickers! LOL

I have felt as sexual as a slug until so recently (err today!) Even when my husband and I had drunken sex the other night … I didn’t really feel sexual – that was more of a simple biological urge!! AP just wakes up things inside of me that have been buried for so long – and he makes me feel GOOD.

AP said to me today that the sparkle was back in my eyes again and that it was nice to see. Hell, It was nice to feel.

What is it with people?!?!

People have bugged the crap out of me today. Not just any ole people either, but friends who have felt the need to comment and judge me just because I’ve lost weight!

…. waiting for the children outside the school gates.
ME – Brrrr it’s cold today.
BF1 – Nope it’s just you. Skinny bitch. Nothing to keep you warm.
ME – *laughing* Hardly.
BF1 – Yeah right! If you lose much more you’ll fade away.
ME – Have a laugh!
BF1 – Seriously girlfriend, you are looking really pale and gaunt. I’m just worried about you.

…. a little later – different friend.
BF2 – You really have lost a lot of weight haven’t you.
ME – Yeah I’ve lost a bit.
BF2 *knowing look* Yeah right, how much?
ME – Umm, thirty six pounds.
BF2 – What’s that in stone?
ME – Just over two and a half stone.
BF2 – Fuck! It really shows. You probably shouldn’t lose any more though.

WTF???

I’ve ALWAYS been pale … I have blonde hair, I am fair skinned and the sun doesn’t agree with me. Being pale comes with the territory. As to gaunt? No way … my face has slimmed down with the weight I’ve lost, but I am definitely NOT gaunt. What IS it with people? I was overweight before … at 12 stone 6lbs (174lbs) I WAS overweight and fat for my 5’8″ height, and yes, I have lost a lot of weight … 36lbs to be precise plus a whole pile of inches too, but I’m 9 stone 12lbs now (138lbs) and that is a PERFECT AVERAGE weight for my height, so why are people telling me that I should stop now?

I know that I battle with my weight and body issues. I have done for many years and I still will do for years to come, but it bugs the crap out of me that especially when I am dealing with so much else that my friends can’t actually be happy for me that I am doing something to boost my flagging self esteem!!!

I ATE today too. I want to throw that out there. After the emotional start I had to the day, and not achieving much at work, then talking to AP … I was actually hungry this afternoon. Yeah I know, it surprised me too! One thing I have ALWAYS promised myself is that no matter WHAT … if I AM hungry then I WILL eat something. I want to lose weight and be slim, but I am NOT going to starve myself to death either. A day where I am hungry and I eat something isn’t going to kill me in the long run. See, I’m still sensible.

I had three slices of toast and a piece of cheddar cheese which is actually a fair bit for me … and then tonight I had another one of those Tesco filo pastry mushroom thingys which are 400 cals… not that I’m counting calories, I just happened to notice it said that on the front of the box when I looked for how long to chuck it in the oven for! It’s actually the first day in a while that I’ve felt hungry, so I made sure I ate something. The mushrooms tick the vegetable box, the cheese & pastry tick the fat & protein boxes, and the toast earlier (Hovis best of both) is carbs. When you’ve had no appetite for a long time and lived on very little for days … that’s progress!

The thing is, I am NOT ready to stop yet. I’ve just spent a good twenty minutes in front of the full length mirror and although I can SEE that I have lost weight and I KNOW I have lost weight … I do still have so much still to go.

See, this is where the “intelligent woman” inside me puts on the “In Charge” hat in regards to my EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) diagnosis. I KNOW that anorexics view themselves as fat when they actually have bones jutting out all over the place, and that is not me. I am currently a “perfect” weight, but I still have very fat thighs and a huge stomach that is very visible in front of me as I am sat here typing this!

What is wrong with not wanting to be average? What is wrong with being fed up of spending my life so far on the other side of the “normal & average” healthy weight check box? Why the fuck shouldn’t I make myself happier by wanting to be on the bottom end of it instead of the top end?? People never hassled me before about being fat or overweight … yet they hassle me now about having lost that weight that DID make me fat and DID put me into the “slightly overweight for height” catagory … despite the fact that at 5’8″ and 138lbs (BMI of 20.5) I am technically perfect!

It’s not like I am seeing things that aren’t there either … I can physically GRAB the flab that is still left on my stomach with both hands and my thighs wobble unbelievably. Maybe I need to exercise more too.

I have set myself lots of smaller goals along the way with my weight loss … it makes it easier to achieve if you break it up into chunks. My current goal is to drop to 8 stone 13lbs (125) with a 5lb comfort zone of up to 9 stone 4lbs (130) and to then maintain and exist in that zone. I don’t see what is wrong with that. It will still give me a healthy BMI and mean that FINALLY I will be thin!

Body Image & Self Control

It is weird how something that started purely by accident … i.e. simply not having an appetite due to the stresses in my life has led me here, and even moreso how it all happened so quickly.

I realise that I am almost very totally obsessed by it and that puts me on a slippery slope … but I don’t want to stop until I get to my new goal weight. Even that sounds weird because I am not consciously starving myself or purposely avoiding food … I just don’t WANT it and so little makes me feel full up. I don’t count calories and if I fancied a cream cake I would eat one … I just don’t want one.

I need to admit … I hit my original goal weight last week when I got to 142lbs. That was the weight I had strived for all along for so many years, and finally I’d got there! It wasn’t that simple though and it wasn’t the celebration I had hoped for… partly because there wasn’t anyone to share it with. My husband and I are separating soon … so it’s not as if he’d care – not really – he doesn’t get the benefit of my new shape so why would he care! I have now changed my goal weight to 130 … 9lbs to go and I think hope I’ll be happy there.

I tried convincing myself that it was okay … that it was just a lack of appetite due to stress and that I didn’t have any control over it, but the RESULTS – damn, I have lost a huge chunk of weight and my clothes fall off of me now. This has been the happy side effect of stress. I just wasn’t hungry.

I don’t know whether it controls me or I control it now. Musings for another post maybe.

As I was in the shower this morning for the second time (I shower a lot – I do my best thinking in there!!) I looked at my body and although I like it better than I did before I lost the weight, I think my boobs are the only part that I actually REALLY like! I still hate my stomach … I’ve had children so I have stretch marks and it isn’t as flat as I want it to be. My thighs are flabby and my hips are enormous. I’ve always had a big bum and been pear shaped for as long as I can remember. I’ve already lost 6″ from my hips, so maybe just another 4″ … or 2″ at LEAST. I even hate my feet – I have such ugly feet!

See … I am an intelligent 33 year old woman and I do NOT want to be an anorexic bag of bones. I do not strive to have sticky out collar bones and ribs that you can count from a mile away. I do not think that is attractive and I have no desire to starve myself to death. I just want to be slimmer and happy. I also realise that being slim won’t necessarily make me happy and that ultimately I am responsible for my own happiness … but damnit – it will help.

Where it started …

I know exactly when it started… although it took many years to really surface.

On our first wedding anniversary we went out for a meal and I was talking about my post baby body and how I felt I needed to tone up and lose some weight. Now … you’d kinda HOPE that on your first anniversary that your husband would say something like “I think you look terrific already, but if you feel you want to lose weight then I’ll support you” … or words to that effect. My husband said …

“Well you are a bit fat aren’t you!”

Needless to say I mustered what little self dignity I had left, downed my glass of wine and walked out of there until I was out of eyeshot of the restaurant and then I started running. That was almost 10 years ago now. Maybe I should have carried on running back then …

Before I met my husband I never ever remember having ANY issues with my body or my size or anything. I am not directly blaming him, but I have no doubt that was my first toe in the water down the body issue route.

I wish I had enough fingers to count the number of times during our 11 year marriage that I found porn on his computer. Sometimes I just pretended I hadn’t seen it and convinced myself that things were okay… and sometimes I threw it in his face … more often than not with something physical like a plate or a cup and we’d have a huge row and he’d promise never to do it again…

I woke up not long after my 30th birthday and realised how desperately unhappy I was and the first place I looked was to my husband and my marriage. I DID try. I can hold my head up high knowing that I did try. I bought new sexy lingerie, tried spicing things up a bit … but after being rejected more than just a handful of times when *I* made the first move … I kinda gave up. My husband never seemed that bothered – dismissing things as being fine. I even remember one time after sex where I tried to get him to talk about what I could do to make things better … and I remember he described me as “laying there like a wet fish” – well, when you’ve given up – sex becomes prefunctory doesn’t it. What was the point?!

Even then I tried harder. I truly did. The problem was … my husband and I never seemed to “try” at the same time and our marriage really started to break down. I’d already lost a few pounds, but this was when I started seriously trying to lose weight. I lost another 10lbs but was still ever so slightly in the “overweight” zone. It affected me deeply and I reached a plateau where I just didn’t seem able to lose any more weight. I exercised and ate sensibly … and stayed exactly the same. It was also around this time when I had an affair that lasted 4 months. My husband found out about it after it was over, and we were supposedly “working on it” but I guess neither of us actually were.

Okay bringing this forward now …. it was just over a couple of months ago … I remember the date … July 28th when it occurred to me that I hadn’t really had an appetite for a few days and I just made a note of it in my diary. I was weighing myself daily and realised that without starving myself, without being hungry and without even trying … I was losing weight. I have so far lost 35lbs in total (the last 20lbs in 9 weeks) and it has been literally falling off.

It’s a slippery slope … I can feel myself slipping down and I don’t want to stop because although I still have lots of weight to lose … I am looking better than I have looked in a long time.