Control & Happiness

I know that being thin will not necessarily make me happy… but what if nothing ever does? What if I am screwing up my life completely? What WILL it take for me to be able to sit here with a smile on my face and think yes, YES my life is OK and I am happy?

I am due to sign the contracts on my new rented house tomorrow – and then move 3 weeks later. I am worried about that too … worried that once I am there in a different house with the children that life still won’t be right and that I still won’t be happy. In fact my life will be a LOT harder as a single parent – why do I think being alone and miserable in the evening will make me happier than being sat here downstairs while my husband ignores me upstairs? At least I have conversation if I bother to go upstairs and seek it out.

Things are so awkward at home … the “small talk” is getting less and less because – well I am leaving and it is almost pointless as it will all stop soon. We may as well both get used to the fact. What upsets me though is that even though I am signing contracts tomorrow … and handing over a wedge of cash that ties me into a contract at the house … that he never ever did put up a fight for me. I’m not going to say anything to him at this stage – if he did bother to make an effort it would only purely be because I had stuck the rocket under him to pull his frigging head out of the sand.

He won’t change – I refuse to live like that – I have no choice.

Will moving house and leaving my marriage make things better or am I setting myself up for an even worse pattern of self destruction as I prove to myself just how independent I am and how well I can do things by myself.

And then there is food too. My husband knows I eat very little but chooses to say nothing. He cooked tonight – asked me what I wanted and then ignored that and served me a huge plate anyway. I ate three large flat grilled mushrooms.

There are so many reasons why I feel unable to eat. I have eaten three frigging grilled mushrooms today (ok the big size ones, but still) yet I am not hungry. I am not physically starving myself and my “choice” not to eat is definitely mental rather than physical.

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!

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.