Tuesday 11 January 2011

New Year, (too much) New Me

Mmm, Christmas.


Goose. Roast potatoes. Cypriot baked cod. Fishcakes. Curry. Enchiladas. Chocolate. Cheese. Red wine. White wine. Beer. Champagne and steak for breakfast. Cake.

The list goes on…

So yeah, I put on half a stone in December. Not really surprising, given that I started eating whatever the hell I liked when we went to Germany on the 10th and then, well, carried on. What is surprising is that I’m really, really struggling to care.

My clothes still fit: this is probably because they were all much too big before and are now merely a bit too big. I still feel good. I think the reason for this is that a disproportionate amount of the gain seems to have gone to my chest. Having shrunk to merely ‘large’ it is now back to ‘WTF?’ So while I’m probably definitely slightly bigger all over, I have retained my proportions.

This calm feels weird. I tried on some jeans in Fat Face (the irony!) over the holiday: the 12 wouldn’t go over my thighs and the 14 wouldn’t do up. Rather than enter a shame spiral of ‘OMYGODI’MSOFATNONONONO!’ I thought “That’s stupid: I’m clearly not a 16!”

I should probably try and lose the half stone. But at the moment I’m really struggling to be bothered. So: the plan of action (these are not New Year Resolutions; I don’t do those):

• Exercise at least 3 times a week. I have started the programme from The New Rules of Lifting for Women, so will probably be focussing on weights twice a week, with a session with C to make up the 3rd.

• Eat less ridiculously. I’ve already reined it in a lot since Christmas, in that I am no longer living on cheese and chocolate with occasional big piles of meat. I realised that I’d been Doin It Rong on about the 4th of January, when I thought “I’m hungry… this feels weird… WTF? I haven’t actually been hungry for about two weeks!” Yeah. Not great. However, I’m probably only down to an average 2,000 calories a day. I should probably be eating more like 1,500-1,800.

• Not miss things, or make social occasions shit and miserable, because I’m worried about my eating. I was totally doing this before Christmas, and looking back it was REALLY STUPID.

This is busy season in my job, and unlike in some earlier years I’d like to come out at the end of March less exhausted, fat and spotty than I started, which means that eating properly and exercising need to be squeezed into my limited leisure time. I’ve filled the freezer with home-cooked food, and scheduled workout sessions several weeks in advance. I’m also working on making getting to bed on time a priority, although that does seem to cause more domestic friction than it should.

All this means I may not have much time for blogging over the coming weeks, but I’ll do my best.

What are your goals for 2011?