I don't get it... I really don't.

I seem to have had this shirt I am wearing for work today far to close to the wee smelly hangy thing in the closet and everytime i move an inch I get a whiff of cinnamonny appleness. Which may account for my constant hunger today. No chocolate or cookies all day! Woot!

Ok so you may have seen on my blogroll there is a link to the site 'The Amazing Adventures of DietGirl' which is written by a lovely woman called Shauna Reid. She is originally from Australia and is currently living in Edinburgh (which I will forgive her for not being Glasgow because it is still in Scotland). She used to weigh twice her body weight and has spent the last 6 years slimming her way down to a size 12. And she looks absolutely fan-flippin-tastic. I've read through most of her archives at one point and I keep up to date with her regular posts. It is quite inspiring to read about how she managed to lose the weight and how she keeps it off. She talks about how you can be all gung-ho one minute and the next you can't be arsed getting off the couch to do any exercise. Which appears to be my main downfall. I have said for the last few months that I was going to lose some weight, but it just hasn't happened. I did manage a good stint of going to the gym at least 3 times a week for 3 weeks for about an hour or so at a time. Which for me is pretty impressive. But I didn't see any immediate results.. well no! Of course not! But this is my problem, I want to see the difference immediatly or I give up and decide that there is no point in it all. Sigh.. which is why I am such a lump now.

Although I was going through one of her posts and she had uploaded some pictures showing her when she was out hillwalking with her husband. She put a note saying that the lumpy part on her stomach was in fact the rumpled waistband on her trews and not a roll of fat. I had to look VERY hard to even see this. She looked so thin! And then there is one further on with her sitting beside her husband when he is holding her friend's baby, she looks possibly fragile! But yet she still talks about how she gets random attacks of 'fat-fear' and feels she still has more to lose.

Mixed in with this though, is the realisation that she does look damn good, and she is happy with her body. Now this happens to me too, I can look in the mirror one day, and be like 'oooh, I'm not that bad, I actually look quite foxy' (see below) and then the next I will be moaning about the state of my body and want to go hide under my giant fluffy blanket and sweatpants. I think we all suffer from body dismorphia at some point, we never know if we look good enough for ourselves, we just continue to torture ourselves to try and fit the 'perfect ideal'. Stupid media.

My friend came out to spend Christmas with me, and I had forgotten just how good she looks and how damn skinny she is!! And I mean skinny in the slender, clothes hang properly and she looks frickin amazing in all outfits, way. I on the other hand are the lumpy dumpy companion. Which is why when we were out one night in a bar, the Steven Lynch song, 'Big Fat Friend' kept running through my head. hehe. Which just made me want to go up to guys who were eyeing her up and ask 'so who's your non-discriminating friend then, cos here I am!?'. Which probably noone would have got the reference for, but hey. I guess I hadn't really been paying proper attention to just how much I was letting myself go since I got here. I wasn't skinny by any means when we arrived, but I certainly was at least 1 or 2 sizes smaller, and I felt a lot happier about my appearance. I don't suppose you could ever describe me as confident, but I look back at pictures and think, damn it! Why couldn't I have appreciated that a little more! Grrr.

Again with the conflicting feelings as here comes the *shock**horror* revelation that some guys do actually find me attractive at this point. Although I suppose I could put that down to beer goggles, but I will attempt to plump my battered ego just a tiny bit and pretend it's not that. When we were in the bar on that first night, I got a phone number! Admittedly it was from a Brooklyn guy who told me he was a professional dancer turned cage-fighter, which makes me lean towards the beer goggles thing again, but it was still interest!

The next time we went out, my friend went to the bathroom, and every time she came back, there was a different guy sitting opposite me. 3 times! Which I couldn't quite understand, as I had finished the pitcher of beer, so they clearly weren't coming mooching for a free drink. So I ended up with a business card (lawyer no less) and some more interest. If I hadn't been so cross-eyed I would have been rolling them. Me? Apparently so. Hmm... this is a new development that I will have to witness a few more times before I believe it quite frankly. I am not the sort that attracts guys, I'm the wing-girl. I crack the stupid jokes, or mumble incoherently (yes, there was a waiter that was sooo hot that I failed to string a sentence together for the entire meal. SHAME!), or feels awkwardly defensive when I get a compliment, ending up with me frightening them away. So this has me in confuddlement. Oh well, perhaps it was just the bolster of having my best mate there to make me feel better that worked, so I guess the next 4 months will be just as empty as the first 8!! :)

And so the new year dawns and the weight loss attempts begin again. And no. It's not a New Years Resolution, because I just forget about them and then I never stick to them. This is just going to have to be a new way of life. Less cookies, chocolate and fatty dinners. Healthy grub and plenty of water, interspersed with regular visits to the gym or runs round the marina. Maybe I wil improve my body a little to make me happy, or maybe I will just feel better about myself in general when I can run a few laps without getting puggled.

Guess we'll see.

New Year, New You....

2009…. What can I say? If I thought 2008 was going to be the year of new beginnings, then I guess 2009 is the year of maintenance. I’ve made some big steps and I’ve taken some very little slides backwards. I just need to make sure that I stay put this time. No more skiting back to the depths of despair or the puddle of discontentment should I say. I’m far happier than I have been in a long, long time and I intend to keep it that way. There are many factors contributing to this, but I know there is one main one that has been hanging over me for too long and I’m working my very best to banish it.

I took a look at the blog I wrote this time last year, and I was saying most of these things then too. Although I still had a way to go back then.

“2007 is over and done with... finally!! I have to say, I was looking forward to the New Year this time more than ever before. I think 2007 has been one of the suckiest periods of my life in some ways, and yet in others it has been fairly enlightening.I've experienced a hell of a lot of ups and downs this past year, and although a lot of the time was spent in the down category, I think it has made me really look inside myself and see who I am and what I want to do with my life. For most of my existence I have been this weak little push over, and I say this with utter certainty, who has only been interested in making sure that people like her and never got angry with her. And that person never really got very far in life. That person just got bullied, manipulated and messed about. A lot of that was my own fault, for letting it happen in the first place, and then letting it carry on, well into adulthood. I don't think I ever felt I had moved on since school, and this was just making me feel trapped in this vortex where I could see all of this going on, but couldn't change a thing. In reality I was perfectly capable of changing everything, but the underlying fear that this new person wouldn't be able to cut it stopped any transformation.”

Now for those that I have already spoken to about this, I know I have already admitted that I am still fairly messed up about it, but I want to take the giant leap and put it far, far behind me. Like one of those skipping stones you fling across a loch.. Bounce… bounce… bounce… bye bye!

“ I can't honestly say what it was that suddenly made me snap out of it. Something just cleared in my mind and I realised that I was already 22 and had done nothing in my life. I wasn't anyone that stood out or someone that anyone wanted to be like, and I certainly detested the meek little person that I had reverted to. I could count you a million times where my best friend bolstered me and told me that I was wonderful, but I think it takes the light inside of you to be switched on before you start to believe it yourself. So I guess 2007 was the year when I started to climb out from behind the mask I had created for myself and wipe the slate clean.

Can't say that I have made a fabulous job of it so far... had a few knock backs and some periods where I wondered what the point was. But for every one of those, there was something that kept me going. And this is where the awful mushy marshmallowy fluff bit comes in. But it’s true that the 3 people who have been there for me throughout my various blah moments and my truly scary ones are the people who are still here now. Without them my life would be much duller than it is and the world would be missing out on a whole bunch of wackiness!! I had forgotten how much fun it is to weird people out in public! So I know I have told you guys all this before, but I just wanted to say thanks again for being there through everything.”

Again most of that part is true. These people were still there for me, encouraging me, pushing me and generally just being the lovely people I can’t do without. No matter who else I may have met this year, these are the ones that have always been constant and I never forget that.

Speaking of, I have met so many new people this year, and I’d like to count most of them as new friends that I will hopefully be able to stay in touch with for a long time yet. Roomies, flatmates and fellow interns, the mix is all good! There are some people here that have made me see different sides of myself, sides I wouldn’t have discovered before if I hadn’t been here and for that I am grateful as I think it has helped me a hell of a lot. To be able to really start afresh after years of being the loser is quite liberating! Although I guess writing down here all about it will just let them know, so I suppose that wasn’t the smartest thing to do! Ah well. You can’t escape your past, as it defines your future. Like the conversation I had the other day, ‘If you had to do it all over again, would you do it the same way?’. Well no, I wouldn’t. But I can’t change it and it got me to where I am just now, so I guess I can’t complain… to much anyway!

So that’s that. Start 2009 with a far healthier outlook. Be confident, be happy, be me.

Happy New Year everyone!