How to be a woman...

17^th July 2011

First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits or they will conquer you. Rob Gilbert

Sunday morning, went to bed after a mug of horlicks light (3pp) at just after 8pm – now that’s rock and roll ;D  I managed to stay there until just before 6am which is fab for me, and I’m feeling really good and I’ve got to say it’s because I’ve cut out the booze, not only do I feel fab, but I can tell I’m losing weight too.  I said the abstinence was short term but I’m feeling that I’m going to make it a longer term thing and hopefully will just keep alcohol to special occasions and nights out as I’m enjoying how I feel right now.  We’ll see how it goes, no pressure, no rules, no guilt – just doing what makes me feel good without stress.  Is there something you think you enjoy so much you couldn’t live without it, like me with my red wine?  If there is, question it, ask yourself why, heck even decide to have a day without and see how you feel.

Yesterday I worked for a few hours on the morning because I wanted to, not because I had to, that’s the beauty of enjoying your work, then I relaxed for the rest of the day.  I had a long soak in the bath with a can of diet coke (must get decaffeinated next time) and my book.  Me and two of my friends are all reading How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran and it’s really good, very funny and clever, the woman is very clever.  There’s a chapter early on about her starting her periods which I read out loud to my mom and we both laughed and snorted lots ;D  She spent her childhood in Wolverhampton so immediately I connect, then yesterday I read that she lived by Warstones and I went to the junior school there so it makes the book even better for some reason because I can really relate to certain things, although not all of it, even if they do make me laugh.  Whilst reading chapter six yesterday on ‘FAT’ I just nodded and nodded and nodded, one of the best chapters I’ve ever read on the subject of weight in any book.   Here’s just a snippet;

How to be a Woman

“Because people overeat for exactly the same reason they drink, smoke, serially fuck around or take drugs.  I must be clear that I am not talking about the kind of overeating that’s just plan, cheerful greed – the kind of Rabelaisian, Falstaffian figures who treat the world as a series of sensory delights, and take full joy in thei wine, bread and meat.  Someone who walks away from a table – replete – shouting ‘THAT WAS SPLENDID!’, before sitting in front of a fire, drinking port and eating truffles, doesn’t have neuroses about food.  They are in a consensual relationship with eating and, almost unfailingly, couldn’t care less about how it’s put on an extra couple of stone on them.  They tend to wear their weight well – like a fur coat, or a diamond sash – rather than nerviously trying to hide it, or apologising for it.  these people aren’t ‘fat’ – they are simply … lavish.  They don’t have an eating problem – unless it’s running out of truffle oil, or finding a much-anticipated dish of razor clams sadly disappointing.

No – I’m talking about those for whom the whole idea of food is not one of pleasure, but of compulsion.  For whom thoughts of food, and the effects of food, are the constant, dreary, background static to normal thought.  Those who think about lunch whilst eating breakfast, and pudding as they eat crisps; who walk into the kitchen in a state bordering on panic, and breathlessly eat slice after slice of bread and butter – not tasting it, not even chewing – until the panic can be drowned in a almost meditative routine of spooning and swallowing, spooning and swallowing.

In this trance-like state, you can find a welcome temporary relief from thinking for ten, 20 minutes at a time, until, finally, a new set of sensations – physical discomfort, and immense regret – make you stop, in the same way you finally pass out on whisky, or dope.  Overeating, or comfort aeting, is the cheap meek option for self-satisfaction, and self-obliteration.  You get all the temporary release of drinking, fucking or taking drugs, but without and I think this is the important bit – ever being left in a state where you can’t remain responsible and cogent.

In a nutshell, then by choosing food as your drug – sugar highs, or the deep, soporific calms of carbs, the Valium of the working class – you can still make the packed lunches, do the school run, look after the baby, pop in on your mum and stay up all night with an ill five-year-old – something that is not an option if you’re caning off a gigantic bag of skunk, or regularly climbing into the cupboard under the stairs and knocking back quarts of Scotch.

"Overeating is the addiction of choice for carers and that’s why it’s come to be regarded as the lowest ranking of all the addictions.  It's a way of fucking yourself up whilst still remaining fully functional, because you have to.  Fat people aren't indulging in the 'luxury' of their addiction making them useless, chaotic or a burden.  Instead they are slowing self-destructing in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone.  And that's why it's so often a woman's addiction of choice.  All the quietly eating mums.  All the KitKats in the office drawers.  All the unhappy moments, late at night, caught in the fridge-light.”

It continues but I won’t, I suggest you go buy the book as it is so far a very good read.  And I have to ask, has that hit a nerve at all?  I know lots of people who would be nodding at those paragraphs, I think she’s managed to really hit a point in a short chapter.

I used to be like that, constantly thinking about food in an urgent way, now I’m not, don’t get me wrong I still think of food A LOT but in a more of a planning kind of way, and I eat food and enjoy it with passion not guilt.  For example yesterday I thought about food as I was walking the dog, it was me planning my meals and what I would cook the next day when I spend a few hours in the kitchen, I decided on the chicken recipe is next weeks YOUR WEEK, remember to pick up your copy, and also Chocolate marbled cake from the Seriously Satisfying cookbook and Pumpkin Cheesecake from Weight Watchers sight, it’s on the esource recipe database, so that’s me busy this morning.  Don’t worry I’m not going to eat it all, it’s for sharing ;D

Busy day planned and it looks like the rains not going to subside so a walk in the rain with the doodle is on the cards, catch ya tomo. xx