Saturday pat on the back

The idea that excess weight = bad is so prevalent that it’s easy to get into the habit of thinking of your entire self as bad because you wish you weighed less. Although I know that slow and steady wins the race, and although I feel better in myself than I ever have before - thin or fat - I still catch myself doing me down for being fat, and for not losing weight faster, and for not being dedicated enough, and I end up forgetting about the bad habits that I’ve ditched as an adult and the good ones I’ve picked up.

So, for posterity, here are three non-weight-related bad habits that I’ve ditched, and three non-weight-related habits that I’ve picked up:

Not so tiny dancer

I have always hated dancing, ever since Morag McIntosh and I ran out of our ballet class at the age of 7 and vowed we would never go back. I still feel woefully self-conscious dancing, even if we’re just talking about standing in a crowded club and jiggling a bit. I hate it, I can’t relax, everyone’s looking, I hate it I hate it I HATE IT. Did I mention that I don’t like dancing?

I love to watch people dance, though, if they’re good. In fact, let’s watch some good dancing now:

I’d love to dance like that, but I can’t. Not even close.

frustrations

I know, I know, I don’t write here often, and there are several reasons for this
1) Priorities. In order not to go mad, I have to prioritise. In terms of writing priorities, first comes work, then my normal blog, then emails on my ‘oh christ haven’t I emailed you back yet’ list, then here, sadly. Sorry.
2) Frustrations.

I find losing weight a very difficult thing to talk about, and to write about, therefore. I don’t like talking about it, because … well, it’s even a very difficult list of becauses, apparently.

I can’t find Wendy

She’s disappeared, as has her web-blog!!! Anyone seen her? We need her back here right now, otherwise I’ll eat all the pies. (All of them.)

 

 

Chocolate monster.

That’s what I am today.

I don’t know why.  I don’t actually like chocolate that much.  I mean, I don’t dislike it.  It just isn’t what I usually want to eat.  I never have chocolate puddings, I rarely eat chocolate biscuits.

I’m just not that into chocolate.

Usually.  But today it is different.

Today, if you are made of chocolate and within driving distance - be afraid.  Be very afraid.

If any of you have a moment to spare

I’d like you to read something and tell me if you can work out what the point of it is. Because I can’t.

The article is here. Go and read it and then come back. Disclaimer: it’s in the Daily Mail and it was written by Amanda Platell. I will not be responsible for any ill-effects or nausea you suffer as a result of clicking on the link.

Right. Now, I think that the point of the article, if indeed it has a point, is that although Princess Bea is not fat, she should try to lose weight anyway, but only off her thighs, because Amanda Platell doesn’t like the shape of them. But I might be wrong, so if someone else could read it and tell me what on earth the point of this rambling, pointless, vindictive, tedious rubbish is, I’d be most terribly grateful, really.

Great minds!

Possibly.

It’s a beautiful weekend so you’ll get no lengthy posts from me over the next few days. Hurrah for all of us! But I just wanted to draw your attention to this post that I came across here. She pretty much sums up all my ranting about how counterproductive “diet” food is. I am still pretty sure that the key to healthy living and hence losing weight is to eat as much freshly prepared food from fresh non-processed ingredients as possible, without worrying too much about whether what you’re eating is “diet” or not.

Now everyone get out there and enjoy the sunshine, STAT. (Stat? Yes, stat.)

Cunts: they’ve got our garage forecourts.

This morning I left the house early because I was on my way to the Frozen North and had to be there by 10am.

I stopped off at the garage at about six thirty in the morning to fill up the car, and I was straightening up to pull in by my pump of choice. As I did so, I was vaguely aware of a white van pulling into the pump on my right.

The next thing I knew, the same white van was on my left and the driver, a short, balding, bespectacled man in maybe his early fifties was leaning out the window, shouting, swearing and waving his arms around. Fists were waved and fingers pointed in my general direction. I gathered that he wanted me to move further to the right so that he could go to the pump on my left, and so I moved over - which was what I was in the middle of doing anyway.

That wasn’t the end of it, though. Readers of Everything Is Electric will be aware that I take a dim view of road rage. I take a particularly dim view of puny, cowardly men who wouldn’t have the balls to pick a fight with a bloke but will happily attempt to bully and intimidate the nearest woman driver, confidently assuming that said woman driver will be far too scared to answer back.

That confidence is sadly misplaced when the female driver in question happens to be me.

I Am Rigid With Glee

Yes! It is true! Finally, all my dreams have come true, for I am being paid to be fat. Paid in Canadian dollars (or “Loonies”, as they are called, in honour of a bird that I do not believe exists even in the European imagination), for wiffling on about what it is like to be a porketeer.

 

Let me explain. I work in an ‘advertising agency’, where I am a ‘planner’ (or “planificatrice stratégique” when in the French part of Canada). This means that I read things (mainly on the internet), try and make very complicated ideas (about for e.g. chips and the weather) very simple, write things down (sometimes on charts, sometimes on the wall in blunt wax crayons),  write a very great many emails and talk about stuff with other ‘planners’, ‘creatives’ and ‘account handlers’.  It is great. 

 

Of late, I have been working on a weight loss brand. It is quite interesting, and I will be sharing my ‘findings’ (”Weight Loss Gain Train”, anyone?  Any takers for the “Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change”?) with you, my eager readers, any day now. (I hasten to add I have lost no weight; in fact I have put on three pounds of late, but at least I know the transtheoretical reason why.)

 

In the meantime, I must confess to having been “stumped” by a section of the presentation I must make to my client(s) and a room full of (thin) advertising types the day after tomorrow. It is quite ridiculous, and not unlike asking Tony Parsons what it feels like to be a preening cockmonkey: yes - I must try and ‘get inside the mind of the consumer’ and try help them to understand what it feels like to be fat.  In the ‘advertising business’, it is called “getting inside the mind of the consumer” - but I’m fucked if I know what to do. 

 

Anyone got any ideas?

Optimistic Friday Post

Five things that made me feel good this week:

1. Crossing virtually everything I need to deal with off my To Do list.

2. Buying a 12-part file to organise greetings cards.  Don’t you just love that one friend of yours who never, ever forgets to send you a card?  The one whose card always arrives in the post ON your birthday, as opposed to beforehand or afterwards?  NOW I AM THAT LOVELY PERSON OH YES I AM.

3. Being asked if I had lost weight by someone who hadn’t seen me for two months.

4. Doubling my time on the rowing machine and achieving my best time yet on the cross trainer.

5. Walking past Burger King AND KFC to order myself a baked potato with beans at the cafe round the corner, then making it all the way through to supper without a hunger pang.

How’s your week been?