WideBride is back in town baby. I had the most fabulous holiday ever and its very depressing to be back but to suspend reality for a little while longer I’ll go through some highlights of the trip. Just a reminder, we had 5 nights in Boston, 2 nights in a little town out of Boston called Concorde (more on this later) and then 4 nights in Charleston, SC:
1. puddings – I forgot how good puddings are as I never order them when I’m out for dinner here in the UK. In the US though, I was giving the starters a miss (they bring you bread and butter instead – oh my!) and having a pudding instead. I had icecream, key lime pie (never had this before and it was just so American sounding I had to have it), cheesecake, warm chocolate chip cookies with hot chocolate dipping sauce (WOW) and no doubt heaps of other things I have forgotten.
2. burgers – I love love LOVE how you get a big old pickle with your burger so you can cut it up and have a little bit of pickle with every bite. More please!
3. nachos – just YUM.
4. Californian wine. Enough said
5. Starbucks low fat cinnamon cake. I had this for breakfast one day (don’t judge me) and it was SO SO SO good. Why can’t we get this here in the UK?
6. Steak. I never usually have steak here (I tend to order fish when I go out for dinner, just because I never have it at home as G is not a fish lover) so it was really nice to have it in the US. They cook it so well. Kudos guys!
7. Magnolia restaurant, Charleston SC. Probably the culinary highlight of my trip. I had fried green tomatoes to start (yeah, I thought that was just the title of a movie too but it is actually FOOD and really tasty to boot) followed by crawfish wrapped in flounder. DIVINE. If I hadn’t had a big giant burger that day for lunch I would REALLY have gone to town on this meal but sadly I had to leave quite a lot of it as I was just so full. I will be having dreams about this meal for months to come.
So yes, the highlights of my trip are mainly food related. Sue me. The Americans know how to eat, what can I say.
The trip was great though. The weather was beautiful (fricking freezing in Boston) and we got a really hot day in Charleston which was just divine. We did SO much walking I ended up doing something horrible to my toe and had to buy some old lady type orthopaedic trainers - I was just in AGONY. We had a lovely hotel in Boston and I had some fabulous seafood. It was great to see all the things I had only ever heard about on the Freedom Trail and it was really NICE how proud of their history the people we encountered were. People were so friendly and I think I can honestly say I had a smile on my face the whole time we were there. What a contrast to London – yikes.
Anyway, there is nothing more dull than listening to someone prattle on and on and ON about their holidays so let’s just say that it was brilliant and a great time was had by all.
But now back to business. We arrived back last Tuesday morning so I have now been back almost a week. I have extended my holiday however and have now not been pointing properly for almost 4 weeks. My Zara basic trousers are now snug again and pulling across the butt. My Monsoon size 14 pants I was so pleased to get in to for my holiday are only JUST wearable and today I am wearing my weird grey Wallis size 16 trousers – they are baggy, yes, but wearable. Not cool.
So its back to the gym today and back to pointing today. I am sick of feeling all fat and bloaty. I have a LOT of social stuff coming up as well which is not great but I’m just going to have to knuckle under and do it. I am going to enquire about personal trainers tonight but may hold off on actually getting one for 2 weeks or so to get my fitness back again so its not wasted money.
Am starting to feel a little bit panicky on the wedding dress front as I kind of feel that I am now back to where I was at the start of the year in terms of weight loss. I know that’s not true and I just need a week or 10 days or so to feel better again but right now I feel VERY fat and like I am going to really really struggle in the next 11 months to lose the weight I need to for the wedding. Its 11 weeks today people!
I didn’t do any wedding stuff in the US (I had thought about going in to Priscilla of Boston, a store which does some bridesmaid dresses I really LOVE but couldn’t be bothered in the end) and I am still in love with Stephanie Allin’s Ellie dress so I will definitely try that on. My head has been turned, however, by a Caroline Castigliano dress called Beauty (it may be Beautiful – there are 2 and quite similar) which is a design I NEVER thought I would go for – strapless corsety type bodice with full skirt. I don’t know that that would really suit me though (the full skirt might make me look really short and with the size I am now, might make me look like I am as wide as I am tall) but on one of the UK forums I go on, the girls rave about it. And it IS a gorgeous dress. And no harm in looking, right?
But I am getting panicky about not being as slim as I would like before I start the dress trying on. From what I can gather, the sample dresses you try on in shops tend to be around a UK size 12 which SHOULD fit me but if they are anything smaller I might be in trouble. And I want to be quite close to the size I will be for the wedding when trying on dresses so that I can pick something I know will look good when I’m a size 8-10 and not just going for what is flattering on my size 14 body. I think I’ll make my first appointment for May 31 which is 7 and a half weeks away. Hopefully by then I’ll be a size smaller. I am worried I’ll be leaving it a bit late though. A lot of people on the UK forum seem to be getting their dresses a full YEAR in advance where as I will be choosing it 8-9 months out. I hope this is enough time...
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LATER: am back from the gym but took it pretty easy. Did 50 minutes and was quite red and sweaty at the end but didn't want to work out too much and cause myself an injury. Have signed up for 2 45min personal trainer sessions for £25 and have my first one on Friday at 7am. Time to get serious.
Monday, 7 April 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Och aye
Well since the last post (which I just posted but drafted on thursday - ahem) there have been a few updates.
On Thursday night G and I went out for drinks and dinner to celebrate the fact that he was leaving work before 9pm. It was also a BRILLIANT excuse not to have to go to the gym.
Anyway, I ended up going on something of a bender. Bit of a disaster really. We kept drinking after dinner (we went to our local Italian and we shared a starter of bruschetta and then I had a main of pasta with tomoato, aubergine and minced beef - very stodgy and an important detail for later) and I addressed all the save the date cards for the people we have addresses for. the writing got a bit wonky in the end but I'm sure that just adds to the elegant charm....
So Friday morning I felt like COMPLETE SHIT. Friday was a tough day. But I weighed myself and DIED to find that I was 66.1kg (10 stone 5.75 pounds or 145.75lb) so YAY me. As my friend A pointed out, it was no doubt due to the fact that I was a 'husk' thanks to the dehydrating effects of the alcohol, but I will take it! I've made it, I did it!!!!! I know there is a small matter of 100g but I have counted it as a success.
And WOW have I been celebrating it in style. G and I have been in Edinburgh this weekend as he had a work seminar and I decided to freeload. Our flight was delayed on Friday night so we didn't get in until quite late. I had the meal on the plane (chicken, potatoes and veges) and then when we got in I had duck spring rolls at the hotel.
On Saturday morning G had the seminar all day so I got to amuse myself. I got up and had a hotel breakfast (I really went to town on this - a sausage, 2 hash browns, some mushrooms and a poached egg, followed by a croissant with butter and jam - but SO good) then wandered around the shops and just did a spot of sightseeing. Then I bought the Lonely Planet book on Boston and took myself off to the pub for a couple of pints and some research. I didn't bother with lunch. By then it was 4.30pm and G's seminar had finished so he joined me when we got The Call.
It was his mother ringing to tell us that his father was in hospital as he was having trouble breathing. He is almost 61, fairly portly, loves his wine and rich food so it shouldn't have come as such a shock that something was going to get him eventually. The hospital suspected he had a coronary embolism (a clot on the lung) but they wouldn't be running tests until the Monday. So it was a bit of a scary moment - his mother was in pieces and we were stuck in Edinburgh and no one really knew what was going on. We have since got the call that he switched from NHS care to private and they have discovered that he has some kind of nasty infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, so he will be fine. G's mother then left a phone message on my phone telling us that he had discharged himself from hospital and was going to recuperate at home as the hosptital he was in was pretty grim. She is NOT happy about this but he is a very stubborn man.
So essentially, tomorrow night's dinner is off which G's mother is REALLY not happy about (I mean she's not saying anything but G and I know her enough to know that now he is no longer in the 'danger zone' she's probably really annoyed with him for getting ill 'on purpose' and ruining her birthday.
So now instead of having a dinner tomorrow night I think G and I are going to have to head off see them (they live about 45 minutes out of London) after work. Annoying really but never mind. At least G's father is not seriously unwell.
So this weekend has been a bit of an exercise in piggery. I had nachos for lunch today and another massive breakfast. Last night at the black tie dinner (my outfit came together beautifully, btw) I had haggis for the first time and it was BEAUTIFUL - yum! I don't think I'll bother with dinner but I'm sure G is going to make 'lets order a pizza' noises soon....
I will to go back to light eating for the next few days before America but I feel like I've made my goal so all bets are off. Might as well make hay while the sun shines as life is going to SUCK when I get back from the USA. But needs must.
On Thursday night G and I went out for drinks and dinner to celebrate the fact that he was leaving work before 9pm. It was also a BRILLIANT excuse not to have to go to the gym.
Anyway, I ended up going on something of a bender. Bit of a disaster really. We kept drinking after dinner (we went to our local Italian and we shared a starter of bruschetta and then I had a main of pasta with tomoato, aubergine and minced beef - very stodgy and an important detail for later) and I addressed all the save the date cards for the people we have addresses for. the writing got a bit wonky in the end but I'm sure that just adds to the elegant charm....
So Friday morning I felt like COMPLETE SHIT. Friday was a tough day. But I weighed myself and DIED to find that I was 66.1kg (10 stone 5.75 pounds or 145.75lb) so YAY me. As my friend A pointed out, it was no doubt due to the fact that I was a 'husk' thanks to the dehydrating effects of the alcohol, but I will take it! I've made it, I did it!!!!! I know there is a small matter of 100g but I have counted it as a success.
And WOW have I been celebrating it in style. G and I have been in Edinburgh this weekend as he had a work seminar and I decided to freeload. Our flight was delayed on Friday night so we didn't get in until quite late. I had the meal on the plane (chicken, potatoes and veges) and then when we got in I had duck spring rolls at the hotel.
On Saturday morning G had the seminar all day so I got to amuse myself. I got up and had a hotel breakfast (I really went to town on this - a sausage, 2 hash browns, some mushrooms and a poached egg, followed by a croissant with butter and jam - but SO good) then wandered around the shops and just did a spot of sightseeing. Then I bought the Lonely Planet book on Boston and took myself off to the pub for a couple of pints and some research. I didn't bother with lunch. By then it was 4.30pm and G's seminar had finished so he joined me when we got The Call.
It was his mother ringing to tell us that his father was in hospital as he was having trouble breathing. He is almost 61, fairly portly, loves his wine and rich food so it shouldn't have come as such a shock that something was going to get him eventually. The hospital suspected he had a coronary embolism (a clot on the lung) but they wouldn't be running tests until the Monday. So it was a bit of a scary moment - his mother was in pieces and we were stuck in Edinburgh and no one really knew what was going on. We have since got the call that he switched from NHS care to private and they have discovered that he has some kind of nasty infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, so he will be fine. G's mother then left a phone message on my phone telling us that he had discharged himself from hospital and was going to recuperate at home as the hosptital he was in was pretty grim. She is NOT happy about this but he is a very stubborn man.
So essentially, tomorrow night's dinner is off which G's mother is REALLY not happy about (I mean she's not saying anything but G and I know her enough to know that now he is no longer in the 'danger zone' she's probably really annoyed with him for getting ill 'on purpose' and ruining her birthday.
So now instead of having a dinner tomorrow night I think G and I are going to have to head off see them (they live about 45 minutes out of London) after work. Annoying really but never mind. At least G's father is not seriously unwell.
So this weekend has been a bit of an exercise in piggery. I had nachos for lunch today and another massive breakfast. Last night at the black tie dinner (my outfit came together beautifully, btw) I had haggis for the first time and it was BEAUTIFUL - yum! I don't think I'll bother with dinner but I'm sure G is going to make 'lets order a pizza' noises soon....
I will to go back to light eating for the next few days before America but I feel like I've made my goal so all bets are off. Might as well make hay while the sun shines as life is going to SUCK when I get back from the USA. But needs must.
RIP Motivation
Well as you can see from the title of this post, my motivation has died. I am still in mourning for it so am going through the motions but the reality is I’m going to probably ‘start my holiday early’ in terms of eating and exercising.
In good news however, I have weighed in at 66.7 for the last 2 days so I am officially in the 66s – just not the end I want to be in. I have a weigh day tomorrow then next week I will weigh in on Thursday (a week today) before we leave to Boston. Can I lose 700g (1.5lb) in a week when I’m not really dieting or exercising and have a weekend away in Edinburgh, followed by a dinner out on Monday night, followed by leaving drinks on Tuesday night? Unlikely.
I am just so tired of dieting at the moment. I have been really busy at work and so didn’t go to the gym on Monday or Tuesday night. Then when I got home on Tuesday night (I stayed at work past 8pm) I had 2 large glasses of wine (Cloudy Bay so really its not even my fault). I have been eating well in terms of meals but I have been picking a lot and not counting those points. Is it any wonder I am struggling really. I went to the gym last night and managed half an hour before wanting to die. My legs were tired after about 7 minutes on the cross trainer doing my warm up for goodness sakes! I then did a 10 minute run at my new higher level - 5mins at 9.5, 4mins at 10.0 and 1 minute at 10.5 and I was at the point of collapse by the end of it. I just couldn’t catch my breath so I KNOW I was working hard. Then I did 10 minutes on the rower at level 9 (up from 8) so at least I was working out harder than normal. After my row I sat there just feeling knackered and thought I might as well just have a cool down walk and go home.
So that’s what I did. I had tomato soup for dinner but I accidentally bought the wrong one and it was higher in fat than my normal one (and not even better tasting so BOY was I annoyed) and some little mini bruschettas and called it 13.5pts for the day. I also had a chocolate ‘nest’ with 2 crunchy eggs on top at morning tea time, courtesy of the husband of a girl I work with who loves to bake and loves that we all LOVE his baking. So I couldn’t NOT eat it. It was lovely and I could taste the butter and treacle that held it all together. Called it 2 points but I think that underestimated it by QUITE some way. Oh well.
So this weekend we have Edinburgh. G has a work conference on the Saturday so we’re going up on Friday night and will amuse ourselves that night. On the Saturday I need to find something to do that doesn’t involve spending money or revisiting all the tourist sites I went to when I last went to Edinburgh in 2003. Then on Saturday night it’s a black tie dinner for this work conference thing which will be held at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It should be nice – a drinks reception where we can wander around with our drinks looking at the paintings, then a sit down dinner. There is a seating plan and it looks like we will be seated with G’s boss but never mind. Then on the Sunday we have the day to ourselves until our flight goes at 4. So I’m not going to have any control over what I eat on the Saturday and I’m going to have to really work hard at not eating the world on the Friday night, Saturday daytime and Sunday day time.
The blacktie dinner thing threw me in to a bit of a frenzy earlier in the week when I thought ‘Faaaaaaaaaark, what am I going to wear???’ I tried on the 3 potentials in my wardrobe which were as follows:
1. the sleeveless black dress from Coast that I wore at my engagement party (size 12). Its cotton, lined, knee length, sleeveless with a v-neck (fairly low) front and back. It is really flattering with seams gathering to the side of the waist to give me a really nice hour-glass shape. It also has fabric flowers sewed on at the sides, front and back to give the dress a bit more interest (they are black and the same fabric as the dress so they’re not really standy-outy they just give it some shape). The problem is, the dress is really light and probably not that appropriate for a winter in Scotland type event. Its also probably a bit low cut to be wearing in front of G’s boss. I would need a wrap or something and I don’t have anything so that’s not really a runner. Am happy that it fits though – the last time I tried it on was for my work Xmas dinner and it was WAY too tight to be decent. So YAY!
2. the black jersey dress from Phase 8 that I wore the Chistmas before last (size12). It has ¾ length sleeves and the top crosses over to form a v-neck (its like a crossover wrap dress but without the tie and the skirt itself doesn’t wrap) and the skirt is sort of flared and goes to the knee. As its jersey, it drapes and clings to the lumps and bumps and as I bought it to wear when I was 65kg there are a few more lumps and bumps than originally. So I would need to buy some Bridget Jones undies to smooth the old silhouette. This is the front runner despite it being perhaps a touch too small.
3. the black polyester slinky material dress I wore to my work Xmas function last year because number (1) was too tight (size 16). Hideous. It was in a sale rack at Wallis and I bought it because I was desperate. It has short sleeves, a v-neck and its sort of empire-line in that the fabric is slightly gathered under the bust with some black beads and then it falls down in folds to sort of mid shin. It wasn’t flattering then and it sure is hell isn’t flattering now. Too big and just hangs in all the wrong places actually making me look bigger.
So dress number 2 it is. I need to buy some sheer stockings and also probably some shoe liners so that my Whistles shoes that I will wear with it (real cute, black, round toe, medium heel with dark green leather flowers attached to the toe) fit better (they are a size too big). So that’s what I’ll wear.
Then Monday night its G’s mother’s birthday dinner. We have a table booked for 9.30pm. Yes, REALLY. So that’s annoying but it is to accommodate G’s brother’s wife who has booked herself on a course that doesn’t finish till 9pm. I was really pushing to have the dinner on the Tuesday night instead (her birthday is the Monday) but she has a real thing about being taken out for dinner on her actual birthday day, so Monday at half past fricking midnight it is. Oh well. We are going to a fancy-pants fish restaurant in Mayfair so hopefully I should be able to eat fairly lightly if I can steer clear of the pudding and don’t drink too much wine.
In wedding news, I am still totally in love with the Stephanie Allin dress ‘Ellie’. I have yet to find a store that actually has it in stock but there is one place in Fulham that can order it in for me to try so I guess closer to the time that will be what I do. I have no idea how much it costs yet and I’m praying its not too far over £2000 which is what I will allow myself to spend on a dress. Her dresses start at £1500 apparently and it doesn’t seem to be one of her more popular designs (which really pleases me) so I may just be in luck.
I really HAVE to address the rest of the save the dates tonight so I can get them sent off tomorrow. We still don’t have quite a few addresses and I’m reluctant to send them out a few at a time, but they are mainly G’s family side so its his tough luck really as he won’t get them sorted out.
Other than that, no other wedding news. Still no idea yet if our friends who recently got engaged, T and J are having a big Australian wedding or just keeping it to family. I mean there is no way really that we can go – especially as they haven’t even given the dates yet, but G is still talking about it like he thinks we might have to. He hates letting people down and has a real thing about not going to things he’s been invited to but in this instance I think it is more likely we would get the ‘politeness invite’ and it would actually be more embarrassing for all if we went than if we didn’t. Time will tell.
In good news however, I have weighed in at 66.7 for the last 2 days so I am officially in the 66s – just not the end I want to be in. I have a weigh day tomorrow then next week I will weigh in on Thursday (a week today) before we leave to Boston. Can I lose 700g (1.5lb) in a week when I’m not really dieting or exercising and have a weekend away in Edinburgh, followed by a dinner out on Monday night, followed by leaving drinks on Tuesday night? Unlikely.
I am just so tired of dieting at the moment. I have been really busy at work and so didn’t go to the gym on Monday or Tuesday night. Then when I got home on Tuesday night (I stayed at work past 8pm) I had 2 large glasses of wine (Cloudy Bay so really its not even my fault). I have been eating well in terms of meals but I have been picking a lot and not counting those points. Is it any wonder I am struggling really. I went to the gym last night and managed half an hour before wanting to die. My legs were tired after about 7 minutes on the cross trainer doing my warm up for goodness sakes! I then did a 10 minute run at my new higher level - 5mins at 9.5, 4mins at 10.0 and 1 minute at 10.5 and I was at the point of collapse by the end of it. I just couldn’t catch my breath so I KNOW I was working hard. Then I did 10 minutes on the rower at level 9 (up from 8) so at least I was working out harder than normal. After my row I sat there just feeling knackered and thought I might as well just have a cool down walk and go home.
So that’s what I did. I had tomato soup for dinner but I accidentally bought the wrong one and it was higher in fat than my normal one (and not even better tasting so BOY was I annoyed) and some little mini bruschettas and called it 13.5pts for the day. I also had a chocolate ‘nest’ with 2 crunchy eggs on top at morning tea time, courtesy of the husband of a girl I work with who loves to bake and loves that we all LOVE his baking. So I couldn’t NOT eat it. It was lovely and I could taste the butter and treacle that held it all together. Called it 2 points but I think that underestimated it by QUITE some way. Oh well.
So this weekend we have Edinburgh. G has a work conference on the Saturday so we’re going up on Friday night and will amuse ourselves that night. On the Saturday I need to find something to do that doesn’t involve spending money or revisiting all the tourist sites I went to when I last went to Edinburgh in 2003. Then on Saturday night it’s a black tie dinner for this work conference thing which will be held at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It should be nice – a drinks reception where we can wander around with our drinks looking at the paintings, then a sit down dinner. There is a seating plan and it looks like we will be seated with G’s boss but never mind. Then on the Sunday we have the day to ourselves until our flight goes at 4. So I’m not going to have any control over what I eat on the Saturday and I’m going to have to really work hard at not eating the world on the Friday night, Saturday daytime and Sunday day time.
The blacktie dinner thing threw me in to a bit of a frenzy earlier in the week when I thought ‘Faaaaaaaaaark, what am I going to wear???’ I tried on the 3 potentials in my wardrobe which were as follows:
1. the sleeveless black dress from Coast that I wore at my engagement party (size 12). Its cotton, lined, knee length, sleeveless with a v-neck (fairly low) front and back. It is really flattering with seams gathering to the side of the waist to give me a really nice hour-glass shape. It also has fabric flowers sewed on at the sides, front and back to give the dress a bit more interest (they are black and the same fabric as the dress so they’re not really standy-outy they just give it some shape). The problem is, the dress is really light and probably not that appropriate for a winter in Scotland type event. Its also probably a bit low cut to be wearing in front of G’s boss. I would need a wrap or something and I don’t have anything so that’s not really a runner. Am happy that it fits though – the last time I tried it on was for my work Xmas dinner and it was WAY too tight to be decent. So YAY!
2. the black jersey dress from Phase 8 that I wore the Chistmas before last (size12). It has ¾ length sleeves and the top crosses over to form a v-neck (its like a crossover wrap dress but without the tie and the skirt itself doesn’t wrap) and the skirt is sort of flared and goes to the knee. As its jersey, it drapes and clings to the lumps and bumps and as I bought it to wear when I was 65kg there are a few more lumps and bumps than originally. So I would need to buy some Bridget Jones undies to smooth the old silhouette. This is the front runner despite it being perhaps a touch too small.
3. the black polyester slinky material dress I wore to my work Xmas function last year because number (1) was too tight (size 16). Hideous. It was in a sale rack at Wallis and I bought it because I was desperate. It has short sleeves, a v-neck and its sort of empire-line in that the fabric is slightly gathered under the bust with some black beads and then it falls down in folds to sort of mid shin. It wasn’t flattering then and it sure is hell isn’t flattering now. Too big and just hangs in all the wrong places actually making me look bigger.
So dress number 2 it is. I need to buy some sheer stockings and also probably some shoe liners so that my Whistles shoes that I will wear with it (real cute, black, round toe, medium heel with dark green leather flowers attached to the toe) fit better (they are a size too big). So that’s what I’ll wear.
Then Monday night its G’s mother’s birthday dinner. We have a table booked for 9.30pm. Yes, REALLY. So that’s annoying but it is to accommodate G’s brother’s wife who has booked herself on a course that doesn’t finish till 9pm. I was really pushing to have the dinner on the Tuesday night instead (her birthday is the Monday) but she has a real thing about being taken out for dinner on her actual birthday day, so Monday at half past fricking midnight it is. Oh well. We are going to a fancy-pants fish restaurant in Mayfair so hopefully I should be able to eat fairly lightly if I can steer clear of the pudding and don’t drink too much wine.
In wedding news, I am still totally in love with the Stephanie Allin dress ‘Ellie’. I have yet to find a store that actually has it in stock but there is one place in Fulham that can order it in for me to try so I guess closer to the time that will be what I do. I have no idea how much it costs yet and I’m praying its not too far over £2000 which is what I will allow myself to spend on a dress. Her dresses start at £1500 apparently and it doesn’t seem to be one of her more popular designs (which really pleases me) so I may just be in luck.
I really HAVE to address the rest of the save the dates tonight so I can get them sent off tomorrow. We still don’t have quite a few addresses and I’m reluctant to send them out a few at a time, but they are mainly G’s family side so its his tough luck really as he won’t get them sorted out.
Other than that, no other wedding news. Still no idea yet if our friends who recently got engaged, T and J are having a big Australian wedding or just keeping it to family. I mean there is no way really that we can go – especially as they haven’t even given the dates yet, but G is still talking about it like he thinks we might have to. He hates letting people down and has a real thing about not going to things he’s been invited to but in this instance I think it is more likely we would get the ‘politeness invite’ and it would actually be more embarrassing for all if we went than if we didn’t. Time will tell.
Monday, 10 March 2008
A plea to the Scale Gods
Well after congratulating myself on my weigh in at 67.0 on Thursday, I have fricking well continued to gain. Fuckit. I am still up on that weight, weighing in today at 67.2kg. Its not much but it IS a gain and at a time when I am desperate to see 66.something on the scale, its killing me.
I went to the gym twice this weekend, increasing my levels on the machine yesterday and my butt and legs know all about it. I also kept my points to under 18 but I went awry with my alcohol points (20.5 total for last week).
I haven't gone to the gym tonight as work is a little mad but am planning to go tomorrow and thursday. Wednesday night I MAY be going out for a friend's birthday drinks but its G's friend and if he's working late then I won't go and will go to the gym instead. Friday night we're off to Edinburgh for the weekend and I will be VALIANTLY trying to keep it together for the last week. With so much socialising to come, its not going to be pretty.
I went to the gym twice this weekend, increasing my levels on the machine yesterday and my butt and legs know all about it. I also kept my points to under 18 but I went awry with my alcohol points (20.5 total for last week).
I haven't gone to the gym tonight as work is a little mad but am planning to go tomorrow and thursday. Wednesday night I MAY be going out for a friend's birthday drinks but its G's friend and if he's working late then I won't go and will go to the gym instead. Friday night we're off to Edinburgh for the weekend and I will be VALIANTLY trying to keep it together for the last week. With so much socialising to come, its not going to be pretty.
Sorry for the blah post. Am just not feeling enthusiastic about reaching my goal and I'm SO disappointed. Scale Gods, if you're listening, I would love you forever if you could just let me reach this goal. Sincerely, WideBride.
Friday, 7 March 2008
Food porn...
Yesterday was a really great day.
I weighed in at a cool 67.0kg and wore my new size 14 Monsoon trousers to work. I just felt great, like I was finally on my way. Then G and I went to Gaucho Grill for our special 1-year-since-we-got-engaged anniversary dinner. If you have not eaten there, RUN don’t walk to your nearest branch. Oh. My. God. The food was so good. I tried to make diet friendly choices but it just wasn’t happening. As part of the bread basket (school-girl error I know) there were these cheese soufflé thingees. I can’t describe them but they were HEAVEN. I managed to stop at only three quarters of one but it was a close run thing. WOW. G and I shared 3 empiladas for starters (yes, pastry encased deep fried deliciousness) and then I had a 225g fillet steak for my mains. It was the smallest one on the menu and I didn’t quite manage to finish it (that would be all the chunky cut chips filling me up). To wash it all down, I’m ashamed to say we went on something of a bender. I had a glass of sparkling wine to start, shared a bottle of 14% malbec, then had a port and another glass of red wine.
So today was NOT a great day.
I weighed in at 67.6kg but am not panicking about it because I had a huge dinner and we ate late. Although today is my official weigh in day, I am going to see what the scale says tomorrow before I post on the online WW site. I don’t want to screw up my pretty little graph especially with a false gain. I know some might count this as ‘cheating’ but its my weight loss and I’m rolling with it.
I have eaten well today but have been pretty hungry all day. I realised last night that I couldn’t remember the last time I actually felt so stuffed full. It was not pleasant but clearly it has stretched my stomach and now it wants MORE MORE MORE. I am sitting at 10 points today with 4 to go (I have no idea how many points I consumed yesterday so am putting all my previously saved points of which there were 12 towards last night’s dinner, meaning I had 22.5 to spend on dinner – there is no way that meal was only 22.5 but I’m hoping to save as many points as possible this weekend which I won’t eat) and dinner is quorn sausages and baby potatoes.
So today is ONE YEAR EXACTLY to go!!! YAY! I am so excited. And I think I found my dress today. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day. It’s a Stephanie Allin design called ‘Ellie’. It’s just beautiful – I’ll try and post a picture. Can’t wait to try it on!
I weighed in at a cool 67.0kg and wore my new size 14 Monsoon trousers to work. I just felt great, like I was finally on my way. Then G and I went to Gaucho Grill for our special 1-year-since-we-got-engaged anniversary dinner. If you have not eaten there, RUN don’t walk to your nearest branch. Oh. My. God. The food was so good. I tried to make diet friendly choices but it just wasn’t happening. As part of the bread basket (school-girl error I know) there were these cheese soufflé thingees. I can’t describe them but they were HEAVEN. I managed to stop at only three quarters of one but it was a close run thing. WOW. G and I shared 3 empiladas for starters (yes, pastry encased deep fried deliciousness) and then I had a 225g fillet steak for my mains. It was the smallest one on the menu and I didn’t quite manage to finish it (that would be all the chunky cut chips filling me up). To wash it all down, I’m ashamed to say we went on something of a bender. I had a glass of sparkling wine to start, shared a bottle of 14% malbec, then had a port and another glass of red wine.
So today was NOT a great day.
I weighed in at 67.6kg but am not panicking about it because I had a huge dinner and we ate late. Although today is my official weigh in day, I am going to see what the scale says tomorrow before I post on the online WW site. I don’t want to screw up my pretty little graph especially with a false gain. I know some might count this as ‘cheating’ but its my weight loss and I’m rolling with it.
I have eaten well today but have been pretty hungry all day. I realised last night that I couldn’t remember the last time I actually felt so stuffed full. It was not pleasant but clearly it has stretched my stomach and now it wants MORE MORE MORE. I am sitting at 10 points today with 4 to go (I have no idea how many points I consumed yesterday so am putting all my previously saved points of which there were 12 towards last night’s dinner, meaning I had 22.5 to spend on dinner – there is no way that meal was only 22.5 but I’m hoping to save as many points as possible this weekend which I won’t eat) and dinner is quorn sausages and baby potatoes.
So today is ONE YEAR EXACTLY to go!!! YAY! I am so excited. And I think I found my dress today. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day. It’s a Stephanie Allin design called ‘Ellie’. It’s just beautiful – I’ll try and post a picture. Can’t wait to try it on!
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
You're gonna need to refill your coffee mug before you start on this one...
A few surprises this morning – on the scale I was down to 67.3 (down from 67.9 earlier in the week) and then when I went to put my ZW suit trousers on THAT I WAS WEARING YESTERDAY they felt quite loose and baggy. I have put it down to the fact that I didn’t have a proper dinner last night as I had a work event to go to so I only had 2 large glasses of champagne (am calling it 3 points and you can’t stop me) and 3 canapés (2 points – they weren’t the really nice fried-looking ones) so when I got home at 11pm it was all I could do to open a tin of pears and spoon some yoghurt on the top and eat it while half asleep on the sofa. I had 13.5pts for the whole day yesterday so its no wonder I’m feeling a bit lighter today. Weirdly though I was still puffy when I woke up so I was retaining water somehow.
Anyway, I’ll take it. Only 1.3kg to go in 2 weeks 1 day to make my target – oh PLEASE let me get there.
I felt pretty good yesterday wearing my ZW suit and a size 12 Pink (brand not colour. Well, actually colour as well) business shirt which I hadn’t worn in ages because it was too tight. It was a little snug and gaped a little bit (especially by the afternoon after I had had lunch and 2 litres of water) but I was very pleased to be in it.
So I thought I might recount the tale of my first WW attempt, back in 2000 – and more importantly the mother of all binges that followed. By the time I joined WW I weighed 72.1kg (I think – all my old WW stuff is back in NZ) and I had already lost quite a bit of weight before then and was wearing size 14 trousers for the first time in my adult life. I remember feeling a little put out when I went along to join that people weren’t looking at me and going ‘what are YOU doing here, you don’t need to lose weight’. In my head I knew I needed to lose weight but because I was lighter than I had been in ages I kind of wanted recognition for the fact that I wasn’t as big as some of the other members.
Actually I probably need to go back a bit and explain what was going on with me at the time. In 1999 I was 23, I had just started my first real job after university. I was working hard and it was really quite stressful. I was a NZ size 16 which is a fairly generous size so more like a UK size 18 I guess. I had been watching what I ate and started running but an Achilles tendon strain put paid to that pretty shortly after. After my first real big important project, I got sick – some sort of gastro bug type thing in November of that year. I had also just split up with my boyfriend of 2 years who I was living with and had moved in to a flat share with people I hadn’t previously known. I spent a week in bed feeling very fragile and sorry for myself and when I finally resurfaced, I had lost an entire dress size! It was great! I was down to a size 14 which was the smallest I had been since I was about 13 or 14 years old.
I decided to capitalise on my weight loss and continued to watch what I ate. Then I had a brief summer romance with a guy who lived in another city who I had met at university. It soon fizzled but I was GUTTED when he split up with me in February of 2000. I really was heartbroken and cried and cried and cried. God only knows why, looking back, because he was a complete dick and he bored the hell out of me. I guess it was because he was a little older than me, educated (the ex I had broken up with was not smart, not funny, smoked dope which I hated and was not physically attractive to me. Begs the question why I was with him but he really loved me and treated me well. I grew out of him really, as my confidence grew after finishing university and starting a great job he just wasn’t fitting in with where I wanted my life to go), ambitious and we had a lot in common as we both did the same job and were both at the same stage of life.
Anyway, we broke up and I took it hard. I lost a bit of weight without even trying because I was so upset (this later proved to be not a good thing as I copped on to the fact that breaking up with someone obviously made me lose my appetite and therefore lose weight, so I became conscious of it in the future and once I was waiting to feel ‘not hungry’ I never felt ‘not hungry’ and ate, thus putting on weight. Stupid awareness).
About a month after that, I met another guy at a party and quickly forgot about summer romance guy. This guy, lets call him Poisonous Dwarf or PD for short, was EVERYTHING I wanted in a guy. He was cute (kind of looked like Kevin Spacey who I have always fancied), very witty and funny, mean and sarcastic humour, a real ‘guy’s guy’. He was short though, barely taller than me and I’m only 156cm or 5’2, hence the name ‘PD’. And he WAS poisonous. A lot of my friends hated him and thought he was a complete jerk because he was so mean, so cutting. But I thought he was hilarious and used to love being as equally mean and cutting (this was to prove my undoing).
We ‘saw each other’ for maybe a few months but it was never a real relationship as much as I wanted it to be. And the more I wanted it to be, the more he pulled away and I acted like a complete psycho. I mean if there was ONE time in my life that I could go back and change and do over, it would be how I acted with PD. Awful.
Anyway, he didn’t even need to tell me it was over, it was so completely obvious after a miserable weekend away with a group of friends. I had started to gain a bit of weight back at that stage as well thanks to all the alcohol I was consuming, and hangovers that needed to be fed burgers the next day.
I was so ANGRY after that ‘break up’, probably more angry than I was sad. I was mainly angry at myself for acting like a complete freak but I was angry at him too, for not wanting to be with me. I was COOL dammit! But clearly I was not.
So I decided I was going to get even. I was going to diet and get thin and THEN he would be sorry. And so I joined WW. This would have been maybe in June or so of 2000. I had joined a gym as well and was going 5 times a week in the morning before work. I started off doing 3 1 hour sessions of cardio and 2 sessions of weights per week and then went hell for leather doing an hour and a half at the gym a day, combining about 50 minutes of cardio (different machines for 10 mins each) and a weights programme. I did fairly well at WW, my first week I lost 1.3kg (sound familiar?) and thereafter I lost a lot slower. I can’t now remember how long I attended meetings for but it was for the rest of that year and probably until the March or so of 2001.
I got down to 58kg and I was looking GOOD. I was wearing size 10 trousers and sometimes a size 8 top. People were commenting all the time about how fabulous I looked. I felt like I had made it. I remember I took a month off over Christmas of that year as it just got too hard with all the socialising and I only gained 1kg over that period. Gotta love that youthful metabolism.
Looking back, god knows how I managed to lose so much weight as I must have been grossly underestimating my points. I remember scones on WW were 2 points each – of course they meant tiny little drop-scones that you would have with tea and jam but the supermarket near where I worked sold these GORGEOUS cheese scones about the size of a coffee mug which I would count as 3 (making the grand concession of adding an extra point for the cheese!). Every morning I had a starbucks non fat latte which I counted as 1.5pts when they are in fact 2.5. Every week I would go out and end up drinking way too much at least one night and then just kind of not count those points (but I would save lots of points from the rest of the week). So it really was a miracle that I lose weight (the 6-7.5 hours at the gym each week probably also helped).
My willpower was fuelled by daydreams of seeing PD at a party somewhere when I had got down to my goal weight (that elusive 55kg) where he would realise what a fool he had been and want to get back together again. I had an outfit in my mind that I would be wearing – dark jeans and a black v-neck knit sleeveless top and he would regret that he had ditched me. I hadn’t decided whether I would take him back or not but either way he was going to suffer (it was all very melodramatic in my mind – clearly I was channelling Days of our Lives or similar).
But by about March of 2001, my anger had died down. I no longer really cared about PD. I was surprised I hadn’t seen him out as we ran in the sort of same circle of friends and I still hoped I would bump in to him one day so he could see what he was missing. But I just got so fricking sick of dieting. I was so so so tired of it. I started kind of giving myself a week off here and there and just having a break, filled with resolve to get back on it later. My WW goal weight had been purposely set high so I could stop paying sooner so I hit that (I think it was around 60kg) and even though I had another 5kg I wanted to lose, mentally I kind of gave up as well.
I remember the last time I went to a meeting (I didn’t know it was the last time at that stage). I weighed in on a Monday night and that night I had worn a light cotton shift dress (I knew it would weigh next to nothing and so I’d have a happy result on the scales). I weighed in at 58kg (might have been 58.something but I can’t recall) and was feeling pleased. Relieved. And tired. Afterwards, I went off to the video rental place (god, videos!!) to drop off some videos and pick up some more and go to the supermarket etc. While I was in the video store I walked past a freezer that had icecreams in it – you know, popsicles, cornettos etc and I just remember thinking ‘That’s it, I’m done’.
I walked out of the shop, in to the supermarket and filled up my basket with non-diet foods. No idea what but it wouldn’t have been good – biscuits, bread and butter and crap probably. And with that, I finished WW for the first time.
I don’t know what it was that made me so firmly stop dieting. There really was no question of me going back. I thought I could handle it. I thought I’m thin now, I struggled really hard to get here and while I didn’t make it to 55kg it was only a few kilos off. I worked hard and I don’t need to do this anymore. I gave the WW maintenance guidelines a quick lookover but I didn’t think I needed it. I was done.
I remember feeling a niggling irritation that I might gain back some weight before my older sister who lives in Melbourne next saw me. She is 10 years older than me and moved to Australia when I was 9 years old. As a chubby child and a fat teenager, she only ever saw me overweight although she had managed to slay her fat dragon (all the girls in my family have weight issues). I really wanted her to see me slim. We talked on the phone a bit and she nearly fell over when I told her I had reached 50-something kilos because although she is not tall either (5’4) she is of a much bigger build than me and 64kg for her is pretty trim. She was due to come over for a visit that Easter (April) and I remember trying to hold it together a bit before she saw me. I was really nervous about it actually – I really wanted her to see that I could do it. I had probably gone back to 59-60 when I did see her and it was still a massive shock (the last time she saw me would have been when I was 75kg+) as I probably didn’t look any different with that tiny gain. But I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t quite made it.
Well it was a slippery slope from there on in. I have thought about this a lot since and wonder just what it was that made me really binge that year. Because binge I did. By the time I met my then boyfriend in December 2001, I was back up to a size 16. Not that he minded. And interestingly he was the first guy I had any attention from since PD, despite being way thinner (and therefore in my mind, and probably in reality for me, way hotter) for most of the year prior.
And why did I binge? At this stage of my life I had been out of university for a year. I had a pretty mental boss who was REALLY hard on me. She controlled me in any way she could – calling me up at 6am to tell me that the office had run out of pads of paper; she would give me the silent treatment if she felt I had not spoken to her enough at a work social event; she would fly in to absolute RAGES for no reason and scream and shout and slam things around. It really was pretty incredible. At that stage in my office there was me, a middle aged female receptionist who was lovely and a guy who was at my level work-wise but probably 5 or so years older. My boss would really take stuff out on me and the receptionist but she didn’t really do it to the same extent with my male colleague – although he saw her craziness daily.
The weirdest part about her though, was her capacity for kindness and generosity which always took you by surprise and made the craziness that much worse to bear. We used to say it was like being in a violent relationship – she would be fine, then the tension would build and you knew something was coming, you would walk around on eggshells hoping it wasn’t YOU that set her off, then she would go NUTS and you’d limp home at the end of the day, exhausted and feeling emotionally wrought. Then the next day you would creep in to work and she would come bounding out of her office saying ‘let’s all take the afternoon off and go out for lunch today, my treat’ or you would come in and there would be a gift from her of jewellery or makeup for no reason whatsoever. It was so exhausting and you just never knew where you stood.
Around April or so of the following year, 2002, me and my colleague were both asked to enter in to new contracts to stay where we were working. The terms were fairly onerous and didn’t really offer us any more security or perks. We had a month to decide what to do but my mind was made up pretty much immediately really – as was his. I decided not to renew but because of my relationship with my boss and my need to keep in good with her (I work in a pretty small industry where relationships are everything) I knew that I had to tell her face to face. I went to her home (she used to work from home a lot) and told her I wouldn’t be staying on. She got such a shock – it was quite gratifying although I HATE that kind of confrontation or feeling like I’m letting someone down). She immediately wanted to know what I was going to do and I just said in an as enigmatic way as possible that I was exploring a few possibilities. It didn’t go down well, but too late she realised that she may have thrown her crazy at us too many times and now that we were no longer working for her, she couldn’t control what we said and to WHOM (as I said, we were in a small industry) she then became as nice as pie to me and treated me like a respected colleague rather than her punching bag. The receptionist didn’t fare so well unfortunately and left a few months later.
So having removed myself from that poisonous situation, I was faced with the prospect of going it alone. Despite being only out of university for 2 years by that stage, I decided to go free-lance and build up a business based on my contacts and reputation (the woman was nuts but she knew EVERYONE and I will always be grateful for that). And this is where I wonder if the binging really kicked in. I was doing it before then for sure, but I really upped the scale and ferocity of my binges – and they WERE ferocious.
At this stage I had moved out of my flat share and was sharing a small flat with my cousin who was a few years younger. We didn’t cook or eat together because our schedules were quite different and that meant I was pretty much not bothering with any normal meals (except MAYBE breakfast) and just eating crap. I am not joking, I wouldn’t have dinner. Instead I would go to bed and read my book and eat an entire (or as close to as I could get) orange chocolate marble sponge cake. In bed. With a fork. I would then have a really uncomfortable night’s sleep, sweating and feeling desperately sick. On the weekends if my cousin was out, I would have fish and chips for dinner, usually with a few deep fried battered oysters. I went through a service station pie phase where I could easily have two for dinner with a cupcake chaser. I became addicted to baked goods – specifically caramel slice and chocolate mint slice. And a particular supermarket near where I lived sold divine little orange flavoured donuts. I really went to town.
Was I eating to cover my anxiety of going out on a limb with my job? Was I comfort eating through the stress of trying to make a living for myself? Was I eating with gay abandon to celebrate leaving a really difficult, toxic work environment? Was it that a diet where I had to control and restrict myself just did not fit in with my new found sense of freedom? Was it that I did not feel comfortable in my new-found ‘thin’ skin? Was it all of this?
I think there is definitely something in the feeling of liberation I felt not working for Beelzebub anymore and not wanting to hamper this feeling by restricting myself. It also felt a lot like moving out of home, away from strict parents and that inevitable going off the rails that seems to be a rite of passage. And it is also true that it was fricking stressful. I didn’t have a regular wage coming in. If I didn’t get the work, I didn’t get the money to pay the bills. At my fairly tender age, that was kind of scary. And food was comforting – I mean what could be better than knowing you could eat 6 rounds of toast with butter and honey IN BED any time you wanted? There was no ill THAT couldn’t cure.
But at the time, and I did try and analyse this at the time, I really didn’t think I was stress eating. I really didn’t think I was comfort eating. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t going to starve and I wasn’t going to fail. I had options. It was stressful and a little isolating at times, but I was enjoying it. So what was I eating for?
Well this has been the longest post ever so will stop navel-gazing now. I will reflect on this – this has been a really useful exercise actually and I know I will see patterns emerging when I write about my next 2 diet/binge episodes so this will hopefully arm me for the future. Because I really can’t go through all this again.
Anyway, I’ll take it. Only 1.3kg to go in 2 weeks 1 day to make my target – oh PLEASE let me get there.
I felt pretty good yesterday wearing my ZW suit and a size 12 Pink (brand not colour. Well, actually colour as well) business shirt which I hadn’t worn in ages because it was too tight. It was a little snug and gaped a little bit (especially by the afternoon after I had had lunch and 2 litres of water) but I was very pleased to be in it.
So I thought I might recount the tale of my first WW attempt, back in 2000 – and more importantly the mother of all binges that followed. By the time I joined WW I weighed 72.1kg (I think – all my old WW stuff is back in NZ) and I had already lost quite a bit of weight before then and was wearing size 14 trousers for the first time in my adult life. I remember feeling a little put out when I went along to join that people weren’t looking at me and going ‘what are YOU doing here, you don’t need to lose weight’. In my head I knew I needed to lose weight but because I was lighter than I had been in ages I kind of wanted recognition for the fact that I wasn’t as big as some of the other members.
Actually I probably need to go back a bit and explain what was going on with me at the time. In 1999 I was 23, I had just started my first real job after university. I was working hard and it was really quite stressful. I was a NZ size 16 which is a fairly generous size so more like a UK size 18 I guess. I had been watching what I ate and started running but an Achilles tendon strain put paid to that pretty shortly after. After my first real big important project, I got sick – some sort of gastro bug type thing in November of that year. I had also just split up with my boyfriend of 2 years who I was living with and had moved in to a flat share with people I hadn’t previously known. I spent a week in bed feeling very fragile and sorry for myself and when I finally resurfaced, I had lost an entire dress size! It was great! I was down to a size 14 which was the smallest I had been since I was about 13 or 14 years old.
I decided to capitalise on my weight loss and continued to watch what I ate. Then I had a brief summer romance with a guy who lived in another city who I had met at university. It soon fizzled but I was GUTTED when he split up with me in February of 2000. I really was heartbroken and cried and cried and cried. God only knows why, looking back, because he was a complete dick and he bored the hell out of me. I guess it was because he was a little older than me, educated (the ex I had broken up with was not smart, not funny, smoked dope which I hated and was not physically attractive to me. Begs the question why I was with him but he really loved me and treated me well. I grew out of him really, as my confidence grew after finishing university and starting a great job he just wasn’t fitting in with where I wanted my life to go), ambitious and we had a lot in common as we both did the same job and were both at the same stage of life.
Anyway, we broke up and I took it hard. I lost a bit of weight without even trying because I was so upset (this later proved to be not a good thing as I copped on to the fact that breaking up with someone obviously made me lose my appetite and therefore lose weight, so I became conscious of it in the future and once I was waiting to feel ‘not hungry’ I never felt ‘not hungry’ and ate, thus putting on weight. Stupid awareness).
About a month after that, I met another guy at a party and quickly forgot about summer romance guy. This guy, lets call him Poisonous Dwarf or PD for short, was EVERYTHING I wanted in a guy. He was cute (kind of looked like Kevin Spacey who I have always fancied), very witty and funny, mean and sarcastic humour, a real ‘guy’s guy’. He was short though, barely taller than me and I’m only 156cm or 5’2, hence the name ‘PD’. And he WAS poisonous. A lot of my friends hated him and thought he was a complete jerk because he was so mean, so cutting. But I thought he was hilarious and used to love being as equally mean and cutting (this was to prove my undoing).
We ‘saw each other’ for maybe a few months but it was never a real relationship as much as I wanted it to be. And the more I wanted it to be, the more he pulled away and I acted like a complete psycho. I mean if there was ONE time in my life that I could go back and change and do over, it would be how I acted with PD. Awful.
Anyway, he didn’t even need to tell me it was over, it was so completely obvious after a miserable weekend away with a group of friends. I had started to gain a bit of weight back at that stage as well thanks to all the alcohol I was consuming, and hangovers that needed to be fed burgers the next day.
I was so ANGRY after that ‘break up’, probably more angry than I was sad. I was mainly angry at myself for acting like a complete freak but I was angry at him too, for not wanting to be with me. I was COOL dammit! But clearly I was not.
So I decided I was going to get even. I was going to diet and get thin and THEN he would be sorry. And so I joined WW. This would have been maybe in June or so of 2000. I had joined a gym as well and was going 5 times a week in the morning before work. I started off doing 3 1 hour sessions of cardio and 2 sessions of weights per week and then went hell for leather doing an hour and a half at the gym a day, combining about 50 minutes of cardio (different machines for 10 mins each) and a weights programme. I did fairly well at WW, my first week I lost 1.3kg (sound familiar?) and thereafter I lost a lot slower. I can’t now remember how long I attended meetings for but it was for the rest of that year and probably until the March or so of 2001.
I got down to 58kg and I was looking GOOD. I was wearing size 10 trousers and sometimes a size 8 top. People were commenting all the time about how fabulous I looked. I felt like I had made it. I remember I took a month off over Christmas of that year as it just got too hard with all the socialising and I only gained 1kg over that period. Gotta love that youthful metabolism.
Looking back, god knows how I managed to lose so much weight as I must have been grossly underestimating my points. I remember scones on WW were 2 points each – of course they meant tiny little drop-scones that you would have with tea and jam but the supermarket near where I worked sold these GORGEOUS cheese scones about the size of a coffee mug which I would count as 3 (making the grand concession of adding an extra point for the cheese!). Every morning I had a starbucks non fat latte which I counted as 1.5pts when they are in fact 2.5. Every week I would go out and end up drinking way too much at least one night and then just kind of not count those points (but I would save lots of points from the rest of the week). So it really was a miracle that I lose weight (the 6-7.5 hours at the gym each week probably also helped).
My willpower was fuelled by daydreams of seeing PD at a party somewhere when I had got down to my goal weight (that elusive 55kg) where he would realise what a fool he had been and want to get back together again. I had an outfit in my mind that I would be wearing – dark jeans and a black v-neck knit sleeveless top and he would regret that he had ditched me. I hadn’t decided whether I would take him back or not but either way he was going to suffer (it was all very melodramatic in my mind – clearly I was channelling Days of our Lives or similar).
But by about March of 2001, my anger had died down. I no longer really cared about PD. I was surprised I hadn’t seen him out as we ran in the sort of same circle of friends and I still hoped I would bump in to him one day so he could see what he was missing. But I just got so fricking sick of dieting. I was so so so tired of it. I started kind of giving myself a week off here and there and just having a break, filled with resolve to get back on it later. My WW goal weight had been purposely set high so I could stop paying sooner so I hit that (I think it was around 60kg) and even though I had another 5kg I wanted to lose, mentally I kind of gave up as well.
I remember the last time I went to a meeting (I didn’t know it was the last time at that stage). I weighed in on a Monday night and that night I had worn a light cotton shift dress (I knew it would weigh next to nothing and so I’d have a happy result on the scales). I weighed in at 58kg (might have been 58.something but I can’t recall) and was feeling pleased. Relieved. And tired. Afterwards, I went off to the video rental place (god, videos!!) to drop off some videos and pick up some more and go to the supermarket etc. While I was in the video store I walked past a freezer that had icecreams in it – you know, popsicles, cornettos etc and I just remember thinking ‘That’s it, I’m done’.
I walked out of the shop, in to the supermarket and filled up my basket with non-diet foods. No idea what but it wouldn’t have been good – biscuits, bread and butter and crap probably. And with that, I finished WW for the first time.
I don’t know what it was that made me so firmly stop dieting. There really was no question of me going back. I thought I could handle it. I thought I’m thin now, I struggled really hard to get here and while I didn’t make it to 55kg it was only a few kilos off. I worked hard and I don’t need to do this anymore. I gave the WW maintenance guidelines a quick lookover but I didn’t think I needed it. I was done.
I remember feeling a niggling irritation that I might gain back some weight before my older sister who lives in Melbourne next saw me. She is 10 years older than me and moved to Australia when I was 9 years old. As a chubby child and a fat teenager, she only ever saw me overweight although she had managed to slay her fat dragon (all the girls in my family have weight issues). I really wanted her to see me slim. We talked on the phone a bit and she nearly fell over when I told her I had reached 50-something kilos because although she is not tall either (5’4) she is of a much bigger build than me and 64kg for her is pretty trim. She was due to come over for a visit that Easter (April) and I remember trying to hold it together a bit before she saw me. I was really nervous about it actually – I really wanted her to see that I could do it. I had probably gone back to 59-60 when I did see her and it was still a massive shock (the last time she saw me would have been when I was 75kg+) as I probably didn’t look any different with that tiny gain. But I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t quite made it.
Well it was a slippery slope from there on in. I have thought about this a lot since and wonder just what it was that made me really binge that year. Because binge I did. By the time I met my then boyfriend in December 2001, I was back up to a size 16. Not that he minded. And interestingly he was the first guy I had any attention from since PD, despite being way thinner (and therefore in my mind, and probably in reality for me, way hotter) for most of the year prior.
And why did I binge? At this stage of my life I had been out of university for a year. I had a pretty mental boss who was REALLY hard on me. She controlled me in any way she could – calling me up at 6am to tell me that the office had run out of pads of paper; she would give me the silent treatment if she felt I had not spoken to her enough at a work social event; she would fly in to absolute RAGES for no reason and scream and shout and slam things around. It really was pretty incredible. At that stage in my office there was me, a middle aged female receptionist who was lovely and a guy who was at my level work-wise but probably 5 or so years older. My boss would really take stuff out on me and the receptionist but she didn’t really do it to the same extent with my male colleague – although he saw her craziness daily.
The weirdest part about her though, was her capacity for kindness and generosity which always took you by surprise and made the craziness that much worse to bear. We used to say it was like being in a violent relationship – she would be fine, then the tension would build and you knew something was coming, you would walk around on eggshells hoping it wasn’t YOU that set her off, then she would go NUTS and you’d limp home at the end of the day, exhausted and feeling emotionally wrought. Then the next day you would creep in to work and she would come bounding out of her office saying ‘let’s all take the afternoon off and go out for lunch today, my treat’ or you would come in and there would be a gift from her of jewellery or makeup for no reason whatsoever. It was so exhausting and you just never knew where you stood.
Around April or so of the following year, 2002, me and my colleague were both asked to enter in to new contracts to stay where we were working. The terms were fairly onerous and didn’t really offer us any more security or perks. We had a month to decide what to do but my mind was made up pretty much immediately really – as was his. I decided not to renew but because of my relationship with my boss and my need to keep in good with her (I work in a pretty small industry where relationships are everything) I knew that I had to tell her face to face. I went to her home (she used to work from home a lot) and told her I wouldn’t be staying on. She got such a shock – it was quite gratifying although I HATE that kind of confrontation or feeling like I’m letting someone down). She immediately wanted to know what I was going to do and I just said in an as enigmatic way as possible that I was exploring a few possibilities. It didn’t go down well, but too late she realised that she may have thrown her crazy at us too many times and now that we were no longer working for her, she couldn’t control what we said and to WHOM (as I said, we were in a small industry) she then became as nice as pie to me and treated me like a respected colleague rather than her punching bag. The receptionist didn’t fare so well unfortunately and left a few months later.
So having removed myself from that poisonous situation, I was faced with the prospect of going it alone. Despite being only out of university for 2 years by that stage, I decided to go free-lance and build up a business based on my contacts and reputation (the woman was nuts but she knew EVERYONE and I will always be grateful for that). And this is where I wonder if the binging really kicked in. I was doing it before then for sure, but I really upped the scale and ferocity of my binges – and they WERE ferocious.
At this stage I had moved out of my flat share and was sharing a small flat with my cousin who was a few years younger. We didn’t cook or eat together because our schedules were quite different and that meant I was pretty much not bothering with any normal meals (except MAYBE breakfast) and just eating crap. I am not joking, I wouldn’t have dinner. Instead I would go to bed and read my book and eat an entire (or as close to as I could get) orange chocolate marble sponge cake. In bed. With a fork. I would then have a really uncomfortable night’s sleep, sweating and feeling desperately sick. On the weekends if my cousin was out, I would have fish and chips for dinner, usually with a few deep fried battered oysters. I went through a service station pie phase where I could easily have two for dinner with a cupcake chaser. I became addicted to baked goods – specifically caramel slice and chocolate mint slice. And a particular supermarket near where I lived sold divine little orange flavoured donuts. I really went to town.
Was I eating to cover my anxiety of going out on a limb with my job? Was I comfort eating through the stress of trying to make a living for myself? Was I eating with gay abandon to celebrate leaving a really difficult, toxic work environment? Was it that a diet where I had to control and restrict myself just did not fit in with my new found sense of freedom? Was it that I did not feel comfortable in my new-found ‘thin’ skin? Was it all of this?
I think there is definitely something in the feeling of liberation I felt not working for Beelzebub anymore and not wanting to hamper this feeling by restricting myself. It also felt a lot like moving out of home, away from strict parents and that inevitable going off the rails that seems to be a rite of passage. And it is also true that it was fricking stressful. I didn’t have a regular wage coming in. If I didn’t get the work, I didn’t get the money to pay the bills. At my fairly tender age, that was kind of scary. And food was comforting – I mean what could be better than knowing you could eat 6 rounds of toast with butter and honey IN BED any time you wanted? There was no ill THAT couldn’t cure.
But at the time, and I did try and analyse this at the time, I really didn’t think I was stress eating. I really didn’t think I was comfort eating. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t going to starve and I wasn’t going to fail. I had options. It was stressful and a little isolating at times, but I was enjoying it. So what was I eating for?
Well this has been the longest post ever so will stop navel-gazing now. I will reflect on this – this has been a really useful exercise actually and I know I will see patterns emerging when I write about my next 2 diet/binge episodes so this will hopefully arm me for the future. Because I really can’t go through all this again.
Monday, 3 March 2008
Try-on March 2008: The Results
Right well I am VERY happy to report there is a new item of clothing in my wearable wardrobe as from yesterday. I actually managed to be able to fit in to both my Monsoon size 14 trousers without crying, and the heavier fabric pair are now wearable!! Yes, thank you thank you. I have taken them in to the local alteration place because they need taking up but I think I’ll wear them to work on Friday.
They have what I call a ‘starfish’ across the front where they are probably still a little tight and they pull causing wrinkles of fabric to radiate out from the crotch area (nice mental image, no?) but I think after one day’s wear they will be fine. The fabric is quite heavy and stiff, kind of like gabardine or drill cotton or something so they just need breaking in. But I am SO excited about them, SO excited. I’m not sure how well they really suit me is the only thing – because they are normal length (and I am short) any shaping detail on the legs get lost on me because they have to be hemmed. They are fairly straight-legged with side angle pockets on the hips which generally aren’t flattering to anyone with hips because they stick out and thus draw attention to the hip area. So I’m a little worried that they will just actually make me look short and wide. But I don’t care, they fit they fit they fit.
The lighter fabric ones are still not wearable and I can’t really tell any difference from last time I tried them on. There has to be a difference but in any event, they won’t be worn until well after we come back from Boston. My Zara cord skirt I couldn’t be bothered doing up (the zip is a little wonky) but I put it on without zipping it up and it still feels too tight across the hips. My ZB suit pants are almost wearable though which came as a real surprise. In my mind, they were a good size below the ZW pants that I am currently wearing (in how they fit that is as they are both 14s) but clearly there is not that much in it. I can’t wait to be in these trousers as they are much more flattering and better cut for me than the ZW ones. Not sure when that will be but we shall see. My black ZB suit skirt also now fits again (size 16 but it really is a small size 16) although it fits around the hips and thighs and is too big really around the waist. Wearable though.
I tried on other items as well which you will hear more about in the future. My size 12 James jeans are still not close to doing up (either side of the zip don’t even MEET let alone do up), my Glassons ‘city shorts’ size 12 go on and do up but not close to wearable (they’re supposed to be reasonably baggy and sit low on the hips). My two DvF wrap dresses (US size 8) don’t cover my chest when I put them on and they are very unflattering around the hips so I can’t even wear them with a tank top underneath. I hope to wear the long sleeved one of these dresses to the wedding I’m going to in July in NZ. I think a US size 8 is a UK size 12 but I’m not sure if the DvF sizes run smaller than normal or not, being designer and all. My size 12 Max white/pink/blue skirt goes on and does up but is not wearable. This is the skirt I was wearing when I got engaged and I would have been a good 5kg smaller then, so this is not surprising – well its surprising it goes on and does up I guess.
So those were the results of the March try-on. I may or may not have an April try on depending on how I’m feeling when we get back from the US. We’re back on April 1 but I will probably be feeling bloaty and disgusting so there may not be much point. Maybe I will try on a few things that weekend, giving me a few days to de-bloat. We’ll see.
I actually went to Next at lunch time to see if I could find some plain black work type trousers. I thought if I fit the 14s I would get them (petite size, not normal size as can’t be bothered getting them hemmed). I tried on 2 size 14s and they were just a tiny bit too snug – both gave me a starfish and because they were snug they sat quite high on my hips rather than lower down where they should be so they were shorter than they should be and just a little bit too short. So I decided not to get either pair I tried on. I didn’t bother trying on the 16 as I think they would be too big and I was only going to get them if the 14s fit. But I am in serious need of work trousers as I only have my ZW suit pants (and now my size 14 monsoons). Today I am wearing my size 16 Wallis grey stripe pants that are baggy in the gunt area. They aren’t fitting too badly but they are too baggy and they’re fresh out of the wash so they’re not going to get any better.
I need to get on and start thinking about a personal trainer too. I had a look at a few advertised at my gym when I was there on Sunday (oh yes, briefly my weekend went fairly well, I was under 1.5points for the whole weekend, I had 13.5points in alcohol for the whole week and managed 3 gym sessions for the whole week. Sadly I weighed in at 67.9kg on Sunday morning and this morning so that’s a bit of a worry) Anyway, personal trainers, I had a look at a few advertised and some refer to weight loss and toning as one of their specialties so I guess I’ll go with one of them. They are both guys and weirdly I am feeling a little squeamish about that – I think I would prefer a woman and that is weird because normally I don’t care about stuff like that. But anyway. There seems to be some sort of ‘tier’ system with personal training and one on one sessions start at £25 and go up to £45. Not sure what the difference is so will need to enquire. I probably should do that and make an appointment before I go away to Boston just in case there is a waiting list or something when I get back.
Wedding-wise, after all the excitement of getting my save the date cards back from the printer I haven’t bothered doing anything with them! We gave out 3 to the people we saw in Brighton on Saturday and I just wrote their names on the envelopes and they were well received (cue more ‘oh I’m not sure if we can make it’ crap from one of G’s good friends – will go in to that later). They thought they were really lovely and well done so I’m pleased with them. The main concerns I have with them is how to address the cards. We won’t be putting guests’ names on the card themselves, only the envelope, but it’s the style of writing I’m concerned about. I have a calligraphy pen and originally thought I would do fancy sort of calligraphy writing but I’m just not that good at it. And I’m worried the ink will all smudge and I’ll make mistakes etc etc etc so I’m putting off doing them. I then thought well maybe I should just address them in normal neat handwriting with a black ink pen but that doesn’t look very good either. So its all very confusing.
And the other thing I’m wondering about is whether we put our return addresses on the envelope. The cards say:
Please save the date
For the wedding of
WideBride and G
On [date]
At [venue, New Zealand]
Invitation to follow
They use only our first names and are going out to everyone, including far-flung relations we haven’t seen for years and years – some of whom wouldn’t even know who G was (or who I was, in the case of G’s relatives). My problem is I can just imagine some of the recipients receiving the cards and going ‘hey Ethel, we’ve got this here ‘save the date’ card from WideBride and G’ – just who in the heck are these people?’ (I don’t know why in my mind my relatives have American hick accents when they will all have eye wateringly strong Kiwi accents, but hey its MY imagination). So in order to save confusion, I’m wondering if we ought to put our full names and addresses on the backs of the envelopes so the relatives can easily figure out who we are. That means a LOT of writing though. Sigh. It’s a pickle.
So I’m quite nervous about getting started and I’m REALLY nervous about making mistakes on the envelopes and stuff and then trying to find some way to cover up the mistake, thus making it worse etc etc. We ordered 100 cards and envelopes for what we think were about 86 recipients (some being couples, families etc so they will get one card between them) so there are a few spares but its not doing a lot to ease my nerves. But it will be great to get them away anyway.
In other news, have had to put a deposit down for the videographer - $NZ900.00. But because he doesn’t have credit card facilities, I had to do an international bank transfer. Sweet lord how expensive does THAT get? You can actually do it online via personal banking but it costs like an extra £30 in charges which is the equivalent of about $NZ60. Highway fricking robbery. But no other way to do it other than asking my retired parents to pay the deposit and I’ll pay them back in cash when I see them next in June – and I just couldn’t handle the thought of the two of them going without food for months because it was their life savings (it wouldn’t really be the case but it’s a lot of money to ask people to stump up). So needs must.
So, so far I have booked the following – venue (which includes onsite catering and wine although paid for separately), photographer, videographer, first night accommodation, DJ, sting quartet, cars, flowers, hair and makeup. We have paid about £2000 in deposits (including also the save the date cards) but not all of those suppliers have required a deposit. Its an expensive business this wedding caper. But I think that is pretty much everything booked, except the cake maker who we will sort out when we are over in July and the celebrant (I think I mentioned that my Uncle is an Anglican Priest in Wellington, NZ and I hope he will marry us – we will ask him in July). So we are pretty far on track really.
While we were in Brighton we were catching up with two friends of ours, R and S who got married over here (they’re English) in September. When I told them that pretty much everything had been booked they were AMAZED and reinforced what I had already figured out really – its probably easier to organise a wedding from a different country because you don’t have as much choice as you would if you were there – you just have to book people on a leap of faith really, rather than ‘interview’ 15 florists or cakemakers or whatever. They were telling us what a shocker they had with their florist who basically ignored everything they wanted and then 2 weeks before the wedding announced that as they no longer had a business relationship with their venue they couldn’t do the wedding (they did in the end but it was a very stressful week while it was all getting sorted out). They ended up with lots of pink in the various bouquets which was the one thing the bride stressed she did NOT want so they weren’t very happy. From memory, the flowers were beautiful from my point of view but then I wasn’t paying for them. They also had an interesting experience with their DJ who interviewed THEM to see if he was interested in doing their wedding! The DJ said he would play the music they wanted ‘even if he thought it was rubbish’ but if a guest requested a track and he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t play it. Contrast this with DJ Chuck Woollery who seems will be falling over himself to make this ‘our special day’ (gag) and I think despite it all, we have the better deal.
To be honest, so far the wedding planning has been nothing but fun. I love researching all the different suppliers, and looking at different ideas and pulling it altogether. I’m sure this halcyon time won’t continue and the three weeks before the wedding are going to be hell on earth, but so far I just don’t really get what people complain about! (cut to fate really kicking me in the butt).
So this Thursday is the one year anniversary of our engagement and to celebrate we are going out for dinner (I’m getting a steak!!). I will also be presenting G with his engagement present (its been a long time coming!) which will be a rather substantial ‘blank cheque’ to spend at Berry Bros, a fine wine merchant in London. We have long lamented that we don’t have any decent French wine for cellaring so I think that’s what he is likely to choose. We’ll go along to the store on Saturday probably and G can pick out what he likes and we’ll either get them to store it for us or bring it home and cellar it there (God I hope they store it as we seriously don’t have a lot of room in the house). I think he’ll be really rather happy with that – and the best part is, I get to share it all, ahahahhaaa (evil villain laugh).
So this time next year we will be in NZ and no doubt feeling very very excited. As I said to a friend of mine, this time next year I will be about to get married and I will be THIN – and I think I’m more excited about being thin. Kidding! (Sort of…)
They have what I call a ‘starfish’ across the front where they are probably still a little tight and they pull causing wrinkles of fabric to radiate out from the crotch area (nice mental image, no?) but I think after one day’s wear they will be fine. The fabric is quite heavy and stiff, kind of like gabardine or drill cotton or something so they just need breaking in. But I am SO excited about them, SO excited. I’m not sure how well they really suit me is the only thing – because they are normal length (and I am short) any shaping detail on the legs get lost on me because they have to be hemmed. They are fairly straight-legged with side angle pockets on the hips which generally aren’t flattering to anyone with hips because they stick out and thus draw attention to the hip area. So I’m a little worried that they will just actually make me look short and wide. But I don’t care, they fit they fit they fit.
The lighter fabric ones are still not wearable and I can’t really tell any difference from last time I tried them on. There has to be a difference but in any event, they won’t be worn until well after we come back from Boston. My Zara cord skirt I couldn’t be bothered doing up (the zip is a little wonky) but I put it on without zipping it up and it still feels too tight across the hips. My ZB suit pants are almost wearable though which came as a real surprise. In my mind, they were a good size below the ZW pants that I am currently wearing (in how they fit that is as they are both 14s) but clearly there is not that much in it. I can’t wait to be in these trousers as they are much more flattering and better cut for me than the ZW ones. Not sure when that will be but we shall see. My black ZB suit skirt also now fits again (size 16 but it really is a small size 16) although it fits around the hips and thighs and is too big really around the waist. Wearable though.
I tried on other items as well which you will hear more about in the future. My size 12 James jeans are still not close to doing up (either side of the zip don’t even MEET let alone do up), my Glassons ‘city shorts’ size 12 go on and do up but not close to wearable (they’re supposed to be reasonably baggy and sit low on the hips). My two DvF wrap dresses (US size 8) don’t cover my chest when I put them on and they are very unflattering around the hips so I can’t even wear them with a tank top underneath. I hope to wear the long sleeved one of these dresses to the wedding I’m going to in July in NZ. I think a US size 8 is a UK size 12 but I’m not sure if the DvF sizes run smaller than normal or not, being designer and all. My size 12 Max white/pink/blue skirt goes on and does up but is not wearable. This is the skirt I was wearing when I got engaged and I would have been a good 5kg smaller then, so this is not surprising – well its surprising it goes on and does up I guess.
So those were the results of the March try-on. I may or may not have an April try on depending on how I’m feeling when we get back from the US. We’re back on April 1 but I will probably be feeling bloaty and disgusting so there may not be much point. Maybe I will try on a few things that weekend, giving me a few days to de-bloat. We’ll see.
I actually went to Next at lunch time to see if I could find some plain black work type trousers. I thought if I fit the 14s I would get them (petite size, not normal size as can’t be bothered getting them hemmed). I tried on 2 size 14s and they were just a tiny bit too snug – both gave me a starfish and because they were snug they sat quite high on my hips rather than lower down where they should be so they were shorter than they should be and just a little bit too short. So I decided not to get either pair I tried on. I didn’t bother trying on the 16 as I think they would be too big and I was only going to get them if the 14s fit. But I am in serious need of work trousers as I only have my ZW suit pants (and now my size 14 monsoons). Today I am wearing my size 16 Wallis grey stripe pants that are baggy in the gunt area. They aren’t fitting too badly but they are too baggy and they’re fresh out of the wash so they’re not going to get any better.
I need to get on and start thinking about a personal trainer too. I had a look at a few advertised at my gym when I was there on Sunday (oh yes, briefly my weekend went fairly well, I was under 1.5points for the whole weekend, I had 13.5points in alcohol for the whole week and managed 3 gym sessions for the whole week. Sadly I weighed in at 67.9kg on Sunday morning and this morning so that’s a bit of a worry) Anyway, personal trainers, I had a look at a few advertised and some refer to weight loss and toning as one of their specialties so I guess I’ll go with one of them. They are both guys and weirdly I am feeling a little squeamish about that – I think I would prefer a woman and that is weird because normally I don’t care about stuff like that. But anyway. There seems to be some sort of ‘tier’ system with personal training and one on one sessions start at £25 and go up to £45. Not sure what the difference is so will need to enquire. I probably should do that and make an appointment before I go away to Boston just in case there is a waiting list or something when I get back.
Wedding-wise, after all the excitement of getting my save the date cards back from the printer I haven’t bothered doing anything with them! We gave out 3 to the people we saw in Brighton on Saturday and I just wrote their names on the envelopes and they were well received (cue more ‘oh I’m not sure if we can make it’ crap from one of G’s good friends – will go in to that later). They thought they were really lovely and well done so I’m pleased with them. The main concerns I have with them is how to address the cards. We won’t be putting guests’ names on the card themselves, only the envelope, but it’s the style of writing I’m concerned about. I have a calligraphy pen and originally thought I would do fancy sort of calligraphy writing but I’m just not that good at it. And I’m worried the ink will all smudge and I’ll make mistakes etc etc etc so I’m putting off doing them. I then thought well maybe I should just address them in normal neat handwriting with a black ink pen but that doesn’t look very good either. So its all very confusing.
And the other thing I’m wondering about is whether we put our return addresses on the envelope. The cards say:
Please save the date
For the wedding of
WideBride and G
On [date]
At [venue, New Zealand]
Invitation to follow
They use only our first names and are going out to everyone, including far-flung relations we haven’t seen for years and years – some of whom wouldn’t even know who G was (or who I was, in the case of G’s relatives). My problem is I can just imagine some of the recipients receiving the cards and going ‘hey Ethel, we’ve got this here ‘save the date’ card from WideBride and G’ – just who in the heck are these people?’ (I don’t know why in my mind my relatives have American hick accents when they will all have eye wateringly strong Kiwi accents, but hey its MY imagination). So in order to save confusion, I’m wondering if we ought to put our full names and addresses on the backs of the envelopes so the relatives can easily figure out who we are. That means a LOT of writing though. Sigh. It’s a pickle.
So I’m quite nervous about getting started and I’m REALLY nervous about making mistakes on the envelopes and stuff and then trying to find some way to cover up the mistake, thus making it worse etc etc. We ordered 100 cards and envelopes for what we think were about 86 recipients (some being couples, families etc so they will get one card between them) so there are a few spares but its not doing a lot to ease my nerves. But it will be great to get them away anyway.
In other news, have had to put a deposit down for the videographer - $NZ900.00. But because he doesn’t have credit card facilities, I had to do an international bank transfer. Sweet lord how expensive does THAT get? You can actually do it online via personal banking but it costs like an extra £30 in charges which is the equivalent of about $NZ60. Highway fricking robbery. But no other way to do it other than asking my retired parents to pay the deposit and I’ll pay them back in cash when I see them next in June – and I just couldn’t handle the thought of the two of them going without food for months because it was their life savings (it wouldn’t really be the case but it’s a lot of money to ask people to stump up). So needs must.
So, so far I have booked the following – venue (which includes onsite catering and wine although paid for separately), photographer, videographer, first night accommodation, DJ, sting quartet, cars, flowers, hair and makeup. We have paid about £2000 in deposits (including also the save the date cards) but not all of those suppliers have required a deposit. Its an expensive business this wedding caper. But I think that is pretty much everything booked, except the cake maker who we will sort out when we are over in July and the celebrant (I think I mentioned that my Uncle is an Anglican Priest in Wellington, NZ and I hope he will marry us – we will ask him in July). So we are pretty far on track really.
While we were in Brighton we were catching up with two friends of ours, R and S who got married over here (they’re English) in September. When I told them that pretty much everything had been booked they were AMAZED and reinforced what I had already figured out really – its probably easier to organise a wedding from a different country because you don’t have as much choice as you would if you were there – you just have to book people on a leap of faith really, rather than ‘interview’ 15 florists or cakemakers or whatever. They were telling us what a shocker they had with their florist who basically ignored everything they wanted and then 2 weeks before the wedding announced that as they no longer had a business relationship with their venue they couldn’t do the wedding (they did in the end but it was a very stressful week while it was all getting sorted out). They ended up with lots of pink in the various bouquets which was the one thing the bride stressed she did NOT want so they weren’t very happy. From memory, the flowers were beautiful from my point of view but then I wasn’t paying for them. They also had an interesting experience with their DJ who interviewed THEM to see if he was interested in doing their wedding! The DJ said he would play the music they wanted ‘even if he thought it was rubbish’ but if a guest requested a track and he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t play it. Contrast this with DJ Chuck Woollery who seems will be falling over himself to make this ‘our special day’ (gag) and I think despite it all, we have the better deal.
To be honest, so far the wedding planning has been nothing but fun. I love researching all the different suppliers, and looking at different ideas and pulling it altogether. I’m sure this halcyon time won’t continue and the three weeks before the wedding are going to be hell on earth, but so far I just don’t really get what people complain about! (cut to fate really kicking me in the butt).
So this Thursday is the one year anniversary of our engagement and to celebrate we are going out for dinner (I’m getting a steak!!). I will also be presenting G with his engagement present (its been a long time coming!) which will be a rather substantial ‘blank cheque’ to spend at Berry Bros, a fine wine merchant in London. We have long lamented that we don’t have any decent French wine for cellaring so I think that’s what he is likely to choose. We’ll go along to the store on Saturday probably and G can pick out what he likes and we’ll either get them to store it for us or bring it home and cellar it there (God I hope they store it as we seriously don’t have a lot of room in the house). I think he’ll be really rather happy with that – and the best part is, I get to share it all, ahahahhaaa (evil villain laugh).
So this time next year we will be in NZ and no doubt feeling very very excited. As I said to a friend of mine, this time next year I will be about to get married and I will be THIN – and I think I’m more excited about being thin. Kidding! (Sort of…)
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