confession time: I been bad. Bad bad bad. Bad gurl. I've had a couple of binges over the weekend that I umm 'forgot' to mention. I've never really thought about it much, but I spose I've always had a problem with fits of binge eating. And then when I was stopping smoking, I gave myself permission to stuff my face instead of smoking. So far my subconscious has not cottoned on that that permission has been revoked.

The solution to my problems is unlikely to be found at the bottom of a family sized bag of fat'n'carbs, but part of me wants to keep looking just in case. So last night I decided to re-read my old copy of Fat is a Feminist Issue. Which is a slightly weird experience, it's so long since I read any 'feminist' literature, yet it felt like I spent the second half of the 80s reading little else. Also I don't seem to 'fit' into the model she's working with, I haven't spent most of my life on diets. Then again ... if you asked me if I'm happy with my body I'd probably say yes. But if I am, then why do I hate having my photo taken so much that I go out of my way to avoid it?

I do think it's probably right that we have to love ourselves as we are before we can successfully lose weight. If we hate ourselves (for whatever reason) and have been used to dealing with unhappiness and fear and all bad feelings by eating, then we can't ever lose weight successfully. Once I've finished FIAFA, I'll prob read Shelley Bovey's book (thanks Jude for telling me about her). So expect outbreaks of diet/feminist/well-meaning-gruaniad-reader politics from time to time, apologies in advance.

Well, the eating programme may still need some work but at least the exercising is back on track. Went to aqua-aerobics tonight. It's good exercise and I enjoy it, but the music is a trial. This week it was Now That's What I Call The Greatest Nineties Album In The World Ever. Or something. Hammer Time! Bad. Though it did remind me of two of the funniest things ever - Mark Lamarr in his MC Hammer trews interviewing MC Hammer on the Word and Bill Hicks' suck Satan's cock routine.

If there really is such a thing as "Irritable Desk Syndrome" and it's true that "cluttered desks make workers ill" I should be dead by now. Wtf is a "deskologist" anyways? sounds like money for jam.

Weather was nice today so we cycled to a local park, where even the goat is on a diet. Large signs all over the goat space forbid the feeding of crisps, cake and bread, the goat is allowed only fruit and veggies. So we gave him some carrots (after O had taken a few bites out of them first) then went to climb things and play football etc. Too healthy all together, so had to have apple pie with cream for pudding to make up for it.

My new favourite song is Aiysha (Aicha) by Khaled. Another of our belly dance teacher's faves and it has grown on me so much, I've been going round singing it to myself (all two lines that I know the words to), but I knew nothing about it. Hurrah as ever for the lovely google which as well as providing the lyrics, got me to this interesting article on Rai music and Berber poetry. Good music with subversive and feminist tendencies, sounds like the genre for me. Next stop, The Rough Guide to Rai

gosh i burned up 0.19 deep fried onions with sauce on my bike ride this afternoon

housework is, always has been and always will be, bad. However it makes it a teeny bit easier to get through it when you find out that by doing cleaning (multiple household tasks, moderate) for 1 hour I've burned 351 calories wooo. Hurray for calories per hour, I love them so much I'm gonna side-bar them

weighed self today, total weight loss = 0lb. This is good and bad. Good because immediately after last friday's wine-pasta-chipbarm happenings, I had put on 3lb. Bad because of course I shouldn't've succumbed to the chip barm etc and also cos I have been lax about doing exercise this week, I've really only done one walk and a belly dancing class. Must Try Harder!

hooray today is thursday. this means grauniad life/online (science/puters) section. first 2 bits I always read bad science and ask Jack. Got top tip from Mr Jack t'other week bout how to get rid of all that hidden info ms word sticks into your documents.

blah blah blah having a sh*t happens kind of day/week/life and feeling all blah blah blah

blah
ick
bah

Right, I'm gonna get me some mini-goals. I'm feeling like the novelty of losing weight has started to wear off, always a dangerous stage for me to get to. So maybe if I have something to work towards .... ? Might work.

Mini-Goal 1 (weight loss): achieve total of 25 lb lost ie 10% reduction from original body weight. Why 10%? Cos I've read that a 5 - 10% weight loss gives "significant health benefits". The mathematicians amongst you may quibble that 10% of my start weight is actually 24.5 lb, which is true, but asda seven quid 'smart-price' scales aren't so accurate. I spose I should set a date for it too ... hmm ... ok I hereby create a mini-goal of weighing 220 lb (15 st 10) by .... (extrapolates graph) ... 3 weeks time ie 9th April.

Mini-Goal 2 (nrt): ok so I need to get off the nrt. At the moment I get thro about 5 2mg lozenges a day. I will aim to taper off by 1 a week ie 4 this week, 3 next week, and so on, so I will be off them by 16th April. omg that's scary waaaah

Right I will stick those in my side bar so I don't accidentally on purpose forget about them. waaaaaaah heelepp what am i doing eeepppp.

ah bollox to it, cracked and bought some nic lozenges bugger it.

in other diet news: ummm ... time for confessions and excuses ... confession is that this morning I had a crunchie bar. And yesterday morning I had some crisps. Me is bad. Also I haven't been keeping up my eating records so don't know exactly how many cals over budget I've gone the past few days. Excuses: I finally finally stopped taking nrt, having taken them for months longer than the manufacturers say I should. My safety net is gone waaaaah /me scared. Now I need eating replacement therapy lozenges.

More on the healthful properties of Play Doh (tm). It's non-toxic and fat-free (tho it may not be suitable for people trying to follow a low-carb way of eating - i understand lo-carb play-doh may soon be available in the states, tho). Play Doh is soooo healthful it's endorsed by George Forman whaay haaay.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. O made me breakfast in bed (with some help from daddy). My favourite was the play-dough pancake yumm. We still didn't get a bike-ride, wind was still pretty gusty, so we went to park by car instead. I had nice brisk walk round park while R supervised O in the playground, then we fed thte ducks, then made it home before it started pishing down again.

Oops, over-spent on the calorie budget yesterday. Work meeting adjourned to the pub and rather a lot of red wine was drunk - after spending several hours discussing marketing, we felt all dirty and David Brenty, we needed the booze to wash us clean. Too much drinking led to too much eating - on top of the cheesey pasta bake I'd had for lunch, I ended up having a chip barm on the way home (it was late and cold and dark and I had to wait for bus and I was bit pished). Mmmmmm carbs.

Ah well today is another day etc and I'm doing not bad, hurray, except that the horrible windiness outside means we've put off a bike ride to the park. Staying in and defragging my hard drives while reading about bike riding instead. Which has brought back vague recollections of having promised to do a copy of Senor Coconut for Kraftwerk-loving colleague.

Weighed myself this morning, cos I won't be here tomorrow (gotta go away over night for work). I lost 2lb, meaning that I've lost a stone and a half (21 lb) wooooo. Gosh.

ahem last few entries have turned this into clazza's what i'm listening to right now blog, soz bout that, I don't suppose anyone else wants to read about what a fantastic album Scientist Meets Bob Dylan at Dub Station would be if someone made it, do they?

So back to diet stuff: a recipe for wot i had for tea last night ie tagliatelle with green beans and cream is here @ MarjChat, and who knows, mebe some other diet types will ad recipes gosh wot diet fun. Diet going OK-ish sorta. I haven't been able to get doing much exercise this week but am trying to do 20 mins walking each day, at least.

aksually I've just remembered it was probably reading this this morning that put me in a Bob state of mind. Bob in a reggae stylee, can't wait.

I don't know wtf is happening with the music chip in my brain. After all this time listening to dub, suddenly I am wandering round the house singing to myself "my love she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence" etc and to my shame it's been so long since I listened to much of Bob Zimmerman's ** stuff that I had to google to find out the song is actually called Love Minus Zero. Well OK I could've got up and gone downstairs and looked through the vinyl to find that out but hey I'm a 21st century kind of gal, why get off your arse when you can google it? And that's the other thing that shows how long it is since I listened to Bob, most of my stuff is on vinyl, and our turntable packed up a couple of years ago and still hasn't been replaced, and I haven't missed it. Well I've listened to some, obv, the ones I bought on cd to replace the over-played casettes people made me when I was a student. Yes I was that student cliche, staying up all night listening to Bob Dylan and changing the world. Have never given up on the trying to change the world bit, and have now rediscovered the Bob too. Hurrah.

One major disadvantage of me getting re-Bobbed (apart from people having to listen to me singing along) is that it doesn't encourage me to get up and boogie while listening. There's a few cals I won't be burning every day. Ah well.

** that's what Bob Dylan fans like to refer to him as to show how kewl and knowledgeable we they are

Fighting the Comfort-Eating Demons: Plan A
When the Demons attack, have a Nice Cup Of Tea first. Cals in Cup Of Tea = 0 (well OK there's the milk but that comes out of my daily milk allowance and so is counted already) and there are no biscuits, cakes, whatever in the house for me to be tempted to have with it. Having a nice warm drink might be enough to drive away the Demons. And if it's not I can always run to the shop for biscuits hahahahahah umm sorry that should read I can always eat a nice piece of fruit.

bother. reading Jude's journal I realised I've missed the Observer Food Monthly and with it, the god like genius that is Nigel Slater. Booo. No point going out in cold and rain to find one now, even if shops not all sold out there's not time to read it all - still got half of yesterday's gruauniad to get through yet. There are disadvantages in sleeping through Sunday morning.

my new diet plan: sleep in all morning, get up, have breakfast at lunch time, no need for lunch.

Things that are bad: reading first book of a trilogy (re-reading the His Dark Materials series) then not being able to find the second book even though you know it's in the house somewhere. I've looked everywhere else, so it must be lurking in The Great Library Under The Bed.

Why did no-one tell me that the Upsetter himself had done a series of tv ads for guinness? Hatstand barking wibble wibble hilarious utter genius.


dub dub dublin

while googling unsuccessfully for an on-line source for the ads, I discovered the mighty Black Ark have an on-line radio station. Internet radio is surely the greatest invention known to person-kind.

just listened to repeat of last night's Archers. The One With The Gay Kiss. Adam and Ian snog. Bless.

cor. I lost 1 lb. How did that happen? Maybe eating crap and doing no exercise is the route to weight loss after all? Hmm. Better not push me luck, I spose.

in other news: in order to try and improve on my current 'I don't know much about dub but I know what I like' situation, I did a little googling and found nice Jockey Slut approved (so it must be waay cool woo ick) bluffers guide to dub with top compilation tape suggestions an ting.

not looking forward to weighing myself tomorrow. I haven't done much exercise this week and haven't been that careful bout what I've been eating, either.

I'm bored of my breakfast. Every morning I have 2 weetabix with s/s milk and a banana, plus half a pot of black coffee. Thing with weetabix is, it's easy to know how much you're eating without having to weigh them. Have you ever weighed out the 'suggested serving' amounts for cereals? Usually 40 g or 50 g. Just about enough to cover the bottom of a bowl. I don't believe anyone actually eats that little cereal in one go. Or mebe I is just greedy hah.

somehow I have rather lost it on the diet front in the last few days. I blame the peanut butter. I realised last week that pb was doing bad things to my diet (ie by whispering to me from the cupboard all day long that just one little piece of toast with pb wouldn't hurt or maybe even 2 or ... ) so we agreed not to buy it anymore, and to find other ways to get nuts in our diet (eg nut loaf), nuts being important for protein and essential thingummies. However we had a vegan visitor staying overnight on Saturday, so we got some pb for him to have on his toast in the morning (well, see, we know he likes pb and there was no point getting soya marg cos we have big tub of sunflower marg already and umm anyway look we had to get pb ok) and now that pb is whispering to me from the cupboard again waaaa ....

more bad diet happenings: somehow managed to drink half a bottle of red wine last night instead of the 1 glass I meant to have. Ah well, it was friday night.

more good dub happenings: King Tubby's Meets Scientist at Dub Station and Dubwise & Otherwise Vol 2. I am also after a copy of Reggae for Kids. O loved Trojan Christmas, so I think he'll love kids songs in a reggae stylee too.

got leaflet at swimming pool the other day about the Zoggs Swim 4 Fitness site. There are 4 levels, depending on your level of fitness and swimming skills, and how much time you want to give to it. It gives programmes to follow to improve fitness and swimming skills, and the first 2 stages give lots of breaststroke options - this is good, because many programmes assume everyone is a competent free-style swimmer (although the first programme starts at 16 lengths, so you need to be a reasonable swimmer to start with). Anyway, I might try out one of them, probably 3 for "improved cardio-vasucular fitness".

I went to bellydancing last night, which was fun but depressing. Depressing because I stood at the front for some of it, and the class is held in a proper dance studio thingy with full length mirrors covering the whole wall. I didn't much enjoy seeing the full horror of my wobbly bits wobbling in time (sort of) to the strains of Tarkan. I console myself by thinking how much worse it would've been before I lost 18 lb, and how much better it will be when I've lost some more lb. But it is feeling like a long haul now, the thought of how long it will take me to even get my weight out of the 'obese' category and become merely over weight is quite depressing. Oh well, onwards and thinwards.

Other news: my new favourite radio programme Lively Up Yourself on BBC 6 Music, presented by Brinsley Forde. I love internet radio.

Yes, people of a certain age, Brinsley is him from Aswad who was Spring in the Double Deckers.



I loved Tiger best


I am showing my age now hah.

Weigh in day today and I have lost 2 lb whooo!

Today has been a bit better on the D*et front. Haven't eaten too much junk and have been to aquarobics hurrah.

hurrah for norton system works for it has fixed my registry without me having to do scary stuff like regedit hurrah.

oh ffs. having sorted out my 'firewall won't let outlook get my email' problem (by uninstalling and re-installing my firewall, clever, huh?), now outlook itself is playing up and keeps asking me for password over and over and over and microsoft say I have to mess with my registry settings aaaargh.

just when I thought nothing could get me more cross than the pill pushers advertising at the top of my blog ..... just when I am stressing about comfort eating, some fecker thinks it a good idea to advertise co*kie baskets. FECK OFF. And they're called b*sc*its btw not c*okies. Feckers.

Decided to go swimming in the end. And it was good, ended up doing 40 lengths, which is the most I've done in a long time. I went in planning to do min 24, but was 'in the zone' so decided to go for the 1km. I must start going swimming regularly again, cos usually I enjoy it. One thing that is not good about swimming is swimming hats. I know I look feckin ridiculous, fat girl in cossie with purple condom on head. But it's that or have me hair cut short. Ho hum. I bet Alex Popov doesn't worry about this stuff.

In other news: I give up reading the Iliad. I'm not in the mood for Great Classics of World Literature (tm). Re-reading John LeCarre suits me much better right now.

The Comfort Eating Demons are out in force this week. I feel like I just want to eat and eat and eat and eat. I have to keep telling myself that no matter how much I eat, when I'm like this, however much I eat doesn't really make me feel better. Maybe I need to do some excercise? I will maybe go for a bike ride later and then see how I feel.

Today's "research findings state the bleeding obvious" feature:
report says stressed women drink more
report says diets put you in a bad mood
like, :dur:

Comfort eating is doing for my diet at the mo. I feel stressed, I feel down, I wanna eat. It helps a bit not keeping much junk food in the house, but there's always a way to make a bit of fatty junk when you want it. The diet books say you should eat fruit or drink water or summat but it ain't the same, sometimes you just really really want fatty/stodgy/sugary stuff. I need a plan for dealing with it, I suppose. Like telling myself that the food doesn't change anything, the stuff I'm stressing about will still be there whether or not I snack. OK well I'll try telling myself that but have no great hopes of it working.

gave up trying to fix puter and went for jolly family walk instead. Would've been more jolly without 4 year old whinging all the way. Anyways puter is working properly again after restoring it to some time in the last century. Now just gotta solve the 'firewall won't let me have my email' problem.

Things that are fun: teaching a 4 year old belly dancing moves to the strains of Postman Pat.