Monday, February 22, 2010

Duhn duhn duhhhhhnnnn

It's weigh in night tonight.
I feel less panicky today than I did last week but more panicky than I did the week before. (If that makes any sense at all).
I have been good as gold. Like seriously I should get a sticker from the teacher and a big smiley face drawn on my tracker. I have not over eaten at ALL. Not even once. I have lived on non-fat yoghurt, loads of veg, lean meats, new potatoes and ham salad sandwiches. Everything I have eaten - even if just a bite of the baby's dinner to check it has cooled - has been pointed and tracked.
If I've bitten it, I've written it.

My clothes feel looser. My waistbands have a little more give.
But, a sneaky pre-weigh in stand on the scales yesterday in my mum's revealed a zero weight loss.
Seriously?

Of course I have to make sure that when I do my official weigh in I'm in the same clothes, at the same time of day and on the same scales (eg tonight at my first full meeting) but I'm preparing myself for not having a loss and trying to sort it in my head that the weight loss will come. If my clothes feel looser already - the weight loss has to come.

Now I realise I am becoming a little bit of a diet bore - this will wear off. But when I went shopping yesterday and heard the dulcet tones of  Mika's 'Big Girl You Are Beautiful' blasting around the shop's music system I wanted to scream "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!" in a very loonified way.

Yes of course larger ladies can be beautiful but me? No I don't feel it. I can't actually remember the last time I felt beautiful in anyway and while I know it won't be losing weight which makes me happy maybe it will give me more confidence in myself.

I have spent three years now promoting books and dreading getting my photo taken or going on telly. I never watch anything back that I do. I feel always self conscious. I am always waiting for someone to ask when the baby is due. I go into everything judging myself on my physical appearance even if, maybe, others are not doing so.
I have even convinced myself that being a bloater has really damaged my ability to get on the Late Late or get the same kind of coverage other skinnier, more attractive authors get. (This is nothing to do with my writing ability, of course... ;) )
I have had to accept that even as an author - someone who creates books in a very solitary way - I need to have a public image and at the moment I do not have one. I am just the fatty old dowdy mammy on the school run who sits her in jammies of an evening writing about skinny, glam women.

So I may fail again this time, or I may succeed but at least I will have tried and before I hit the big 4-0 (which is admittedly 6 years away) I will be happy with myself.

4 comments:

optional said...

Crumbs Claire, you look perfectly lovely to me! Not forgetting talented and successful. Do you really have to be thinner to be happy with yourself? I can empathise with the desire to be more average sized (as i am a Rubenesque figure myself) to be healthier and to make clothes shopping easier, but please don't base your self esteem on lb and oz. If you're anything like me you'll have a whole other set of midlife crises to deal with in 6 years and your weight issues will melt into insignificance :) So every cloud..., eh?

Sharon Owens said...

Dear Sweetheart,

There is nothing wrong with you at all. You are beautiful.

Please don't let the media coverage or lack of it get to you!!! I am 6 ft in my boots and a size 12, and I'm related to the late Ben Kiely and I'm quite widely published and I NEVER GET ANY MEDIA COVERAGE EITHER!!! Even my own neighbours don't know I'm published in Russia...

It's simply a case that the media is currently concentrating on footballers, WAGs, MPs, the "War on Terror" and the recession. And there are lots of authors and I suppose that means we are not very special right now. But a wee birdy tells me that the sleb bio (Celeb Biog) is on the wane thanks to Katie Price and others filling whole hardbacks with very little substance - and there is a predicted return to "proper" books from next summer onwards.

By the way I hate making PAs - not because I'm too precious to meet the readers but because I always get massive anxiety attacks when asked to do public speaking. I think I have discovered a new phobia to add to my list: flying, trains, driving...

So please don't be starving yourself when you've got two jobs and two children to look after - all your many friends adore you - and your books are wonderful and so are you. You've been a great friend to me though we live at opposite ends of the country.

I was on a diet for a week or two and felt lighter and more alert but now the hunger has kicked in, I could eat a packet of butter without unwrapping it!!! I may have to give up soon - I've lost 5 lbs but my biker boots will still not zip up.

But anyway, lots of love, Sharon XXX

Chic Mama said...

Fingers crossed for you. I agree with the two comments above...you look lovely in your picture. x

The Pineapple Tart said...

Claire, take heart, it takes at least three weeks to lose weight, not water. I know you can stick at it, you have amazing determination - didn't you write Jumping in Puddles while brutally sick with Cara?

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