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.