Making It Up As I Go Along

There are good things and bad things about taking your time to lose weight. The main good thing is mostly in the hope that if you're losing weight slowly yet steadily (give or take a few hiccups) it could give you an assist in maintaining possible weight-loss once you've hit whatever goal you were aiming for. Knowing that you're in it for the long haul doesn't automatically make you one hundred per cent comfortable with the concept, though, and I think it's not the cleverest of options to believe that you won't sometimes feel helpless in a tide of negative emotions, or that you won't possibly be overwhelmed by the daunting notion that the hard work may well be endless.

Gods, though, but that's a trying notion; the thought of a never-ending battle against being big is exhausting if I allow myself to dwell on it. And I don't really have a plan to cope with that. As with most things, I don't really have a plan at all.

I set off thinking that losing weight would be great if I could manage it, but not having a final number, shape, or clothes size in mind. I have a suspicion that I thought it might not happen, that I had been this big for too long, and my whole being, soul, even my personality was so used to this enormous entity that I'd become, that I'd be stuck forever in a life-sucking cocoon of morbid obesity and self-disgust. Or that my head and body would fight me tooth and nail to stay the same, safely large, as I had always been, because that's all it, and I, had ever known.

If you're into astrology, it won't surprise you to know that I was born under the sign of Taurus the Bull. If you're not into astrology, it won't surprise you to learn that I'm stubborn, that I like to know what I'm doing at all times, and I'm not keen on unexpected changes to my routine, so taking off into weight-loss wilds unknown was much of a bigger deal than I was (or still am) completely prepared for.

I have to admit that on the many things upon which I didn't plan, I didn't actually plan on success. I still have to remind myself that losing a hundred pounds isn't something that happened to somebody else, but instead it was, is, something I accomplished after an awful lot of hard work, and about which I should be inordinately proud. That although I'm basically flying on a wing and a prayer, I've actually unlocked some achievements (if you'll excuse the gaming metaphor). My strength, constitution and dexterity have been steadily levelling-up over the past few years, charisma is more of a two steps forward one mighty blow to the self-confidence step back again, but it's being worked on. I'm still trying to figure out how to win more wisdom and intelligence experience points, but I don't think trying to knock some sense into my thick noggin with a nose-bloodying Wiimote, or out-of-control wrist-weights has gone too well on that front so far...

I continue plan-less.

In the end-game of an ideal world, perhaps I'll eventually find I have a body I can use well, one with as much extra skin as I can cope with and not absolutely loathe, one that's as healthy as it can feasibly be, without my ending up a neurotic, weight-obsessed, health-evangelistic mess of the formerly over-fleshed. In an ideal world I won't have to workout almost every evening, and walk miles nearly every day because I'll be maintaining my weight-loss, not still struggling to take it off. I'll be able to intermittently fast for one day a week instead of two because it makes my brain work well, keeps my body on an even keel, and I enjoy it, and not because I still have fifty pounds to lose. 

Of course I'm under no impression whatsoever that arriving at a non-obese, ideal-world weight would automatically mean I can do or have things other people that weight can do or have. That belief, that hope has already been put aside without too much rancour. I won't ever have skin that sits flush on my toned muscles, although toned they will be. I won't ever have a jawline (or lack thereof) that doesn't look like it belongs to an OAP. I have the feeling that my knees will always be the curmudgeons of my corpus, and my left hip is, I suspect, on its last ten years of working order. My feasible ideal world doesn't include the luxury of skin removal surgery or face-lifts. But it does include normal cholesterol, normal blood-sugar, normal BP, and hopefully less of a chance of contracting nasty illnesses. To make it even more black and white, at least dermis-wise, it's either taught skin and dying at fifty, or slack skin and hopefully making it to an age where I can wear purple and spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves!

I also realise that arriving at a non-obese ideal-world weight will not make all my dreams come true, like some Disney fairytale or other. Fat Girl gets thin after life of sad loneliness and finds dream career, dream home, and dream family handed to her on a (convoluted yet obvious) plate. WOOHOO! :: throws confetti :: But yes, the internal bodily changes will make, are already making, an enormous (black and white) difference to my quality of life, and, hopefully, my future quality of life. External bodily transformations have already brought about the ability to get into a pair of jeans from a standard clothes shop. My head is more of a work-in-progress, of course, because no matter how 'normal' I may eventually appear to the general public, if I still feel myself to be the fat, unloved and ridiculed kid I was at school, for whatever reasons, then the chances are that this weight will just pile back on again. It's my own fairy tale, perhaps more in the style of the Brothers Grimm than Disney, but I'm working for, if not Happy Ever After, then at least not Unhappy Ever After!

On a day-to-day level, however, I just get on with it, and try not to worry about what may or may not be next. It's enough to eat less, workout, eat less, go for a walk, eat less, strength-train, eat less, make cookies... I respond well to a weekly routine without planning too far into the future.

And guilt, I respond well to guilt, too. Right now, for example, I'm on a writing roll. This is a subject that fills my head with so many emotions, and gives me such a wealth of theories I long to expound, that I could keep typing until my fingers cramp, my eyelids fall, or my right butt cheek goes numb. (For some reason it's always the right one. The left one must be slightly better padded. Or it might just be the less aware of the passing of time compared to the right one. It's obviously the dreamer of the two.) But in five short minutes begins the time that I've set aside for my workout, and as much as I try to will myself to stay at the keyboard I know I'll end up doing my exercise anyway (which starts today with a session on the cross trainer) just beginning ten minutes later because I've dithered around with the vain notion that I could throw this (self-imposed) schedule to the four winds and write, write, write, like I wasn't already feeling guilty because I should be doing something else. Like getting changed, pulling the trainer onto its non-squeaky floorboard spot, and striding my way to sweating off five hundred calories worth of fat from possibly the big toe on my right foot.*

So, the non-plan is just to keep moving onwards, doing much the same thing, in much the same hope that one day I'll find what I'm still not sure I'm searching for. But with less stress and more cake.

* In fact this is exactly what happened. Except the big toe thing - I find myself quite unable to confirm that. But the whole guilt and stopping writing and working out. Totally happened. If only I could predict next week's lottery numbers with such foresight and conviction.

Courgette Revisited

I know, I know! I've already done a post about the savoury zucchini bread, but it didn't include step-by-step photos, did it? No! So, HAH! This post is totally justified, and doesn't merely exist because it's still pouring with rain outside and although my walking shoes can cope with mud and the occasional puddle, solid, battering rain is a friend to nothing, man nor footwear, and I've already finished everything else I had to do today.

Anyhoo. I'm out of savoury bread, so this post fills several needs. And hopefully my stomach in a little while. So here it is again: Savo[u]ry Gluten Free Zucchini Bread from Gluten Free on a Shoestring. (The original recipe works in US cups and other measurements; I've converted them to UK measurements below.)

You need:

280 grams basic gluten-free flour

3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (kosher or otherwise)

75 grams (80mls) vegetable oil

2 eggs at room temperature, beaten

75 grams (70 mls) plain whole milk yoghurt

170 grams grated zucchini (courgette)

75 grams Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated

60 grams sharp white cheddar cheese, grated (I left a few small chunks in the mix again, not for aesthetic reasons, but because those chunks of cheese are a tasty, tasty surprise!)

Before I go on, though, I HAVE to show you my new matryoshka US cup measures I found on special at I Want One Of Those dot com (sadly I'm not affiliated with IWOOT, but how cool if I was - they have the craziest cookware!!) 

I think the truth that I'm easily amused has already been proven, but for those previous unbelievers, this is probably the final confirmation you need!

So, to begin with, you need to preheat your oven to 175C, then put the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and mix them together.

In a bigger bowl add the eggs, oil, and yoghurt and whisk really well to emulsify the ingredients together,

(Excuse the difference in colours; my phone camera is fickle. And possibly lazy. Maybe colour-blind.)

Add half the dry ingredients to the mixture, which will then thicken considerably, and then add the grated courgette, and the cheeses. 

Ah yes, the cheeses. This time I used some grated 'Italian Cheese For Pasta' in lieu of the proper (and way more expensive) Parmigiano, and some good, old Dutch cheese (oude kaas - it's good stuff, man, good stuff) instead of the white cheddar. I reckon you can add any combination of cheese you like, as long as the consistency is at least similar, so probably no soft cheeses unless you really squeeze the courgette dry. (Um, see the next paragraph for an explanation of that...)

Pro :: cough :: tip with the courgette: after grating I put it in a sieve over another bowl and gently squeezed out some of the excess liquid. Why? Because the first time I made this I had to add extra flour because the courgette was rather watery. The second time I added the courgette and squeezed a lot of fluid out, which resulted in a rather dry dough, because I threw the liquid away. Third time lucky and I saved the liquid in case I needed to add some, which I did, but maybe just half. A Goldilocks portion, if you will! 

After this, add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix well (the dough/batter will be thick) then add the finished dough to a greased (or sprayed) loaf tin, and bake it in the oven until golden brown on top (approximately thirty-five to forty minutes) checking to see that it's baked all the way through by poking it with a cake tester, or toothpick, making sure it comes out clean. (I always forget, but the recipe suggests taking a wet spatula and smoothing out the top of the loaf before putting it in the oven. Maybe next time...)

The author suggests that you wait ten minutes before taking the loaf out of the tin to lay it on a cooling rack, and waiting until it has completely cooled down before carving it up. 

Or the matryoshka will find you...

All Hail Autumn

It was a dark and stormy night midday. Suddenly a shot rang out... 

Oops, wait, this isn't a Peanuts cartoon.

It was a dark and stormy midday, just the same. It's been pelting it down with hail and rain the last couple of days, and there's barely been a time without some kind of wet stuff falling from the heavens stopping me getting a good walk since I made that pre-Abigail walk a couple of weeks ago (and that was dodging raindrops, too.) There has been sightings of the sun here and there, tempting us to think that the weather might be improving at last by swathing the skies in blue and wafting a daring few cotton candy clouds around like a burlesque dancer, but the grey and the rain have just kept coming back to disenchant us.

Welcome to November in North-West Europe.

I had been keeping a weather eye on Wunderground, though, which informed me that today there was a fair to middling chance that it might stay clement for up to an hour at a time! UP TO AN HOUR AT A TIME! Indeed, the sun had shone for about twenty minutes around ten o'clock, so I had every reason to believe that today was the day I'd finally venture outside and get a decent amount of steps totted up. I know. I may not be the most religious of persons, but I'm quite happy to lay what faith I have at the slightly questionable altar of weather forecasting. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

As soon as the forecast deities showed a decent break in the cloud to the north, I was suited and booted and ready for some fresh air. Yes, it was still hailing as I passed the Peace Palace (this photo is looking south-east) but by the time I arrived at the outskirts of the woods, the sun was shining through the raindrops.

(Note to self: when walking through the woods just after a rain shower, keep your brolly UP for a bit even if the rain finished a while ago, because the tiniest whisper of wind will turn every nearby tree into the rooted version of a wet dog shaking itself dry.) 

There's something special about sunlight in the woods just after it has rained. Perhaps it's the reflection of a million suspended droplets, quivering on bare branches and catching the sun; perhaps it's the bright sky being echoed in the myriad puddles blocking the paths with their blue water hazards; perhaps it's merely the joy of walking outside after being cooped up indoors for so long burnishing everything with a lustrous sparkle. It's probably a delicious combination of all three!

You may have noticed that I am very fond indeed of views like this: taken straight up into the sky, through the not-quite dividing line of branches between one tree and the next. I can imagine there's a conversation going on here. Slow, and rather rustle-some, but I'm sure no less entertaining and interesting because of it!

As a side note, I've decided that I'm going to add a hundred steps to the total for the day. Most of the puddles that dotted and/or drenched the paths had to be leapt over (or at least tip-toed and squealed over, in somewhat cartoon style) so I'm awarding myself those extra steps for the additional energy it took to splash, jump, and dodge around this waterlogged course! Because my slightly damp feet tell me I can!

Apologies for the formatting - Blogger is playing around with my paragraphs and wants everything to be centred from the middle down, even though I'm forever clicking on justified alignment for the text. Very zen, I'm sure, but annoying to my rather pernickety visually perfectionist self.

Taking A Long Walk Around A Short Pier

Storm Abigail has arrived to batter an already weather-beater Scotland, but yesterday, in the (albeit very dark and brooding) calm before the storm, my sister and I made our way around the castle, harbour and pier, and a little way out into the East Sands, for a pretty good ten thousand step walk.

The last time I was down at the harbour for a wander was a good few years ago, and I'm ashamed to admit, born locally as I was, that I'd never been down the ancient pier at all. If I was to be honest, however, I'd confess that walking down an old and not particularly wide stone protuberance into the wild, uncaring North Sea (and its equally unsympathetic gusts of wind) was not something I was happy to undertake when I was bigger. Now though, well, the skies may have been threatening doom and gloom overhead (and already dispensing a deluge to the north) but I finally made it to the iconic point at which all tourists to St Andrews take a photo. The End Of The Pier.

Actually, the real end was a bit further on, but thanks to the combination of a family littering their offspring all over the wall a little in front of us, a young man armed with several fishing rods and colourful plastic bags taking over a set of steps from the lower level to the top level, and a teenage emo kid slouching over her mobile phone at the very end of the pier, I don't actually have a photo from the pier-head. I was there, but no, I unless I was aiming for Landscape In Black, Plastic & Familia Vexo, I have no proof to show you. I can present evidence that I was in the vicinity, though...



I'm actually going a bit pictorially backwards here, as the route we took started along The Scores (one of the ancient roads of the town that follows, at a discreet expensive-house-and-large-garden distance, the line of the cliffs), past the castle, alongside the cathedral wall, then down the pathway to the harbour, via a couple of tradition point-and-shoot castle views (the latter of which I didn't know about, being just at the slipway opposite the beginning of the pier) and past a couple of cannon that I had no idea were there. It's not the first time I've learnt more about a place by being away from it, than by living in it, or nearby! Shocking! (Familiarity breeds ennui, perhaps?!)

I feel obliged to point out that there were two cannon, but someone from the Council, years ago, must have deemed it appropriate to separate them with a substantial rubbish bin, so no, I have no evidence of there being two cannon, either. Had I my wits about me I could have created a Beauty and The Beast montage of the afore-mentioned Landscape In Plastic with a Portrait of Ordnance and Litter. Alas, instead we have a single cannon pointed toward hostile skies, which is probably pretentious enough for me, anyway!

Zombies

A brain is an awful thing. Awesome but awful.

You know that feeling when you're sitting in a fast train and you pull up to stop at a station rather abruptly and your inner ear tries to convince you that instead of arriving at a full stop, you're actually still travelling (I always feel like I'm moving backwards)? That your wits are telling your brain that it must still be moving because the miniscule amount of fluid sloshing around in an equally miniscule part of your nervous system tells it so? A sensory illusion of self-motion of some kind.

(And thus ends my theory of stopped movement based on scant memories of long-ago secondary school biology classes...)

I feel a bit like that stopped but not stopped train in regards to staying at roughly the same weight I've been for the past six months.

(Well... I went up ten pounds during the Summer months thanks to taking time off the evening workouts and just relying on an albeit ridiculous amount of walking to be enough to keep the status quo while I had family visiting over different periods, and yes, I admit, not sticking to sixteen hundred calories on days I wasn't doing my 5:2, either. [I do love my 5:2, though. I feel like it cleans out my head twice a week. I suspect you won't find that on the website manifesto, but what can I say? Clean eating and a clear head is worth the paltry five hundred calories and feeling ravenous by the end of the day, two days out of seven.] The thing is, is that I had a pretty great Summer, and that makes me a little... wary, because part of that pretty greatness is that I wasn't being so strict with myself, and I enjoyed it.

The weight has slowly, s l o w l y come off again so yes, I'm back at March, so although technically I've lost another ten pounds since then, those pounds lost are actually the ones I put on over the Summer months, but if I want to read this in the wishy-washy light of a silver lining, I have, in a practical sense, actually lost weight since March. Yay?)

So I know physically why those pounds came a-visiting (most of them have, thankfully, already packed their bags and gone) but knowing mentally why I opened my door to them in the first place is always a little more complicated.

I have theories, most of which revolve around being so tired of doing all this work and still looking like the Goodyear Blimp. Somewhat deflated from before but still large and slightly dirigible (especially after a day of eating nothing but vegetables). Although there are friends who I haven't seen in a while who can't believe the transformation (one friend actually didn't recognise me after not seeing me for three years), I'm still a big, fat, unattractive girl to a general public who just judge this ship by its hull (to nick one of my favourite, although non-PC, Jim Davis/Garfield jokes).

It does seem that the more weight I lose, the more dissatisfied I am with myself, too, even more self-critical if that's possible. I'm paying much more attention to my rolls and folds and general outline now than I ever did when I was at my biggest, but there is the fact that I did my level best to avoid looking at myself at all back then, so there are a myriad other issues at play about which I'm either not aware, or not ready to tackle yet.

But to get back to my stopped train metaphor, I've lost so much weight over the last four years, that a 'sudden' stop and plateau is making me feel like I'm moving backwards. I look in the mirror and ol' brain here tells me that I am getting fatter again. That although the fact remains that I'm the same shape and weight I was back in March, my head is trying very hard to convince me that my cheeks are a little rounder, that my jeans are a little tighter, that my spare tyre is blowing up again.  And it's not true. My scales, inch-tape, and the fit of my clothes tell me it's not true. And yet I catch my appearance in a shop window and see four years fall my from reflection.

Brains, man. Brains. They should come with a user's manual. Or at least a mute button. I'd prefer an off switch, but that might cause more problems than it solves, so until I'm in command of its capricious ways I'm going to have to train myself to rely purely on empirical evidence and not my brain's impression of my appearance, because, indeed, the ways of my noggin are awesome and awful!

Twenty Seven (Uh, Wait) Five Dresses

“Nic is making heart-breaking decisions over which of her concert gowns are salvageable or not. She has three that just can't be taken in any further without losing their shape entirely, one that was too magnificent to take in but was kept *because* of its very magnificence (bought in Paris in 2001, 1930's style, jet black floor-skimming dress, with a beaded and sunburst halter-neck collar, and matching short-sleeved mandarin collar jacket), and one that was never worn but is just too complicated to alter.

In other news, take note, Queens of Drag - eBay will soon have 5 spectacular evening gowns going for a song!"

They're gorgeous, these dresses, but they have to go and live out the rest of their lives being worn, and not hanging on the back of a bedroom door, loved but useless. It does make me sad, though. I had history with these dresses. Some, perhaps history of the more obscure, or even pernicious in one case, but we've been through a lot together, these dresses and I, and they deserve life back in the limelight, and not a slow fade into dusty obscurity.

But let me present unto you the Fabulous Five Dresses Of Past Glory:

There's the burgundy gown with the white 'underskirt' that I bought new from a seller on eBay in the days before it was inundated with El-Cheapo dresses from China. It was expensive, but still much cheaper than buying in a store, and was nicely made from thick, luxurious satin, complete with pretty crystal and embroidery detailing to the front, finishing with a faux over-skirt/underskirt effect that was the fashion fifteen years ago. (You can still find the style if you search hard enough, but they're really quite the product of their time. I'll attempt to spin that to make it retro and glam when I sell it, though...) 

Then we have the exact same dress, but in pale blue satin and white underskirt, bought a couple of years after the burgundy one. (If it ain't broke, etc.!) This is the dress that only had one outing (for a concert in Portugal), for the simple reason that it was evil. Jinxed. Beset by satin devils who were only content when they caused harm and embarrassment to the wearer, in this case ensuring that a broken zip and a broken foot was the end result of a tumble down stairs outside the venue just after the concert. In front of the entire audience. I haven't worn it since that fall, and it's only today (ten years later) that I finally got round to repairing the zip and making it look all pretty and un-jinxy again. (I shan't be mentioning its ill-fated history on eBay, either. There's no spin doctor in the world that could make that story sound like anything other than a Stephen King novel.)

Next we have the dress I described in the status update. Oh my, but I thought this dress was the bees-knees! I bought it in Paris in 2001, albeit in a discount dress store on the Boulevard de Magenta. Still. I bought it in Paris, and that's what counts. The fabric itself is rather rayonesque, but it draped beautifully. The halter neckline  (although in all honesty one that I should have avoided, having no neck at the time to actually speak of) was a triumph of beading, and matched together with the little jacket, looked like something out of a golden-oldie Hollywood film. It made me feel very glamorous. I managed to time things just about right in the Summer of 2013 and I was able to wear it one last time in concert before it started to swamp me, which was wonderful. (Please excuse the light patches on the photos. The sun shone. My phone's camera wasn't sure what to do with such a rare phenomenon.)

The purple gown is a bit of a mystery to me. I got it in a sale, but I don't remember when. Possibly last millennium. I do have a vague inkling that although I thought it was a tiny bit too small for me at the time, I felt like it was a bargain that had to be snapped up, because it would fit eventually? Ah, I'm rolling my eyes so hard at my past self right now. It's quite a simple dress, with a gorgeous curved V neckline, but you know, I strongly suspect the Cadbury purple colour had a lot to do with the belief that the gown needed to come home with me... It actually fits a little loosely around the hips just now, but because it's such a classic dress there's nowhere to hide my amateur bodice-alteration skills, so it's joining the others in the way of eBay. 

Last is the dress I don't really want to sell yet because I managed to alter it so that it sits nicely at my waist and doesn't gape at my bust, and continues to sit without rucking at my hips even with all my taking in. And I did a fantastic job, even though I say so myself - check out the seven inches in total that I took in at the side and the back. Yes, that's right. SEVEN INCHES in total! Those stitches were tiny, even and beautiful. Not that you can actually tell, given that the dress was chucked on the bed to take an impromptu photo. But they are. Those stitches were exemplary!

I don't really want to sell it because it still fits. Just about. It's on the verge of being baggy, and there's no way I'll be able to take it in anywhere else without making it look like some designer wannabe from Project Runway had a massive amount of fabric to use and got way too creative with ruching. It's such a gorgeous dress; bought on eBay (you may be noticing a trend here) from a private seller in the States around 2004, it fit me absolutely perfectly when it arrived. Described as 'apple red' (which I found charming, because if there's any colour I'm used to associating with apples, it's always green) and beautifully beaded at the bodice and at the opening to the faux underskirt at the back, it was a dream to wear. Once. Then I got too big. And then I got smaller again, thought I'd lost out on being able to garb myself in its glory, then discovered that my sewing skills were enough to render it sing-in-able again!

So it's there, hanging on the back of my bedroom door, waiting to be worn before it's too late. But there's more chance of me being able to sell it if I have other dresses for sale at the same time. Such is the nature of the eBay selling beast. And it won't be long (fingers crossed) before it's not a wearable option any more. I  just can't quite bring myself to attack it with my seam ripper and give it back its former glory.

FOUR DAYS LATER...

Well, attack it with the seam ripper I did. I figured that as I already knew what colours I was to wear for all concerts until March (a combination of certain ensembles having their own colour scheme; and a couple of other soloists who like to organise what dresses they will wear well in advance of the actual performances and wanted to make sure we didn't clash) and that I hope to lose something in the weight department at least by March (the fates willing), Apple Red will be made redundant. And because it's such a glorious gown I'd like someone else to partake of the joy. I was sad to rip out those threads just the same, even though the dress is now back to it's original (and beautiful) dimensions. I hope they all go to people who will enjoy wearing them as much as I have.

:: sobs quietly ::