The Hippy Hippy Shakes

"Nic has discovered that there's nothing quite like trying to analyse your gait to determine why your hip hurts, to make your hip hurt more."

We've all been there at some time or other: we've seen ourselves walk down a corridor with reflective doors at the end; we've walked past a group of boys containing the cute one we've been spending way too much time thinking about; walked across a busy intersection where there's a hundred cars waiting at the traffic lights for us pedestrians to cross. You end up allowing a feeling of intimidation to take over, creating an inner panic that somehow your walk looks stupid, or unglamorous, or draws attention to you for all the wrong reasons, and you forget. You lose all memory of how you walked before, and trip, stumble, or walk swinging the same-side arm as leg.*

I've been told that extreme weight loss does extreme things to the body. I usually scoff when someone says that in relation to me, because extreme? Me? Hah!! Well, actually yes. But you see, I look at myself and the first thing I think of is that I'm still enormous and I still have a good few stones still to lose, forgetting that I've already lost the equivalent of a small adult in weight. It sounds contrived, but when you've been one way for so long, it's really, really hard to see yourself as any different, even when you know you've gone through some major metamorphosis or other. So I really do have to get around to the idea that there's some weird crap going on that I have no control over whatsoever, like, for example, the centre of my gravity, how my lessening weight is now distributed in relation to my body frame, and how it affects my balance, my gait, my movement.

So for the last few weeks I've been reliving the over-analysis of my walk by trying to figure out if something has changed enough in the way I get from A to B to cause my hips to complain so much. I've worn my walking shoes, everyday shoes, trainers, tennis shoes, and sturdy boots all on walks of similar length, and ended up coming back with a sore hip each time. And because I was so aware of every single step, trying to gauge whether I was leaning back more, leaning forward more, twisting somehow, limping, putting my heels down abnormally, rolling on to the toe differently in each foot, extending my legs at different angles, or had suddenly developed a shimmy worthy of Marilyn Monroe that was knocking my joints out of... joint... because I was so aware of each step I know I wasn't walking normally.  In all honesty, after this experiment I may never walk normally again.

It's obviously not the solution to discovering what the problem is.  

It has been suggested by a friend who has lost even more weight than I have, that it may take a while for my body to rebalance. She proposes that muscles have to relearn what they need to do for even simple things like standing up straight. Thinking about it, it makes sense. When I was at my biggest most of my weight was carried at the front, so my back and stomach muscles must have had to work extra hard just to keep my balance. I can imagine that they spent an awful lot of time in a state of rigidity. Now I have much less everywhere, and weight distribution seems to be evening up between front and back, these muscles might have to 'learn' to stop working so hard to support a weight that's not so uneven any more?

Maybe my achy lower back, and grumbling left hip are just symptoms of a long-term body refurbishment. But I think I'll steer clear of shoe shops and groups of boys, just to be on the safe side.

*Yes, yes okay, these are all from personal experience.

Eye Of The Donkey

"Nic learnt three things tonight whilst Wii boxing with her new wrist weights:

1: she thought she was using her waist/back/whatever muscles before.  She was wrong.

2: stopping distances for a hook are remarkably longer with weights than without.  Remarkably longer.

3: it is not easy to fake box with a nosebleed."

As I've finally managed to get the hang of not thumping my nose, grazing my chin, or throttling myself with the Wii controllers, I decided to up the ante with the purchase of some wrist weights. The thinking behind this was that I'd have more resistance, and therefore it would be a little more like punching a bag, instead of punching thin air.  

You can probably tell from all of this that I'm not a driver, but I suspect there's a distance/speed/likelihood of crashing formula that you have to learn. I'm sure at least there's a warning on the  side of the car?  CAUTION - MAY CAUSE MATHS PROBLEMS.

It's common sense. It weighs more than before, so if nothing else, my muscles won't be used to carrying them around, and therefore get tired faster, which will increase the chances of my punching my left boob with a right hook instead of the imaginary sand-filled bag hanging from my ceiling. But indeed, if properly thought-out, there has to be a stopping distance to exertion to muscle strength formula that might do the job.  

But until someone tells me what it is, I'll be online searching for hockey masks and triple-padded bras.

Season's Greetings

"Stravinsky. Possibly not the best composer to listen to whilst working out on the elliptical trainer.

Dancer that dies at the end of 'The Rite of Spring'? I know how you feel..."

It's not even the speed. I'm keeping quite a steady rhythm that has little to do with what I'm listening to (which would cause some hilarity if I was doing this in public at a gym - feet turning at a steady pace, arms gesticulating wildly to the beat, or emphases in the phrase - but it's ALL to do with the intention.  

It's possibly just as well I was at home because the Augurs of Spring section had me all dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun DUN dun DUN dun dun dun dun dun DUN dun dun DUN dun dun dun DUN dun dun dun dun DUN dun dun and no-one would have stood a chance anywhere in the vicinity of me, my cycle and my flailing appendages.

My Love Is Like A Red, Red... Cupcake

"Due to the unforeseen Great Albert Heijn Malteser Shortage of '14, we are, sadly, forced to postpone celebrating our 72 poundiversary loss with the designated Malteser Tray Bake. But we must thank the galant and vibrant Red Velvet Cupcake for stepping in at the last moment. (Red was due to celebrate the 59 poundiversary, but was inexplicably forgotten in the run-up to Christmas.)

Further poundiversaries are now designated as: 79 - Malteser Tray Bake (presuming the Shortage doesn't continue); 88 - something decadent from M&S (to be decided); 95 - tray of maple-pecan brownies; 103 - possibly an entire carrot cake. With frosting."

Yes, our noble heroine Bettie Crocker steps into the breach again, with her box mix cupcakes. The whole concept of bright red cake is such an alien thing to this Scot who was brought up with either brown chocolate cake or cream-coloured sponge that of course it had to be on the poundiversary list. Dear America, you are useful for so many strange things that we would never have thought of doing ourselves. Huzzah for your over-the-top, weird and wonderful baking practises.  

And frosting. Thank you for frosting. Icing is lovely, don't get me wrong, and the fairy cakes of my youth slathered in runny white (or blue or pink or yellow, should the village shop stock such exotic food colouring) icing, and hundreds and thousands, are fond, fond memories, but frosting? They say everything is bigger in the US and they don't appear to be wrong, at least when taking cake garnishing into consideration.

I wonder what it was that nudged some baker or other towards making a blood-red coloured chocolate cake, though?  I wondered enough, in fact, to ask Professor Google, and it appears it could be blood-red because some bloke in 40's America wanted to sell his red food colouring! Well, whatever the truth, the rise of the importance of the red velvet cake was enough for good old Bettie Crocker to package it up in ready-to-bake form, and for that me and my minus seventy-two pounds thank her.

Lovely Bubbly!

Champagne - the most decadent of alcoholic beverages, and usually so expensive to prohibit it's consumption except in the most celebratory of circumstances. 

So until you can get your neck around a glass (or indeed a bowl) of the good stuff, help yourself to some free bubbly socks instead!

champagne tower socks by yours truly

Champagne!  And what's more decadent than a glass of champagne, but many glasses of champagne, of course!

My Champagne Tower Socks are made from the top down, with a short-row heel, and were inspired by watching a 'how do they do that' TV programme that included the proper (or at least a successful) method of pouring champagne down a pyramid of champagne bowls!  I love the idea of champagne and froth carrying on down the sock in luxurious stripes - a gentle froth topping some over-the-top twisted rib - the epitome of luxurious ribbing in my eyes!

I did two versions, one a straight champagne and froth, the second a slightly more frivolous kir royale (crème de cassis, or blackcurrant liqueur and champagne),

kir royale tower socks
araucania ranco solid in 'PT485'
kartopu kristal in 'white'

but the options are not few - there are a good many cocktails that include champagne that could inspire you to any number of colour combinations!

I think my ultimate favourite champagne cocktail is the Black Velvet - champagne and Guinness.  Delicious!

And how often do you get offered free champagne?  They're just one click away...  Either HERE, which goes straight to the Ravelry pattern page, or...

(It says buy now, but the button just takes you to the paypal download page, but you pay nothing!)

Harmony Of The Ellipses

"Nic is grateful to the gods/builders/tectonic plates that conspired to make the only area in her place with truly flat floorboards be right in front of her telly.

Because that's the only spot her elliptical cross trainer works properly!

Mwah hah hah hah haaaah!"

I am also grateful that my behemoth of an exercise machine has little wheels built in to the bottom of the front stability bar to enable me to tip it forward and roll it from where it's stored in my bedroom through to that hallowed spot in the living room, or the age-old, cheap and crappy carpets that cover the less-than-flat floor would be in an even worse state of repair. 

Poor flat. The owners really don't care that much about how it looks, as long as what's there lasts a long time, so let's try to ignore the blue brillo-padesque plastic/wire monstrosity that carpets, for want of a better description, the stairs and hall; you don't want to catch your calves going downstairs (or knees, falling upstairs :: cough ::) on that travesty of a floor fabric, because the resulting welts and grazes sting like a mofo.

But I digress.

Yes indeed, that sweet spot where all four corners of my trainer rest just so. Where balance is premium, and no corner has to bear even the tiniest lurch every time the wheel is turned. For you see, a lurch brings with it a tiny hint of a grinding noise. A suspicion of mechanical disapproval. A suggestion that should any horizontal inadequacy continue, Terrible Things Might Happen. 

So, not just to the left, where the floorboard squeaks pitifully when sensing any sort of imbalance. Not just to the right, where there's an inexplicable bump in the flooring. (I've never found enough courage to actually find out what it is; I just avoid it and hope it isn't/wasn't anything that might ooze in the future...) Not set up running parallel to the sofa and sideways to the teevee for there appears to be a lack of wholesome boards at that particular point. They don't squeak there. It's more of a groan, and a slight give that supplies just enough impetus not to linger.

I guess I just want to point out that I didn't simply plonk the thing down in direct view of the screen without trying all other options first. That I did in fact search for a suitably stable support in all corners (or all corners that didn't show an unnatural pliancy of support) of the room, before finally coming to the realisation that, for a short time at least, the Gods of Getting In Shape were smiling down upon me and my efforts to both pedal my pounds away and watch 'Grey's Anatomy'.

I probably need to replenish that cake altar again.

Empirical-Line Dress

"Nic was looking forward to finally fitting back into her beautiful ball-gowns for all her lovely concerts over Christmas, but WOE!!  During the hiatus of projects that needed pretty dresses, optimal fit has already been passed.  (Yay, of course, but woe too!!)

Time to get out the sewing-machine, and find a copy of 'Dress Alterations for Dummies'..."

It's not that I've been oblivious to the changes, quite the opposite (as posts on the subject will testify) but somehow work and special-occasion clothing exist in another part of my brain's wardrobe section. Like somehow satin and silk have the magical properties that allow them to fit the wearer no matter what size they both are.  

I'd been wearing a gorgeous black satin concert dress I found on eBay for everything. It was my go-to empire-line, floor-skimming, classically elegant black dress and it had slowly replaced all the other concert gowns once I had become too big to wear them. (Notice the quaint notion of things fitting on the way down wasn't given any noggin space on the way up. Denial on the outside, but acknowledgement of the truth on the inside, maybe.) It looked smart, elegant, it covered me up enough that I felt comfortable to be in front of people wearing it. I was still wearing it until a very recently, when it became obvious even to me, that simply by cinching in at the waist with a pretty belt, or taking in at the bodice, it was just too big, and instead of being elegant it made me look like I was wearing a trussed-up bin-bag. An lined satin bin-bag, but a bin-bag none-the-less.

I suspect that that's one of the reasons why I was actually quite shocked in discovering that those ball gowns, stored away (out of sight, out of mind) were too big. That although the dress in which I had worked for so many years was beyond the help of both my sewing skills and even my widest belt, I thought, expected that perhaps now I'd be able to wear my old gowns again. If I let out the corseting a little and sucked in my tummy a bit. But no! Most of them were already slightly baggy around the boobs and waist, and didn't strain across my hips or stomach at all. (The problems with being pear-shaped - you have to buy clothes that either fit well on top, but complain at the seams lower down, or comfortably skim your lower portions, yet gape open at your less than vast tracts of land.)

It's quite the stupifier (a word which my spell-check informs me doesn't exist, but it should, dammit), because not only have I discovered that my expectation of something is way off, but I've also been shown, empirically, that the weight I've lost is noticeable (at last)!  

WOE, but YAY, too!