The BIG Issue

I have followed Sooze, Her indoors, Him outdoors, since the beginning, and joined in the drooling over Betty.
Yesterday she blogged about that big issue.....WEIGHT.

So many of us struggle with weight issues, for many years I was super thin bony and I wore cover up clothes. You know the drill, high necks, long sleeves, long skirts or loose trousers.

Then I got married and had a baby WOO HOO lots of bulges and rolls that was obviously not "baby fat"as it was still there a year later.

I suffered and hid behind the trite "big is beautiful" and " not fat but luxury model" sayings, meanwhile avoiding mirrors and shop windows like the plague. 
Then slowly I began to believe the lies and became happy in my well stretched skin.
Until, that is, the day I was walking through a shop and saw myself in one of those mirrored columns, instantly my mind said "look at the state of her" then as I stepped aside to let "her" pass the penny dropped. 
I grabbed a dress off the rail and scuttled off to the changing rooms.

Not to try the dress on but to strip down to undies and look at myself in those unforgiving all round mirrors under the stark lighting.

When I got home I had a long talk with the then Hubby (who was, of course, the type that could eat as much of anything as he liked without putting on an ounce). Together we agreed to take action and went through the food cupboards. 

We prepared a meal plan (many years before it became the done thing) that would keep him from wasting away while stopping me from turning into the Michelin tyre woman.

It was hard, very hard. At that time I had a massive garden and walked a pair of GSD's twice a day and in good weather cycled everywhere. I should have been thin, or at least much slimmer than I was.
I could not exercise more, there were not enough hours in the day, instead I controlled what and how much that I ate.

S l o w l y, very slowly the weight came off and I went down to what felt comfortable and didn't look too bad. I was very far from the too skinny teenage years and was a bit scared of going too far.

I went out and searched the charity shops that were starting to feature in the high streets. I found a dress that was just a bit too tight and every Sunday morning I put that dress on and looked at myself in the long mirror ( I bought it specially for that reason).

If it was okay I ate normally that week, without adding any more of the treats that I still enjoyed.
If it was most definitely not okay I was extra careful, cutting down on the treats, for the week.
There were the odd weeks when the dress could not be zipped up and then I was back to being very careful, with no treats at all, for a week or two.

The years have flown by since then, I have been far too thin again and far too fat. Now, after several normal years, I am slowly putting the weight on, I say slowly as for several years my weight has fluctuated over half a stone. 
Lately though the top weight has been the norm and a bit more on top, measures must be taken.
Since I have had the heart issue my walking has been severely curtailed, Ben's increasing age has also slowed the speed down, double whammy. 
Then I am so into crafting that I sit for long periods, I do keep the sewing machine, overlocker and iron well apart but that is just a few steps.

Just to stir up the mud my long standing interest in all things food related has escalated. I am finding so much fun in experimenting with new ingredients and new menus. For instance vegan food has gone from every now and then to at least 3 days a week. It may be a healthy option but it is calorie rich.
The SO also likes pudding so I am making them more often and just to put the metaphorical icing on the cake (see what I mean about interest in food) jam season has arrived. 

I am not about to starve myself or embark on a regime of meal substitutes.
No Way Jose, not for this plump bird.

I am going to start making better choices, I made a rhubarb crumble on Wednesday. I replaced half the flour with oats cut the sugar by 1/3rd and used vitalite instead of butter. 
The SO had natural yogurt with his, mine was au naturel.
 I did add the juice of a sweet orange to the rhubarb and added 2 tsp instead of tbsp of sugar. and I served it in the smallest dishes that I have. That way we got 4 portions instead of the greedy 2 that has been the norm.

Dinner that day was  a very healthy salad. I cooked Quinoa and drained it well, then added edamame beans, peppers, celery, red onion, cucumber, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, a few pecan nuts just roughly chopped up and some shredded spinach leaves, this was served on a bed of lettuce and was divine. The SO had some tinned herring fillets with his and I had a slice of crustless quiche. both were in the fridge and needed using up.

Last night we had a repeat of the salad with some chicken and then the last of the crumble.
Tonight will be a new salad and I hope to cook some new potatoes from the garden to have with it. There will be no butter swirling round the plate.
I know about calorie counting and food balancing, cutting back on fats and sugar. I studied all this as part of my HND at college.
 Like many of us I have read reams of diet advice. I have all the information to get to the size that I would like to be and stay there.

Just why I, and all others, cannot do that is the million dollar question.

I call myself greedy, both here and in real life, but in truth I am reasonably careful in the amounts that I eat.

Breakfast is usually one slice of wholemeal toast with spread and marmalade, (today I had homemade peanut butter) lunch will be a sandwich or a bowl of salad. Yesterday I had a small apple, a slice of cheese, matchbox sizeish, the crust of a wholemeal loaf and a dollop of hummus and that was a big lunch.

The evening is my danger zone, dinner done, washing up done and kitchen cleared, I sit down and if my hands and mind are not occupied my mind is off.
I "fancy" cheese and biscuits, chocolate, cake, peanuts, crisps etc etc etc. no matter that I do not have all of these things, I still think that I want them.
Now you may understand why I knit so much, it isn't just because I like to.
I made the rhubarb and strawberry jam yesterday, it just filled 3 jars and I was quite put out that there was not a little "taster dish". I couldn't believe myself when I said this out loud.
I like to think that I was merely joking, but it could stem from my subconscious mind.

I will still be making jam, as I said my family and friends like a jar or three of Pam Jam, I will just make sure that I do not keep very many in the pantry.

Oh my word, I have banged on about this rather a lot.

What I wanted to say is that we are all different. 
We have different lifestyles and different metabolic rates

What works for one will cause another to fail miserably.

Also and most importantly weight should be about health and not about image. If your hips and knees are complaining or you can not run upstairs without turning lobster red and huffing and puffing (not from asthma or similar conditions) and if you can not see your toes, never mind touch them, it is most likely that you are carrying too much weight.

I am going to be blunt here, You Are Probably Fat. 
Not Big Boned.
 Not Carrying Lots Of Water.
 Nothing to do with "glands" 
It is probably because you eat too much and the wrong things.

 I am not being cruel, I had this same conversation with Francesca at the weekend. Too many business lunches and too much London socialising have piled the weight on. Her clothes are straining at the seams and I had to make her some more trousers and pj's, right smartish, as she was running out of things to wear.
I had to be very honest and speak to myself as well, it is only a matter of 7 lbs but the older you get the harder it is to lose the extra weight.
See that "only 7lbs" it is not ONLY anything.
It is half a stone. 
It is 7 bags of sugar. 
It is more than 2 bags of flour. 
It is just about 4 large loaves of bread.

Those stick thin models and actors, pop stars and wags are not thin naturally. At least not very many of them are.

They live on dangerously low nutrition levels, many have admitted to eating tissue to stem hunger pangs, it is all about image.

The Media giant promotes ultra thinness as being the only way. When a size 8 is considered obese there is a serious flaw somewhere.
I am a generous 14, back in my teenage days that was called a size 18, I was wearing an 8 and longed to add at least 1 size. Clothing manufacturers have colluded over the intervening years, in changing the standard sizing to help in the brainwashing and self delusion. 

If I have offended you then I am sorry, but ask yourself why you have reacted in that way and give yourself an honest answer.

                        TTFN                                           Pam

PS. If you found this as boring as paint drying I am sorry, call back tomorrow for something else. xx

PPS I did the walk and had an orange and a cuppa, when what I wanted was a cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps.
Not good, just trying hard. I know that some days I will fail, as long as the fail days do not equal or outnumber the win days I will be happy.