This going to be one of those long and rambling posts. It's been a while since I went off on a truly introspective and philosophical rant but I just feel it coming. I've felt it coming all morning, from the moment I woke up this morning and thought, "Right. From today, you're sticking to Cambridge, okay?"
'Cos the immediate reply from that other voice in my head (you know the one, right?) said, "Aw, no! Do I have to? It's just sooooo booorrring?"
Interesting. The other voice in my head belongs to an adolescent teenager. Great.
And you know what? It
is boring. Deadly dull. Banana tetra for breakfast. Chicken and mushroom soup for lunch. Banana Mix-a-Mousse for tea. Probably. For day after day after day after day. Geeze.
But…
I've got really fat again. My clothes hurt me, even the loose ones, 'cos there are so many rolls of fat they cut in where you least expect it. Every day, I can't wait to take off my bra. It's impossible to find a bra that fits, apparently. I appear to be quite broad in the beam which means that I'm a 42 something. But 42 something bras all seem to have odd-shaped cups and the underwires all find a way of cutting into me, into the rolls of fat I was just talking about. My clothes are torturing me. I can't stand it anymore. I can't stand dieting anymore either. I'm so sick of the whole lot of it. But I can't find clothes that don't cut in for the size I am already (unless I start living in trackie bottoms and T-shirts) so if I let myself get any bigger… Well, it's not something I want to think about.
Without a doubt, I need to lose some weight. But what I don't want to do is what I always do. What I keep doing, over and over again. Which is lose some weight (so my clothes are more comfortable again) then fall off the wagon, stay about the same for a month or so, then slowly pile it all back on until I arrive back at the point where I am now. Where just sitting typing a post hurts. Where trying to get to sleep is a nightmare unless I get up and take some paracetemol to take the edge off the aches and pains in my joints. So I'm constantly tired, because every night I think, "Maybe I can get to sleep tonight without taking anything" (cos I don't like being dependent on painkillers - it's not good
), get to about 1.30am and then have to go downstairs and take something.
God, I'm being honest here, aren't I? Too honest, probably.
I'm sick of being caught in this loop. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person but this is the one thing in my life I can't seem to get right. And because I can't get it right, I've been on and off Cambridge for over 4 years. No wonder I find the shakes boring. No wonder I'm finding it hard to cope with even the thought of having them day in day out. But you'll note that I said 'off' in that on and off Cambridge line - and let me tell you that during the 'offs' I've tried everything else, from calorie counting to intuitive eating, from red days to point counting to No S (a great concept fundamentally flawed by the fact that some people have been on diets for so long they just can't get away from the 'on a diet/off a diet' mentality.
Like me.
Cambridge is the only thing that gives me any results - the only reason, I suspect, that my weight hasn't gone back up to the 17st 9lbs I was the first time I did it. Because when I'm on it, on a roll, I can lose a stone and a half in 3 weeks. Which again, is Cambridge's fundamental flaw. Anyone who's ever done a VLCD is inevitably drawn back from any other diet they try because other diets take forever.
What does all this mean? I think…
think… it means that I'm stuck with doing Cambridge. And that it's about time I made it work. About time for me to see my Cambridge journey to the end, not just halfway along the road, stuck in some grotty motorway service station on the M4. No, I need to make it to Cornwall. To Land's End, LOL.
And I've got to stop thinking that I can do it any other way. Because it's too far and I can't trust my sense of direction and the only thing I can trust is that Cambridge will work if I let it. If I just drive on slowly one day at a time and stop trying to look too far ahead.
Hmm. So this is me, admitting the stuff I really need to admit. I've got to do more than admit it, though. I've got to follow through. Maybe make a contract with myself.
So here it is.
I will commit to doing Cambridge for the next week. During this week, I can't avoid having a meal out (it's been planned for a while). But on that day, I will choose the most sensible thing on the menu and for my other 2 meals I will have Cambridge products. I will not use that meal as a reason to blow the diet this week (because that's completely and utterly daft).
A one week contract. One week at a time. I can do that, right?
