Rivals!

When it comes to books, I find that some people are very snobby. “Have you read the latest by *insert name of obscure author here*, the composition of characters is just marvelous, the imagery just sublime and by the end of it it really made me question the whole question of where did squirrels come from”

  Ok that book might not exist, but you get my point, My favourite books are “Great Expectations” (it’s a really good story) any “Adrian Mole” (makes me laugh as much today as it did when I was 11 years old) and “Rivals” by Jilly Cooper!

My well worn, well read copy of "Rivals"

I didn't realise quite how well worn it was!

  Now before the book snobs turn their nose up and other people wonder what on earth this has to do with weight loss, this is it! I love “Rivals”, because it’s the tale of a group of people (Venturer) bidding against another group of people (Corinium) for the right to run their local TV station. The leader of Corinium is a dirty horrible scoundrel who cheats and lies to try and get his way. On the day the license is awarded, the leader of Venturer (Declan) is convinced that they haven’t got it and as he’s about to walk away, he’s called into a room and told that yes they’ve won it. He's also handed a sheet of paper, with the names of all the people who work for his rival, saying what a good bloke he is and how they’d rather work for him. He’s told that whenever he feels down he should look at this piece of paper.

  Alright, I’m probably not selling the book and I probably should have issued a spoiler alert, but today I was reminded of that piece of paper and the fact I have my own version.

 Today has been really tricky, with a few issues raising their work related head and I found myself really REALLY angry. The sort of anger that has enveloped me only twice in my life. Most people will refer to themselves as chilled and relaxed, but I really am. One of my best qualities (apart from my awesome sense of humour, beautiful eyes and cracking pair of boobs) is the fact I very rarely lose my temper and if I do get mildly annoyed, I forgive really quickly and move on. Today was not one of those days.

  I tried to employ every technique I could to cheer myself up, but not even singing “I’m in the Mood for Dancing” helped. So I headed off to the supermarket. I was an angry shopper, screaming children in trollies annoyed me, people wading through the packs of strawberries looking for the longest best before date drove me mad! I figured I may as well just fill my trolley with pizza, garlic bread and a vat of Ben and Jerrys and just head home.

  And then I remembered the weekend I’d just enjoyed. The weekend where one of my best friends made the journey from Weymouth to surprise me for the first of my 40^th birthday celebrations… 

the weekend where all my friends joined me for afternoon tea, prosecco and cake. 

The weekend where we stuck our heads in a Las Vegas showgirl cutout and laughed. 

The weekend where I spent a gloriously hot Sunday at Wollaton Park with my friends, godchildren and dogs. The weekend where all of my friends scribbled notes on polaroid pictures.

  This weekend and the memories it created were what was important. So my trolley remained pizza, garlic bread and ice cream free. I came home I made myself a prawn salad and prepared my overnight oats for the tomorrow.

  I know when I step on the scales tomorrow I’ll have put weight on, but it will be pounds created out of fun and laughter. Today it was back to normal and the love and fun I'd felt over the weekend was the thing I needed to prevent my anger from really screwing over my diet for all the wrong reasons!

Just Keep Swimming

Following on from last week’s blog, my number 1 priority over the last week has been me and making sure my heart gets a bit of TLC. This has taken a couple of forms…. Physical (lots of exercise) emotional (if you’ve not heard from me in the last week, there’s probably a reason for that J )

  The physical exercise has come in the form of “Lucy’s Bootcamp” I stupidly agreed to give my sister the password to my gym membership and apparently that now means she can book me in for all the exercise classes in the world ever.

So far in the last 7 days, we’ve done aqua Zumba (twice) yoga and just general swimming. In the next 7 days we are booked in for more yoga, body combat and spinning. I’ve also booked in to see the gym manager about changing my password.

  All joking aside, I’m glad Lucy has taken the form of my chief motivator, because in the last two weeks I’ve lost 5 pounds and I’ve really enjoyed myself. I’ve secretly enjoyed all the classes and I’ve really LOVED the swimming.

  Swimming formed a massive part of all my childhood activities, in fact I can’t remember a time that I couldn’t swim. My parents took me swimming from a young age, maybe they recognized that when you have a clumsy child, you have to do everything you can to protect that child from accidentally killing themselves!

Baby Katie

  Swimming was something we did after school, I loved my lessons with Mr Rowbottom. He was an ex army PT, who I think still thought he was coaching new army recruits. Having once seen me in my hometown of Kirkby, I was always referred to as “Kirkby” and my friend who once wore a swimsuit that had the word “splash” on it was forever known as “Splash”.

  Despite his yelling and making us dive over that long metal pole normally reserved for hooking drowning kids out of the pool, we all adored him. I think I always deliberately forgot my swimming hat so we could have the following conversation:

Swimming was something we did for birthdays….. swimming parties at Sutton baths, where adults and kids would pile into the pool and then head home for a bar-b-q.

  Swimming was what we did on holidays, playing in the Bournemouth sea, messing about on our beloved inflatable whale, which even though he now has a puncture still lives in my Dad’s garage because no one can bear to throw him away.

Swimming was something I did as a teenager with my friends. We got our Mums to drop us off at the new swimming pool with the water slide and the wave machine. We used our pocket money to go swimming and buy a can of pop and chips in the café afterwards.

  Swimming was something I stopped doing.

  Last week as me and my hideously lumpy bumpy body (which really shouldn’t be on display in public without a warning) got into the pool to do actual swimming. Not just stand there with a cocktail, which is what happens on holiday.

  As I pottled up and down the pool (I’m the swimming equivalent of a Sunday driver) I felt the tension start to leave my body, one length breast stroke, one length backstroke. Up and down.

  As I floated in the embryonic water, I felt the calmness and the peace flood my body. I didn’t care about my lumpy thighs or my a belly that would evoke the green eyed monster in Santa. I only cared about the water and the enjoyment it was giving me. 

   I could hear Mr Robottom bellowing “Kirkby”, I could hear the raucous laughter of Little Katie and Little Lucy as we fell off our inflatable killer whale into the cold sea and I remembered the sheer joy of our childhood parties and hanging out with my school friends.

  Even the angry swimming man in the next lane made me laugh as he aggressively splashed his way up and down recreating the wave machine of my teenage years. I hoped for his other half’s sake he didn’t do “everything” with as much aggression or as quickly!

  Maybe I’ll cancel my appointment with the gym manager and let Lucy keep booking me into classes at the gym!

Pectoralis Tendonitis

Over the years I have had many an injury. It’s a cross you bear when you’re as clumsy as me, some of them I think would be pretty hard to replicate! I broke my ankle when a boy racer reversed into me, he also broke my little toe, which I have to say at the time was far more painful than the ankle.

  This scar is the result of opening a microwave! Seriously, I opened the door and somehow got my wrist caught on it.

Microwave wrist scar!

  So it was really only a matter of time before pole dancing left me with a comedy injury. This week, we had a different instructor, who was less Amazonian goddess and more pocket rocket! This woman was 5ft 2 and at one point I felt the need to wave my arms around her because I thought she was on wires like Peter Pan in pantomime! As I tried (and failed) to replicate the teddy bear spin, (hold onto the pole and spin round with your legs wide open) a spin where you bring your knees into chest and a crucifix (climb the pole, grip it with your knees and hold both arms out to the side) I could feel bits of me start to bruise, pull and generally ache. A quite enthusiastic attempt at a teddy bear spin and I pulled something I have never pulled in my life, something I didn’t even know you could pull, my armpit! Before you scoff at the fact this isn’t possible, it is and it bloody hurts! My friend Michelle, who’s a doctor, said the technical term is pectoralis tendonitis and I needed to ice it. I went to bed with a bag of frozen peas under my arm….clearly pole dancing is making me sexier!

    Also this week, in a bid to boost my weight loss and earn lots of bonus points, I played squash for the very first time. I normally play badminton with my friend Debbie, upsetting the over 50’s as we kick them off the court we have booked so they can’t play for free (how unreasonable!) Anyway this week they’d apparently booked all the courts, for every time available for every day!

  Debs suggested we tried squash because she’s played before. I agreed! The man on reception told us to head down the corridor and knock on the white door.

This is the "white" door apparently

  Didn’t bode well did it? The court itself could have done with a 60 minute makeover and this handprint on the wall, chillingly reminded me of Yvonne Atkins from “Bad Girls” trying to escape the execution cell after Fenner locked her in. That episode gave me nightmares for weeks!

Scary Yvonne Atkins style handprint

  Once I’d put that out of mind, Debbie set about trying to teach me the rules, I kind of got it so we attempted a game.

  I can honestly say that squash is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had a go at, the sweat was pouring off of me by the end (what a lovely sexy image for you) and my sprained pectoralis tendonitis throbbed a bit! Still when I typed it into my weight watchers tracker, the fact I’d earned 15 bonus points doing it made me smile!

Me & Debs with a post squash rosy glow!

The general result was last night when I stepped on the scales I'd lost 3 pounds and I genuinely couldn't have been happier! It also meant that I got 6 pebbles, one for each 1/2 pound I'd lost and Lucy got 2 as she'd lost a pound. I think my new Weight watchers leader, Heather is clever, because as she hands you your pebbles and you put them in the basket, you feel 10 feet tall! (actually if I was 1 feet tall, I'd be seriously underweight!)

weightloss pebbles