F.C.L (Fat Club Lie)

I read a Facebook post today which really made me laugh about the rules of “Fat Club”, I’ve shared it on my Facebook page if you want to check it out. The reason it made me laugh so much is because it’s all TRUE!

  Fat Club is unlike any other club you’ll ever join, because it’s a place where you can do the following;

I think I admire my Weight Watchers more than anyone else in the world, because every week she smiles and nods and manages to avoid shouting “what a crock of s**t” at the top of her voice.

   

Week after week (and I include myself in this) people who are good, honest and decent people, the type of people who would help an old lady across the road, who bought a red nose for Comic Relief and instill the virtues of telling the truth to their children, stand before another human being and lie.

 

Picture the scene, it's a draughty church hall, there's a line of people wearing their lightest close and flip flops despite the weather and they have a look of slight fear and dread on their faces. The conversations in the room  go something like this;

Fat Club Guru; “have you had a good week?”

You; “yes, I’ve stuck to the plan all week”

Fat Club Guru: “you’ve put 3 pounds on”

You: (*looking sad and shocked and gutted*) “WHAATTTTTT???? I don’t know how that happened, I genuinely don’t know how I’ve managed to put 3 pounds on. I’m gutted”

If you’re a real pro at the “FCL” (Fat Club Lie) you manage to shake your head as you put your shoes, jumper, belt, earrings, bracelet back on… all the things you took off in the vague hope that when you got on the scales your week of lies wouldn’t show up! You then walk off looking sad, disappointed and a little dejected.

 

  The first time you do it, it feels strange, slightly odd, there’s adrenaline coursing through your veins! Like the first time you drink alcohol or smoke a cigarette when you’re a teenager! There’s a sense of danger, the thrill you are obviously flouting the rules.

  The lie ..... it’s only a little one, like the one you tell your mum,

Mum; “Have you been smoking?”

You: “No, there were some older kids at the party they were smoking”

You know, she knows your lying, you know you’re lying, but will she say? Will you crumble and tell the truth? Will she challenge you? Will some kind of thunderbolt actually strike you down?

Not actual scene from my teenage years, I was never hit by a thunderbolt.

  It doesn’t….no one says a thing…. You’re home dry and then (SPOILER ALERT) just like Kevin Spacey at the end of “The Usual Suspects”, the moment you leave Fat Club and your out of view of the Leader, your swagger returns, your hunched sad shoulders straighten, the smile dances around your lips and you get in the car and turn Bruno mars up full blast (*Bruno Mars is optional in this scenario)

You’ve done it!

Now all you have to do is drive to a chip shop just far enough from class that none of your fellow conspirators might see you, but close enough to home that your chips don't end up cold!

NOTE FROM KATIE– I’m writing this for a friend, I’ve never resorted to such treachery!

Fat and Fit!

My Dad grew up in Kent and so when he moved up to Nottinghamshire after he married my Mum, he was considered a “foreigner” In fact my Aunty Marie never actually directly acknowledged him. Instead she would ask my Mum “does your whattsit want a cup of tea? “Does he take sugar?”

This is a stunt Aunty Marie, not the real one.

  I’m not sure if she thought, that if she spoke to him he would somehow start to brainwash her with his southern ways and before she knew it she’d be dressed as a pearly Queen, serving up jellied eels and asking people if they wanted a “barth” and not a “bath” She assumed that because of the Midlands / South divide there would be no way they could understand each other and therefore nominated my Mum as their interpreter!

My Mum & Dad...quite normal really!

  The reason for my tale of family history is because a similar thing happened to me yesterday. Somebody made an assumption about me and as we know “assumptions are the mother of all f*** ups”

When you’re overweight people assume that you’re not fit, a couple of steps and they expect you to collapse in a heap on the floor begging for someone to fetch you a mobility scooter. 

   Yesterday Lucy and I went to a meeting and in the course of general conversation we got onto the subject of golf and Lucy politely mentioned that she might like to give it a go one day. Straight away this lady offered to take Lucy along to her golf club and play 9 holes with her. I saw her look sideways at me and I could see the thought going through her head “ I wont ask fattie, I doubt she could walk the distance to play 9 holes without having to stop for a family bar of Dairy Milk and a sit down”

Now don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t run a marathon, but for a fat chick I’m actually quite active! Most weeks I go to the gym a couple of times a week and do high intensity dance classes and because I wear a fitbit, I know, that most days I achieve 10,000 steps. 

Yes I’m overweight, but I am doing something about that and I know for a fact that I’m far healthier than some of my skinny friends who must have been blessed by the Gods of “having a laugh” as they never do any exercise, eat chocolate all day and spend most evenings sat on the sofa. Ask them to go for a walk and their first question is “how far” and then a look of panic when I reply, “Until Cyril (my crazy beagle) starts to look a bit tired”

  It’s really easy to judge people and assume you know all about them by how they look or sound, but the reality is you don’t. So just as my Aunty Marie should have spent a bit of time actually getting to know my Dad and learning that Kent isn’t in the East End, maybe the lady yesterday shouldn’t have discounted me from a game of golf. Although secretly I’m glad she did, because if I’m going for a walk, I like Cyril to be there too!

PS – Another pound gone!

Free the Cheesecake One!

When I say this, it really isn’t an excuse, but the last few weeks have been really busy with work. We have a massive project on at the moment and I’ve spent a lot of time in meetings. Fortunately I've managed to stick to my diet and in meetings I’ve avoided biscuits, even the nice chocolate ones you normally only get at Christmas. I’ve made sensible choices if I’ve eaten out and any downtime that I have had, I’ve filled with exercise, so even though I didn’t make my meeting last week, on average I’ve been earning 41 bonus points. 

  This has been through a mixture of burlesque dancing, going to the gym and walking. I can now walk up the 199 steps in Whitby without thinking my heart is going to burst out of my chest! As a result this week a pound has magically disappeared. Well maybe not magically because I worked bloody hard for that!

The 199 Steps in Whitby

I’ve also been reinforcing my DNA Fit way of eating. A few months ago I was genetically tested to see what foods my body best responds to. Yes this is a thing and you can read about it in this blog. For me (and please keep in mind that this is exclusive to my DNA, yours will be different, even if we are related!) I need lots of protein and very little carbs. So despite my love of carbs, I now only eat them once a day.

  I also don’t eat chocolate, cakes, deserts or sweet things in general, because I've been hypnotised not to! Don’t I sound a hoot to be around! Sometimes I feel I’m morphing into Gwyneth Paltrow and before I know it, I’ll be on a macrobiotic diet, banning Cyril (my dog) from eating meat and saying things like “I don’t put anything that hasn’t been through an ancient refining process in my body” and spending 3 hours a day in a downward dog pose making humming noises. 

  As I had a little bit of time at home last night, I thought I’d experiment in the kitchen. If you read my Slinky blog regularly, you’ll know that the outcome of this is bound to be as happy as someone in a horror film going into a dark building, where the lights don’t work and there’s a serial killer on the lose.

  I love Pinterest and on there I’d found a recipe for a sugar free, carb free cheesecake, mmmmm sounds delicious (*may or may not be true) In my days as a sugar-aholic, the one thing I could make with serious aplomb was a cheesecake, my peanut butter creation had my neighbours begging me for the recipe and actually asking me to make it for EVERY gathering!

My Raspberry & peanut butter cheesecakes

  The sugar free / carb free recipe called for 4 ingredients

1. Cream cheese
2. Eggs
3. Bananas
4. Peanut butter (I used an organic almond one, my inner Gwyneth was proud)

The recipe said bung it in a bowl, mix it up, shove it in the oven….or words to that effect. I can’t help, but feel there’s a cooking programme lurking deep within my soul.

Looks promising at this stage, very American cheesecake!

  After an hour, I figured it was time to take it out of the oven, well the smoke alarm was going off and that’s a sign in the Trinder household that dinner is ready.

A bit burnt, but I can live with burnt if it tastes nice!

  Now granted it was a bit burnt, but I wasn’t going to let that put me off. I waited patiently for it to cool and down and waited to taste the creation that would make me a changed sugar free / carb-free loving person. As I cut myself a sensible slice and prepared to have my taste buds tickled, I realised that there’s a reason I had loved cheesecake so much and that was the carbs and sugar that was in it.

Sadly my cheesecake was not a pleasant experience, it just tasted like eggy cream cheese mixed with a bit of banana and peanut butter and then burnt in the oven! It just made me miss proper cheesecake!

  If you have any sugar free recipes that you’ve tried and actually tasted nice, then I’d love to hear about them!

Don't Cha!

If I'm REALLY honest, food wise this week hasn't been great, exercise wise I have been an angel Lots and lots of walking and I've even got round to one of my New Year's resolution. Somehow this has all collided to mean I've lost a pound, so I'm happy with that. This week I intend to be good both food and exercise wise!

There are two outstanding memories I have from my clubbing days, one is the image of the women of Mansfield attempting to woo the men of North Nottinghamshire with by recreating the Eric Prydz video to “Call Me” and the other is, girls "slut dropping" and  pretending they were Nicole Scherzinger. 

  Now don’t get me wrong, I love to dance and harbour secret hopes of being asked to be a contestant on “Strictly Come Dancing”, paired with Artem Chigvintsev. This would subsequently lead to a long term love affair and possibly marriage. I am the girl who throws herself around the dance floor in a comedy way, I am not the girl who struts and thrusts in a sexy way, because lets face it I’m not sexy and I have never felt sexy regardless of what weight I've been.

  One of my new year’s resolutions was to do something to make myself try and feel a bit sexier. Even though I am losing weight and my body is changing it’s a slow process and I don’t feel sexy, I still feel big. So I decided I would do something where the whole premise was to love your body and show it off! So with the aid of a Living Social deal and two of my bessies I managed to convince them we should try pole dancing! Shoulder injuries better (Paula) and boxing match fought and won (Laura) it was time to do it.

Pole dancing like the pros...

   I booked us into the class and the lady e-mailed to say we needed to bring loose trousers, shorts, trainers and heels. I refuse point blank to get my legs out for anyone so I ignored that bit and took everything else. When we arrived, it became quite apparent that me, Laura and Paula were the oldest  ladies in the class, and in my case, the largest. It felt a little bit like we’d walked into a university party, everyone else in the room  seemed to be 19, in micro hotpants, vest tops with neon bras peeking out from underneath and banging bodies! As we waited for the class to start we noticed that the girls seemed to be greasing their thighs with baby lotion. Not only had I not bought shorts, I'd completely forgotten the baby lotion, it's all I can do to remember my keys when I go out!

  Please don’t think that we’d walked into a room with lots of mean girls who stared and pointed at us, because we really hadn’t. These were pretty sexy girls who smiled at us; the women who were quite clearly heading for an age where dislocating a hip could be a real possibility. The teacher was an Amazonian goddess and as she talked us through the “fireman spin” and the “ankle twirl” (I might have made up the name of that last one) she made it look REALLY easy! When she said who wants a go I found myself stepping confidently towards the pole, grabbing it with both hands and then executing what can only be described as the “fireman falling on his ass spin” 

action shot! Yes I really am spinning that quickly!

  Undeterred I tried again, Laura commented I was less pole dancer and more a skipping Mary Poppins! Julie Andrews is sexy right?

 As we took turns to twiddle around the pole, occasionally stopping to wipe it with a flannel (cue lots of greasing the pole type jokes) I watched the other girls, the longer the class went on, the more items of clothing were removed; tracksuit bottoms became hot pants, vest tops became crop tops and I think one girl even put on a corset.

  These girls were amazing, they were far more advanced than our fireman spins, they were hanging upside down, holding on by a thigh, spinning left, then right. It's hard to believe that I will ever be able to do anymore than spin around with one foot clearly routed on the ground, although the Amazonian goddess instructor seemed to think that we would be able to! I promise if we reach this stage, I'll video it for you! There is something about dancing around a pole that makes you feel sexy! Even me in my tracky bottoms, man's t-shirt and socks with a hole in, for the first time possibly ever I felt a teeny tiny bit sexy and led to a moment where I felt the need to do a Miley Cyrus type twerk!

  Apart from the fact that today I can barely move my arms and I have some interesting bruises on my shins, I loved every second of pole dancing. Sexy is more about a state of mind and attitude than what you look like, it's about pushing your shoulders back, holding your head high and feeling good in whatever you're wearing. 

  Just recently I've found myself so focused on the end result of losing weight, I've forgotten to enjoy what I'm doing and not be afraid to do different things. So whilst I won't be hanging upside down on a pole anytime soon, when I do and I fall off I will do it with a Slinky smile!