Rain, rain go away!

Blimey, it's miserable outside this afternoon, absolutely bucketing it down.

I've got over the disappointment of failing those exams. (thanks for the supportive comments). I still need to talk to my Big Scary Boss about not finishing the course and giving up. I feel quite strongly that I've learnt as much as I'm going to on the course and it's just depressing me to have to keep revising the same stuff again and again.

I'm not sure how my Boss will react when I tell him - he's unlikely to be supportive and may TELL me to continue. However, since it was something I chose to do in my own time I'm going to have to stand firm. (I spoke to our HR lady and she said that it's ok by her to stop). It's giving me low level anxiety being unsure what will happen, but he's in the US at the moment so I'll wait until he's back.

Anyway, I had a very nice, relaxing weekend. I was away in the Peak District (near Buxton) staying with my mum, dad and DH in a holiday cottage. Thankfully the weather wasn't as miserable as it is now and I really enjoyed spending some quality time with my family.

The nice thing is that my mum and dad are considering moving to Macclesfield (NW England just south of Manchester, or somewhere similar) as they are asset rich and money poor, owning an overvalued house in the South East commuter belt but having little actual money. If they sell up and move north they could buy a farmhouse with land or similar and get much more for their money than the smallish 4 bed they currently own.

It really struck me, whilst spending time with them, how much my dad goes on and on about health, eating, diets etc. It's no wonder i have a 'thing' about it now. I don't think he realises how obsessed he is. He likes to comment on other people's health (on TV - gosh, doesn't he look old, lost weight etc) and about how you look tired if you dare to yawn. I'd forgotten what he was like.
It convinced that if I get pregnant I'm not going to tell him until I'm about to give birth (LOL) as otherwise he'll be obsessing about all the things that could go wrong and totally stress me out.

When did they turn into health freaks!

Failed

I've just found out I failed my 2 marketing exams so I'm a bit down. Part of me is relieved that I know my results, part of me just says, at least you tried, part of me is relieved as I didn't want to carry on the course and another bit is anxious as my boss may force me to continue the course. Oh dear, very mixed up.

Aggh! I'm noticing my emotions, recognising them and NOT EATING. Normally I'd feel that it was the one thing that I can control and use food to make me feel better or reward myself for feeling down. Today I'm just sitting with being down. :(

It's not pleasant but I suppose I'll have succeeded at one thing today if I don't eat instead.

Pandora's box part 2

I've just remembered though that in that tale, the one thing salvaged was 'hope'. Suddenly I feel a bit happier.

Pandora's box

I've just been giggling with work colleagues about something that happened at the weekend.

On Saturday night we were were sitting around drinking wine (DH & ILs who're the same age as us) whilst their parents were asleep upstairs.

I commented on a box I hadn't seen before which we looked at and realised was made of camphor wood. Then we thought we'd stick a note in it. We were thinking of clever things to write on the note and put 'Pandora was ere' on the basis that we thought this was very funny and some day, eventually, DH's mum and dad will tidy up and find the note.We'll know how frequently his mum cleans the box!

I feel that my emotions and changes relating to IE are a bit like a Pandora's box, stuffed down and hidden away. I have mixed emotions about letting them out and examining them. Hmm.

Worrying

I get my Chartered Institute of Marketing exam results on Friday and I'm worrying about them. I'm trying not to as I can't change the grade now but it brings back that feeling of dread I used to get at school over reports and exams and such like.

I THINK I passed one and failed the other but I don't know and won't until the results turn up. It's frustrating as I took the exams in the 1st week of December so they take absolutely AGES. I'm trying to tell myself that worrying isn't a helpful emotion and that one way or another I'll cope with the result.

If I fail one I'll carry on, if I fail both I'll talk to work about leaving it but I don't think they'll be very happy about that.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Two steps forward...

I don't know why, but I seem to be doing really well and then have a couple of 'bingy' days and then well again. It's rather annoying.

Yesterday, I went to Asda on my way home to get dinner (I'd forgotten we were using up gammon after all), anyway, I ended up buying MORE liquorice torpedoes and alphabet sweets and eating them on my way home. I tried to really notice their sweetness whilst I was eating them. So what feelings were making me uncomfortable?

I think it was because of our baby plans. It came up naturally in conversation at work (someone has just got engaged) and I was being teased by my work colleagues. Anyway, I confided in one of them that we were going to 'try' soon. I shut the door so that other people couldn't hear, but on the way home I was 'brooding' over whether I had done the right thing, and what if rumours started spreading. By the time I got to Tescos, I was quite worried. I was looking at 'What to expect when you're expecting' and it said that you should always tell your boss first to avoid the rumour mill.

It's so silly, we're not even trying yet and I felt as if I was totally over reacting. There's nothing to worry about. Apart from anything else I'm fairly sure that work are expecting me to get pregnant fairly soon. I'm nearly 33 and have been married for just over a year, so realistically it's on the cards. So why did I get so wound up?

I got some wine whilst I was there and ended up drinking it whilst watching TV, since I'm cutting down on booze prior to baby-making I'm also annoyed at myself for sabotaging my efforts.

Anyway, I've confessed all now so I'll just have to stop dwelling on it and learn from it. Firstly I need to stop being a blabber mouth and secondly I to learn to feel those 'uncomfortable' feelings, notice them with interest and move on.

Back home

I'm back home now, just been messing about with html in order to try to have pretty links with logos to the Beyond Chocolate website and the Normal Eating one. This unfortunately means my DH has seen my blog, but never mind.

We had a nice weekend away, I very much enjoyed seeing my in laws and SIL/her OH who are lovely. MIL cooks really healthily all the time, they make delicious homemade soups and we always have yummy stuff like fruit salad for pudding as well as other more fattening but equally nice desserts (like chocolate torte!).

I've now officially finished my 12 week MM Beyond Chocolate course. I now need to go back and repeat some of the weeks that I just didn't do in the depth I intended to. It was a very valuable experience, in spite of not quite doing everything and I thoroughly recommend the 'structure' of doing something like that if you are trying to change the way you act around food.

The course includes individual 'coaching style' feedback which is invaluable as it stops you feeling as if you're the only person ever to have had these particular feelings or struggled with a specific exercise.

It's also primarily an email course, so it might be possible to do it if you're overseas (not UK), I'm unsure and suggest you approach them directly if this is your situation.

I've had a bit of greedy day today, for some reason I always end up overeating on trains, I think it's the boredom aspect. Consequently, I'm not really hungry for my dinner and am struggling to be enthusiastic at the thought of more food!

Weekend away

My in laws have invited us to stay in London this weekend for a '2nd Xmas.' It should be fun, but I'm not looking forward to the hassle of travelling down from the NW. (I'm sure this seems quite laughable for you Antipodeans as it's all of about 300 miles). We're getting the train so at least we won't get stuck in awful Friday night commuting traffic.

It'll be good to see them and my SIL (who's one of my best friends).

For some reason at the moment I'm quite tired. I've been having early nights but could just carry on sleeping in the morning. I think it's a bit to do with the weather, it's starting to get a bit lighter in the evenings and the days are getting longer, but I am a bit fed up of winter time.

I've been taking in my mango and dark chocolate (today I also had liquorice torpedoes) in a little box I got from the BC multimedia course. It holds a nice amount for a snack and I feel better as I'm having some 'goodies' but not an uncontrollable amount. Also, I'm far less tempted to eat choccies from the tuck box and less tempted too to overeat in the evening. According to BC theory this is because I'm allowing myself nice snacks as part of my diet and this means that I don't feel deprived. I'm starting to see what they mean!

I don't really feel much like doing any work today. I'm going to have to do SOME this afternoon but am really tempted to surf the web and read everyone else's blogs. I just can't get motivated :(

Valentine's day meal

We had a lovely meal last night:

Lobster thermidore as a starter (3 for a tenner on the market on saturday, we'd had 2 and had 1 left)
Intra-course intercourse (hehe, whilst the next course marinated)
Scallops with noodles, asparagus, peppers, ginger and lime
Apple pie with specially nice ice cream (vanilla and chocolate)

I love my husband not least because of his fabulous cooking skills.

I also read the first chapter of that workbook. It makes a lot of sense and I realised that I do ignore my feelings a lot. Hopefully it'll help me get more in touch with them.

I also still have an entire glass full of liquorice torpedoes. I have NEVER managed to not eat them as soon as I bought them, but seem to feel quite peaceful about having them in the house and knowing that it'd take a lot of effort to eat them all.

I went to the dentist last night and got told 'well done' for having a very clean and healthy mouth, in fact he didn't even need to 'clean' my teeth and gums for me they were so good. :-)

Food & feelings workbook by Karen K Koenig

My workbook came in the post last night, I haven't had much of a chance to go through it properly but it looks very good.

I'll report back on what I learn but my initial impression is positive.

In other news, the Beyond Chocolate board is buzzing. It was quite slow before, but i can hardly keep up with the volume of discussion, it's great.

I'm amused by the number of budding bellydancers that there seem to be. :-)

Success

Hehe I'm quite pleased with myself.

We have a tuck box at work with lots of choccies and crisps. Since I've been doing my IE I've been trying to only buy snacks (20p) when I'm actually hungry and have a little sign on my desk saying 'do I want a break or a kit kat?'

Anyway, my colleague was surprised to discover that there's an entire box of echo bars (mint choc biscuits) that she bought for me as I like them that I haven't eaten although they've been in there for several weeks.

I suppose this shows I am making progress.

I also went out yesterday and spent £4.50 on liquorice torpedoes and put them in a big pint glass (they didn't have any pretty storage pots in Sainsburys). They are now sitting on our dresser looking rather pretty and I surprised myself by only wanting to eat two last night and feeling quite peaceful about the fact that there are so many just for me to eat whenever I want.

I have also taken a little pot to work with me today with dried mango and some Green & Black's ginger chocolate. My 'treats' are actually nicer than the tuck box chocs and I like them more.

Last night my ABC workout (by Astrid Longhurst who wrote Body Confidence) came from Amazon. I haven't tried it out yet as I was bellydancing last night instead but may have a go tomorrow as I have friends coming today.

Welcome to another blogger

Hello to Jo at http://sweetchocolatekisses.blogspot.com. It's really good to find yet another Beyond Chocolateer. We're a steadily growing group and it's great to read about other people's experiences, trials and tribulations. You somehow feel you're not alone with re-learning your eating habits.

Not judging by appearances

I sat last night and re-watched Shrek. It is one of my favourite films. I love the fact that the Princess isn't perfect and that it reminds children that it's ok to have self-doubts and that you shouldn't judge by appearances.

I suppose it's something we all need to remember in life, that 'ugly' people often are lovely, and that even beautiful princesses aren't perfect. The other lesson has to be that when you love someone or are their friend you don't care if they're black, pink, brown or a great big ugly ogre.

Binge eating

Lisa Jane's post on http://alittlelisa.blogspot.com/ about binge eating really resonated with me. I have memories from around 11 years old of eating entire packets of chocolate biscuits and hiding the wrappers so my mum wouldn't know. I can't remember actually eating the biscuits, it would just be 'one more' and then I'd guzzle them down.

It never occurred to me that there was a reason other than greed behind my bingeing. As I got older, I was able to buy what I wanted but usually either ate in the car (secretly and without my OH knowing) or in the evenings when he wasn't around. I could eat an entire pack of pringles and still could. I'd even eat icing sugar or sugar directly from the packet, or ice cream from the freezer.

And always, as Lisa described I'd have a horrible sense of shame and disgust at myself. When I first went to uni I started to vomit but realised that bulimia wouldn't solve my problems and stopped doing that quite quickly.

Now I'd say that I overeat but don't binge very often. However, this weekend we bought hundreds and thousands (sugar threads) and other nice things that have always been the sort of food that I've binged on. I've eaten some of them but tried to stay present and put them on a plate. I really don't want to go down that route.

Books

I'm currently waiting for Karen K. Koenig's new book 'The food & feelings workbook' to arrive from Amazon. I'm hoping it will have some advice that will help me. (I'll let you know what I think).

So much of the time I don't seem to have 'big' feelings. Yes, I get angry or happy or irritated, frustrated or miserable. But I find it hard to understand what feelings I'm ignoring and want to get in touch with them.

Anyway, I'll let you know what the book is like.

I've also been getting support from BC. I asked about how I can get the final pieces of the puzzle to 'fit' together in order to actually start losing weight (it's less of a priority than it used to be and I'm mostly happy with myself, but I do want to get slimmer for health reasons). The advice I got was that it'll happen and to trust the process.

I do seem to be making progress, I rarely overeat at mealtimes and question what I really want if I'm 'hungry' at other times. I find that this mouth hunger often happens at work and I'm working at understanding why. At the moment, this seems to be the one time I'm sabotaging myself and I find it quite frustrating.

The only other thing I feel I could change is to cut down on booze. I'm making some progress at this and believe that 'making babies' will really incentivise me to be very aware of my naughty wine habits. We'll see...

Relatives and baking

I haven't posted for a little while as I was down in London all last week and then had my adopted Auntie/Granny down from Scotland over the weekend.

I was at an exhibition in London which really made my feet hurt (I literally stood from 8.30am to 5pm), as we didn't have any chairs on the stand. My feet are still a bit sorry for themselves and are getting sore more quickly than normal.

I had some pleasant evenings, relaxing with my sister on the Tuesday, when we put the world to rights over too much wine and out to dinner with my mum, uncle and sister on the Wednesday evening.

What made me feel better is that my younger sister (an occupational psychologist and very smart) says that she is pretty sure that my brother was never sexually abused and it seems that some of my memories of difficult family relationships have been exaggerated in my head a bit. (I've blocked a lot out).

I had a wonderful weekend with my aunt who is one of the kindest ladies I know. We went shopping on Friday and then to see the Chinese state circus on the Friday evening (a wonderful evening). Then Saturday we went out to a National Trust mill (interesting), and home for a dinner of whole salmon cooked in our fish kettle. Sunday I spent making Empire biscuits (they were called German biscuits but the name changed during the wars, it's two pieces of shortbread with jam in the middle and then icing sugar and hundreds and thousands on the top), strawberry ice cream and irish soda bread with my auntie teaching me how to make each of these.

Last night I went bellydancing and also listened to some more exercises from Beyond Chocolate. I realised that I have the urge to binge when I feel that I'm not good enough and am comparing myself to others or worrying that I can't do a good enough job. Basically reflecting on two overeating occasions one was just before meeting my mum and sister when I worried that i'd be compared to my sister or my mum would make comments about my weight. The second was when I was worrying about under-performing at work. So my self-confidence and self-belief is obviously something i need to work on.

I'm not sure how...