Mirror Mirror

Help!  I spent yesterday shopping or at least trying to shop for a few sweaters.  No big deal, you might say.  That's what I thought until I stepped in front of the three-way mirrors in the fitting rooms.  Front on I looked OK, tolerable from the back but that sideways view was as deflating as ten burst balloons.  Deflating might even have been the best option.  My question then and now is:  how did I manage to gain so many unsightly bulges?  I have to go up one size in order to get anything to fit and even then.....

I can now understand Snow White's step mother asking that mirror on the wall the all-important question, only mine would have been "do I look big in this?" and the mirror would have no option but to answer "you sure do."

I didn't buy anything.  Instead I told myself I was going on the strictest of strict diets for the next 12 months.  Next question is of course:  how's my self-control? The answer is:  I don't have any.  I like cooking, I like food, I like sweet things like cake and chocolate and we're coming up to Christmas when all these things are going to be even more saliva-inducingly displayed (yeah, I know saliva-inducingly isn't a proper word but right now I have other things to worry about).  And I'm a great believer in the old adage "you only live once".
People with a bit of meat on their bones are usually cheerful, happy, outgoing people or they used to be until the advent of the super-skinny brigade.  Now I suppose they all agonize in private over the extra pounds.  I am trying not to do that.  At the same time I have to confess that when I came down with a bad cold last month (no blogs written as you'll have noticed) I actually lost two pounds in weight and I have been delighted with myself ever since - until I went shopping yesterday that is. I haven't weighed myself again for fear I've gained those pounds again. 

It's all a bit crazy isn't it?  If you meet someone for the first time do you automatically write them off because they are carrying a few extra pounds? I suspect you do what we all do, see them as a whole person and not as a load on a weighing scales. If we are healthy, get enough exercise, eat lots of fruit and vegetables and then have the occasional treat of chocolate or cake, shouldn't that be enough without worrying about being too fat?   That's what I've been telling myself since yesterday when those mirrors revealed the true me.  Of course, I'm going to cut down a tiny bit and eat smaller portions from now on.  With Christmas coming it won't be easy.

Let's look at this weight business again in June of next year, shall we?  In the meantime, a happy Advent season to everyone.

Resolutions and Regrets

New Year's Eve - that day in all the year when we either start brooding over the past year or forming resolutions of doing better in the New Year.  I must admit I'm sentimental.  Saying goodbye to the old year is almost like saying goodbye to an old friend.  I've felt comfortable writing 2012 and now I'll be struggling for the first few weeks at least to write 2013 instead.
My reminiscences on the dying year are speckled with "why did I's?" or "why didn't I's?"  as in "why did I let myself be persuaded to buy that pair of shoes that I can hardly take two steps in without falling over?"  and the annual lament "why didn't I give up eating chocolate like I intended?"  All too late now and I don't think any new set of resolutions I might care to dream up would fare any better when I take them out and go through them at the end of 2013.
Why do we wait until the beginning of the New Year to make resolutions?  It's the worst time of all for keeping them. If they are of a dietary nature they'll be broken by the time the wintry sun sets on the horizon.  Not eat chocolate?  Well, there's just that one box I got for Christmas and when that's finished of course I'll stop eating the stuff.  We know where that will end.  And the idea that I can become a stronger person well able to fend off persistent sales people in the shops?  Gone with the first piece of chocolate. For if I don't have enough strength to resist a box of chocolates what chance to do I stand against a smart sales assistant with "winter bargains" beaming in her eye telling me the dress was just made for me?  I'll be led to the cash desk with a stupid smile on my face, fancying I'm doing this because I decided to and not because I am like a piece of putty who can be persuaded to anything, especially when it is tagged "reduced price". 
So if anyone asks what my New Year resolutions are for 2013, my answer is going to be that I have liberated myself.  I'm going to eat chocolate, drink wine, buy stuff in the shops I don't really need.  Wait a minute - isn't that a kind of New Year resolutions in itself?  In which case I can be sure I'll keep it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!