Quit fooling yourself

What the...? Ah well, my 'fat' versus 'water retention' theory has been shot down in flames. Those couple of pounds I gained on holiday are real, I'm afraid. My scales confirmed that for me this morning and I am indeed sitting at 66kg. Somewhere deep inside me I guess that I knew that was the case but I just wanted it not to be so.

That brings me nicely to the point of today's ramble. How we hope for something to be true, then construct a completely fictional 'story' for ourselves to justify our desires and go on to use our tale to turn the hopes into firm beliefs. Or rather, because I can't speak for other people - even if I am guessing this isn't unique to me, how often I have done this to myself over the years.

Oh boy, I did this so much when I lumbered about in my fat suit. I didn't want my size (no, be honest girl - my excessive weight, or the put it another way, my fat) to be all my own fault so told myself all the comforting fictions I could dream up to justify why I was so big. Fictions along the lines of my having a 'slow metabolism', or maybe an 'undiagnosed glandular problem'. Or comfort tales that I 'carried it well' so it was OK, and I was 'meant to be' a heavier person and it was just 'my build'. Stories like I didn't overeat (yeah, right!) and what I ate was pretty healthy (oh, really?) and it was just plain unfortunate that diets 'didn't work' for me.

It took a long, long time for me to truly 'get it' and really see that this was utter codswallop, hogwash and, not to put too fine a point on it, lies! My fictions did me no good, in fact quite the opposite. All the time I told myself these tales, I was continuing to gain more weight, trashing my confidence and my health into the bargain. I didn't (couldn't?) see that the life I was leading was not making progress but I was, in effect, just marking time... wasting time and my life, really. So, when I woke up I made the changes I've been writing about for the last couple of years and stopped with the tales... or so I'd thought.

What worries me, and I am only just coming to realise this (which concerns me quite a lot), is that I am still doing it, albeit from a slightly different place. I was all too eager to pounce on a comforting story to explain away my small holiday gain. So I did just that, and told myself some lies again. That is not taking responsibility for my actions and it will not help me.

To quote just a few rather pertinent words from a song from the late, great 'Ole Blue Eyes' (and showing my grey hair here) I need to get back to understanding that when Frank sings...
"Don't you know little fool, you never can win Why not use your mentality, step up, wake up to reality"
...he is dead right!

Picture me wearing my dunces cap! Back to the drawing board for this fat lass.