20 / 183. 163 days to go.
Its July and the central heating is on. Am i cold, or is it cold? In Mikes blog (see early posts on here for link) he did talk about being really cold. Mind you, he was doing vlcd in October through April - No wonder he was cold. He had to buy 'special attire' if i remember 
Today, not so good planning. I had my bar as soon asi woke up and came downstairs (i do love the nut one) then had 2 litres water and some tea and felt satisfied all day and therefore 'forgot' about food and eating. So, Tonight, by 6-30pm i was left with two shakes and a soup mix. I had one shake before my last client and then after i'd finished work at 8-30pm, i checked emails and i contemplated my 'lovely' evening meals ahead of me. I thought, "I'm never going to be able to have a shake and a soup and another two litres of water before i go to bed!!!"
Anyway, i just didn't fancy the shake in the evening. Its lovely to have those fun flavours during the afternoons while its suny and nice outside. But at night its not the same IHMO.
Then i remembered about 'cooking' the packs. I didn't want yet another mousse as i'd had that for a few nights in a row, so i thought about making the soup mix into 'crisps' and having tomorrows lunch soup today with it instead of the shake that i had prepared.
Looking up the recipe for 'cooking' the packs into crisps, etc - which is here...
http://mylighterlife.iblog.com/index.php?op=Default&postCategoryId=1608
I followed the instructions while i watched big brother, and, as i poured the water into the bowl with the mix, i felt that just couldn't wait to taste them. YUM.
But, oh dear, i had made the mixture far too sloppy and runny. Disaster! 
I decided to add some of the other soup mixture to the mix and that way i would end up with more crisps and less soup.
But disaster again!
In order to make the mix to the consistency shown in Mikes blog pics i had to add the whole of the second packet too. "Oh well, That's ok this time", i thought, "I'll have double quantity of crisps and no soup. C'est la Vie"
Mike states that one pack makes about 30 crisps.
"Mmmmmm", i thought, "I shall have a whole big bowl of them to crunch through while i watch the rest of tonights BB"
Onto the non-stick parchement paper they went and round and round they circled for one minute and twenty five seconds.
As i opened the microwave door i was surprised to see various blobs of mixture sitting there totally un-transformed in their innocent little blobs. Just as they were when they first went in. "Hmmm".
So, another minute - starting to crisp at the edges, "Goody".
Then another minute, the ones around the edge looking 'cooked' "great!"
As i took the plate out my excitement turned to faint horror as i literally scraped them off with a knife. And that was merely the ones around the edge. The others were still like that uncooked cake mixture that mother used to let me lick off the wooden spoon.
So, back inside they went. Round and round. More shenanegens on BB. Then the adverts. Scrape off the bits round the edge so its doesn't burn too much, then round and round again. Repeat.
By 9-30 pm (half an hour after i started) i decided to taste one. 
eugh. A floppy, semi soggy, but crisp blob of salty, savoury goo!
I persevered.
I never did get to eat 'a bowl of crisps'.
just nibbled on them after a while while the next round of 'cooking' was taking place.
The last few scrapings i did take through to the lounge to accompany me to the large TV which is all the better for seeing Nicky's Bagpuss facial expressions in detail. There was 10 minutes left of the show by then and i saw Aislene and Welsh Imogen making a new alliance together and Tourettes Pete finally telling biggest-breast-implants Lea to leave him alone and stop harrassing him about other women (hurrah, at last he's told her! She sure did have the well-anticipated strop and sulk about it though, in response! Not surprising that it took him to build up courage to confront her is it? In the end she was just feeling hurt, and Pete saw it and responded by taking her into his arms. He's a very loving man - he's been my fave from the start - i'm so glad it turns out that he is actually caring. I feel better about supporting him now that i know for sure, instead of just suspected that he was caring and decent person. Have you ever read a piece in parenthesis for this long before, reader? Just wondered).
I can say with much security that that meal was THE worst thing i have ever eaten in my life.
i must have done something so, so wrong, somewhere.
Or it could be that the microwave is just to ancient for this recipe. (The microwave is fitted in the kitchen and so 'came with' the house when i bought the house. I bought this house 13 and years ago! Who knows how old the Microwave is? But it cooks everything else alright).
I know now that i need to drink more water because i would hav ehad another litre or something in those two packs if i hadn't cooked them. So i am sipping away now.
I actually didn't like the idea of cooking the mixture when i did it. I saw it all crisp up and it worried me. Surely it is ruined (nutritionally speaking) by doing that?
Believe it or not, before i caught this star-vation train, i was very particular about eating good healthy food. I always have been. Usually had vegetables with two meals per day - good green ones - steamed. Only olive oil or other good oils - no tans-fats. Grilled or steamed Tuna steaks, or quorn or other fish baked/steamed or something. Don't buy and do not like convenience foods and foods that i call 'family foods' such as cheap frozen pizzas, oven chips, flavoured rice's ready meals, boxed fish-in-sauces, sandwhiches, crisps, salty snacks, or any other number of foods like that. Not even bread. I never eat bread in my usual daily meals.
They are not actually real food are they? They do not even resemble real food, to me. Yet i think that people can just get used to seeing them and forget what actual real food looks and tastes like.
I mean, c'mon, orange!!!! (like those thin horrid cheese and tomato pizzas). What real foods are orange? Except for oranges.
So i like healthy food, i eat healthy foods. Yet, "Houston, we hav ea problem".
The trouble is, you see, i'd go on like that, happily for days or weeks. Then (seemingly out of nowhere) I'd have a food binge.
And when i had a food binge i went for all foods that were the most damaging to my body. Like crisps (lethal, believe me) high fat cheeses, bread, butter (bread is a BIG binge food) horrid manufactured cakes full of colourings and additives, regular supermarket packets of biscuits (not nice home made ones or anything) and of course chocolate!
The chocolate i can understand. And i can forgive.
A lot of people are 'haunted' by chocolate and consciously have to control themselves and limit themselves to eating it in moderation (wheter they admit it or not - some people like to display their 'indifference' to it, in order to make others feel they are stupid or wrong, and some like to show off how they can resist it - i had a 'freind' once who invited me around for easter sunday lunch. After lunch she showed me the easter egg that she still had from the year before!!! It was one of those dream easter eggs, bought by only somebody that absolutely adores and worships you, that is in an enourmous see-through case with a massive yellow ribbon around it. The kind of easter egg that i have never had. We four adults ate the egg that afternoon as our dessert. My friend had another one delivered to her for that Easter day, which was then proudly placed on top of the living room cabinet where the aforementioned digested egg had been occupying its space for one year!)
Yes i believe, chocolate is a common fantasy, not discussed nesesarily, but there nontheless. Is it about gorging on chocolate without consequences? Think about some of the advertisements for chocolate - e.g. cadburys flake, galaxy etc.
But the other stuff that i used to binge on. Well, it distrubs me greatly.
Its not because i love those foods and cannot tolerate the deprivation. No, its really not that at all!
It is simply a matter of self harming.
Destroying my body with toxins and poisons.
Damaging my sense of self esteem (i will feel awful the next day, or when i finally stop the binge, and i know it)
Ruining my chances of sexual success (which hurts me financially because i get rewarded less [see earlier post]), and of emotional fulfillment (withdraw from romantic/sexual contact - end up alone and unloved)
What a mess.
You know, its funny.
Earlier this evening while watching BB i had an idea about what i might write my blog about. It was the ad-break and i got up to do someting. And then i just had a thought pop into my head. I can't recall now, how it got there. I think it was an image or an auditory memory that flashed through my head. And at that moment i 'said' "I'm not going to complain any more".
Well!
immediately after that sentance formed, i had another 'thing' happen. Flashes of how i have been living my life went whizzing through at the speed of ... well, light? of sound? I don't know how fast, but very very fast.
And i realised at that moment that for quite a long time (i'm talkng about years) i have been complaining about my lot.
Feeling unhappy, miserable, worried and lonely. And very very annoyed because i am poor - well of course i am not poor compared to real poverty, i know that.
This wasn't meant to happen to me.
I'm not supposed to be this age and be living my life like this.
Its all gone wrong somewhere, you see.
So, are you up to speed yet? Getting where i'm coming from?
So i then immediately flashed up an image of my blog from yesterday, where i wrote about giving my table away. And asking, "What am i letting go of really?"
I think that this new decision to not complain any more, has something to do with that.
Perhaps i've finally accepted my situation.
Understood how i'm here and why.
Learned how to tolerate it.
Painstakingly discovered ways out.
And the final crucial piece, started to put that into practice and, for once....FOR ONCE...it is working.
SOMETHING IS WORKING.
There actually IS some light at the end of the tunnel.
And its shining this way.
Finally, finally.
When people have suffered a lot for a long time, you know, they adapt to that suffering, don't they? And so when pain relief comes, no matter how small, that person is mighty grateful. Immensely grateful for something that many years ago they wouldn't have perhaps even acknowledged as a good thing. Wouldn't have been thankful at all.
But when a person has nothing, anything found or given becomes a lot.
As well as objects and so on, i think that applies to 'hope' as well.
