Breaking the cycle

I know I am not the only woman out there for whom the following rings true: embark on diet and fitness plan, spend about a week purchasing ingredients, supplements and gym equipment, slave away for about ooh, 3-4 days, fall off the wagon (in the old days it was booze and these days for me it’s cake!) then go right back to square one and unhealthy living. Indulge for about 6 weeks, have another panic attack (probably trying to squeeze into something 2 sizes too small) and then start the whole laborious and ultimately fruitless cycle all over again.

I am 36 and I can honestly say I have been following said pattern for over 20 years now. Sometimes it stems from me beating up myself and other times it’s the result of a rant from my mother or a careless remark from a friend or colleague. Whatever sparks it off, though, the root cause is always guilt. Guilty that I am not good enough. Fear that others are looking at me and thinking fat, lazy slob. Embarrassed that I have yet again failed at something. Note the yet again. I am haunted by all the things I haven’t achieved in life. The fact that I don’t drive, can’t catch a ball to save my life, haven’t ever made pastry and don’t speak Spanish are the ones that matter. Every day I think ‘if only’ to at least one of these things and a myriad others.

When I see confident (borderline arrogant) folk on TV exalting themselves and praising their own abilities I can’t imagine ever being like that. All that goes through my mind is how nice it would be to see them fail and turn out to be as useless as me!

I haven’t come back to blogging to whinge, though. There is nothing sadder than the person who perpetually bemoans their lot yet does nothing to finally address the issues. It’s like the communist Liz Jones, whom I despise yet can not help reading! Every week she plays the woe is me card and without fail the same stuff crops up in her columns the week after. It doesn’t help that she’s a spendthrift, vacuous moaner; I hate myself for reading what is the newspaper equivalent of car-crash TV but that said, I don’t need to lengthen my list of things I hate myself for so perhaps I can excuse myself that one!!!

I have, in no particular order, today:
- looked up an upholstery course which I can do in the autumn and will call them on Friday to see if they have dates yet so that I can pre-book;
- found a massage school I like the look of and diarised their open evening which is next Thursday;
- bought a food processor online so that I can go back to baking and cooking from scratch again, as I did last summer when I had all that time. I kept moaning about the time it takes to bake a cake and whip up a homemade coleslaw yet all It takes is some labour-saving devices!

Earlier in the week I wrote to the Guardian as they keep repeating stuff in The Observer and Kenny is bored with hearing me whinge. I got a reply today and at least some of my points were taken on board. OK, it’s only a small victory but I am forever banging on about these sorts of things then doing nothing. I don’t exactly wish to become ‘Cheesed off from Charlton’ but expressing these things is far better for my health than sitting stewing.

The question is, folks, can I keep it up or will I fall back into lethargy and disillusionment by the end of the month. We shall see…