Week 2 in hell

I've made it. For the first time in my whole life I haven't had any chocolate at all for 14 days. It has been my goal so many times in the past and I've never made it past the 10 days mark, but this time I've made it to 14 whole days. I want to celebrate. Somebody has a piece of chocolate cake?
To mark the occasion I have decided to tell you how my week has been, because - why should Hidai be the only one to suffer? I have made it to 14 days of no chocolate, and somewhere around day 9 have lost the will to live. All happiness has deserted me, together with all energy and instead a dark cloud made entirely out of grapes has descended over the whole house.
14 days of Weight Watchers have made me realise that life really is cruel, that the beauty standards in our society are so wrong and unrealistic, that I am old and married and shouldn't have to work so hard at looking young and pretty, and that if I want to fit in my trousers without having to do some extreme acrobatics while the mirror is smirking away at me, I still need 3 more weeks of grapes.

So I broke down. I ate 100 grams of Curiously Cinnamon only to realise one minute later that they amount to half (yes, half) of my daily eating points. The hard boiled egg and salad I ate for dinner that day (because they were worth exactly the last 2 points I had left) taught me something valuable though, so it was all worth it. They taught me something every Weight Watcher group leader will tell you the first time you visit, to stop at 50 grams.
You know how it is, it's the little things like this that help you succeed in a diet. Like writing every little thing you eat. Or putting the scales in the bathroom and weighing yourself every time you go to the loo. Or banishing every baking-related newsletter and blog to the automatic archive. Or delegating food shopping to others. Or throwing away everything chocolate or taste related, and still keep a tiny emergency stash of chocolate-chips (that way, if you are willing to eat them you'll know it's a true emergency). Or playing Candy Crush on your phone while everyone else is eating happily away.
I might have done all of the above this week.
But I have not touched the baking chocolate (or the chocolate chips).

This week was actually about adding the exercise to the menu, because it's not enough to just not eat, you have to take out your frustration and lose what little energy you have left to a sadistic DVD instructor who keep saying things like "keep smiling" or "if it doesn't feel good don't do it" and "remember your body can do more than you think, just let it". So I have invented a mental game, like a drinking game but for exercise - every time Dalia (that is the DVD demon's name) says one of those sentences I wish her something nice and full of love in return. If you can actually say it out loud and not just mentally wish her a room full of cakes and mirrors then it means you are in better shape! This week I have done two Pilates training session, and I am glad and proud to say that I am still alive. Dalia, bless her, is also still alive and the DVD has yet to be thrown out the window even after she advised to do that 4 times a week and keep smiling while we try and bend from the stomach without moving our pelvis and keep one hand stretched behind our ears.
And that is the exercise I like! Because the other one is running. I hate running. Hidai loves it, and is much better at it than me (and here he will tell you how he started running training when he was 16 while I ditched PE lessons since I was 12). Now it's not that I'm competitive much, it's just that I can't stand that someone is better than me at something. And with running, I really am quite bad at it. It doesn't matter how much time I've been doing it, I just don't have good running habits, you know like breathing so you won't fain in the middle.

It doesn't help that since I have been pointedly avoiding my treadmill for a year and a half I have lost every shred of physical ability I have ever had. So I had to start over from "running for beginners", which means intervals of 5 minutes walk 4 minutes run for 30 minutes, which I survive thanks to three things - drinking lots of water (about a litre of water during this time), listening very loudly to my carefully chosen training music which has only angry songs in it while trying to shout them out loud at the TV, and watching football. I know, you weren't expecting that one, but I discovered that if you have other people running and suffering in front of you it makes it so much easier. And footballers, they always run and rarely look happy about it. The perfect companion. I don't really care who is playing as long as it's there, so this week I made Ron play his FIFA on the xBox while I was running. Hey, fake footballers run too.
At this point. after 2 running session, I still have to stand on the treadmill for five minutes so my legs won't buckle from under me.
And then I go to take a shower and realised I gained a kilo.
So the conclusion from this week is that running makes you fat.