I’ve wanted to be someone else for as long as I can remember. I think that’s even one of my motivations for writing about fictional characters.

Everything about me seemed wrong, even my name invited teasing from my schoolmates. Then I started overeating when I was aged seven, I put on weight and my body developed early. I remember being the tallest person in school when I was ten years old, and I even remember consciously deciding to hunch my shoulders in a silly attempt to hide my chest.

During my teens I would decide to start a diet every Monday, but by Tuesday the diet would be forgotten. I tried eliminating certain foods from my diet, or I allowed myself a little bit of what I liked and found that I couldn’t stop myself once I’d had a bite.

I had a few successes too. In my early 20s I tried Weight Watchers and lost eight pounds in the first week. I lost interest in it after a while though; the meetings bored me and if I didn’t attend them I was effectively paying just to get weighed.

I went to see a Lighter Life counsellor once, but couldn’t afford the fees, and didn’t really feel that eating prepared food packs was going to teach me how to maintain a healthy lifestyle for the rest of my life.

The only times I’ve lost a proper amount of weight were when I was working in a library in 2001 (being a library assistant is actually pretty physical work) and when I went to the gym fairly regularly between 2004-2006, and worked with personal trainers. Even then I still had some weight left to lose, but I felt better about myself.

I read about different strategies for losing weight, but none of them really resonated with me until I read this book called Shrink Yourself. Now I’ve read books about emotional eating before, but this was the first one that really touched on issues that I’d encountered, like self-sabotage. Each time I’ve lost weight I’ve felt that I could reward myself by eating junk food.

That’s one of my biggest problems actually. I reward myself with food for just getting through the day, when I should be rewarding myself in a healthier way for actually achieving something.

I’ve always felt that my life won’t improve until I become slimmer. This belief has held me back from doing a lot of things, and I’m fed up of it.

I’m tired of saying to myself, “When I’m slim I’ll …”

I’m tired of feeling unhappy when I look in the mirror or sit on a packed train.

I’m tired of hiding in the shadows of my life.

I want my looks to reflect my personality. In short, I want to be gorgeous inside and out.

But how will I do it? Have any of you lose weight? Does anyone have any advice?

“I need to show you something,” my father said to me. I followed him to the living room where he switched on the television. After a few seconds I realised that I was watching a morbidly obese man being given a stomach bypass.
“If you’re not careful, one day that will be you.”
I went back to the kitchen to wash up, feeling humiliated and hurt. As he walked past me I said the one thing guaranteed to annoy him, “You’re always talking about the “Babylon” (the Police), well you’re acting just like them now.”

So how did this conversation arise? Well, I’d noticed in recent days that my father had been talking to me in quite a brusque manner. As I didn’t think that I’d done anything that could upset him I attributed it to the fact that he’s started a new job which might be giving him some stress. When I was eating dinner and he entered the kitchen he seemed quite annoyed at me, and I asked him if his job was stressing him out. That’s when he made his comment.

I should have expected it really. Last week I overheard my mum saying to him, “Maybe she’ll listen to you.” The next day she decided to have another go at me about my weight, and about the time I spend on the computer. Since she’d done the dirty work I’d wondered whether he would still bother to raise the issue.

It still hurts. The more they tell me to lose weight the more that they become a part of the issue. Instead of it being my problem, in my twisted mind it has increasingly become me vs them. I have told them so many times that telling me off doesn’t help me at all, but they don’t hear what I’m saying.

Now spending time on my computer has become something bad, yet another thing that I mustn’t do. I sit in this chair cringing when they walk past the room, waiting for that look at me or comment about me spending too much time on the computer.

Sometimes I go out just so that they don’t have to look at me with disgust for a few hours, just so that the comments stop for a little while. There are only a few hours each week when I can have the house to myself. I’m planning to get up early tomorrow morning to take advantage of one of those times, though it’s not enough to make a real difference.

I feel so inhibited around my parents. I would like to have an exercise routine, but I feel so awkward about exercising when they’re around. Though I know that I’m hurting myself in the long run, exercising with their knowledge feels like I’m agreeing with them about my weight, like it’s a victory for them. Part of me knows that it shouldn’t matter, but I’m finding it difficult to think straight about this issue.

It’s not like I don’t want to lose weight. Especially now that the weather is hot I’d love to have a fit body to wear nice clothes, to be more active outdoors, etc. Last week I bought myself an exercise bike, as I’d been thinking about the spinning classes I used to enjoy and wanted to replicate them at home. I think about slimming down every day.

I’m not blaming my parents for me being overweight, but their comments aren’t helping me to feel better about myself, which is the only way I’m going to find the strength to commit to it. I feel like I’ve been kicked when I was already down.

I wish I had a friend who I could talk to about all this stuff. I saw my counsellor yesterday afternoon so I’ll have to wait another week before I can talk to her about it. I feel myself unravelling. I used to be so strong, but now I feel so weak, like one more stab of negativity would destroy me.

I want to leave here. Move out. Maybe even move abroad. Have a fresh start. A new life. One step at a time. Next step is to make a plan.

A few weeks ago I wrote about some new workout dvds that were about to be released. Since then I bought one of them, the Ministry of Sound’s Pump It Up Dance Mix.

I was confident in the quality of this dvd before my purchase having enjoyed previous Ministry of Sound workouts in the past. I was looking forward to working out to recent dance hits like Let Me Think About It and The Creeps.

The workout is presented by choreographer Gareth Walker (who has recently worked with Take That), and three sexy girls. Sure there wasn’t a man with an afro this time around, but I couldn’t help being enthused by Gareth’s effervescent and camp personality. He was also a great instructor, and I found myself following his dance combos fairly easily. I would say that this video isn’t for someone who doesn’t like dancing or is completely new to exercise, as it’s fairly high-impact and fast-moving video. I definitely felt like I was one of the sexy girls dancing in a music video while dancing along with Gareth (or a sexy girl dancing at a gay club, which is just as much fun)!

The vid was arranged into six sections: a warm up, toning section, three dance mixes and an abs/cool down section. The dance mixes become progressively harder, but they’re not impossible. The basic move during the dance mixes was a “strut” - a brisk sexy walk. Gareth would demonstrate a move while the girls behind him strutted, then he’d call everybody to follow him, so we kept our heart rates up between moves. He broke down the dance combos into smaller chunks, then put them together for a full routine.

You could tell that Gareth had put a lot of his personality into the moves that he choreographed for this video. There were some very sexy moves, and some girly ones. He encourages us to flick our hair at every opportunity…

Here’s a clip of one of my favourite routines, danced to Don’t Mess with My Man by Booty Luv. We flick our hair, say no to a boy, then beckon to him. Another move is a sexy pose for the paparazzi… Observant London-lovers can also catch a glimpse of Tower Bridge in a background on the side-angle shots.

My only criticism of this video would that were a couple of instances when the camera focused on the girls’ legs when a full view would have been more appropriate for the move that they were performing. As this workout doesn’t include resistance training (apart from the brief ab section) you should also do some other resistance work with weights, etc. as appropriate to have a complete workout regime.

Judging by the reviews on its Amazon listing, this seems to be the kind of video that you either love or hate…

Urban Recluse Rating:

The people have spoken! According to the results of my recent poll, my readers like to read about my life and my random thoughts.

Here’s a brief summary of the last 10 days or so in my life, I had been planning to write this last Sunday but my internet problems made it impossible. (more…)

Still no internet at home, so here’s another quick hi from work. I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow and Thursday when I’m at home.

On a more positive note, I woke up early and did some exercise this morning! I feel so virtuous for once. It was only 20 minutes, but it was the most intense 20 minutes of my life.

After work I’m going to meet up with my friend Miguel and his crazy mates. Plus he has the internet at his place.

I was doing really well until Monday, when I gorged on sweet stuff from the bakery between meetings at work. I’m not too surprised, it’s natural to have bad days, but I need to pick myself up and carry on as before.

Dirk has been relentless in his pursuit of me this week. He came to see me at my workplace to talk things over again. He feels some guilt, but not enough to stop him from pursuing me. When I’m with him I am so weak-willed, I hate myself for it. I was flattered by his attentions, but it would be wrong to proceed further. He is serious about wanting to sleep with me. It’s a slippery road to travel, and I feel that I have more understanding of why some women are tempted to take the next step.

You know I thought that my monkey post would have been a bit more popular… just goes to show, there must be a whole community of anti-monkeyites out there that I didn’t know about…

I’ve been keeping myself occupied these last couple of days, Yesterday I went to the doctor and was encouraged to carry on taking Prozac as it’s not doing me any harm, and coming off it might cause me to relapse into my darkness again. (And you thought I was dark enough already.)

I haven’t mentioned this on here until now. I’ve been suffering from depression for years without seeking proper treatment for it, but I only sought treatment for it last spring. I tried to manage without meds for some time but I found myself unable to concentrate, stressed and miserable. My doc persuaded me to give Prozac a try. After a few weeks I found myself feeling very chilled, despite the fact that I was going through a very stressful time at work and at home. After a few more weeks I felt more “normal”, but also better able to focus. Prozac has definitely helped me in the last year, but I know that it’s not the best option for everyone. Part of me wants to come off it so I can regain some of my evil twisted edge.

After seeing the doctor I had to dash off to Croydon for my facial and massage. I love being pampered. Then in a luxurious haze I wandered around the area looking for a corset shop (just felt like it). I didn’t find the corset shop, but I did find a very cool goth shop called Time*Bomb. The guys there were really nice, and were also the owners of the corset shop, but had closed it down and incorporated the corsets into Time*Bomb. I’d love to get a proper corset one day for a Dita moment!

I also rejoined my old gym. It was a Holmes Place club, but had been taken over by Virgin. They gave me a good offer for the month, so I’m going to see how it goes. As I’ve got about 5 weeks until I go to Jamaica I felt like I needed a kick up the butt. I was also familiar with that gym so it felt easier than settling into a new place. I went back today and got a kick-ass program from one of their personal trainers.

Having not been to the gym for a while I had forgotten about those little things, like naked women in the changing rooms. Maybe if I were slimmer I would be more comfortable with nudity, but I’m slightly awkward about it. It feels silly to be trying to hide my bits under a towel (while simultaneously gyrating around on one foot as I pull up my trousers) when other women are proudly parading their nakedness nearby. I still remember the skinny woman I saw weighing herself in the nude last year…(why??) For her I imagined that there should be a new type of bathroom scales with only 3 results (no numbers):

• Just right, you sexy minx
• You need to lose a bit, love
• Put some more meat on your bones, girlfriend

Like a simpler version of the celebrity scales.

Who wouldn’t want one of those?

One last thing. I have a new/old addiction: stationery! I’ve got to stop buying fancy pens. I really do.

My bed appears to be a station on the local arachnid commuter network. A few days ago I came across a spider corpse on my quilt, and just this very morning I encountered another eight-legged wonder creeping along my quilt cover.

Is there such a thing as spider repellent? Is it too much to ask that I don’t share my bed with tiny creatures? I know I’m single, but I like to choose my bedfellows!

I did some exercise this morning, for the first time in about a month. I’m feeling very virtuous, but a bit tired too. I worked out to my Pump it Up dvd, doing the Warmup/Aeroburn/Beatbox/Knockout sections.

To do list:
Get rid of spider
Exercise for 30 mins
Do some work…

Maryland Cookies - Aflame

Better destroyed than digested! I decided to burn my last 4 Maryland cookies in a mini-bonfire in my kitchen sink as a symbol of my decision to cut down on junk food in order to lose weight. Alas, I discovered that Maryland cookies are indestructible!

As you can see on the sidebar of this blog, I have about 95 days until my trip to Jamaica, plus about 7 weeks until my 27th birthday. I want to slim down a couple of sizes by then.

I almost joined my local gym yesterday, but discovered that they had ended their no-joining-fee promotion, so I’ll wait until the next time they run it. I can workout at home…

Is what my mum has been saying to me today in her Jamaican slang. Translation = your holiday is over, you lazy bum!

I’ve been relatively productive these last two days. Yesterday I met up with my ex-college mate Ahmed. We always talking about our creative pursuits (he’s an aspiring actor) and he helps me feel better about my creative urges and eccentric nature. I’m going to try to sort him out with an astrology website (he also is an astrology guru). Before I left the house I washed up, cleaned some clothes and tidied up my room, i.e. nearly more work than I’d done in the previous two weeks.

Today I got up at 10am (my alarm was set for 9am), went to the hairdresser’s for a steam treatment, got my eyebrows shaped for a treat, then went home and tried out the Pump it Up: Lose It workout DVD. It was a challenge, but I really enjoyed it. The music was pumping, I got to do some kickboxing-type moves, and there was a bit of sexy dancing mixed in too. The instructor was bubbly and inspiring (not too chirpy thankfully) and there was even a bloke with a dodgy afro! Perfecto!

Back to work tomorrow. I don’t mind. It’s a new year, a new(ish) job, and a new start.

By the way (and I didn’t tell you this) if you know where to look, you can find a naked pic of Daniel Craig, the new James Bond stud. Yes, it’s true - I’m a dirty girl…