To the gym I go…

I have always been overweight.  Or fat.  Such an ugly word that is, but yes, that is me. Fat!!!!! I have always been fat!  Ever since I can remember.  I’m not one of these people who one day woke up from being a skinny girl to thinking “Shit I’ve gotten fat”.  Nope I’ve always been a fat girl.  I’ve also always been a girl who avoided exercise.  Yes yes I can hear you all screaming now – “No wonder you’re fat….” Well yeah, okay that’s a good point.  It isn’t any wonder.  What is a wonder to me, is that I have now joined a gym.  Oh. My. God.

If someone had come up to me 6 months ago and told me that I’d be joining a gym (with the intention of going at least 5 times a week), I’d have laughed at them, punched them in the face, and walked off to get myself another beer.  But no, I have joined the dark side and am now Going To The Gym (or GTTG as I like to call it – people have no idea what I’m talking about when I say that, it’s like having my own funky little language).

And if that’s not enough, I’m giving up the drinking.  Well okay, maybe not giving up the drinking completely, lets be rational here, I’m a big drinker, I can’t just give it all up in one go, but I’m going to cut back on the drinking.  Limit myself to maybe once a week.

Let me tell you a few things about myself.  I’m Tina, I’m 30, I’m fat and I drink quite a bit.  I have lots of acquaintances, but only a few really close friends.  I have people I keep close to me, because I don’t trust them, but they think they are close friends.  I’m a happy person in public, a moody bitch at home and a depressive person when I stop and think about things.  I’m also a frequent member of the local pub, where I know lots of different people to drink with, but not a lot of people I would ever take home to meet my family.

I was never like this.  I used to live in a shell.  A shell of my own making.  I went to work, I studied, I came home and I studied some more, and in between that I read – and I read and read and read.  I was happy with my life that way.  It didn’t bother me, I thought it was fine.  I had friends I reasoned to myself and I was happy to keep in contact with these people during the day, when I was at work (supposedly working, in a job I hated).  There was nothing wrong with me ignoring people once I got home.  There was nothing wrong with me hibernating.

Then I changed jobs.  I got a job where I could finally put my training to use.  It was only a short contract position, but I LOVED IT!!!!!  The people there were nice (not fantastically wonderful people, but people you don’t mind spending the better part of a day with), and the work was great.  The best part of that job, was that at the end of the week, all these people I worked with, loved doing the tradition of traipsing off to the pub for Friday night drinks.  Keep in mind – I was not really a drinker at this stage.  So I went with them, had a drink, then made my way home.  But slowly that little shell of mine was being pryed open and I didn’t even realise it.

Then I met Mr Supportive.  I thought Mr Supportive was lovely.  Oh sooo lovely.  Well he wasn’t really, but don’t get me wrong, Mr Supportive is one of my best friends now, more like the brother I never had.  But back then, brotherly love was not what I wanted from him.  Oh the shame of it all when I think about it now.  But never mind, we have gotten over all that (thank god). But he did help introduce me even more to the wonders of drinking. 

Okay at this point I should probably point out that I’m not an alcoholic.  I know that what I’m writing really does make me sound like one, but I haven’t gotten to the point where I HAVE to have alcohol.  I really am only a social drinker, and if I don’t drink for a week, then so be it.  But when I am around friends drinking, then yes, I drink and I drink a lot.

So Mr Supportive broke my heart and I moved over to the lovely Mr Dickhead.  Mr Dickhead is English.  I love Englishmen.  He was tall, gorgeous and English and the biggest drinker I have ever known and I fell in love with him.  So I started going to the pub a lot more than I used to, drinking with Mr Dickhead and stumbling out of the pub, crashing at home and getting up a few hours later to go to work.  By this stage, my contract had ended and I had gone back to the job I hated.  But my job now had a new twist and I was working upstairs with the lecturers which I loved.  I could also get away with coming in with shocking hangovers nearly every other day and spending shitloads of my time talking and texting Mr Dickhead.

Then Mr Dickhead went hone back to England (I was devastated), and a new job opportunity came up at work teaching a new short course.  I took the job on, then realised that we didn’t actually have the course, and I had to create it from scratch.  At the same time, lots of family dramas started happening around my fathers place. 

Let me tell you something.  Stress can do wonders for weight loss.  With the combination of missing Mr Dickhead and pining for him, creating a new course from scratch (which I had never done before) and family crap happening – I lost weight.  For the first time in my life, I was losing weight and not having to do anything about it.  Okay so the fact that I wasn’t eating very much (I think at that time I was pretty much living on breakfast only) and was drinking more and more, to stop myself thinking of the awful crap happening around me, weight was coming off.

Now skip forward 6 months.  Mr Dickhead and I still talk, but well that’s a whole different story, family crap, mostly worked out, and work, well that’s going along nicely.  Teaching full time now, and coping with it.  Ahhh here comes the killer.  I eat again.  I still drink too.  But I still don’t exercise. I’m not as stressed as I was, so the weight isn’t really coming off anymore, but rather, it’s kind of coming back a little.

So I joined the gym.  And I really could have left that post at I joined the gym, but now you know a little more about me.  And you’ll get to know more, as I keep you all up to date on my trials at THE GYM!!  Wish me luck.