Need to gain a few pounds? ... Have a workshop!

For the past two days I have been in a workshop together with a bunch of other company staff for a spot of ‘strategic planning’.

Well, can I just say that in all truth, all we have really done for the past two days is strategically plan how to stuff our faces. Coming out after two days of meal to meal activity, I’m a little confused on what actually we really did achieve besides putting on 3 kilos each – which funnily enough, in my case, was completely unnecessary.

I hear of lots of skinny people, both blokes and women, complaining if you please, that they can’t put on weight. It’s easy people, attending a workshop can guarantee you will sit perfectly still for a minimum of 12 hours per day with the only exercise involved being lifting your hand to your mouth, and perhaps unwrapping your next sweetie!

The general programme looks something like this;

8.00 Tea/coffee with fruits, donuts, sticky buns, banana bread

10.00 Tea/coffee with biscuits, more sticky buns, and yet more banana bread

12.30 Lunch (minimum 3 courses, but at least 5 available). Start with soup and bread, followed by a variety of cold meats, cheeses and salads, main course of meat, fish and chicken plus rice, potatoes and the compulsory overcooked vegetables, followed by fruit salad, various colours of chocolate mousse, profiteroles and oodles of cream, cheese and biscuits and yet another cup of coffee for good measure. All this interspersed with chocolate éclairs and Murray mints on the tables in the meeting – just in case you’re feeling a little peckish by any small chance! – And all this before dinner of course (which is another extravagant affair consisting of at least 7 courses), and all replicated for 2 days in a row!!

(Oh, and of course there is a little bit of chatting in between the meals which is what apparently they call the point of being there!)

This is me after attending my 2 day workshop!
So NOT recommended - Best stay in the office and get some real work done.

They just don’t warn you about these things at Weight Watchers let me tell you. I saw nothing in the plan when I joined up about warning you of the dangers of attending a workshop. They go on about eating out and getting a take away, and what to do if you’re at a party, what foods to enjoy and which to avoid, but NOT a word about how to eat (OR not to more appropriately), at a workshop.

It is a little secret that I have been hiding from you all, but after all your comments of how, what and the way forward on loosing a few pounds after I put a picture in all of your heads of some horses knees buckling under the weight of lil’ ol’ me jumping on board, I felt soooo guilty I ended up joining up with Weight Watchers can you believe.

The local branch of the group is actually run by a very good friend of mine, so luckily I have been saved the total embarrassment of ‘going public’ with my fatness and have been able to catch up with the whole thing on the quiet.

I did actually suggest to her that I certainly did not have a weight problem but actually a terrible issue with my washing powder and it was shrinking all of my clothes.

Coincidentally she totally understood my plight as she too had been having the same problem with her washing too, and it of course had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that both of us seem to be able to empty the fridge of its contents down our necks at frequent intervals!

Well, here’s the thing. Week One – get weighed, realise that is of course a terrible start as her scales weigh over by about 10 kilos which is so not fair and not a positive way to go. I did try and protest – but found out in a hurry that that is a complete waste of words – as she’d heard it all before. So, once you’ve been weighed and totally humiliated by the numbers, you are then handed a bunch of books which tell you what you should be eating or more appropriately NOT eating and then sent on your way to starve for the rest of your life, until of course, you then attend a workshop ….. ARGH!

Can you believe I’d lost 4 bloody kilos, my horses were slightly relieved that things were finally looking up, and now I’ve gone and stuffed the whole thing!!

Oh well, best look forward. Tomorrow is another day. I shall start all over again on the ‘let’s starve’ regime known as ‘Weight Watchers’, and before you know it I shall be just a wee slip of a chick once more, and all my clothes will once again fit as they should and I can stop writing the rude letters to the washing powder manufacturers for shrinking everything!

Oooooh can’t wait. Roll on tomorrow.

Just checking if I'm actually sane .....

Driving along in the car this afternoon i noticed this lovely creeper hanging over the wall of one of the houses I passed on my way to the school to pick up my son.

Sorry about the slightly fuzzy picture but I was driving remember and this is taken with my phone, but this is the creeper I spotted with its gorgeous orange flowers ....


(NOTE TO SELF - Try and keep the eyes on the road whilst driving - saves money as you tend not to hit so many cars in front of you in the backside if you're actually looking in a forward direction.)

Anyway - sorry to divert there for a second but I just realised that I remember something about that in the highway code - something about keeping your eyes on the road ahead rather than watching the passers by on the pavement and admiring passing architecture, as this tends to lead to the increase in road accident statistics - which believe me in this country - need NO encouragement.

But, as I was saying, i noticed this very pretty creeper with bright orange flowers on the side of the road, and I had one of those 'flashback' moments to my childhood that brought a smile to my face, and that was - the taste of those pretty orange flowers!!

I remember vividly fighting with other kids over those flowers at boarding school as we never got any sweet things and we always seemed to have sugar cravings - and those bright orange flowers are 'honeysuckles'. If you take out the middle of the flower (it'll probably be the stamen I should imagine - not entirely sure though as I think I might have nodded off in that part of biology lesson - the excitement of the different parts of flowers I always found totally overwhelming), but if you take that middley bit out and suck on it it is jolly jolly sweet and yummy, and then that got me thinking......

I haven't eaten any grass recently.....

No, stop right there, NOT that wacky backy type of grass, but the good old plain green stuff that horses, cows and other animals tend to snack upon, you know like this stuff ......


Anyway you see that light green bit of grass that I've so brilliantly taken a photo of (- its the fuzzy, out of focus bit, in case you're not sure what I'm on about), well that bit of the grass is really juicy and sweet and yummy too.

And then that really got me thinking,

"Christ alive, do you think they didn't actually feed us in boarding school or do you think I'm just slightly insane?"

Mmmmm, I think I'll leave you to decide that one ..................