Really not doing very well at keeping up with this, am I?!

I suppose that's mostly because there's not a lot to say. My interview (which was for the dole, not for a job, can see how that would be confusing!) was succesful, so I have a little money coming through in benefits now which I can put towards bills. Simarlarly to all others in my old job, I have failed to find any work. There are simply no positions available at the moment, the industry is dead. So we're all meeting each other every week or so to keep our spirits up, which is helpful.

Filling my day with the gym and concentrating on improving my fitness, although it's hard to remind myself to rest. It's been very humid too, which means I seem to be coasting through the days in a bit of a zombie state. My old fainting fits have come back too, which is a bit worrying but I'm learning to scooch down as soon as I feel it coming over me, to avoid falling against anything when I actually black out (bashed the sink the first time - not brilliant for bad backs!).

Have been away all weekend in my hometown, being nurse and counsel to Best Friend, who had a huge, storming great row with her boyfriend. It looked for a moment like it might all be over, after five years together, and sharing a home. She was a wreck and needed constantly talking out of panics, and being given comfort and reassurance. I think I helped a little. It was really hard, hard work though, I'm so surprised how tired I am now! She didn't want to be apart from me for a second. I think it was all to the best though, he's back now and they're talking things through. I'm so relieved, hopefully they will come out of it stronger. Isn't it awful when things like this happen??

Been working on saving money by planning my meals and making lots of soups and stews with TVP and veggies. Boy says it's boring that I eat the same things every day, but I find it such a massive source of comfort to have a routine.

Aside from the strangeness of my world at the moment, we are having a beautiful summer over here! And I have lots to look forward to... I'm going to a music festival in a couple of weeks, and back to Spain with Mum, Best Friend and Best Friend's Sister for a few days next month. Plus it's the debut of the Wedding Band on Saturday! So nervous!

Hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine!

TA xxx

Epistle From The Breadline

I'm back!

Spain was awesome, toasty hot and wonderfully relaxing. I got back late Thursday last week and got scooped up from the airport by Best Friend for a weekend of fun. She had a houseful of people at her housewarming barbecue, and I had great fun pitching in and making endless dips and colseslaws and cakes, which all got appreciatively wolfed by the hordes. After the barbecue, fifteen of us went out clubbing in a big old warehouse to our friend's techno night. It was immense! I went a bit too wild though and ended up in a heap on the sofa by Sunday night, having missed my book group back in Leeds and not eaten a meal for five days. Boy guided me downstairs to get a bread roll and some cheese and then I SLEPT for Queen and country.

I think the craziness was a desperate attempt to avoid the terrifying First Week of Unemployment (which is this week). Of course, by going well and truly off the rails, I have inevitably made things even worse than they needed to be. I phoned the job centre yesterday and I have my interview on Thursday, which is making me feel a bit sick. I've also been in touch with our Regional Screen Agency about finding other work - they were not optimistic but I'm going in for a meeting in a couple of weeks time to see if they have any contacts I can use.

The good thing is that Boy has this week off too. We are finally having fun together (the last few months have been fraught). We went for a run in the park yesterday and then went to the greengrocer's and loaded up on vegetables to make endless healthy vegan food to last us all week. We made a massive pot of veggie chilli last night which Boy had with brown rice and I had with more steamed vegetables due to my rampant Carbophobia. Today I'm off to Pilates, then over to Boy's to help strip his bedroom walls, then I'm teaching my friend how to use the Powerplates at the gym, then I have Body Attack and then home to curl up with my book and catch up on more sleep.

Keeping busy is the key!

Hope you are all well.

Mid-Week Update

Not much going on here at the moment - in stasis while we wait for the axe to fall on Friday. Not feeling too much dread about it just yet. In fact, this whole thing has made me re-evaluate my opinion of my personal strength, I'm amazed that on the surface I appear to be managing better than most of my colleagues so far. Some are just crumbling, it's awful to watch. Still, there is time.....!

I've made fun plans for the next couple of weeks following redundancy, so I'm not immediately plunged into the abyss. This was a Good Idea, I'm panicking so much less because of it. I'm going to stay with my Dad this Saturday night, and then on Sunday I'm popping over to stay with my Mum and Step-Dad in Andalucia for a few days of sunshine and relaxtion. Then Best Friend is picking me up from the airport and I'm going to stay with her for a few days - she's having a housewarming party and loads of our friends are coming up to stay. Perfect! Then the week after that, Boy luckily has the whole week off. So we're going to hang out, do DIY and inexpensive things as we'll both be on a strict budget from then on. This is my two weeks summer holiday!! I need to make sure I have a structured work plan in place for afterwards so I don't end up frittering the summer away. Between writing, studying sports science and hopefully finding relevant part-time work I'm sure I'll be kept much busier than I am at the moment.

Have started going to Body Pump for the first time since I hurt my back last summer! It's time consuming on top of all the cardio I already do, but in just two weeks I'm starting to feel the difference. Weights may be super-dull, but I can't deny they have speedy benefits. I've been delighted to find I've kept my lower body strength (probably because of all the Spinning I do) but my upper body strength is a bit shoddy and I still need to be careful with rows and dead lifts because my spine is still weak. Basically I feel like a wimp compared to everybody else in my class, but I'm already starting to pick my weights up again. I will get there! I really want to get my fitness to a new high standard this summer, but I'm a bit anxious that it will end up taking over my life and I won't get anything else done. I could so easily spend all day in the gym. SO easily. Danger.

Tomorrow is the work Christmas Party! Obviously we're not going to get one at the traditional time this year, so we thought we'd bring it forward a few months and have it instead of a leaving party :0) We're having crackers and secret santa and everything! I'm excited but at the same time anxious because I have no idea how others will behave as the day porgresses, especially when alcohol is involved. At such a difficult time these sorts of events have a tendency to turn maudlin and sour at the drop of a hat (the wrap party earlier this month was really quite upsetting), and it sounds terribly selfish, but I don't want to have to deal with it. I've realised that although I want to - and will - help and support people as much as possible, I also need to try not to get dragged down when I'm so susceptible myself at the moment. I know how daffy my chemical balance is, and when starts going out of whack it's progressively harder to get it back to normal.

I wonder if this is growth.....!

Fast Food Virgin Loses It

OK, virgin was stretching the truth. But hey, I wouldn't be the first to go there.

Still, it's been a while since I went to Burger King or McDonalds or anything of that ilk. About ten years in fact. First off I turned down friends' invites because I was always dieting. Then I got involved in the punk scene and only hung out with vegans and vegetarians who wielded their ethics like I wielded my guitar (ie.loudly and not always coherently). And then came the eating disorder, and the recovery, and suddenly I realised OH MY GOD I haven't had a burger in A DECADE. And suddenly I really really really wanted one, just to try, just to see what would happen, just to stick two fingers up at my healthiness for half an hour and put some crap into my body, just to revel in exercising my own right to choose.

Obviously, I still needed to persuade my brain to break its silly rules, not to mention getting my vegan Boy through the doors and turning him into a partner in crime. I needed an angle.

That angle was Burger King offering half price tickets to Alton Towers with every value meal until the end of May. It's, like, £36 to get into that place these days!! And I have a boyfriend who I'd just discovered has never been on a rollercoaster!!! Of course we had to go and get a burger. We had to go to Alton Towers. And there would be NO Alton Towers in this Summer of Poverty unless we sold our principles up the river.

We still left it until the last day in May, blatantly.

Finally we plucked up the courage and went into our local branch yesterday afternoon. A vegan and a former anorexic. Fish out of water doesn't even come close. It took awhile but eventually we got our order and eventually (second time lucky) they didn't put cheese and mayo on Boy's beanburger, and then we sat and we ate.

IT TASTED AMAZING.

I don't care what you say about fast food. It tastes f**king brilliant. The chips were a bit rubbish so we left most of those, but the burgers KILLED. Boy even liked his.

When we came out I was amazed at how stuffed I felt. For the volume I'd eaten (a whopper with cheese and yes I know 716 calories wow gosh thx) which didn't look that massive to me, I felt like my stomach had been puffed up and the damn thing was expanding inside me. It was only 4pm but I was pretty sure I wasn't going need anything else to eat that day, and Boy said didn't think he'd want much of his evening meal either.

Then we went home - we were going to go and sit in the park and read, but we suddenly felt really lethargic. Then we both just conked - I'm pretty sure I slept for about an hour. It was like a post-Christmas lunch smacked out doze. I woke up feeling really weird.

Then, out of nowhere, I suddenly got really hungry and growly tummied at about 7:30pm (and really annoyed with myself because I was trying to stay within a low calorie range for the day and blatantly wasn't going to be able to) and started picking at crappy food like cereal. And then Boy got bizarrely ravenous as well at about 9pm. We ended up doing a batch of home-made wedges and eating them and going to bed both with our tummies well and truly unsettled.

I woke up in the night with heartburn as well. Like my parents do!!!

Twenty minutes worth of tasty yummies DEFINITELY not worth an evening of weirdness and discomfort. And when we do go to Alton Towers in a few weeks time we've already agreed we're taking a packed lunch.

I suspect the rollercoasters alone will cause enough tummy bother without fast food nasties making it even worse....

Helloooo... is anybody there?

*tentative* hi! How the hell are you??

Wow. I don't know where to start.

The last few months have been a roller-coaster.

In March we found out that not only are the current staff being made redundant and our show axed, but the entire of the department and the building we work in is being shut down forever. Our studio is the hub of television production for the region, the only real source of regular work, and like that (poof!) it's gone. Closed. Finished. Dead.

So many people have lost their livelihoods. It's been horrible.

I figured that in order to stay in the industry I'd have to leave my beautiful home and my Boy and my friends and go and seek work in London (ugh). But it turns out there's no work in London either. In fact, there's only been one job advertised in my area this year in the whole country! And it was a 70 hour a week skull-crusher working on a soap - I can't think of anything I'd want to do less.

So, after much wobbling and freaking out, I managed to track down a scheme that subsidises career development for people who have been made redundant. And I spoke to a lot of folks at my gym, and a lot of people in training and HR, and managed to track down a prestigious three month intensive personal trainer qualification in my local area .... it sounded like a dream. And now, after weeks and weeks of agonising meetings and phone calls and form filling in, I have finally managed to get the course subsidised by the government! I'm booked on! I start in September and should hopefully qualify just before Christmas!

I'm still employed by ITV at the moment, and will be for just another week before the axe finally falls and we're let loose on the world. I feel very mixed emotions - I'm so sad to be leaving but at the same time I've barely been in the office for a month. The atmsophere is horrendous, and any tolerance I once had for certain infuriating colleagues has now evaporated completely! So I'm trying to keep away to keep relations cordial :0) Me and my temper.... In a small way it will be a relief when it's over... it's been dragged out for so, so long now.

So the summer is free to concentrate on training myself into peak condition, tracking down some part time work to tide me over and hopefully trying not to tip into the abyss of depression about the uncertainty of my situation. This year has been emotionally tough, I think I've coped fairly well so far but I have no idea what will happen when the rug is pulled and I'm officially unemployed....

In other news, things with Boy are going well as ever, I've just gained Lodger Number Two who is delightful so far (another boy, but a veggie this time, so I have cheese in my fridge for the first time ever!), I've formed an 80s covers band with the intention of playing weddings and birthday parties which is SO MUCH FUN I LOVE BEING A WEDDING SINGER (even though we haven't actually played out yet), I entered a radio play writing competition and flopped spectacularly (badly need to get my writing confidence back up!!), my mum is being supportive about my retraining and my father is NOT, I have a really fun summer ahead and will finally get to concentrate on writing which I'm excited and nervous about....basically I'm muddling through this so much better than I thought I would, in the face of the horribleness, and it's honestly got pretty horrendous, and I still have no idea what the hell is going to happen, but still, I'm here, miraculously the same size, I'm breathing, I'm smiling, I'm taking control, I'm going for it.

Thankyou for all your lovely comments!! It's so special to think you guys actually came back here so long after I'd gone and cared enough to leave me all these.... :0)

Now. The important stuff. How are YOU?

x

Going Off The Air

Just to let you guys know that I'll be going to ground for an indefinite period.

This morning I got the bad job news I've been dreading for a while, and I'm not sure what the consequences will be yet. Certainly this is not the ideal time to be thrown back out into the job market for anyone, but in a career where positions are so limited my situation is more than grim. At best I will get a job in another part of the country and have to leave everything I have here behind. After I've worked to build this security and fought back from my illness to the point where I could lay down roots and actually feel secure and loved in a place, it's a lot to get my head around from a psychological as well as a financial perspective.

I've been hovering a little over relapse for a few months now, and I'm sure you'll understand that this has the very real potential to tip everything back over the edge. As much as I love hearing about your lives and endeavours, I suspect I may have to take myself away from the Fitosphere for a little while, at least until I'm a bit "safer" in myself.

I want to thank you all for all your comments and support since I started Off The Scale in May, I can't tell you how much you all mean to me.

And I will still be around.

This is not goodbye.

I'm just popping out for a bit.

Love, TA xxxxx

The Return Of TA's Crap Cooking Corner!

This Sunday, in honour of my completing Double Spin (performed with a two-day hangover for extra points), Boy and I cooked up Yotam Ottolenghi's Two Potato Vindaloo. I go through phases of being very phobic about cooking, and I'm currently in one of them, so I figured it was probably time to face the fear.


To join in, you will need the following ingredients....1 tbsp cumin seeds, 8 cardamom pods, ½ tsp cloves, ½ tsp ground turmeric, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 very large onion, ½ tsp brown mustard seeds, ½ tsp fenugreek, 1 tbsp chopped ginger, 1 red chilli finely chopped, 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 50ml cider vinegar, 400ml water, 1 tbsp caster sugar, Salt, 400g (net weight) waxy potato peeled and cut into 2.5cm dice, 2 small red peppers cored and cut into 2cm dice, 400g (net weight) sweet potato peeled and cut into 2.5cm dice, Mint or coriander leaves to serve.

There were a few other spices listed in the recipe that we couldn't find at the international supermarket so we skipped 'em. Didn't seem to matter.

First off, we dry-roasted the cumin and cardamom in a wee frying pan until they started to pop. Then we chucked them in a mortar with the cloves and Boy (king of Elbow Grease) ground them into a fine powder, getting rid of the cardomom skins. We added the turmeric, paprika and cinnamon and set the lot to one side.



Next we heated the oil in our big stewpot. We threw in the chopped onion, mustard seed and fenugreek and fried on a high heat until the onion started to brown. Then we stirred in the chilli, ginger and ground spices from the mortar and cooked for another three minutes or so.


Then we chucked in the tomatoes, water and vinegar to make the big soupy red mess that you see above. We brought it to the boil, covered and simmered for 20 minutes.


Meanwhile I got busy chopping the potatoes and red peppers. I added the peppers and standard potatoes and simmered for another 20 minutes, then added the sweet potatoes and tried to squish everything under the sauce so it would cook. Then simmered all THAT and cooked it up for another 40 minutes.


I then took the lid off it and cooked the hell out of it until the sauce reduced and thickened and actually (finally) started looking like a curry instead of just smelling like one.



We sprinkled fresh coriander over the top and had it with brown rice.

OK so it took AGES but it was a really fun Sunday afternoon project and it was DELICIOUS, easily the best curry I've made. Boy found it too hot and had to put loads of vegan mayo in his to cool it down. HAHA!

It does annoy me how much I love cooking, but cannot rid myself of the guilt of eating it afterwards. My diet for the days following has so far consisted of Not A Right Lot, although I feel that general worries growing from the weekend (thankyou for all your lovely comments by the way, every single one appreciated immensely!!) as well as going for an X-Ray on my back today and some other medical crap I need to get checked out this week has contributed to the current messy-headed state of affairs. Oh, and the job thing is still very much up in the air, A to the RGH and all that.

So. Really. No wonder.

Curry though. DELISH!