The DietChef Thing: Day 10.

Hey everyone.

Yikes what a day! This has been a proper old emotional roller coaster for me, I've been up on the high bit of the see-saw, and all over the in between, right down to the bumpy bottom. Today also saw me falling smack off the wagon for the very first time, but in unusual, and I have to say, extenuating circumstances. So, shall we do this?

My night has been rather disturbed for some unknown reason, so my eyes really do not want to open this morning. They grumble about union rates and needing to be paid extra on Fridays. I pay no heed and eventually we're awake and moving. We go through the usual morning routine, Karen and I now have it down to the tiniest detail. I have decided to give up coffee. It's a waste of time trying to choke down gall and wormwood every morning when I could be having a lovely cup of hot Earl Grey instead. Why poison myself with something I don't enjoy when I could have something I like? So, Treacle Pecan Granola and yogurt again, and a cup of tea on my little table, breakfast can yummily proceed.

It isn't until Karen's gone and I'm logging on to my computer to do my morning catch up that I see the date and remember what today is. Today is one of my really tough days. It's the birthday of one of those dearly, dearly loved people you never get over having lost. That grief lives with you every day, a sadness in the back of your mind, but some days it flares up so that you can hardly breathe. There are two awful days every year, the birthday and the date of death. So, today I need to stay strong, cry my tears if I need to, count my many blessings, and thank God for the days this very special person blessed my life.

I'm just kind of pulling the bits of myself back together, preparatory to doing the aforementioned, when I hear a ping from my phone. Facebook message. I've been having a fair bit of trouble with these abominable things known as chain messages, you know the kind of thing, someone asks you to pause for two minutes to read some kind of platitude or other and asks you to pass it on to all your friends. Or you have to pass on a rose, or a picture, or tell everyone you love them, even if you don't know them. I get very irritated with this kind of intrusiveness, especially when my phone pings at two in the morning and I jump up, convinced one of my close ones has been rushed into hospital, only to find something like this. Blah! Anyway, I nearly didn't look at the message, but I'm very glad I did!

It's some very very good news I've been awaiting for a while. My new reborn toddler, my little boy who I have been waiting for since January, will be ready for collection on August 31 and I can't wait to be able to hold him at last. I always knew it would be August when I got him, it's not like my order was held up or anything, but you have to book a custom made order with the artist who makes my dolls well in advance so she can plan her year, and from January to August has seemed super long this time.

This lovely news distracts me from my sadness and my stomach, which is getting less empty every morning. Also, a long phone call means I don't get lunch till 1:30. Now I thought I'd tried the chunky vegetable soup already, but apparently not. What I'd had was Lentil and Vegetable soup. This chunky vegetable is new to me. I heat it in my little pan as usual, to be honest I'm not real big on chunks in soup, they stick to the sides of the pan and cause me aggro, and I don't like big pieces of anything in my mouth. Never mind, at last it's ready.

First bite: Hmm. It's ok. Great big chunks of potato and carrot, the broth is thickened, I think, with lentils and also I think has a hint of tomato in it, which I don't like with vegetable soup. Not mega impressed. The only thing I can say is that it doesn't have any peas in. All the same, won't get again, I just don't like bits in my soup.

The afternoon goes on, I'm pretty up and down, trying to keep myself distracted, also I have a little work to do. I'm starving hungry by five O'clock, but I've learned to cope with this now. Noble husband gets his pizza in at just before six and, though I think yay, that smells good, I don't get a wobble. Too much other stuff going on I guess. Dinnertime for me and it's minced beef hotpot tonight. If it's anything like as good as the lamb one it'll be lovely. I cook it up, get my portion of greens hot and dinner is served. Only something is wrong. I don't like the smell of this, I mean I really, really don't like the smell. I sit down and take just a tiny taste of the gravy. Eew! That gravy should be ok, but what have they done with it. Something about it is making me seriously want to rech. For the moment I can't place what it is, the steam coming off of the plate is closing my throat with nausea, my stomach is a tight ball, my eyes are running. Too bad, so sad, there's nothing else, we have to try to eat this. I take a forkful of trepidation as well as a forkful of food.

First Bite: I can't eat this. I mean, I literally can't swallow it. As far as I can make out it is ground beef in gravy with vegetables and sliced potato on top, very much like the lam hotpot, but, unlike the lamb one, it has been absolutely stuffed with peas. I can cope with food if it has a few peas in it and they have not put that awful sweet green taste into everything. But let me get anywhere near the taste of the inside of a pea, and we have big, big, big trouble. It just will not stay inside me. In this case, the peas have infiltrated every drop of the sauce, filling it with their vile smell and taste. If I try to swallow this I will literally bring it straight back up again, it's hopeless. I make a bolt for safety. Water, lots of water. And napkins. Yuk yuk double triple yuuuuuk!

So, what to do now? The poor spring greens have been polluted with that gravy, I can't eat them. The whole dinner ends up joining the new and thriving colony of diet disasters in trash can land. My stomach gives me an accusing look. "So what now?" it says nastily. "You just going to let me go empty apart from two tiny cookies till breakfast, are ya, huh? Huh? I'll get ya back I will! I'll throw hungries at ya! I'll sulk, I'll cramp, I'll make rumblin' noises all night, I'll give ya the woyst heart boyn ya've ever had in your miserable life! Ya won't like it an' you'll be sawry!

"All right! All right!" I whimper, "Just give me a minute to think will you!"

It shuts up. I do need to think, seriously I do. I can't eat another DietChef meal, I only have enough for the 28 days this box will last for. The only other food in the house is frozen, food for my husband, a few slices of bread, some grapes, some cheese, and that is also my husband's and, though he wouldn't mind, I couldn't eat that, even if it would be nutritious enough to make a meal for me, which it wouldn't. I will have to order something in. I don't see any alternative. It's no good going hungry til morning, even if I could, which I couldn't, I know myself too well, I'd just go gorge on candy, of which there is plenty.

Have you ever noticed, no I'll amend that, people in the UK, have you ever noticed how you can't get a salad from a takeaway? Who wants it. Nobody, right? All takeout food is calorific in the extreme. I weigh up my options but there really is only one choice, it will have to be dominos, it's closest and will get here quickest, and everywhere else will make us spend a huge amount on stuff we don't want before they'll deliver anything. So I order the smallest pizza they do, with the least fattening things on it I can think of. Chicken, onion, mushrooms.

It feels so good to have that hot box on my lap again, and it tastes wonderful. I'm still horrified at how much bread there is in even a small pizza. I dread to think how far over my calorie count I've gone. But I'll make up for it. Once I get my second box there won't be anymore of these meals I don't like. I don't beat myself up over this fall from grace because I honestly don't know what else I could have done.

At just after nine I have my last cup of tea and my two little chocolate chip oat cookies. I could have gone without them, but if I had done that they'd have been left over, which would have tempted me to have more than one snack on a day when I shouldn't. Better to have them now. And so, by this indirect and rambling road, here I am. AS I said, yikes, what a day!

Is it my imagination, or am I really changing? I have had a good week healthwise. A couple of tireds, that's all. It's only been ten days, too soon to tell really, it could all be in my head. One thing though, one thing I can't argue with. Today, I went and tried on a ring that really didn't want to go on my finger at all a fortnight ago when I wanted to wear it. It made me cry because it's one of my favorites, a pink sapphire and diamond cluster I've had for years. Today it's still too tight to be comfortable, but it went on my finger. I think we can call that progress. Let's hope I can keep it up. Goodnight everyone.

Food eaten today.

Breakfast: Treacle Pecan Granola, plain no fat yogurt.

Lunch: Chunky Vegetable Soup.

Dinner: Small Dominos Classic Crust pizza with chicken, onion and mushrooms.

Snack: Dark Chocolate Chip Oaties.

Bad? yes. I'll learn from my mistake and make sure I get no more meals I can't eat.

Are you hungry? No.

Mood? Emotional, a bit tearful.

Music: Beauty and the Beast 2017 Soundtrack, Dan Stephens: Evermore.