I herewith abandon my public food diary.

Thought I'd save you all the boredom.

Foot in mouth disease

I seem to be suffering from this terrible affliction lately. My foot has been quite firmly lodged in my mouth for about a week now. Good thing I wash my socks regularly.

Example one
Was in the lift at Cavendish when a cute little girl asked me what my name was. When I, in turn, asked her, and she said 'Leah', I expounded on how that had been the name I wanted to change mine to when I was little, after reading a series of books about a ballerina. I then asked if she did ballet. To which her mother replied: 'No, no ballet, I'm afraid. And it's Leo ... it's a boy.'
Blush much? Then again, if you're going to let your pretty two-year-old son have hair down to his shoulders, you're asking for trouble.

Example two
A little background: Le Boyfriend, much to my dismay, is sporting a moustache again. He (and his moustache) spent most of Saturday with a friend down from Durban (let's call him Crispy), drinking beer and goading each other into eating too much chili sauce. Consequently, there was a bit of a gaseous situation going on (of the belching variety only, thank god) by the time I arrived home from work.

Crispy (after Le Boyfriend had released yet another burp, though the first, to my knowledge, of the evening): How do you put up with that?
Me (assuming Crispy is referring to the 'tache): What, his face?

Thank god Le Boyfriend was a six pack in and didn't take too much offence*.

Example three
Colleague: Is it weird to stalk a girl who works with your boyfriend, and who he's suddenly all buddy buddy with?
Me: Of course not. That's what Facebook was invented for.
Colleague: Okay, I'm going to search for her. Tell me if you think she's pretty.
Me (rolling my chair over to her desk where Facebook is open to a profile page): Well, for a start, that's a weird profile picture.
Colleague: We're still on my page.



Going to keep my mouth firmly shut for a while.


*Love you baby

Monday, 23 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Three Ryvita with salmon cream cheese
• A big ass bag of popcorn
• Latte
• Woollies prawn hot pot
• Four TimTams

Apparently the shame of eating chocolate every night before bed has not been enough to get me out of the habit yet. Might be a good idea just never to buy anything chocolate-covered ever again.

Yes. Duh.

Thursday, 20 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Chocolate croissant
• Woollies club sandwich
• Mocha
• Banana muffin
• Veggie wraps

Not exactly a whole lot better, huh?

You know what? I'm going to just go ahead and blame work and the fact that I get home far too late to even think about grocery shopping, and end up eating crap at my desk every day because I barely have five minutes to run downstairs in search of food when it occurs to me it's well past lunchtime. And the fact that I have lovely colleagues who do things like bring chocolate croissants because they know I'll already have been working for an hour or so by the time they get in.

Here's to next week...

Wednesday, 18 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Crave chicken and veggie soup with bread and butter
• Mocha
• Cheese on toast
• Aero
• G&T

Wow, well done Jade. Toast, chocolate and gin for dinner.

The only bright side here, is that knowing I'd have to report to the world means I didn't also have:

• Rusks
• Chocolate digestive biscuits
• A giant chocolate chip cookie

... all of which I came into contact with yesterday. 

Tuesday, 17 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Four Ryvita with sundried tomato and basil cream cheese and wild rocket (that's the last of the tub, thank god)
• Chai latte
• Banana muffin
• Massive bowl of popcorn
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Half a slab of Bourneville chocolate left over from making chocolate truffles for a tea party over the weekend

Okay so yesterday sucked. I have 14 kg to lose, and this is NOT the way to go about it I'm guessing.

I suppose the fact that all I seem to be doing during the week these days is working and sleeping and trying to fit in exercise (I missed Pilates last night though, from sheer exhaustion, and was in bed by 9:30 pm instead) means food becomes the one little highlight in my day (hence all the chai – an excuse to leave my desk for five minutes to pop to the coffee shop downstairs, since we no longer seem to take lunch).

I also seem to be doing fine until I hit the 3 pm slump, and start fantasising about muffins and pizza.

But no more excuses. Get in line Jade.

Monday, 16 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Two mini Lamington cupcakes (office birthday)
• Soy and linseed toast with sundried tomato and basil cream cheese and wild rocket
• Chai latte (they're going up in price today, which means I'll have to bid goodbye to at least one of my vices)
• Woolies beef tepanyaki hot pot
• Tea with milk and sugar
• Six Provita with cheddar cheese (I know, I know, but I promise I was legitimately still hungry... How am I supposed to sleep with my tummy audibly rumbling? I blame it on a grueling rehearsal)

So all in all not the best start to the week, and on the back of a weekend which included two pizzas and a shit load of macarons, among other things.

Oh well, back to the drawing board today.

Friday, 13 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Soy and linseed toast with salmon cream cheese and wild rocket
• Apple
• Chai latte
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Fresh white roll with real butter (I have a problem)
• Two G&Ts
• Pizza (what do you expect when you're out for drinks with Le Boyfriend and his bud, and the boys get hungry?)
• Three glasses of red wine

Oh well, I suppose it could have been worse...

You know you're working too hard when...

• You type your work iMac password into your home laptop all the time.
• You're the first one at your desk in an office full of workaholics. 
• The security guards in the parking garage at work haven't changed shift since you said goodnight to them the evening before.
• You spend more hours at work than you do at home.
• You blog before 6:30 am, when you're already at work, because there won't be time during the rest of the day.

Thursday, 12 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Two wholewheat rusks
• Soy and linseed toast with salmon cream cheese and wild rocket
• Apple
• Chai latte
• Tiny cupcake (I know, I know, but it was a thoughtful little surprise from a friend)
• Woolworths pork and jasmine rice and Asian greens hot pot (exhaustion = microwave meal for dinner)
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Three buttermilk rusks

What is with the after-dinner snacking, you may ask? Yeah, I don't get it either.

I seem to have about six meals a day, on average, which may have something to do with the fact that I usually have breakfast before 6 am. I swear I only eat when my tummy's rumbling, it's not like I'm just idly stuffing my face.

Also made it to gym last night, although my cardio session was pretty pathetic. This whole work exhaustion thing is cramping my style.

The (diet) offending cupcake. How could I not?

In entirely unrelated news...

This is how I want to have my hair cut on Saturday.

Cute, no?

Wednesday, 11 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• 3 x Ryvita with salmon cream cheese (for some reason I was starving around 10:30 am and lunch seemed a long way off. Hmmpf)
• Chicken and veggie soup from Crave (and with bread and butter – apparently my weakness)
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon (seriously, what was with the hunger yesterday? My tummy was grumbling and I didn't think I'd make it through an hour of cardio without eating something beforehand)
• 1 x slice soy and linseed bread with Flora (tummy grumbling AGAIN after dancing, and my roast veggies were going to be another 40 minutes)
• Roast veggies in a wholewheat wrap, with a little sundried tomato and basil cream cheese

Okay, so, again not the best of days eating-wise. I know what a friend of mine – let's call her Tiny Gym Machine – would say: too many carbs, too much fat, not enough protein, not enough veggies.

But – and please don't think I'm copping out here – I'm going to cut myself some slack. As laden with food as the past three days have been, they're still better than the last six months of just putting whatever I felt like into my face, whenever I felt like it.

Plus the fact that I've switched on my stove and oven three times in the last three days is a miracle. Usually it's just cheese on toast for dinner, or popcorn, or a selection of whatever random junk food is in my kitchen.

Plus plus there has been cake in the office the past two days, and though it's taken every fibre of my being, I managed to walk away from it (yes, yes, the fact that I had a chocolate muffin with Mum probably cancels that out, but small victories...)

Plus plus plus I've done four hours of exercise in three days, two of which were cardio. That has to count for something, right?

Have to keep my eyes on the prize, right?

Okay so this may get old fast but...

Tuesday, 10 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Soy and linseed toast with salmon cream cheese (so that's carbs topped with fat, right?)
• Chai latte
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Chocolate muffin (I know, it's like I'm retarded and don't know what a diet is. Also, one should never go to one's mother for comfort about work stress around tea time, as it usually results in the aforementioned cake-like muffin)
• Two poached eggs on low-GI toast with Flore (In my defence, I was all prepared to have roast veggies for dinner, but was surprised by a friend popping round to borrow shoes, which meant I only got around to the whole having dinner thing about 9:45 pm, and watching veggies roast for 40 minutes didn't seem logical).

Shame

Maybe it's time for a little public humiliation? Let the food diaries commence!

Monday, 9 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Thai chicken soup from Crave with fresh bread (and butter – fuck)
• One measly Granny Smith apple
• Two poached eggs on low-GI toast (with Flora – again, fuck)
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar and three rusks

Okay a) far too much bread and b) really Jade, rusks after dinner? Are you trying to win Porker of the Year?

The elephant in the room

Sigh. Rubbish morning.

My fight with the mirror has nearly reached its 2006 proportions. Getting dressed is the biggest effort these days. The square metre in front of my full-length is getting to be a war zone. It's a pretty fraught place to be, squaring up to my disappointing reflection.

How could I have let this happen? I weigh roughly 10 entire kilos more than I did this time last year. How does that just sneak up on you?

I'll tell you how ... when you pull the wool over your own eyes and laugh about eating three cupcakes in one sitting and how you really should go to gym.

Oh isn't it all so devilishly hilarious two kilos in. The vista, I'm afraid to say, is a lot less humorous from where I'm sitting now.

I wish I could go back to the days when I just thought I was fat, when there wasn't irrefutable evidence to support my whining.

I'm almost feeling nostalgic for a time when looking like this was all that occupied my thoughts:

Still too bleak at being back in the city, in the rain, to talk about my Madikwe trip last week. Instead, here are some pictures.

Understand?