Diary Entry: Jan 6th ’23- Boobday

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I’ve reached the point in my story where I met SWL. To celebrate Boobday this week I was hoping to find a new Scavenger Hunt location, which I could share alongside that chapter. I had a plan on how to link it up to the new meme Revelations, where the first prompt is Dear Diary. However, the only first appropriate picture I have in my files has a story all of its own. So I’ll save that one for another day. This post goes off on a different tangent, about weight loss, dietary triggers and digestive distress. If these are difficult topics for you then please proceed with caution.

As I searched through the chaos that is my photo storage I stumbled across this picture. It’s a rare shot taken for a twitter thread from summer 2022.

Oddly, this is actually kind of fitting. For the revelations prompt, I mean.

You see, I’ve never been one to share my deepest, darkest thoughts in a diary. Even as a tween, when gifted the diary I asked for, I might share a few entries and then it would be forgotten. My words have clearly never been for hiding in locked books. Sure, I email Sir often, sharing my adventures and life, but this is always as long form letters to him, rather than a submissive diary. And while I would be lost without my Google calendar, where I input ALL of my upcoming tasks and appointments, this is still not a diary. To me, at least.

Seeing Gordon Ramsay’s face beneath my breasts I salivated.

Not because of him, or me for that matter. But because I know what recipe I was looking at when I took this picture. Ultimate Fit Food is part of my over-sized collection of cookery books, and his Velveted Pork loin was making me drool. Food and cooking are passions of mine. As is running… far. But it gets tricky running far if you don’t feed yourself right.

Over the last six years I’ve overhauled my health. I’ve lost about eight stone in weight, and regained (for the most part) my mental health and energy. In the process I’ve also restored factory settings on those dangerous blood test results- liver function, cholesterol, yada-yada-yada. This journey started when I was at my most body confident but stuck in an emotional pit. I mainly just built a routine around my eating and was vaguely aware of what I was putting in. But as I neared the end, it became increasingly difficult to get closer to my goal. More importantly I was noticing an increase in my IBS symptoms.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a complaint of the digestive system. While it is a common condition there are many ways it can show up in your world. As such it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to managing the effects. If you’d like to know more about experiencing and managing IBS pop over to the NHS website. For me I knew that attacks were, in part, triggered by certain foods. Unfortunately (?) I eat such a variety that I couldn’t pinpoint the cause.

I’d been toying with a food diary for some time.

Those last few pounds were not shifting. But with the realisation that tracking my foods might highlight a trigger, which in turn might help slow things down and reduce my need for loo stop planning on long-long runs, I began logging my meals.

Within a couple of weeks I was chipping away at that last half a stone. But more importantly I was noticing patterns in my body and it’s reactions. This, for me, is the exciting part of having a food diary. Soon I had reached my target weight, and was permitted to continue for a further six pounds.

So I continued with my diary entries.

It took me sooooo long to reach the final target weight. But it was worth it. I had all the energy I could possibly need, and my body was unrecognisable. Still, eighteen months later, I don’t see me as others do. Perhaps you’ve seen a change? I’ve been blogging for the last five years/dress sizes. (This may be the starting point for my February Photo Fest plans for 2023.) More than what I look like, the change in what my body can achieve was fascinating.

Function over form for me, every time.

I recover faster from training runs, I sleep better, my appetite is healthy, my skin feels better, I get less colds… But I also have less problems with my tummy. I can’t remember the last time I had to find a suitable space to ease my worries on a run. And, well- this is a sex blog- if I manage my diet appropriately it significantly improves my enjoyment of anal. There will be a post about how I manage IBS and sex at some point, but in the meantime take a look at Violet Grey’s post. Navigating sex with IBS has been really helpful for me. Just knowing that there’s another kinky woman out there going through similar things to me.)

So, while my diary may not be for all of those little secret tales I don’t wish to share, it has allowed my body to share its secrets with me. And what a revelation that was!