Chapter twenty three -Better Than Her

Chapter twenty-three :)

Better Than Her

In my group, there was this member of staff who was on a diet and she'd only eating salads. She was losing weight all the time and she was popular with the staff because of that. They kept saying that if she carried on she'd disappear because of her diet.

They then brought in this new healthy food choice. You got an option to change to that meal plan to help us lose weight but we weren't told what that'd involve or what they would be eating.

I didn't go with it but lots of people did and I was surprised at how plain and how small the healthy food was. It'd be like two tiny crackers with cheese... Stuff like that.

Most people hated it and kept asking to be allowed to eat the normal meals again but the staff were very reluctant to let them go back on their decision.

Oh here's the big bit, they brought in a breakfast cereal scoop that people like me were encouraged to use, limiting how much we could have, being told that that was actually the recommended amount to have in the mornings. It wasn't very big at all.

They also had a picture of the recommended amount of food that you could have depending on if you could have seconds or not.

They were all about diets and eating and drinking right.

Someone even basically called me fat.

I was giving these pair of horse riding trousers to wear and it had someone else's name on it, because of this I went up to the girl who's name was on them and told her that I was wearing some of her trousers. Her response was "oh yeah they were the trousers I used to wear when I was fat"

(Massive trigger to me!!)

She basically said that she chose when she was hungry and not her stomach.... (Didn't realise what she meant until now...)

Also, they did lots of extra exercise activities (which is no problem.... I just thought I'd add that...)

Also, they did lots of extra exercise activities (which is no problem.... I just thought I'd add that...)

As time went on my want/need to exercise grew. I started lane swimming every week and eventually, I started doing cycling too.

I quickly picked up that there was no point going swimming if you weren't going to do exercise. It became (and still is) a waste of time and money to just stay in the water just chatting. I mean why? Why go somewhere where you should go to do exercise, to just float around talking for hours....? It's just totally pointless. If you want to just chat with friends for hours, go to the park or stay at home....

Because of this, I started lane swimming non-stop. I swam and I didn't stop until it was time to get out. Sometimes it even got to the point where they told me it was time to get out but I didn't want to stop.

I found that it became a competition of who swam the most lengths between me and the member of staff that was on the diet. Whenever she slowed down and stopped and I didn't it gave me a mini sense of achievement, because I was getting BETTER than her. However, in order to do that sometimes, I would find myself feeling disappointed with myself because I wasn't swimming fast enough so I'd cheat slightly and make it look like I had done more than her by more laps than I had. I'd be scared of others finding out that I wasn't as good as I wished I could be. I don't think she even knew or was aware of my completion between her, but I didn't care. I'd ask her how many she did and then change mine depending on how many she did. I mean SURELY I did more than her because I swam constantly and she didn't, so maybe I just lost count or something....

What I also found pointless was the vending machines. I mean WHY!? Why go swimming and exercise only to undo all of it by stuffing your face with crap! Okay, I get that there are kids who will want to buy sweets but still! I'm PRETTY sure that everyone chooses to go swimming in the initial idea of trying to get fitter, even if you do end up just pointlessly wasting your time and money by floating around chatting for hours, so why then just jeopardise what you initially pay to? I.E get more unfit or even end up gaining weight; because you let your cravings take over and buy all that crap? (Sorry if that sounds mean! I didn't mean to be mean or to make anyone upset with me! =S I'm just saying my opinion... I'm sorry again!!)

It didn't go unnoticed either, I got praised for the number of lengths I'd do, which just fueled me on. I loved that suddenly everyone knew about my new liking for swimming and exercise.