I’ve been thinking about the phenomenon of willpower lately. It started because I realised I’d been gaining weight and decided I would cut down my food intake.
Or so I thought…
Turned out it wasn’t as simple as that. In the past I have managed to lose weight when I need to, but for some reason at the moment my willpower is non existent! It sounds silly, but actually I weighed myself last week and I have gained over a stone in weight. Definitely time to do something about it. I’ve increased my exercise again, although evenings are difficult in the complete dark. I have to use the cross trainer mostly. But I just can’t stop eating…. WHY?
It’s not that I don’t have willpower when I need it. Stopping drinking is dead easy. I can go for months without an alcoholic drink of any kind.
When I was 15 I started smoking. It was cool back then to have a fag in your hand, or a tab, as they were called in the north east where I grew up. I remember when I was 16 getting a job in the local Fine Fare supermarket after work and selling cigarettes at 20p for 20!
The smoking continued right through the rest of my teens and into my twenties.
In those days people were allowed to smoke in the workplace and we actually had an ashtray in the lab at work! We’d smoke while we worked, can you believe that?
One day, I lit up a fag, then looked at it for a long time, wondering what the hell I was doing. Deciding, I just didn’t want to smoke any longer, I stubbed it out, threw my packet onto my colleague’s desk and said ‘ that’s it! That is my last cigarette. I give up.’
Two of my colleagues were there at the time, one of whom smoked like a chimney. He picked up the fags and laughed. They both laughed and told me they’d hang onto the packet as I would be asking for it back very soon….
In fact, that was the last cigarette I smoked and that was 26 years ago. Now I cannot stand the smell of fags or even the thought of them. I hate to walk into a bar through the fog the smokers create, usually just outside the entrance.
So, why can’t I stop eating so much? Gonna have to do it soon, or I will not fit into my clothes…..
Barbara Murray Art 