Sibling Rivalry

Families that eat together...apparently are in competition to lose weight together. Well, I'm making it a competition.

Despite the chubs exterior I was once a sporty competitive person, that was a long, long, long, long time ago before I found drunk food, tequila shots and.... a social life. On my 11th birthday my treat was to be enrolled for squash lessons, I know what you're all thinking....lucky, lucky, lucky. (Luck was clearly on my side as my 17th birthday present from BBB was a new squash racquet - what else would a 17 year old want?!) Squash sparked my competitive side, I was still a fat child and I think deep down I just wanted to prove you didn't have to be skinny or in fact fit to be good at squash; with this mantra in mind I managed to win the U19 County Championship aged 13. Boom. And that's about as far as my squash career went. I have been trying to get back into the mind set of that 13 year old, the one that twisted her ankle first set (when I fell, I fell hard - I have hideously scarred knees to prive that) and still managed to win. To your surprise and shock I was even picked for the athletics team...solid thrower. It was a great set up, I got to go with all the fit people in the years above me to athletic conferences and watch the boys sweat it out on the track, and all I had to do was swan over to 'rounders ball throwing' casually toss the ball and sit back down again. Message to all fat kids: learn how to throw and hit a ball - the rest is easy.

Ok back to sibling rivalry.

These are the stats thus far:
Ashwin....miles ahead.
Billie...making good head way.
Annie........

Ashwin in all fairness has done really well, shedding a considerable amount since January, I am constantly interrupted in my day to day life by 'Look how big my shoulder muscles are', 'Look at my biceps,' 'I could be a model'. Snoooooreee. I hate losing (unless its weight), and at the minute Ashwin is miles ahead. Even Annie has kick started her previous anorexic career, so the pressure is on. I WILL WIN.

Evening bants has soon become, 'what have you eaten today?' and has gone so far as being: 'all I have had is water and air!' When sitting down for dinner, its now a competition for how much food you can leave on your plate rather than how much you can eat (BBB is still winning that competition). Ashwin really isn't involved in that side of the competition as the kid could eat about 20 chickens and still not think he has had enough protein...LAD. But for Annie and I it is certainly a case of less is more in this silly game. It seems to working though - since my brutal work out with my PT last week I have been in the gym everyday and I'm starting to see a difference. Woopa. And I think being spurred on by Annie and Ashwin has certainly helped. Although upon asking Ashwin to help train me it ended in a screaming match over the cross trainer and ended up in me having a small diva moment by throwing my bottle of water at him - he got over it when I gave him money to go and buy a chicken, we're all good now. I have even taken BBB to the gym, believe it or not. I was happily peddling away on the bike when I realised all he had done was stand on the power plate for 10 minutes, upon alerting him to this I was consequently booted off the bike and made to listen to Bruce Springstein as I sulked on the cross trainer. 5 minutes on the bike and he was back on the power plate, at least I won that round.

Annie and I have deliberately avoided the gym at the same time to avoid fits of giggles at each other or the inevitable argument as to who has burnt more calories. In our defence we have tried exercising together before, Geeta used to drag us to zumba and it ended up being a 'Beyonce off'. In time maybe we will be able to go on a run together (when we can both manage more than 5 minutes without an asthma attack or a coronary).

So with sibling rivalry in tact we are heading from this...

TO THIS....

I'm obvs Khloe she has way more personality than Kim, and of course she is still kind of the chubs one. Ashwin is already embarking on his new Rob Kardashian lifestyle of lounging around a not doing very much with his life - much to the dismay of his hardworking sisters. Planning his tattoo sleeve is a constructive day. MTV/ E! come at me - we're ready for you. 

Fatty BB xxx

Newcastle ruined me.

I needed some inspiration, some new motivation a week doing no exercise in Leeds left me feeling groggy and shitty, as much as I try to deny it - exercise does actually make you feel better. However I didn't help myself any further though by heading from Leeds straight up to see Miss Newcastle (for those of you who are unaware of her celeb status I am of course talking about Shariat) for a wild Red Bull fuelled weekend. Having arrived at 9.30pm I was given half an hour to be ready and get on it, my life was already spiralling out of control because I had forgotten my lashes. Getting from leggings and a jumper to a skirt and a reasonable looking fro in half an hour is HARD. This was made even worse by the fact Shariat's room was on average 100 degrees. Once I had applied my makeup I pretty much  had to start all over again because I had sweated it off. However inspiration hit me - this was a work out. You try scuttling around a room filled with 4 other people's excessive amount of stuff for one weekend (of course my stuff was the most excessive), whilst trying to apply lashing of mascara - wish I just had my bloody lashes. Finally 10pm arrived and shockingly I nearly resembled ready. As health factors the night started so well - sugar free red-bull and vodka to hand (healthier option), Beyonce dancing (burning those cals), booting the snotty looking girls out of our booth with rapid hand gestures (burning those cals), running around Madam Coos trying to find everyone (burning those cals), after too many red bulls running around Madam Coos trying to find the toilets (burning those cals), attempting to get us a taxi home by jogging up and down the road (burning those cals). But I think you know what's coming. Getting home everyone declaring they are famished led to Shariat firing up 'just-eat'....sinking into a chicken burger (adding those cals straight back on). I regretted it as soon as I finished all of it. But at the time it was the best thing that had ever happened. Ever.

Feeling surprisingly fresh on Saturday morning we dragged our asses into Newc and helped our hangovers with helpings of Guiseppe and Italian food. Suitably watered and fed we hit the beach. The image of spritely youngsters geared up in sexy swimwear playing in the water is not an accurate summary of our beach trip. Still not quite back on form from the previous night's antics we trudged across the sand in jeans and found a sand bank to perch, far far away from the icey waters but close enough to see the Daniel Craig wannabes. A couple of hours after soaking up the healing sunshine we discussed the topic of the day -"what shall we have for dinner?" Why does life centre around food?! Deciding our hideous binge from the night before should not be repeated we attempted healthy dinner - our concerns were more that we knew we had to eat something if we wanted to make it out, but we almost wanted to be that smashed - so we settled with quiche. Classy.

Saturday night was in essence a repeat of Friday night - but even better and way more glam. This time I was allocated more than 30mins to get ready but of course I was still the last one dressed (too bad Kirstie wasn't there to make me look like I have time management). However 6 girls getting ready in one room - mission. We also soon realised we were all wearing black (probably to slim us down from the late night pizza and all day Italian). So looking like a girl band I was inevitably the odd one out opting from cream and black instead of just black - the Aretha of the group I self-labelled myself the lead singer. I was the Beyonce to my Destiny's Child. With this thought in mind I felt invincible. A litre of vodka later I was stumbling into a club and dutifully lead to the VIP section where yet more bottles of vodka of obvs red bull awaited. I could easily get used to this lifestyle - if only they knew the truth: graduated uni, jobless, living at home, home is in Leicester...the pity party goes on. No one was going to see the pity party tonight we were all on full form. Frequenting the smoking area so that we could actually breathe there were a whole host of Geordie hotties up for grabs, including Ricki the local celeb. The hotties soon became less hot when they opened their mouths and it was all, 'I own this club', 'I'm a footballer and I earn £36,000 a week', and even less hot when we realised that the men had more cleavage on show than we did. Having been told repeatedly I was 'a breath of fresh air' for not being stick thin and interested in their money (little did they know it was because I couldn't actually string a sentence) we decided to go head home...and of course get food. Bad Billie, bad bad bad bad.

So after a hideous 4 hour hungover sweaty drive home I needed to get back on the fitness horse. It has been salads and gymming since (I am aware it is only Wednesday) and the looming personal trainer session this evening is only kicking my arse into gear further. Lesson to be learnt: stop everyone from letting you eat when you drink...just go home, safely store you lashes away and go to sleep. NO MORE DRUNK FOOD.

Here is our girl brand - think we have a bright future ahead of us.

Fatty BB xxx

Revision Munchies

Sorry I have been mildly pre-occupied this week and so my blogging has been on the back burner, too much Olympics to watch, and unfortunately revision (although as you will see little of that has been done.) Despite hoping and wishing I wouldn't have to re-sit any of my law exams I was destined to of course fail one. Again it isn't really my fault (once again the blame has been passed) - my Land Law tutorials were 4pm on a Friday afternoon - not very many were attended and even fewer were prepared for so I was asking for it really. Although the majority of my tutor group also didn't attend these classes they are a lot lot smarter than I am and all the ones that have training contracts actually seemingly have an interest in law, or at least enough to have passed the exam. Vogue, Grazia and Look hardly counts for background reading but it was much more entertaining than mortgages. To be honest I was quite shocked I had managed to pass everything... but land went down as an epic, epic fail.

I'm not very good at focussing on work when I am at home I get really distracted...by the fridge. Why does revision make you eat so much?! To attempt restraining myself from boredom binges I went on Facebook every 5 seconds and seeing if someone I'm really not interested in has updated their status. This then got progressively worse to checking twitter every 2 minutes to check for Olympic updates (because now I can scroll on my phone in all directions awoooo). This then got even worse to checking Daily Mail online every hour to see if there were new 'breaking stories' - I knew things were bad when I found myself reading the article (pfft...what articles its all pictures) on Courtney Stodden. Bad, bad times. Things got even worse after taking my 4 hours to listen to one lecture, the lure of the fridge was calling to me. I really didn't want to, but boredom was at its peak. I started off well - snacking on a couple of grapes and a bit of chicken. But like the rest of my life things went from bad to worse (I wont even start on my emotional break down last week...it wasn't pretty). Without even realising I found myself making a rather elaborate stir-fry, sitting in front of the tv watching the Olympics taking an apparently well deserved two hour break. Two hour break from doing  jack shit. Come 4pm I decided I actually needed to learn something if I was going to pass this exam, so inevitably I went swimming for 2 more hours for even further procrastination. I need to sort my life out.

Then mid swim I realised my problem: at uni no one really surfaced before 11am and no one really did much with their day. You strolled into uni went straight to Terrace to see which fitties were around and inevitably found the rest of my housemates drinking then dragged yourself to a deliberately chosen afternoon lecture/seminar that you had probably prepped for at 2am the previous night after watching TOWIE or MIC and realising come 11pm you should really do some work. My body clock was way off beat. Shockingly my stomach seems to be active 24/7. The next couple of days seemed to go much the same - watching any kind of Olympic event over revision and then when hearing the door go and the subsequent heavy plods of BBB, actually running back to my desk and pretending that I had had a really long hard day and now he was back home we should have a cup of tea and catch up on the Olympics. He never seemed to notice that I knew everything that had happened that day of the Games and seemingly still knew nothing about land law. Geeta however noticed that the fridge was getting more and more depleted. Not that there is anything that fun in there... except for an entire draw of cheese - I have requested that there be a keypad lock on the cheese draw it is far too tempting. From the now lack of food in the fridge Geeta knew I had done fuck all during the week. My bad.

I probably did not make things any better for myself by going out on Saturday - but hey I deserved it, working really hard and everything all week, my excuse was that I had been cooped up in the house all week needed to get out. I'm a bad person. It was worth it though. Forgetting my key at 4am and trying to break into my own house was not the highlight of the evening. BUT as of 8pm last night I worked really really hard, rewarding myself today not with food but with a shopping trip for all my hard endeavours. Good little egg.

However, I have new motivation in life, since I actually went to the law school library today I was shocked to find amidst the 4 other people in the desolated place there was a Zac Efron look alike. A ZAC EFRON LOOK ALIKE. A whole year I pretend to work in the library and no Zac Efrons, not even close. And what did I look like?! A mess. Hair in a disgraceful pineapple on top of my head, a t-shirt that I soon noticed was covered in crap and leggings...probably a hole somewhere. Great. I don't have a chance. I am now putting off revision for this evening by prepping so I look my version of amazing tomorrow (that's probably your mediocre).

Bring on revision - for once, I cannot wait.


P.S. Since the last 'aesthetically pleasing' went down so well I thought I would treat you to some more.

Fatty BB xx

To be a Disney Princess

So on Friday night whilst my little brother was out getting pissed coincidentally with MY friends and booking taxis to come home at 6am (Geeta was not impressed, BBB was), I was sat in the lounge watching...Shrek. I need to work on my Friday evenings not being so lame, but I had just worked a 20 hour week so I can cut myself a little slack. I was really enjoying it, laughing a lot... on my own: "I like your boulder, that's a nice boulder", when quite abruptly my enjoyment was snatched away from me. Geeta said I was Princess Fiona...in ogre form. Whilst most girls endeavour to be Cameron Diaz, I however was not so impressed to be her green, huge alter ego. Although I would have a fantastic bird-bursting singing range and capable of taking on Robin Hood and his band of merry men, I was also just likened to essentially a monster.

This is not the first time, I have had my Disney Princess dream shattered (and don't even think about commenting and saying Shrek isn't Disney, for all intents and purposes of this post please just go with me.) The dream of being Ariel, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle were all dashed from a young age, not because they were skinny and I was chubs...but because they were white. But then PC order came into reign and the likes of Pocahontas and Jasmine were adorned on my screen and I thought - YES! I can be a princess too! I was all too quickly reminded - no, no you can't.

Disney has always been a huge part of my childhood, like most kids as I imagine (although less so the kids of today, my four year old cousin has an ipad and his favourite film is the Dark Knight). And as a family it was always a game to liken the characters of the film to members of the family. So here is how I was cast:

101 Dalmations - I was Rolly...the fat dalmation.
Cinderella - GusGus...the fat mouse (you know the one thats tries to stack up all the corn)
Sleeping Beauty - the fat fairy...that makes cake.
The Jungle Book - the little fat elephant. (Inevitably BBB was Baloo and Annie of course was Mogli)
Tarzan  - the little fat elephant, that turned into the big fat elephant.
The Little Mermaid - Flounder, the fat sidekick fish.

Are you seeing the trend? No princess in sight. Just the little fat character in every bloody film! I was young and hideously naive to the fact I was being bullied by my family, I was simply grateful just to get a part. Of course Annie was Belle, the little annoying organised mouse in Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Jane. (The issue of brown never seemed to crop up for Annie).


Pocahontas was my first chance of being a Princess. She was brown! (Despite the rest of the Red Indians being well...red. Pocahontas managed that much desired caramel complexion). This was my moment to step out of the 'little fat' rut and find my inner princess. My dreams were quickly dashed.  I was labelled Niko...the fat racoon, that steals biscuits. No guesses as to who was Pocahontas. I'm not going to lie, when a gust of wind catches my hair and it gets all swept up, for a nano second I feel like Pocahontas.

Then I realise she has cheek bones, she sprints through the woods, she has a hotty like John Smith who totes adores her, and my hair is not quite as sleek as hers. The reality: when it does get caught up in a gust of wind it normally ends in me having to brush out my hair resembling now a fro and leaving me with severe arm cramp. Oh when will my life become glamorous.

Jasmine was just as quickly out the window, she constantly had her toned abs on show. Even at the age of 8 a bikini gave me an anxiety attack. I much preferred my crochet yellow one piece, whilst Annie tottered around in her polka dot bikini. It's fine though, she can't swim for shit, I felt better about that.

Then along came Hercules. Probably my favourite Disney film, so much so it inspired my degree - although I learnt nothing about Zeus in my degree...what a load of shit that was. The songs, the pecs, the witty one liners - the film had it all. It also had an array of beautiful (dark sinned!!) muses who sang all the great songs (which of course I still know all the words to), but alas there had to be one fatty in the film, who of course in the game of who's who...was me.

Undoubtedly she had the best voice, and the best personality but she also had thunder thighs and a jelly belly. My thinspiration is the middle Muse. She has no waist and seemingly no knees. All my other friends were the sexier Muses and of course Meg was off limits - too white, way too skinny (she was deffs ano), so like or not if I wanted a part... I was the chunkier Muse.

Although Disney has been a source of much happiness in my life, it has also perhaps without ever realising until it has been written down...scarred me for life. The next Disney film, better be about an Indian princess (who looks like Adriana Lima) who marries Jonny Wilkinson (or now Michael Phelps), has four Ralph Lauren looking children, has a holiday home in Malibu and of course....lives happily ever after.

Until then I fear I will be forever cast as the little fat one.

Fatty BB xxx