In case anyone was wondering what I’ve been doing for the last four weeks – there you have it. The heading comprehensively describes the extent of my current activities; I’ve excluded minor details such as eating and sleeping, or, more importantly, drinking coffee. Supplemented by practising studiously and knitting in any remaining spare minute. It’s good to have hobbies where progress is visible and occasionally even audible, as opposed to the thesis where progress seems to mean deleting previously written paragraphs in a futile attempt to be more concise.

On that note (hah!) I have now been taking and thoroughly enjoying piano lessons for a whole year, with no intention to stop anytime soon … or indeed ever.

Oh, and I did a talk at the Nottingham Skeptics in the Pub. I enjoyed that a lot even though we started with an hour delay because the room the presentation was supposed to be in was double-booked with a pole dancing class and much hilarity ensued. In the end the audience gathered around the pool billiard table and the fire place, and the slides were projected between the radiator and the ventilator. Fun times! *grins*

But apart from that my days currently consist mainly of writing and more writing. And worrying about finding a job. Feeling pressured to write up faster to find a job, and then feeling pressured to write slower so I don’t finish and lose funding before I have found a job. It’s all a matter of finding and maintaining the equilibrium … and if anyone has figured out to do so, please let me know urgently.

On the bright side, my sleeping patterns have definitely improved, which is a welcome relief. Denial and sticking your fingers in your ears and going “lalala” are such a much-maligned and under-appreciated strategy, which is unfair, because it seems to be working well for me. *whistles*

What’s up next? Next week I’ll be in Edinburgh from Tuesday to Sunday, attending to a number of events on the Fringe Festival, seeing the Military Tattoo (go on, mock me, I know you want to), and give a talk myself as part of the Fringe of Reason event series. I may or may not have a look at what K1 Yarn has to offer — okay, who am I kidding, I plan to visit them and drool all over their yarn.

When I return it will be time to … *gasps* … notify the uni of my “intent to submit”, which is a fancy way of saying I have to tell them I’m serious about this, and it means they’ll expect thesis submission from three months on.
*blinks*
Denial. Coffee. Denial. Ear plugs. Coffee.
Right, where was I? Yarn … yarn is good. There cannot be such a thing as too much yarn.

Daniela,
over and out

It appears I haven’t posted an update for a while. Odd really, considering that writing seems to be all I do these days. And revising. Deleting stuff. Writing more. Despairing of how much still needs to be written. Not liking what I’ve written so far. Writing more. Rinse and repeat.

On second thought, that may explain my reluctance to Write. Even. More.
Yes, that means I’m currently writing up. *twitch* I’m officially in the writing up phase (since the beginning of April), I conducted all studies and now there’s only writing left – finishing literature review, finishing discussion, tying up all loose ends, and in the process somehow magically creating an intelligent, coherent structure that reads as if I knew what I was doing all along. Nothing easier than that.

To keep myself sane, I continue to knit and play the piano. And I drink copious amounts of coffee. *twitch* In case anyone was wondering – that strategy isn’t really working out right now. However, in the true spirit of my intention, I continue to pursue the same strategy, fully expecting to see a different result anytime soon. For now, I can proudly say that I am apparently capable of knitting a perfectly looking, well fitting sock, improvising (for myself) on the piano without dying of embarrassment while doing so and beautifully formatting a half (okay, three quarters)-written thesis in TeX — but sticking to a self-imposed deadline, getting shortlisted for a Research Associate position, finishing the literature review, or even getting to sleep at a decent hour, or for a longer uninterrupted period are skills that currently elude me.

The last point may be directly related to previously mentioned enormous amounts of coffee, but only because the stress of it all keeps me awake, hence I don’t get enough sleep, hence I am tired throughout the day and need to drink coffee to stay awake. Makes perfect sense to me. Also, coffee is my friend and saviour. No, I won’t give it up. It is mine and you can’t have it. Now gimme back my mug … yes, and the other one too.

Over and out, but not defeated,
Daniela

In the interest of science, I have decided to detail the result of months of ruthless and highly scientific self-observation. I present to you my eight stages of learning to play a new piece of music on the piano.

1. Stage: Pride
If I’m starting a new piece it seems to mean that my piano teacher thinks I am making enough progress with the pieces I am currently working on to start on another one. Unless I’ve chosen a new piece to learn all by myself in which case instead of Pride the first stage can also take the form of Smugness: look at me, I’m a dedicated learner. I learn things on my own. Yeah, that’s how I roll.

2. Stage: Anticipation
New music! How will it sound? How long will it take me? There are new things to discover, new shapes and new sounds, new combinations, new melodies – the possibilities are endless!

3. Stage: Discovery
The possibilities are endless. However, the possible matches from notes on paper to keys on the keyboard are finite, as are the number of my fingers. Two or more evenings are spent deciphering the notes, repeatedly. You would think that once you know which note to play, you know which note to play, right? Wrong. Turns out that my brain forgets the note-to-key match faster than a politician forgets his promises right after he’s been elected. Still, it’s fun because this is all about trying to understand the piece and figuring out what the best fingering would be for the individual passages.

4. Stage: Bargaining
After the stage of Discovery, I will have a very rough, very theoretical notion of how the piece is supposed to be played. I will also have a very clear idea of the extent I will be able to play it. Thus I enter the stage of bargaining: What tempo is this piece in – allegretto? *faints* No way. I’m sure it will sound just as well in … Largo. Largo is good. We likes us Largo. And I can’t even begin to think about minor details such as, erm, dynamics, pedalling … phrasing. You know, only the stuff that helps express the piece’s individuality, its meaning and spirit. It will have to wait until my fingers have conquered Mount Improbable and are capable of making a smooth transition from C# to D#. Till then I am pleading with the notes that, for example, a joyful, exuberant melody can be played equally well at a slow tempo with no concernable phrases or indeed any emphasis at all.

5. Stage: Fear and Humility
It slowly sinks in just how many elements I need to master to make this sound beautifully. Deciphering the notes is a laughably small part of it. Combining the notes of the right and left hand together, at the right time is a whole other part. And reading the notes fast enough so it sounds like continuous music instead of a slow… laboured… sequence of fingering exercises. And if that’s not enough, the pedal has to be coordinated too. While observing the phrase marks. And the dynamics. And thermodynamics. (Okay, I made that one up.)

6. Stage: Denial
It’s the only way. I continue to practice. I cannot face the enormity of what this piece demands of me. (This, obviously, is relative. We’re talking “Home on the Range”, not Beethoven’s piano sonatas.) Bit by beat, I mean, bar by bar. However, denial can only be maintained for so long. Once the fragile walls of self-defence break start crumbling, the crushing despair of Still.Not.Being.Able.To.Play.The.Damn.Thing. can only lead to one possible outcome:

7. Acceptance
More practice. Sensible, me? Oblivious to common sense, more like it. There is no way out. I will not give up. I will most certainly not take a break, take a deep breath, back down, or do any of the other things the more feeble minded less stubborn more sensible among us would do.

8. Cautious Relief
Eventually, a melody or a song emerges. Or rather, is forcefully pushed and dragged and shoved and coerced into existence. Feeling scarred, battered and bruised and ever so slightly victorious I will now proceed to play the piece ad nauseam just BECAUSE I CAN. Of course, once I mastered (in a relative sense) a piece of music, a new piece will appear on the horizon, ie. the page in front of me. Luckily learning a new piece is a bit like giving birth (or so I have been told) and the rush of endorphines of being able to finally play this piece in a not entirely atrocious nice way immediately make you forget the pain and suffering and fear and insanity … and look forward to learning the next piece. Fun and adventure awaits!

Note: In order to make it through all of the eight stages without significant loss of sanity, confidence, self-esteem or will to live, a good enabler teacher is essential. Without lessons I would be perpetually stuck between stage 4 (Bargaining) and 5 (Fear). I’m privileged for having found the perfect piano teacher who even in my most atrocious performances always finds something to praise (I don’t know how he does it!). He always manages to pick up and then rebuild the shattered remains of my confidence for which I will be eternally grateful.

The first month of 2010 is almost over and once again I ask myself, where the hell did all that time go, when am I ever going to finish, and what on earth will I be doing afterwards? Granted I did decide to relax and recover over the christmas holidays – a plan that was met with only partial success – but it’s still rather scary how fast January went by and how little I have been able to do for my PhD. That’s not to say I was lazy: there was marking, a talk to prepare, a teaching course portfolio to create, but all the while my PhD has been more or less in hibernation. Ah well, next Tuesday I’ll present another study during an internal seminar, finish the current marking batch (oh joy!) by Thursday and then I will hopefully be able to focus on writing up.

And now to something completely different. I may have mentioned before that I am learning to play the piano, and that I am rather enjoying the whole process. That may have been an understatement. I am officially obsessed and madly in love with music in general and the piano in particular. I am spending an obscene amount of time practising each day (an hour and a half by now), and when I’m not practising I’m listening to classical music wherever I can, learning music theory, and generally just obsessing over classical (piano) music. If I can’t listen to music or can’t practice I feel like something is almost painfully absent. Apparently there was a roughly piano-shaped hole in my life I hadn’t noticed up until now … and I am as much surprised by this as anyone else. Or maybe it was just a vaguely music-shaped hole and I was lucky enough to find the right instrument?

Whatever the reason, it’s quite an overwhelming experience – I practice for hours, and sometimes I will go back to the piano after having had a practice session earlier that day. I learn musical theory for fun even though I won’t be needing (i.e., being able to use for playing) some of that knowledge for quite a while. I even try to practice on an acoustic piano every now and then so I get used to the different feel of acoustic and digital pianos, though Sven is strangely reluctant to let me buy a second (acoustic) piano for practice, pffft.

Is the aforementioned obscene amount of practice somehow related to the also-aforementioned lack of work for my PhD? Quite possibly. The perceptive reader might be tempted to point out that I could cut down on piano time and work more on my PhD, at which point I would invite the perceptive reader to try and keep my from my piano practice, if they’re feeling brave. Or suicidal. And on that note – back to uni work. Need to work fast, so I have more time for practice later…

Spoiler Alert: this entry has been written under the influence of not enough sleep and too much coffee. Incoherent ramblings ahead. Also, when tired, html tags look a lot more interesting and fun than they used to. You have been warned.

Aaaaanyway, I am certainly not procrastinating by writing yet another blog entry. Oh no! I am, um, dutifully following my obligations as a *cough* regular blog writer *cough* to keep you, my dear readers – yes, all four of you! – uptodate. Or up to quarter, as it were.

Christmas is only a week away, and that means in another two weeks we’ll have reached the year 2010. This seems to be a good time for me to gather my thoughts, take a deep breath and ask the really important questions, such as “When the heck did this happen, what happened to the last year, and do they really expect me to finish my PhD in half a year from now?!”

Well, as far as I can see last year happened mostly during the last 350 odd days, so that’s that question out of the way. What happened to last year was *takes a deep breath*…  going on vacation in the States to see New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Dragon*Con;  TAMLondon; presenting a poster at a conference in Edinburgh; conducting three studies for my PhD; discovering my obsession for learning and playing the piano; holding a talk at the Leicester Skeptics in the Pub; reconnecting with a dear old friend only to be disconnected again after just a handful of email exchanges; walking 17 miles in one day at the Samaritans Annual Conference; losing a stone in weight; knitting an estimated half a dozen of scarves, none of which I kept; spending way too much time on Ravelry; holding two lectures on research methods; attending a teaching course; and spending an estimated month’s salary on yarn;.
Not bad for a year’s work, eh?

Now, for next year a few smaller tasks have lined themselves up already. One of those minor, inconsequential, err, tasks is the completion of my PhD. Ahem. Excuse me while I stick my fingers in my ears and go “Lalalala” …

Where was I? Finishing, right. The experimental side of it is nearly finished at this point – I will test about 20 more students at the beginning of next term because students couldn’t be bothered to turn up, causing a minor nervous breakdown on my side I didn’t manage to get quite as many participants this side of the year as I was planning to. Barring any nasty comments in the viva leading to a request for major amendments, this recent study then was the last study for my PhD. The studies themselves are mostly written up, though some parts of the results and discussion need to be written in a more thorough, structured and precised way revised. Also I still need to write revise my introduction and literature overview, write the overall discussion and then take care that everything looks like I knew what I was doing all along lines up nicely and forms a coherent structure.

Apart from that my plans for next year currently include two scheduled talks for the Edinburgh and Liverpool Skeptics in the Pub; hopefully losing another stone or two?; increasing the knitting output; continue feeding the obsession playing and learning the piano; attending TAM Las Vegas; and trying to spend more less money on yarn.

It’s now a good four months since I started a great new adventure into a world hitherto unknown to me – I started learning to play the piano. My previous experience in playing an instrument was limited to playing the recorder (german: “Blockfloete”) from the tender age of 10 to 12, without reaching any level of acceptable proficiency.

However, for probably decades I had always *wanted* to learn the piano. Embarassingly enough, this was mostly based on wanting to be able to play one particular song – for those who are interested, “Neverland” by Suzanne Ciani – and … err, nothing else, really. This was the full extent of my motivation. I did say, it was kinda embarassing… When a friend – *waves to Iris* – started talking about learning to play the violin this decade-old dream of thought of mine popped up again, followed by the thought, “oh, what the heck, why not give it a try” and I went to look for piano teachers in Leicester and had my first lesson at the start of August.

To say it’s been a revelation would be an understatement. After the first lesson I was excited, after the second lesson I was thoroughly enjoying myself, and after the third I was completely hooked. Whatever I was expecting when I started taking lessons, I certainly did not expect to be completely blown away like this by the sheer enjoyment of learning and playing the piano. In the first three or four weeks I tried to practice half an hour a day, but for the past couple of months I’ve consistently practiced a good hour a day. Okay, so maybe I am developing an obsession … never mind the hours and hours – alright, make that days – I’ve spent on listening to classical music and catching up with what I’ve missed out so far.

A good part of the credit for enjoying this so much goes to my piano teacher, who is very nice, extremely patient, and terrifyingly knowledgeable. He’s making a point of mistakes being a natural part of the learning process, which admittedly is a very alien concept to me. *grins sheepishly* I really like that I don’t only learn about the technicalities of sightreading and playing, but also how to enjoy and appreciate music. On a side note, I’m fascinated by the fact that I don’t mind much talking and teaching in front of 12 or even 120 students, but playing a piece I practiced at home during the lesson reduces me to a nervous wreck. Go figure!

Time for a positive update to the Sugar Doesn’t Live Here Anymore post: Permanent residential rights remain revoked, and contact remains at a minium … an occasional visit, maybe once a week or less. Sugar has been surprisingly nice about this recent breakup and has failed to throw any tantrums or cause any headaches. Over the  past four months Sugar has also started cleaning out his stuff and so far has removed about a stone’s worth of baggage from the premises.

Or, in English: since I started cutting down on sugar I have lost a stone in weight. Without dieting. Woohoo!

Usually I blame the cats if something goes wrong. This time it’s different: The pod ate my blog! Yesterday I used the WordPress application on my iPhone to write a blog entry while on the train, feeling really geeky and not a small bit smug. Alas! Because I tried synchronising while still on the train, the whole process stumbled and faltered and my blog post disappeared from the phone without appearing on the blog. Boo, hiss, and so on. Aaaanyway, since I’ve been on three conferences in the space of the last five weeks I thought I had to catch up and give you an overview on what I have seen and experienced. Warning: This post may be long. Did I mention I went to *three* conferences?

Dragon*Con
First off, nerdvana. About a good month ago Sven and I had our first ever vacation in the States, combined with our first ever visit of a proper convention. We flew from London to New York, then travelled to Philadelphia, Washington and finally Atlanta for Dragon*Con. Don’t ask about the flight— alright, it was okay for most of the time, apart from the shaky bit at the end, did I mention that I hate flying?, couldn’t get any sleep on the plane, and I hate, hate, hate turbulences. Also, landing in New York wasn’t quite the majestic experience I had hoped for on account of the thick clouds that made us miss the entire flying over New York and the Hudson and only made the landing strip appear about 200 meters below us.

New York itself was an overwhelming experience. It’s colourful and bright and high and loud and hectic and busy and confusing. It’s also amazing and beautiful (apart from the Times Square) and definitely worth a visit or three, though I have decided I would not want to live in Manhatten for reasons detailed below. Having said that I wouldn’t mind sitting on the Island ferries for days on end and just watch New York from a distance and the sea up close.

While we were there, we met up with Allison, a fellow skeptic I knew from Ravelry, which was another fantastic reminder that you can make instant connections with people you only know as an online persona.

From New York we then went to Philadelphia and got an intensive course in American history as well as seeing the Liberty Bell and the room where the declaration of independence was signed. Moving further down South, we spent another day in Washington which, particularly after New York, was positively spacious and quiet and calm. Here, too, we took in a lot of history by looking at the Capitol, the White House, the Washington memorial and the Library of Congress (my personal favourite). I’m going to gloss over the fact that for half an hour or so I was fascinated that the White House was much larger than I would have thought till I realised that the White House was, in fact, the Capitol which was just as large as it should have been. Ahem.

From Washington to Atlanta we had to drive a good ten hours so we split up the trip and had a stop in Chapel Hill, which at that point felt decidedly more Southern and also a lot hotter. The next day we continued our trip and arrived in Atlanta in the afternoon, ready to begin the fun at Dragon*Con.

… Where to begin. If I though New York was overwhelming and massive sensory overload, Dragon*Con (DC) is that, ten times multiplied. People of all forms, shapes and sizes – and I mean all! – in every conceivable costume, plus a few costume no one could have thought of. It’s Nerdvana! Geek heaven! No reference is too obscure, no hobby to bizarre not to appear on DC. I won’t go into too much detail because if I would start I would easily write four pages and there are still two more conferences I need to describe, so the quick highlights – sitting in the first row of a panel discussion with Felicia Day who was appropriately sweet and geeky; getting an autograph from James Masters *faints* … aaaaah…. *sighs* … where was I? Right, lots of talks and panels from skeptics, interesting science talks, an impressive Eugenie Scott (my new role model), steam punk is beautiful, and sleep is overrated.

Unfortunately we can’t make it to next year’s DC but if there was any chance I would go in a heartbeat – it was definitely worth it and one of the most impressive experiences I had so far. The strongest impression I took home from DC was the sheer enthusiasm and passion so many panel speakers felt for their job, regardless of whether they were actors, writers or researchers. That in itself was very inspiring.

After four long days and short nights we got on the plane again to fly back to the UK where I had about ten days rest before I was heading out for the next conference:

Samaritans Annual Conference
In a previous blog post pretty much exactly a year ago I have already described how overwhelming and moving this conference is – it’s not for nothing that I wanted to go again this year, and that I will try to attend next year too. It’s a very humbling and inspiring experience to meet so many lovely people who all spend a significant time of their so called “free time” volunteering at the helpline. Although most of the presentations and talks cover topics that are particularly un-cheerful (death, suicide, self-harm) the general atmosphere is very warm and moving and not at all depressing or scary. It’s hard to believe but I guess it’s because everyone shares a similar view of accepting that life can often be painful and sad but that we are doing the best to be there for people going through a difficult time. I can truly say that I enjoyed going to the conference and meeting fellow Samaritans.

Returning from this conference, I had another good week of rest and relaxation before I went off to the third and final conference in this conference marathon:

TAM London
This was the first international skeptics conference in Europe. After a very emotional Samaritans conference this provided an excellent counterpoint of science and skepticism and comedy – thus also rounding off this conference tour the force with yet another major geeking out. The speakers were fantastic and very engaging, while the comedy and music performances (George Hrab, Robin Ince, Tim Minchin) were mindbogglingly funny and moving at the same time. I really enjoyed this weekend and its relaxed atmosphere. It was another great reminder that skeptics are definitely not the bitter, cynical people we are often made out to be. Quite the contrary, the pervading impression was that of people being acutely aware of the preciousness of life, and how it should be spent with joy and appreciation of the fantastic things in nature instead of quarrels over religion and beliefs and the colour of skin.

I know it will sound horribly cliche, but it has to be said: I feel very privileged. In the past five weeks I have seen an amazing number of people feeling passionate and enthusiastic about what they do – a very inspiring experience. It made me realise that I, too, feel very passionate about doing my PhD but also about educating others about research methods and psychology in general. It also made me appreciate that I am very lucky I am at this place, at this time, being able to do what I like, and knowing all these wonderful people. I’m looking forward to TAM London 2010, TAM Las Vegas 2010 and Samaritans 2010 … now if I only could learn to live on two or fewer hours sleep per day.

Daniela, over and out.

Two weeks ago we went to a dear friend’s 50th birthday and because it was in Germany, on a Saturday, we thought it would be a good idea to just fly there for one day. Less hassle, you know.
… yeah, right.

But let me start from the beginning. It’s a very early one, in fact: the alarm goes off Saturday at 4 am in the morning so we can leave at 5 to check in at 6 to get the plane at 7. I’ll skip most of the swearing and grumbling about the early start – hey, I’m a student, I usually get up about *cough*fourorfivehours*cough*later. But I manage to get up, and we leave in time to drive to Birmingham airport and check in in time. So all is well? Well, not quite. Because although we are there and ready in time, the plane isn’t and after we already entered the boarding lounge, we get ushered out again with a dry “There’s a problem with the plane, and it will take at least an hour to get it fixed.” Errr… I may have mentioned before that I don’t particularly like flying (it’s gotten a lot better, but I don’t like enclosed spaces, loss of control, and heights, so planes are, on principle, not a “feel-safe” place for me) so every time I’ve arrived safely I feel like a dodget a bullet and I would rather not fly too often … plus our travelling itineray was fine-tuned so we could get a train from Frankfurt to Wuerzburg, for which we would have had enough time buffer, provided our plane arrives in time. Which it doesn’t.

We sit and wait back in the general lounge till our flight finally gets called out again. Upon boarding, I am somewhat relieved to hear that we aren’t flying with the machine that had the problem (apparently there was some water leakage in the back part of the cabin) but with a replacement machine, so I try to relax and read and crochet on the plane (yes, I managed successfully to get my crochet hooks on the plane! So there.)

We arrive at the Frankfurt airport with too much delay to get our original train and thus get a new ticket, only to find our new train and, upon seating, hearing that the train is faulty and will be replaced at the next stop. At this point we start to doubt we will need only one taxi to get from the train station in Wuerzburg to the hotel. Surprisingly enough, the taxi doesn’t break down and we make it to the hotel in one piece. I collapse on the bed, less than four hours sleep catching up with me. I feel utterly exhausted and would like nothing more than a two hours nap before the party to get some strength back.

Alas, some of our friends who stay at the same hotel call and ask whether we want to come up for a drink? I relent, on the condition that there be coffee and little effort involved. For reasons that I still don’t understand, this then suddenly turns into “Let’s go into town for a stroll” and, later on, “Let’s walk up to that castle”, and, much later on, “Oops, wrong hill, we need to get to THAT castle”. And all the while, I feel oh soo tired!

Yet I survive and we finally get back to the hotel to get ready for the party. With a wonderful sense of timing at this point my throat starts to feel sore. Over the course of the evening this gets only worse, and even the joy of meeting friends again, the excellent buffet and the general great atmosphere of the party doesn’t help to distract from it. I embarass myself by asking every second guest whether they have any painkillers with them – would you believe how many pharmacists, gps and nurses were present, and none of them had any painkillers?! What’s wrong with those people! *shakes head* Aaanyway, shortly before midnight I give up, my throat is just too painful and I head back to the hotel, only to find that even the reception doesn’t have any painkillers.

Over night, it still gets worse, and the agonising pain is now joined by fever and a general sense of “Waaaah!” and I get less sleep than the night before. At five in the morning I give up and start looking for emergency practices, only to find that the earliest one opens at 10. There’s a small hospital right across the street but although they are willing to give me antibiotics, they won’t give me painkillers … gee, thanks. However, when I come back from my unsuccessful endeavour, at least the reception has found a lonesome aspirin hiding in a cupboard which helps me to survive till the practice opens at 10. And then, finally, I get a diagnosis (laryngitis, it’s what you get if you no longer have your tonsils to catch infections), a prescription for antibiotics, and a prescription for industrial strength painkillers (because I know by now aspirin and the like won’t do the trick). Wheee!

After this ordeal I’d still like nothing more to go to bed and sleep for the next … day or two, but there’s more meeting with friends to come, and walking through the town, and then catching the train back to Frankfurt airport. At this point I’m somewhat less in pain, but still utterly exhausted as well as running a fever. This makes running through train stations and airports a lot of fun, honest. Particularly when we realise that FlyBe has completely messed up the checking in process and has a grand total of two counters for an estimated 200 people wanting to check in for four different flights. By the time we reach the counter it’s five minutes past our official boarding time, but it doesn’t matter because we are still among the first of our flight to check in. *shakes head again*

But we make it back, and arrive back home in Leicester Sunday evening around 10. I finally get to collapse on the bed and sleep. And sleep I do, about thirteen hours in one go, bliss! I can’t remember the last time I was so happy to be back in my own bed. I’ve also come to really appreciate the British shop opening times, and the fact that in the UK painkillers are available in every supermarket, not just pharmacies!

It was this time of the year again — the time I stepped on the scales, started cursing heavily and swore to myself that things had to change. And this time they would change dramatically.

Like pretty much every other woman I have had my fair share of dieting experience. Eating (a lot) less, diet shakes, weight watching and points counting, Paul McKenna’s tapes … I’ve tried it, and I’ve failed. At the lowest point of my weight I’ve been about four stones lighter than now. Every time I lost weight (and I’ve lost up to two stones in a single diet), the yoyo effect would always strike back and make me gain all that I’ve lost, plus more. Even when I finally realised that, yes, dieting will most likely cause weight gain rather than loss, and when I tried to just listen to my hunger and eat what I really like, even then I gained weight. It just wouldn’t work. And I think I finally figured out why!

One piece of the puzzle was revealed to me when I took a blood test at the GP’s. I’ve always wondered why, for example, Sven was sooo much better at doing a diet than me. When we both did a diet where you had to drink three specially formulated milkshakes a day, Sven would drink one for breakfast and then go happily for five or more hours till the next shake. Me? I’d be hungry again, an hour later, and ravenous for three more hours till I’d cave in and drink the next shake, rinse and repeat. Same with “normal” breakfast: Sven can have a bowl of cereal to last him easily till lunch or later. Me? I’d have cereals and then be ravenous two hours later. And if mean ravenous, I mean ravenous – stomach growling, hands shaking, feeling almost dizzy. Which was ridiculous, really, because in terms of energy and carbs I should have had enough to last me for several hours, it just didn’t feel that way – I felt hungry.

I’d long suspected that my blood sugar levels were slightly out of whack and a couple of months ago I had it checked out. It confirmed that I had something called postprandial hypoglycemia, in more simple words – low blood sugar after eating. When I eat, my blood sugar will spike and then drop quickly like a stone. The more I thought about that, the more I came to realise that this was probably at the root of my failure to diet or even eat properly (and in moderate amounts). It certainly explains why diet milkshakes simply didn’t work for me – they’d made my blood sugar drop faster than the DAX and then make me feel miserable till I ate something, preferably something that would make my blood sugar go up really fast. This meant I could finally stop feeling guilty about failing at that. It also meant that as much as I’d love the thought, I had to finally give up on the notion that I could just eat what I like when I like and lose weight as long as I listen to my hunger – if I eat something sweet when I am hungry it will simply mean that I will be even hungrier very soon again.

So, about three weeks ago I decided to drastically reduce the amount of sugar I ate. For psychological reasons I did not want to cut off sugar completely, I would allow myself as much natural fruit sugar – i.e, fresh fruit – as I wanted and also allowed myself to have dark chocolate should the cravings become too much.

But here’s the surprise. I haven’t had a single craving for the past three weeks. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Every single website I read about going off sugar warned about doing it too rapidly, suggested to slowly phase out food, and to be prepared of the withdrawal symptoms and the awful cravings. Me? I had none of it. I stopped eating anything sugary from one day to the other, changed from white bread to dark bread only, and took fresh fruit wherever I went. Not a single craving for sugar or chocolate! My only cravings are for something sweet and juicy and fresh fruit fits the bill perfectly! From one day to the other my hunger patterns have changed too. I no longer get the sudden, ravenous, shaky fingers hunger – now it comes much more slowly, and I can even forget I am hungry and only remember a few hours later. I’m only ever snacking of fruit or vegetable, and I drink a lot more than I used to. It’s such a change, I’m absolutely not used to hunger being that … low-key and slow.

As to the weight loss? We’ll see. So far I’ve dropped a couple of pounds in two weeks. Nothing spectacular, but considering that I am not dieting but changing my nutrition, I am quite content and hope to maintan the pace. I’ll keep you posted! (Unless, of course, the whole endeavour is a failure in which case this post has never existed. :-p)