Back to Basics

Oh dear.  I haven't been doing much tarot recently, nor much dieting either.  For nigh on a month now.  Just before my recent trip to Ugg-Land dieting didn't seem worth it just before I went, certainly wasn't worth doing while I was out there, and I am now struggling to get back into good habits even though I've been home for over a week.

And not been to any tarot groups nor seen any of my lovely tarot friends - the recent riots put paid to one planned get together.

So it's Back to Basics on both fronts. And the B-2-B deck in tarot is the RWS. The one I learnt from, along with many other tarotists.  So today's guest deck to get me B-2-B in Tubby Town is the Universal Waite.

So I asked the cards: "What advice do you give me to get myself back on track in Tubby Town?"

So I shuffled the cards and randomly drew the 5 of Swords. Great!!  The 'Defeat' card. Tarot is a mirror and that's definitely me at the moment. Defeated by everything to do with Tubby Town and losing weight. Those swords lying on the ground in the card are the tatters of my on-line tracker for counting how many Fat Pills I've had.  And I just can't pick them up and get going again.

Nice one tarot, you have pretty well summed up where I am - but how about some advice for what to do now?

So I turned to a new Oracle deck I have just bought but not used yet. The Oracle of Shadows and Light by Lucy Cavendish. Oh yes - the Girl Power card!  It's the 'Dress of Alchemy' card;  "Release your power" is the message of this card. Take it on, confront it, go for it.  Look at the determination on that face on the card.

Just looking at this card makes me feel empowered. it's up to me.  I know how to do it, and it's up to me to just go for it.  Good God, she's even holding my bottle of wine!

This card is also the picture on the box that the cards came in, further underlining what a major message this is.  "Janey...Janey...I bring you wine...and you must drink it it...."

The cards have spoken. Rude not to....right?

It's An Obstacle Course

Ok my lovely chocolate cakes. What a funny old couple of weeks it has been.  I think the luscious Devil card from the Housewives Tarot deck which I have selected to represent the theme of this post just about sums it up for many of us at the moment.

I have gone completely to pot and lost the plot. And I haven't been alone. Loads of solid Tubby Towners have had the same problem, including some of the really strong-willed girlies. 

I think it must be something in the Planets.  Even the Sleepy Sunnies, our opposing team in our weight loss competition, struggled a bit this last week although they still beat us Foxy Flowers.

So - what is going on?

Maybe the cards can tell us. Today's guest deck is the Tarot of Pagan Cats, a very cute deck with some beautiful feline images that capture the essence of each card very well. Lots of the Tubby Towners are animal lovers, so thought this deck for this purpose might lift us all and get us back on track.

So today's question is about understanding what the obstacle is at the moment and what can we do about it? I asked the cards while I shuffled the deck thoroughly and drew three cards at random.

Where we are now: The 9 of Pentacles
This card is a card of opulence, and about comfort and feeling secure. In a dieting sense this can suggest that perhaps many of us have reached a point where we are beginning to feel better about our weight and our figures, we are perhaps feeling comfortable with ourselves and so it gets easy to think "I don't look so bad now.....so that bottle of wine won't hurt."  Perhaps a slight sense of complacency and diet fatigue even settles in. We then forgot to track and point everything, perhaps being a bit lax because - the initial desperation to lose some weight has slightly worn off, even though we're not where we finally want to be yet.

A dress fits, trousers do up. And rather than spur us on to do even more, doesn't it often have the opposite effect?  We take the foot off the pedal a little bit, and before we know it - 2 tubbies back on and we feel like we're going two steps forwards and one step back.

The obstacle or challenge facing us:  The Tower
How appropriate - The Tower. See - my cards never lie to me. I couldn't have drawn a more appropriate card if I had searched through the deck and chosen it.  The Tower is the card of destruction, where things are suddenly and unexpectedly torn down (and often not very welcomed).

The Tower is a major card in the deck, indicating an influence that has a major impact on us. How very true! It also corresponds with the planet Mars, and who was also the God of War.

Tubby Towners - this is our self destruct button.  This is where those 2 tubbies on doesn't become the 'wake-up' call we need. This is the one where the "what the hell" button that we all have kicks in. We lose our complete sense of what we're doing; we put on more weight and we know we are but we can't stop. 

Every day we get up and start off planning and counting those Fat Pills but by the evening the resolve has gone and we are a packet of biscuits, a sharing bag of crisps, an Indian takeaway or a bottle of wine down (or most likely all four!).  And before we know it 2 tubbies have crept up to 10 tubbies and rising.

And there is a dieter's rule that we all know and don't love - the weight goes on quicker than it goes off! 10 tubbies on in 3 weeks = 6 weeks to lose them again (more often than not).

So what can we do?

The solution to that obstacle:  Strength
Oh my, oh my, oh my.  My cards are singing today.

Strength is absolutely the card for this. But my fellow chocolate cakes - this isn't going to tell you anything you don't already know I'm afraid.

Strength is another major card, indicating something that will have a big impact on us.  It corresponds with the astrological sign of Leo, which is associated with leadership and someone who takes control of situations.

Strength is the mind over matter card. It is the card of Strength of Will card. Mr Will Power's card in fact.  It says to us that we can do anything we want if we apply ourselves and focus fully on it.  We can overcome the self-destruct button that The Tower offers to us, but the Strength to do so has to come from within ourselves. We have to attune and stay focused.  Only we can do this ourselves.

And - my fellow Tubbies - I think we sort of knew that, didn't we?

So - sorry there was nothing new here in terms of diet advice. But all good stuff, and the cards are really singing to us today.

But the cats are very pretty aren't they?

Guilt!

Today's card found me when I was looking for a flower image to put on my Tubby Town profile. As I explained in an earlier post we've got a little team competition going on weight loss, known as a 'Challenge' in Tubby Town-speak and I'm in the Fabulous Foxy Flowers team and needed to find a pretty fuchsia coloured flower for my profile pic.  We've all changed our pics to represent the team flower.

As the Tarot Dieter I wanted to find a tarot card with a Foxy Flower on it, so I went to Google images and lo and behold this card leaped out at me.  It's from the beautiful Dreaming in Color oracle deck by Mindy Sommers and, very appropriately, is labelled (and represents) Guilt.

That's me at the moment. I've been a very bad dieter these past two weeks and haven't lost anything since the first week of the Challenge. And I know I've let my fellow Foxy Flower teamies down.  And we have been beaten by the Sleepy Sunnies for the last two weeks and I do feel Guilty for my contribution to that.  Even though the tarot predicted it a couple of weeks ago (see 5 June 'Well done' post), forewarned hasn't been forearmed in my case.

This card - Guilt - is the perfect dieter's card. Dieting is, after all, all about Guilt and eating (and drinking) what you're not supposed to.  Guilt is one of the dieter's best friends (and sometimes worst enemy).

So I am going to pull a tarot card for the Foxy Flowers this week to give some guidance and insight as to how we might do this coming week.  I 'm going to use my new (and as yet unused) Tarot of the Sidhe (pronounced Shee), created by the very lovely Emily Carding.  Sidhe are magickal beings and are often referred to as faeries.  Given that we want to be as light as faeries, this seemed to be a good deck to guide us.

Our card is Dreamer Seven.  This is a card about subterfuge, secrets and cunning.  This is the message for us Foxies - don't kid yourself.....crumbs do contain Fat Pills.....children's leftovers do have to be counted in your daily intake....that chocolate will make a difference.

And we all do it, don't we?  We think that if we don't include it in our Fat Pills no-one will notice. But of course the scales do.  So, lovely Foxies - the message this week is that we should all be honest with ourselves.  Even if we do have too many Fat Pills, we should account for them and face up to what we are doing.  There is a moon in the background of this card which is often a symbol of delusion. We shouldn't delude ourselves, which is what I've certainly being doing this past couple of weeks.  Peanuts in the pub and not bothering to count the Fat Pills because "It was only a few...".   Forgetting that last glass of wine.  Just one biscuit won't hurt.

So this little fuchsia is going to turn over a new leaf this week.  Literally.  Good luck to all the other Foxy Flowers!

Dear Maureen....

Today's card is dedicated to the Tubby Town website, courtesy of the traditional RWS (Rider-Waite-Smith) deck which, for me, has the best imagery for the website this week.  It's the 'you're f**ked' card, and that pretty well describes the Tubby Town website this week.

In Tubby Town there is a website where you can enter how many Fat Pills you eat and drink each day and the website will add it up for you and keep a running total of how many Fat Pills you've used and how many you've got left. it's a very valuable tool.

Well, this week the website kept refusing to save my data and kept losing it.  I complained and the Tubby Town computer geeks kept sending me different fixes to try, none of which worked. By Friday I had pretty well lost track of where I was Fat Pills-wise. When I logged in on Friday morning it wouldn't let me go onto the site until I had deleted all my Fat Pills data that hadn't come from their own Tubby Town database. Thinking this was a clean-up to solve my 'save' problem I duly did so and is it then obliterated all said data - including stuff it had previously saved. When I finally logged in I found out that everyone in Tubby town had been forced to do this.  Apparently a technological melt-down.

But even more idiotically, they couldn't retrieve people's data. Hard to believe in this day and age that they don't do site back-ups or had no way of getting it back. So, they sent me an apology e-mail addressed to "Dear Maureen...."  That just rounded it off really, my name isn't Maureen.

The Tipping the Scales Point

The scales;  Our best friend and also our worst enemy.  Today's card is chosen from the beautiful Psy-Card oracle deck. This card stands for justice, balance and moderation. Ah - moderation - what we should all be doing with chocolate and wine and all those other high Fat Pill value items.

My scales gave me a fright this morning.  When hubby got up early this morning I got up just to weigh, stepped on the scales and they showed a gain. I stood on and off them several times, and it was definitely a gain.  I couldn't believe it, an SP (Sneaky Peek) two days earlier had shown a loss. So I went back to bed worrying about having to post this to my Foxy Flower team-mates in the weight loss competition and feeling that I had really let them down.

Two hours later I got up and stepped on again. This time they showed a 1lb loss. This was more what I had expected.

I think that two hours previously I was probably holding some of the 3 litres of water I had drunk the day before.  As I'm only a virtual Tubby Towner, on-line only, I can choose my weigh-in time - but imagine people who go to a Tubby town meeting and have just that one opportunity each week to check their progress.  And at that very moment that you step on your scales, your body might be holding water or feeling bloated and so shows a gain rather than the loss you deserve. That must be so disheartening.

So, some advice from the cards about this. The Psy-card Scales are also about fairness - in our case it's unfair that the scales aren't registering the loss we deserve and that our looser clothes tell us we have.  The message from the Psy-cards is that there is justice which in time makes things right, and what we should do is be patient for these natural laws to operate.  All things balance out, and the loss that isn't showing this week will show next.

Good Luck to everyone else who has a date with their Scales today.

Well Done Foxy Flowers

Well done to the fabulous Foxy Flowers who won the Tubby Town weight loss competition for this week, with a whopping 52 tubbies lost.  What Fantastic Foxy Flowers.

It looks like the chocolates from Angel Bethany to the Sunnies worked their magic (see previous post earlier today). 

So let's have a card for the week coming for the Foxies.  Today's guest tarot deck is the Llewellyn, which has beautiful water colour painted cards.  I shuffled the cards and drew one at random. 

We have drawn the Ace of Pentacles.  Pentacles are to do with money or material / practical matters. Aces represent new beginnings and that hand coming out holding the Pentacle - well it does look a bit like a Sunnie doesn't it?  I sense they might be a bit phoenix-like in the coming week after this week's result, so no room for any of us Foxies to slack.  Otherwise this could well be the Sunnies week coming up.

Good luck to both teams but sending the biggest four-leaf clover to the Foxies (of course)!

Today is YOUR day

Some of the lovely ladies in Tubby Town have set up a competition where two teams compete over a 6-week period to see which team can lose the most weight.

I'm in the Fabulous Foxy Flowers team and we're a beautiful bloom of a pink and purple variety.  Our competitors are the yellow Sleepy Summer Sunnies. I wish both teams good luck and may the best team win - which of course will be the Foxy Flowers.

I must admit, being in a team and the thought of letting others down is helping. It's making me think twice about what I eat (ok, well drink).  I have been a bit casual with my Fat Pill-popping recently and this new team commitment has made me be more disciplined. So thank you lovely Tubby Town ladies for organising the competition.

After a good day tubby-wise yesterday, managing to stay within my Fat Pills allowance, I'm feeling full of PMA today - that's Positive Mental Attitude in Tubby Town speak. So today's words of wisdom from the cards will be drawn from my deck of 'Angel' cards. These aren't tarot cards, but are oracle cards with messages from the Angels.  Angel card messages are always full of PMA, and today's message is for all the lovely Tubby Towners - but particularly for the Fabulous Foxies this sunny Sunday morning.


I shuffled the cards and drew one randomly.  And what a lovely message from Angel Bethany. It says "When you take excellent care of yourself, everybody benefits. Give yourself a relaxing treat today, such as a massage, sea salt bath, or pedicure. And for the Sleepy Sunnies there's always chocolate"

OK, so I added the last sentence myself, but the rest came from Bethany.

So Foxies and all you lovely Tubby Towners, the message for today from Angel Bethany is that now is the time to give to yourself. Take care of yourself, open yourself out to rest and relaxation, and "don't allow yourself to be swayed from this important mission".

Go Foxies Go!

Back to Track

After a good start at the beginning of the week I have just fallen apart diet-wise.  Too much wine on Friday and a night out last night and I've just about blown my Fat Pills allowance for the rest of the week.  So, lovely tarot can you help me get back on track please. Today's guest deck is the Universal Waite, one of the first tarot decks I bought.

The first card I drew is The World, and what very good guidance this is.  This card represents the end of a phase in one's life and the threshold of a new one. In Tubby Town terms, this is the equivalent of drawing a line under the damage done and crossing over it. This is well illustrated by the card, where the figure is standing poised in front of the wreath - which represents the line - ready to cross over.

I then drew a second card for more guidance - The Knight of Swords.  This is me coming off track, foolhardy and rushing in headlong without thinking.  Ignoring my inner voice which is telling me to stop now, but - like the Knight - I don't.  Ignoring the consequences I pour myself another glass and eat another crisp.  Swords in tarot  represent intellect and rational thought, and for a fairly intelligent person I can be very unintelligent about dieting sometimes, especially when wine and crisps are involved.  And I know that I'll pay for this weekend on the scales on Tuesday.

All I can do now is follow The World and step over the line and embrace a new beginning today. What's done is done. Don't look back, don't make it worse, just move on and start afresh today.  Wishing myself luck!

It's Comforting

Today I am comfort eating. I know I am, I'm not hungry - if anything I feel a bit bloated - but I just can't stop myself.  After a slightly upsetting little event (nothing serious), I am consoling myself with food. I know it's comfort eating by what I'm fancying - chocolate ice cream, pizza, wine.  I rarely eat things like this (nothwithstanding the wine of course).

It's only lunchtime and I've eaten 12 Fat Pills already.  I need to stop and now as I've got no spare 'weeklies' left to cover any over-indulgences.

I am struggling, so I consulted the cards for advice.  The deck I'm using today is my favourite Tarot of Ceremonial Magick.  This deck always gives me very, very strong, powerful readings - and I need all the strength I can get today.

The card I drew (randomly of course) - the Queen of Cups - corresponds with the zodiac sign of Cancer; she represents a very loving, romantic, emotional woman. A very kind, caring person.  Think Princess Diana - both strengths and weaknesses - and that's the Queen of Cups.

So, the cards are telling me to get control back of my emotions (Queens are generally in control in some way).  So, I need to get control of what I am feeling in order to stop the comfort eating.  As long as what I'm upset about remains a problem in my eyes, then the eating will continue. So, tackle the root cause and the eating will resolve itself.

This little problem isn't insurmountable. I can't change what happened so I need to just get over it as they say.  And it certainly isn't worth gaining tubbies over at my next weigh in.  The comfort eating isn't even making me feel better, so I need to replace it something that does.

***Light Bulb Moment!***

Yesterday I bought some new make-up which, in the event, I didn't get to use. So - I think I'll go and put some of it on now as I'm going out with friends this afternoon. The new make-up will make me feel better in myself, and will also keep my itchy little fingers out of the fridge.

Queen of Cups (or queen of something) here I come!

Beating the Wine Fairy

This post is a day later than I promised my Tubby Town friends as I went out with the Wine Fairy last night.  There are some very brave ladies in Tubby Town who have formed on-line abstinence groups. I'm not sure I'd go that far but I do need to get better control and rein in the wine a bit sometimes.

I love the new Tubby Tacklers system, but it does punish you on wine - which is worth 6 Fat Pills for a 250ml glass.  You'd think that that fact alone would be enough to make us cut back, but you know how it is - once the bottle's opened....rude not to finish it - right?

So, I'm going to ask the cards to give us some insight into why we do this, and what we can do to change. 

And what better tarot deck to use than the Alcohol Tarot - yes, there really is one.  It still has a full set of 78 cards made up of major and minor cards, but the suits are different types of drinks rather than traditional suits.  I have corresponded them with card (tarot and playing) suits and the elements as follows:

Spirits:   Wands     Clubs         Fire
Wines:    Cups       Hearts       Water
Lagers:   Swords   Spades      Air
Beers:     Disks      Diamonds  Earth

First of all, I looked at why we do this

Card 1: Our Conscious Mind, 7 of Spirits

This card is about fighting off adversity and threats to oneself and ones stability. This is the card of knowing and recognising the Fat Pills damage that wine, beer and cider can do. It's the card where we are in control and 'we're just going to have one'.....we know this one well, right?  It all starts off with good intentions.

Card 2: Our Unconscious Mind, 9 of Spirits

This is what really does the damage, this is the 'almost there' card. It's where we have been striving for something and have almost achieved it.  This is where we've been good all week and so tell ourselves 'just one more' won't hurt, and then one becomes another and another and another and before we know it we've sunk a bottle of wine and opened the next one.  This is the card that tells us that because we've done so well we can afford to do this.  It isn't even a conscious decision, it's our unconscious mind working. And that's why we are doomed to stay in the 'almost there' of the number 9 cards and never quite reach the completion offered by the 10s.

So what can we do about it?  I set out some cards asking for advice from the Alcohol tarot, and laughed when I turned the following cards over.  The cards just never lie, they really don't.

First of all, these are all major cards - indicating an issue of great importance to us Tubby Towners.  Secondly, these were all drawn randomly, I didn't choose any of these - but they say it all.

Card 1, The current situation:  The Drunken Fool.
Ha! ha! ha! say no more.  The Fool generally can go rushing headlong into situations without thinking.  Sometimes it's about being a free spirit and experiencing life's wonders and new things, other times it's pure foolhardiness, and I think it's fair to say that's what happens when the Wine Fairy gets us.

Card 2, What needs to be developed: The Magician
Depicted in this deck as the barman (of course), the Magician tells us that we have the knowledge and tools at our disposal to be anything we want to be, and do anything we want to do and make anything our own.  The Magician card means it's up to us to 'make it happen' and take things where we want them to go. It's a very powerful card and a good indicator of us making a success of things.  But the message of the Magician is - WE have to make it happen.

Card 3, What needs to be avoided: Death
Depicted here as 'the toilet bowl of death' - lol! The particular image here says it all doesn't it?  Don't overdo it lest you find yourself there. Normally the Death card represents unavoidable change and transformation, in this position here that means don't wait to take action, don't wait for events to drive you - take control yourself, and do it now.

Card 4, Where you're heading: The High Priestess
Again, the depiction here made me laugh, that's us - wine glass in hand, partying away, and thinking how good our dancing is after a few glasses. Ha! ha! ha! And of course we look absolutely ridiculous don't we?

Well, the cards have certainly spoken here. Not only is alcohol generally high in Fat pills, but we end up looking silly and of course regretting it the next day. So my lovely Tubby Towners, today's the day to take back control. It doesn't necessarily mean abstinence, but it means paying more attention to the Conscious Mind (the 7 of Spirits above) and don't let that Unconscious (9 of Spirits) mind take over.

Cheers!

Finding Your Lost Mojo

This reading is for the lovely ladies in my Tubby Town club who posted on-line today about their lost mojos and struggling to find it again.  Here's some guidance from the tarot on how to get your mojo back.

To do this reading I decided to use the lovely Vanessa tarot deck, which is very cute, quite girlie and modern. Very appropriate for our lovely mojo ladies.  This is the message from my tarot cards for you today:


I shuffled the cards and drew 5 at random in the following order:

What to concentrate on: King of Cups



The King is a 'court' card and these represents people or their characteristics.  Kings stand for completion, reaching the pinnacle of a situation. Cups represent emotion, love, feelings and also creative / intuitive energy.   This card is telling us to imagine how we will feel when we achieve our goal.  We need to remember where we are trying to get to and re-focus on it.  This seems to have been forgotten recently.



What to let go of:  7 of Swords
The 7 of Swords is often referred to as the 'deceit' card, and this fits perfectly here - deceiving ourselves that:
The extra glass of wine won't hurt...
Just one more chocolate bar will be fine...
I'm ok counting my points in my head...
Leftovers and crumbs don't have points...
or the famous "I'll start again tomorrow".....and when tomorrow becomes today then there's the next tomorrow to start again...

Interesting that this particular card came up in this position, reinforcing what we already know - what we need to do, or rather - stop doing.


Which card most closely resembles me at the moment: 3 of Swords
This card is commonly associated with unhappiness, pain, sorrow, dark moments.  Another truth from the cards. Losing our mojo is a horrible feeling, that loss of control often accompanied by despair and frustration - sometimes also a feeling of helplessness.  The 3 of swords has to be acknowledged and confronted.  Let it go and move on. Sometimes this card can be saying that it's time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and take back control.




What's holding me back: Page of Coins
Pages are also 'court' cards, but are the younges and represent ideas, embryonic situations or characterstics.  Coins are associated with money, material and practical matters, and in terms of timelines are a very slow-moving suit.  What is holding us back here is intention, represented by the Page, but not backed up by action. Thinking about things to much and not doing anything about it.

What can push me forward:  Queen of Swords
The Queen of Swords, another 'court' card, is very clever and intelligent; she also cuts through the crap and can be quite ruthless when she wants to be.  We need her drive, determination and single-minded approach to get going again. In other words, what can push us forwards - is ourselves and our will to succeed.


So there it is lovely mojo-seekers.  The message from the tarot is that we need to:

• Remember and focus on our goal
• Stop deceiving ourselves
• Stop feeling sorry for ourselves
• Stop thinking about it and start doing it
• Take back control, and be single-minded about it.

With thanks to TABI (Tarot Association of the British Isles) for the spread used.

Plateau!

Well, I have been pretty good since I re-joined the Tubby Town club in January, but the past 3 weeks the scales haven't been shifting.  A lesser woman would cave in to chocolate, but not me. I have my friends Will Power and wine to console me!

I've been measuring myself and I am losing inches though.  There's a pair of jeans that I lived in from mid last year up until recently that are just too big now.  So I am making progress even though nothing is showing up on the scales.

What is my problem?  One that many will envy me I know - tarot-wise, it's the 10 of Cups.  I am really, really happy.  The 10 of Cups cards represents the ultimate relationship, family and domestic bliss.  I am too chilled and so my adrenalin and metabolism just aren't speeded up enough.

It was my card last year, and is my card for this coming month (April) in 2011.  I'm not arguing with the 10 of Cups. 

But I'll take this card with a slower weight loss any day rather than the devastation that The Tower brings to one's life, albeit often accompanied by a big, fat (oops, sorry for pun) weight loss.

Here's hoping for a better result on the scales at Tuesday's reckoning day.  I'd like a Tower on the scales, but nowhere else in my life please!

Boredom

Today I am bored.  That's fatal for a dieter.  That's a road that leads to snacking city.  I've got lots to do but don't feel like doing any of it.

What guidance from the cards?  Today I was drawn to a deck that I don't use but that seems to reflect my mood - the Mandala Astrological tarot deck.

My card for today:  The Princess of Swords.

This card can be about cutting through the crap, clearing out the old so that things can be seen clearly.  I have been getting this card a lot recently, even when reading for other people and I think it's trying to tell me something.  My tarot friends sensed a need for me to get rid of something, a need to change in some way. 

The Princess often means a sweeping change.  Well, this is true - the diet has done that.  I'm eating lots of fruit and my wine bill has shrank considerably.

So if I've made changes already, why get this card today?  A reminder to keep up the good work perhaps?  Not to slip back to old ways, especially as it's weigh day tomorrow and I don't want the scales quiver in fear as I approach.

Then I was drawn to look for a more inspiring Princess of Swords image, and so selected the one from the Golden Dawn Ritual tarot.  Aha! So this is the real message perhaps.  Is this me when I've lost a bit more weight perhaps?  Ok, dream on.......

What Type of Dieter Would This Be?

Today I thought I'd draw a card and ask "If this tarot card were a dieter, what type of dieter would they be?...." 

I shuffled today's guest deck - Sharman-Casselli - and drew a random card, The Tower. 

The Tower is a major card and is generally associated with sudden, abrupt, unexpected and often destructive change.  You can see this from the images in the picture on the card.  The sort of change it might represent could be, for example, a spouse announcing out of the blue they want a divorce, unexpected redundancy etc.  This card is often greeted with some foreboding, as it's so often associated with an unwelcome and often life-changing event.

What type of dieter does The Tower represent?    Answer:  The one with a Self-Destruct Button. 

What the Self-Destruct Button dieter does:  The Tower dieter has been doing really well, sticking to the programme, resisting temptation and then suddenly, out of the blue and for no real reason starts binge eating and drinking and undoing all the good work they've done so far.  This is followed by a feeling of "Well I've messed it up so far, so I might as well carry on bingeing."

The Diet Lesson for today from The Tower card:

We've all had our "Tower" moments at some point.  The lesson from The Tower is that sometimes the destruction is necessary in order to rebuild and move on.  In the case of the Self-Destructing (Tower) dieter, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, don't carry on Self-Destructing, draw a line under the binge, get over it and move on (get back on track).

Good Luck!      *puts unopened wine bottle back in the fridge for later*

Now is the Time Four......

Today's post is being sponsored by the card Number 4.


I chose the 'Now' card from my Psycards deck to represent today, and that Now is the moment to get a grip on this diet. Then I realised it was also card number 4, and this is number 4 year - 2011 = 2+0+1+1 = 4.  So maybe this year is finally the year I get down to seriously trying to losing weight.

After a 3-month break from this blog (and the diet) and half a stone and a broken foot later, it's back to business seriously now.  I signed back up with Tubbie Town yesterday and so far have stuck to my allowance, even with a night out last night. 

So today I look to the number 4 for inspiration.  In tarot, card 4 is the Emperor which is about being in charge - one of a dieter's biggest struggles.  Food (or in my case wine) beckons and tempts us, making resistance hard. 



For further inspiration from the Number 4 here are the other corresponding number 4 cards in the Psycards deck:

Father (13):  Authority.  We are in charge, in control of our eating (and drinking).

The Stars (22):  Hopes, aspirations.  Setting our weight loss goals and going for them.

The Sage (31): Wisdom, teaching and learning.  Learning new habits.  Making wise food choices.

Union (40): Bringing together the warring elements within ourselves - that voice within ourselves that says "....one extra cake won't hurt";  the self-destruct button that says "I've already blown it so I might as well just go mad".  We need to learn how to break this mould.