The Art of Refusal

Okay I give up! Seriously.  I give up the attempt to get more sleep.  It’s not that I sleep badly, I actually sleep quite well, but I wish I could wake up in the morning feeling as if I want to leap out of bed, take a lung full of air at the window – smile and wave hello to the world ‘Well good morning Mr Rabbit!’ — and bounce into my day full of Joie de Vivre…like I did when I was eight lol.  Instead its a sort of mumble into the duvet, and oog! is it that time already! before  I get vertical – in stages, this can’t be rushed you know…and with eyes still shut I somehow get to the bathroom.  The day has started and I may be walking and talking – but my start button still needs pushing.  Fact is that although I sleep well I feel I need ten hours, and you would think – -’ ‘seasy go to bed couple hours earlier’…sensible thought guys, but it seems I have been programmed to get 8 hours +1 minute regardless.  I went to bed at ten pm last night pooped. I woke up at 06.15 never to sleep again…its always that way.  I am one hundred percent sure that I get a degree of sleep apnoea – can’t really expect much else -and that might account for a lack of bounce – but not for the 8+1 minute phenomenon.  Sigh.

Anyway – it’s not even 7am – but I thought I would get this out-of-the-way – I have a ‘thing’ to attend at lunchtime and I need to get busy.

The ‘thing’ I have to attend is a diamond wedding celebration, which is no prob…there are going to be hoards of interesting people there I am sure, but its a ‘finger buffet’ thing.  These things used to scare the daylights out of me.  There area  multitude of people passing plates under your nose, ‘Take one – take two’….invariably they are either cheese, sausage or pastry based, and either loaded with mayo or cream…Sandwiches cut in neat triangles, that only need one bite to disappear, never to be seen again.  The damage you can do at these things is enormous, and what you get for your money (calories) bears no relation to the amount you eat.

I said these things used to scare me…and its true they did – I could eat 1000 calories without even trying. That was until I learnt the Art of Refusal.

There is something about this little tool that changes the whole thing.  We are all trained to be polite, and well-mannered, and for some unaccountable reason we have translated ‘well mannered’ into ‘we must eat if someone supplies food.’  We come up with all sorts of justification for it..’they have gone to so much trouble’ – ‘its rude to refuse’..’it would go to waste’ and all that silliness.  It’s just justification folks – it’s not the truth.

If I were a diabetic…and was attending the buffet, and there was nothing suitable for me to eat, nobody would say ‘how rude’ if I refused to eat sugar laden foods, diabetics who eat unsuitable food are risking life and limb doing so…most of them have also developed the Art of Refusal — their life depended on it.  Obesity..Gross Morbid Obesity has exactly the same threat attached to it – but somehow we forget that little bit.

A few years ago — when I was doing some stupid liquid diet, before liquid diets became quite so popular…that cost me a fortune to do…I learnt the art of saying  ‘No thanks’.  I remember the occasion I learnt the lesson too.  It was at a school ‘evening’ after a kidlets production …and the children had brought all sorts of home-made goodies along — chocolate krispies, biscuits/cookies, cheese straws, you know all those sorts of things, and these little mites walked around us adults passing plates of their triumphs under our noses, and daring us to say anything but ‘wow did you make those?’.  I had been on the liquid diet for a long time, and had been absolutely committed to it – and I dug my mental heels in and decided that I was not going to let this be the thing that put me off track, and  I remember smiling at  one child and saying, ‘Wow did you make those?’….and then ‘they look really tasty – but I am full to the brim – right up to my chin’ …I got a direct stare back before the child moved on to the next victim…more children came – and I uttered similar words to each..not one of them did anything other than pass on to the next person.  I realised that it was actually up to me as to whether I ate this stuff or not.  I learnt that it was not impossible to say ‘no’ — nobody for one minute even noticed that I was not eating…I stood with my glass clasped between two hands in front of me…barely sipped a drop, and joined in the conversation just the same as I would have done with a  hand full of calories in the other.

The more you practice the easier it gets.  Today I am going to be practicing the Art of Refusal…’No thanks I am fine!’ — ‘Thanks but I have had enough’ …’Really I am good thanks’..we all have our own way of saying it, and I know from past experience that people don’t throw their hands up in horror, they don’t feel slighted, they invariably smile and walk on.  Sometimes they  try twice.  ‘Are you sure – there is plenty’ — or  ‘They are really nice – just have one!’ …but all you have to do is repeat yourself  ‘Thank you, but honestly I am fine!’ — and they move on.  It’s up to me innit!  (London for isn’t it) lol.  The thing is — nobody notices YOU!

When my daughter says ‘does my bum look big in this?’ — my son pipes up with ‘who do you think is noticing you anyway?’ — its done tongue in cheek – but its true..we assume that we are the centre of attention, when in fact we are not – and nobody notices!!!

Just as a side note – the Art of Refusal is so much easier to practice if you are not actually hungry. Eating before you go to these things – much like eating before you shop, actually helps with resolve.  What you can’t do, is eat before you go, and then refuse to practice the Art of Refusal – thats not playing cricket!

Blue~