Still Fit, Bit Less Fat

You may remember I didn't actually do my last Insanity Fit Test, just cos I ended up with a bit of a fizzle, and I felt I wouldn't be testing myself properly as I wasn't on full form. Instead, I moved right on to my own P90X/Insanity hybrid programme, which I finished last Friday. That meant that today was my delayed fit test. I was pretty sure I had maintained fine, as I was managing the Insanity Max DVDs pretty well - although I was also pretty sure this was using my improved muscle strength to make up for a slight loss of cardio. I definitely hadn't been working until I felt sick or wet myself as I had first time around. So here are the results (last time's in brackets):

Switch Kicks - (72) 64
Power Jacks  - (67) 67
Power Knees - (136) 142
Power Jumps - (45) 50
Globe Jumps  - (13) 12
Suicide Jumps - (23) 20
Push-Up Jacks - (49) 50
Low Plank Oblique - (121) 130

I have no idea what happened on the switch kicks, as I thought I was smashing them, and was going to the max whereas I know I was holding back last time. But I suspect I am kicking a lot higher now because I am more flexible and also stronger. Power jacks I got the same, but again, IIRC I held back a bit last time, whereas I was going full-out this time. Power knees I may even have got more than I have recorded as I kept losing count and also would find I was counting slower than I was power-kneeing. But LOOK AT THOSE POWER JUMPS!!!! I knew I was better at these cos I've been better in the workouts, can do the fast ones now, rather than having to go slowly. I even feel I could have done more than I did if I was being firm with myself. Globe jumps - well, it was 12 and three-quarters really, and I think I admitted last time that my 13th globe was well dodgy! Now suicide jumps, I was pure knackered in the legs by this time - so much for my 'I am stronger' theory.... Push up jacks and low plank obliques I stopped with 10 seconds to go both times, because I was out of puff. And I'd beaten my previous already so had no motivation to carry on. And I still think I must be doing low plank obliques wrong, but cannot for the life of me see how.

The upshot is that I think this backs up the theory that I am stronger and that this makes up for a slight loss of cardio ability.

What next then? Well on Wednesday I will be beginning a new self-designed hybrid of P90X, Insanity and TapoutXT, which is a new workout system with resistance bands that I have been doing some weekends and also in place of the odd P90X session cos it is faster and a bit more cardio-ish, but I haven't done all the workouts yet, so won't review it until I have.

Doing less Insanity has meant my appetite has gone back to normal, I've stopped craving unusual food (like salad), and have gone back to my usual diet of cheese, crackers, chocolate and chips. I'd not weighed for a while, and bearing in mind the amount of cake I ate last week, I approached the scales with some trepidation. But my instinct was right, I'd lost another two pounds from my starting Insanity weight. My body shape is definitely changing too - my top half is continuing to get smaller. At this weight, my boobs would normally be filling their cups to the max but I definitely have room in them right now. So my tum still looks just as big, which is annoying, cos it is much more toned. On the whole tho, this is a good thing, as having two full sizes (and sometimes 3) difference between my tops and my bottoms isn't a look I was happy with.

There is another down-side to the improved abs. I caught sight of myself in the chip-shop mirror the other day, and my posture is APPALLING. The better tone of my abdominals has tilted my pelvis slightly backwards, and although I've got looser hip flexors I'm still hanging off them, so to balance I'm flexing my upper spine. Hideous. And a motivation to up the Supermans!

I still can't do a chin-up, but the next challenge is going to be helping with that, so maybe by Easter? Most of all, I am a million miles away from the couch potato I was just over a year ago. Here's to a lifetime of fitness! :-)

A Text and a Call.

I've not seen or heard of Steve since Carnival weekend, and so he hadn't been on my radar at all. Then a week last Friday night he texted at gone 2am - just 'hello u'. I am sure one of the list of exes he sent that text to will have felt compelled to reply, but that ex was not me. Since I was feverish at the time, I did waste a good few minutes composing variations of a 'fuck off' text, but then I realised that any response at all would only encourage him, and so forgot all about it.

Yesterday morning the home phone went and despite suffering from Fever II - the Virus Strikes Back, I answered it because I was expecting a call from Naughty Little Sister.

Male Voice: 'Is that Mrs Reed?'

Me: 'No, I think you've got the wrong number [Wheeze. Cough] What number did you want?'

He read out my number.

Me: 'Oh, that's my number....'

MV: 'Is that [my address]?'

Me: 'Yes....'

MV: 'Well, some time ago you spoke to someone from this company about having new fascias installed, and I'm phoning to ask a few market research questions..'

Well by this time I was properly suspicious. I haven't spoken to anyone about fascias, I close the door in their faces because I'm sick of them knocking on my door with their rip-off pretendy bargain offers for shoddy work done by scary builder-types, who block my toilet with their clay-textured poos.

Me: 'What company is this?'

MV: 'This is erm...'

SECOND MALE VOICE IN BACKGROUND: 'Ask her about [mumble mumble mumble]'.

I hung up. That second male voice was Steve, I was completely sure of it. I also realised I could hear TV in the background, not the noise of other people on phones. 1471 told me the caller withheld their number.

WTF!!!

I spent a lot of yesterday wondering what the hell was the point of it? Why the 'Mrs Reed' palaver? Why was he even bothering with me still? What could he possibly hope to gain?

This morning I woke up with an immediate knowledge of why Mrs Reed, in that way answers come when you sleep on a problem.

Just like with cold-callers at my door, I now hang up immediately on cold-callers to my home phone. As soon as, 'Can I speak to, erm, Miss Field?' is out of their mouths (or when I hear the delay of an auto-dialler), I'm off that phone. The number of cold calls had indeed increased last week. 'Mrs Reed' was a ploy to engage me in a conversation they were never going to have when asking for 'Miss Field'.

And the reason he is doing this? Who can fathom his crazy brain? It's certainly not something I have time or energy for, though at a guess he's between girlfriends again and is bored and has nothing better to do. Fortunately he's not doing anything more annoying. 

But don't you just despise a half-hearted stalker? :-D

The Circus Boy Always Rings Twice

Those of you who have been reading for a while (or who know me in real life) will possibly remember me giving the brush-off to Circus Boy after finally getting sick to the back teeth with his antics over the charity unicycle ride. Like me, you probably assumed that this was the last I would see of Circus Boy's sorry arse, apart from a minor sighting during Carnival when I wasn't sure if he was ignoring me or hadn't seen me, and a 'from-the-car' sighting when he raised his arm to wave, then pulled it down again quickly as I stared stonily in the opposite direction.

Really, we should all have realised that he was bound to turn up sooner or later when he wanted something - and so he did, one Thursday in the school summer holidays. As usual, I was looking a bit less than lovely, this time wearing a round necked t-shirt. Round-necked T-shirts always make me look like Hattie Jacques - all low-slung boobs and excessive flabbage.

I heard a knock on the door and answered it thinking that it was someone wanting to discuss the state of my fascias and guttering. You can imagine how it felt - that awkward moment when you come face to face with the person whose texts and calls you have been avoiding since February. Except after Feb I don't think he texted or called anyway, he's not as unbalanced as Steve (though this is no great compliment).

We said hello, and I invited him in and gave him a cup of tea out of sheer confusion. Son was in and made a small deal about pretty much ignoring him. After a little small talk, I said, 'so what are you doing here; what do you want?'

'Nothing, I was just passing, so I thought I'd pop in and say hello.'

'Oh. Only I haven't seen you since that night just before the charity unicycle....'

'Oh yes, I wanted to tell you about that too - I did it, and it's on YouTube, so you can look it up and make sure I did do it....' and he went on to tell me in great detail all about it and the charities. It's true, checked it out after he left.

However - maybe I'm being picky, but by this time it was August, and the unicycle ride was February. Had he lost the use of his mouth for the whole of that time?

I did manage to get distracted by his tales of his new girlfriend, and here we had perhaps the reason why he had turned up. He was wondering did I need a haircut? Because she cuts hair, and he thinks she should build her confidence by cutting hair for people he knows. This isn't actually a bad thing, because I never go to the hairdresser's, and the answer to 'do you need a haircut?' in my case is invariably 'yes'. But I was wary of agreeing to anything, as I can just imagine Circus Boy with his girlfriend - 'oooh, yes, you should cut people's hair more... <remembers erstwhile fling he met last summer, the day after she had gonked her hair>...In fact, I know just the person - and it won't even matter if you completely mess it up, her hair looks utter shite anyway!' So I said I'd call him if I decided I did need a haircut. Instantaneously realising this was never going to happen.

But lucky me, he gave me two of his cards, because he has a business renting out sound systems, and was telling me about how he now has a van and a car, courtesy of his dad. So if anyone ever needs a sound-system.....

Finally he was telling me about how his girlfriend goes to a local pub (that he is unfortunately barred from) every Thursday. And then, at last, he asked about me - but I'd just got as far as talking about my spiritual awareness group that is a couple of doors down from him, and he lost interest, mostly because he thinks the group leader had complained about his music being too loud once. Not that this was a bad thing, but it meant he decided right then and there to go and have a chat to her about the group and general spiritual things.

And that was that, off he went. Well, I did kind of encourage him to go to see her before 9pm, because he is far too much trouble: he was giving me that searching look that is a bit sexy but kind of freaks me out, and I think he is not actually my friend, I think he is after something.

Once he'd left, I asked Son, 'well, I wonder what that was all about?'

'He wanted sex.'

I wasn't so sure. So I took to Facebook to ask what people thought he had wanted. 'Oh Karen, what do you THINK he wanted?' was the consensus.

In retrospect, I think that's right. I think it was Thursday, and his girlfriend was busy, so he thought he'd chance his arm. The Hattie Jacques t-shirt is probably all that saved me from a more obvious proposition - oh, and the ever-present and distinctly unimpressed Son of course.

Since then, no more Circus Boy. Is that the end of that? I suspect so. Until his girlfriend turns crazy. They always turn crazy on him (according to him). I wonder......

Ending The Insanity - Sort Of

So at some point last month I completed Insanity. I ended with more of a whimper than a bang though. First I went on holiday again and so I missed a few days, and then I got slightly ill - nothing serious, in fact I was able to exercise a couple of days, but I knew I wasn't at full form. So I actually didn't even do the final fit test, which part of me felt was a bit of a cop-out (especially as Eve posted her final results especially for me on Twitter!), but the larger part of me thought would be silly to do as I wasn't fully functioning, so what would I rally be testing?

The strange thing is, Insanity had become so much a part of my life that there was more a feeling of emptiness than of completion. I knew that I would no longer have that daily routine of working out to an exhaustion high. No longer would I have that daily sensation of sweating from every pore in my body - I mean, I've had sweat run down my back before when working out, and I've even had sweat run down my legs - and with Insanity during the summer, sweat dropping off my nose wasn't unusual - but sweat running in little rivulets down my FOREARMS??!! That was new in the last month of Insanity.

BUT - I knew I had to do something different to another round of Insanity. Whilst my cardio capability has gone through the roof with it, I was well aware that my legs and arms had lost strength. I also found that I was gaining weight rather than losing it - and not only because I was constantly starving hungry, because I'm actually pretty good at ignoring hunger if I have the motivation. I think it's just something about my body - it needs muscle to burn fat or something, and too much cardio sends it fatty. It sounds mad, but I think it is true!

So I've started using P90X, another Beachbody programme. I began by following a hybrid routine of P90X and Insanity that I found on the Beachbody website, but I found I preferred to mix it up my own way. What I do currently is alternate P90X and Insanity during the week, roughly following the hybrid programme, but doing one more 'normal' Insanity and missing out the cardio recovery/X-Stretch - then at the weekend I usually have more time so I do P90X Kenpo or Plyo, then cardio recovery or  X-Stretch or Yoga-X. And I usually have one or two days off exercise a week.

After Insanity, P90X actually seems really slow on the weight workouts, so I have printed out the routines and once I've run through them with the DVD once, I just do the routines myself watching Corrie or whatever, and do it way more continuously - no pausing or hanging around. Even so, the weight routines and abs take about an hour to get through. I'm already feeling the benefit, feel stronger again, can see more definition on my triceps and on my shoulders - the guy has even the women doing chin-ups etc. Not that I can do even one full chin-up or pull-up, I have to use a chair, but that is my new goal - I WILL be able to do a chin-up by the end of this!

I've also found that I'm not losing my cardio ability - I was initially shocked at how much easier the Insanity workouts were the second time through. I really did think the second month's workouts were easier than the firsts, and yet coming back to those first month workouts, I was much better able to do them this time around. And I'm still improving. So I'm thinking I'll do the final fit test at the end of this P90X/Insanity hybrid to see if I've continued to get fitter - because although I was aiming at maintaining fitness, I can see that there are places to improve strength, and maybe that will improve my cardio performance too?

As for Insanity - I cannot recommend the programme enough. Not as a first step into fitness, but as a follow-on to something like Jillian Michaels it is perfect. It is a lot of money, but if you compare it to a gym membership - well, I was a gym member, and despite being 13 years younger and spending two hours in the gym daily doing various classes and using the machines, I was not as fit as I am now. Insanity did that, and for me that makes it a BARGAIN.

So that's where I'm at right now with my fitness. Feeling really good. And only slightly obsessed :-)

As Insane As Ever, If Not More So

Today was my penultimate Insanity Fit Test. Now I seriously was worried that there was no way I could have improved on my last results, cos I had really been pushing it, and in the past 2 weeks I've been on holiday, ate like a pig and not found the workouts anywhere near as difficult as the first month's were. So I was fully expecting this to be bad. With all this in mind, I decided to get it over with first thing.

Since I can hear you holding your breath in anticipation of my results, I'll tell ya now, I SMASHED IT!.

Tanya, well, she is old news, she is left WAY behind. But I have a new target in my sights. For just before I began Insanity, so did a fellow blogger, Eve at Who's That Girl. Not that she blogs about it, cos she has a life and stuff. And she is nominated for a Cosmo Blog Award, so just you nip on over there, have a read and maybe a vote and I'll see you in a bit......

(This is a musical interlude while you read Eve's blog)

....aaaaaand BACK! 

So anyways, Eve made the mistake of twittering her fit test result. And it was better than mine. Red rag, meet bull. Now anyone who thinks that this would not result in an outbreak of complete competitive meltdown in me clearly hasn't been following how dementedly screwed up I am about being the best at anything of no value whatsoever. At Pictionary (or indeed any board game), punctuation and grammar, A Levels, and, of course, ridiculous physical challenges that pique my interest like the Insanity Fit test (and indeed the physio school circuit training in first year), I am OBLIGED to be the best. Not MY best, THE best. 

So, how did I do?

Here are my results, with last time's results for comparison, and how I did compared to Eve, cos I beat Tanya on every single one of these babies:

• Switch Kicks 70/72 Eve wins. Tho I was saving myself cos I suspected I would struggle later.
• Power Jacks 65/67 DAMN - one away from Eve, but I hadn't checked her scores beforehand and knew I only had one to get to beat Tanya, so again I was holding back still. Not next time......
• Power Knees 124/136 I WIN, I WIN, I WIN!!! (It's really not pretty, is it?)
• Power Jumps 41/45 Nowhere near Eve. I am IN AWE of her score here, dunno if I will ever get there.
• Globe Jumps 11/13 Eve wins again, and my last globe was decidedly dodgy anyway!
• Suicide Jumps 19/23 I WIN AGAIN, I am great, I am the best! (someone slap me)
• Push up Jacks 32/49 I'd already beaten the world and his dog on this one. I do strongly suspect this is actually 39 and I miscounted though. My killer triceps RULE!
• Low Plank Oblique 101/121 Again, I'm the best ever at these, and last time I thought I wasn't doing it right maybe, so I watched Shaun carefully on the set-up and went what I thought was quite slow and careful through them, so really not sure what's going on here.

But the main thing is that I am so much better than I was last time. There's no way I could have got these scores last time, I know I was pushing to the max then, as I was for all but the first two on these, I am really gonna push to get those up for the last fit test when Insanity is over.

However I am thinking Insanity will never be over for me. After the fit test, I went off to work - hydrotherapy. This is usually knackering, and I'd decided to save the other half of today's Insanity, the one hour Max Interval Training, until tomorrow. After all, the Fit Test is 25 minutes long, which is a workout in itself. Yet when I got home from hydro, I felt so full of energy that I went and did Max Interval no problem at all, probably the best I've ever done it. It IS my favourite DVD of the lot of them  (and probably my favourite workout ever), but this is the thing about Insanity that makes it so addictive - doing it makes you full of energy.

So I am definitely going to keep on working it into my routines. At 48, I am without doubt the fittest I have ever been in my life, and I fully intend to stay that way, because I don't want to die and I don't want to be a frail old lady. Insanity has improved my fitness, but it has also changed my sleep patterns and my emotions - I really do feel relentlessly happy most of the time. I have nothing but good things to say about it. 

"I'm smiling cos I LOVE IT!"

A Month of Insanity

Tanya sees the results of my 3rd Fit Test

I'm now in Month 2 of Insanity, and so far (three days in) I'm finding it even better than Month 1 - and here's why.

During Recovery Week, I had a day over the weekend where I had time to kill, so instead of the Core Cardio and Balance that I was supposed to be doing, I did Jillian Michaels 'Burn Fat, Boost Metabolism' (BFBM) and 'No More Trouble Zones' (NMTZ). That's about 80 minutes of working out, and was the best I could do before doing Insanity. BFBM was a walk in the park. This is the one I always found most challenging, and this time I did it no problem at all, and my plyo moves were noticeably LOADS better - I could actually cross my feet on the scissor jumps, which I'd never been able to do before. I didn't find anything difficult, and so was feeling really good heading into NMTZ, cos that one used to be quite easy for me.

I DIED. It involves weights, and I'd been using 3lb weights before Insanity, but had been considering moving up to 5lbs as I wasn't straining in any way. Well this time the 3lb weights were killing my shoulders so much I couldn't do the leg work at the same time, it was agony! So the results of Month One of Insanity appeared to bear out my initial thoughts - my cardio was vastly improved, but'd lost almost all of my upper body strength. 

So the rest of Recovery Week, I was doing some Jillian Michaels and Cindy Crawford too, to build back some muscle. 

My other problem was weight. When I started, the weight wasn't an issue at all, I was doing it to be fitter and for the challenge. But since Insanity caused me to PUT ON weight, it then became about the weight. I'd go up and down, but considering the effort I was putting in, and the amount I was eating (began logging it in case I was eating an insane number of calories, and I was usually under 1200), I should have been LOSING. I even began to wonder if I was doing something wrong, as all the weight was on my stomach. I look a bit pregnant. I have fibroids (that I choose to ignore), and I worried maybe they were growing into big fibroid babies?

So I was dreading the 3rd Fit Test. As it happened, I decided to start Month 2 a day early, as the suspense was killing me, and I had more free time on Wednesday than Thursday to do the Fit Test and first workout. So here are the results of that fit test. Read 'em and weep, Tanya, read 'em and weep:

Switch Kicks - 2nd Fit Test 68/3rd Fit Test 70 - I'd beat Tanya anyway by Fit Test 2, so happy with this

Power Jacks - 43/65 - Equal with Tanya!

Power Knees - 114/124 - Really annoyed with myself cos I thought I was way ahead of Tanya and slowed at the end to conserve some energy (see, I really have the wrong attitude, it's all about beating her instead of beating me!). I'm still convinced she lied when she claimed 125..... ;-)

Power Jumps - 33/41 - Equalled her again!

Globe Jumps - 9/11 - Equal again

Suicide Jumps - 18/19 - Tanya has 23, I'm still way off on this one

Push-up Jacks - 30/32 -Equal!

Low Plank Obliques - 71/101 I was already ahead of her here, but I got so many this time I'm wondering if I am doing it right, I might have to check before my next fit test, was a bit too not bothered to do it this time!

So I consider myself well-placed to beat her by the end of the programme. She was so annoyed, she didn't turn up for the Max Interval Circuit ;-)

I actually find the new workouts much more suited to me - I really enjoyed the Max Interval Circuit, even though I was doing it after the fit test, and the Max Cardio Conditioning is brilliant (even if I am doing some of the moves so slowly that it could possibly be perceived as having come to a stop). The Max Interval Plyo is vile, vile, VILE, but that is the exception so far. What is a real boost is seeing that I wouldn't look out of place in their gym (workout-wise, not body-wise; no-one wants a so-pale-they-are-practically-transparent hippo in the exercise vid). I am better than lots of them actually. I think because I have more strength, and now the moves need strength rather than cardio, I am coming into my own more. I'm looking forward to getting my triceps back.

Things I dislike: I HATE those side-to-side hops on the warm-ups. I spend each round dreading them and the way they make my legs shake! And I can't do that push-ups to stand thing, just can't get the co-ordination. I think it is because I have deformed calves.

I am also worried. Shanita hasn't appeared since Pure Cardio. I think Shaun T has actually killed her by workout.

But happiest of all, weighed today and am back to usual weight, and the belly is decreasing (this may be my imagination, and I may still be hearing the patter of little fibroid-baby feet in future, but I am an optimist by nature). So I am happy, and looking forward to the next month :-D

Hazel, Daley, and How Big Brother Got It So Wrong.

They were always going to be a match made in hell: Hazel, the lady whose game plan was more important than her morals; and Daley, a man with a serious girlfriend on the outside. Or maybe she wasn't his girlfriend. Oh, actually, no, they were pretty much broken up by the time he came in the house, in fact, by then, he considered himself single. Except his lovely girlfriend Katie didn't know any of this, apparently.

Even so, somehow viewers voted them into the Safe House, a house of luxury and privacy. The perfect place for Hazel's dastardly plan to worm her way into Daley's pants through sheer, brazen persistence to finally pay off.

And then it all went wrong. There are various places you can see what happened, maybe here in the Daily Mail, which, unlike most YouTube footage, has most of the argument detailed, not just the bum slapping. For me, the whole thing was extremely disturbing, it brought back way too many reminders, especially when he grabbed her around the throat and was threatening her. I've been there too many times.

So Daley was removed from the Big Brother house. And that evening on Big Brother's Bit On The Side (BBBOTS), I sat there slightly incredulously as Rylan kept on going on about how 'there's two sides to every story'. But hey, it's Rylan, and he isn't known for his psychological insight. And he did look like a rabbit in headlights, or like an ex-housemate presenter of fluff suddenly expected to cope with a serious  incident which raised questions about society's view of violence in relationships. Oh.....

Then yesterday along came Emma to interview Daley. It was what, in all honesty, I'd expected to see - I admit that maybe I see what I want to see, the same as anyone else. The pretended regret, the 'tearful' (he couldn't qite get those tears to fall, could he?) explanations, the appeal for understanding. I'd already seen it a million times before, every time Steve 'apologised' for abusing me. Those inverted commas are there for a reason. Just like Daley, it was extremely rare (after the first few times) for him to actually apologise. It was usually my fault for provoking him - for example by arguing, by refusing to do as I was told, or by receiving a text.Or the fault of all the alcohol he had drunk. But he would beg for another chance, promise never to do it again, insist that he wasn't the sort of man who would harm a woman. The only way Daley was any different was in his contempt for Hazel - but I've seen that in Steve so many times before anyway - how he could be a person's best friend but then immediately turn on them if they stepped out of line - and of course, he did that to me, many times.

So far, so expected. Daley wasn't sorry he'd crossed the line with Hazel, he was sorry *if* he had offended anyone by doing so. If this is how his/Big Brother's PR works, it's time they got up off their bellies and grew a backbone. But it is just as likely that this is his genuine feeling on the matter.

And then out comes Emma with the line of the night. 'It takes two..... it takes two to tango.' Well excuse me, Emma, but I only saw one person with their hands around the other person's neck.

Let me say right up that Hazel's actions were those of a bitch on heat and completely cringeworthy to watch. It isn't on to pull down someone's shorts, even if they have showered naked in front of you. But he had already slapped her arse twice, so I suppose she thought it was code green for an anti-wedgie. And you know what? Even if she'd stood there calling his mother all the names under the sun and then shouting 'hit me, you coward' repeatedly, whilst spitting on a photo of his children - IT IS NO EXCUSE OR MITIGATION FOR HIS BEHAVIOUR.

Abuse is abuse, full stop. Provocation? No such thing. If provocation were a valid excuse, we would ALL have treated Hazel that way. But we wouldn't (even Steve might have been put off by the cameras, for a start, so who knows what Daley would do in the privacy of his own home). So it isn't.

It's understandable that all over the internet people are saying Hazel brought it on herself or was partly to blame, or even should have suffered the same punishment. I don't expect the average person to understand the nature and course of domestic violence. But Big Brother has psychologists on tap, they have the means to contact experts in the subject. We could have had a psychologist discussing the nature of violence and other domestic abuse with someone from Women's Aid, or even someone who has suffered an abusive relationship (I'm available for the price of a Travelodge and a couple of Mars bars). The subject of victim-blaming and its dangers could be covered too. But instead, BBBOTS condoned this victim-blaming mentality.

The reason this is so dangerous is because, like we've seen with Hazel, it reinforces what the victim themself is feeling. One of the things about domestic abuse that people don't understand without experiencing it is how insidious it is. It ALWAYS starts with incidents like this - 'playfights' or 'arguments gone wrong'. Low level intimidation that escalates. Situations where you question your own actions - where you convince yourself that it wasn't black and white, that yes, you were to blame too, and you won't act that way again, so it won't happen again. You don't want to believe that this wonderful man you have met can really be an abusive monster. You love him, he seemed so perfect for you. It was surely a one-off, a toxic mix of circumstances, something that you can avoid so it won't happen again. But it will. And worse. And worse and worse and worse, until you are treading on eggshells, afraid that a wrong word will mean he's throttling you and you're gasping for air. Like a frog who is slowly being boiled alive, by the time you realise what's happening, you are too cooked to jump out of the pot.

Victim-blaming is dangerous because women and girls* don't understand this, they don't understand this is how a violent relationship starts. They don't recognise low-level intimidation as abuse. And here is BBBOTS telling them that they've brought it on themselves, by not behaving as a lady should. Which is basically what their abuser tells them too. It's what Daley was telling Hazel.

If I can go all Martin Luther King for a moment - I have a dream that one day schools will educate children and teenagers on the nature of domestic violence and abusive relationships. It will teach them the early warning signs, the tactics abusers use, and give clear signals of what is and isn't acceptable interpersonal behaviour. Until that time, programmes such as Big Brother and BBBOTS have a responsibility to its young (and not-so-young) audience - to educate them in the same way, and to pursue a zero tolerance policy on abuse and its perpetrators; an approach that encourages women to realise that they are not to blame and that they need to walk immediately, not leave it until it is too late. With the Daley and Hazel incident and fallout it failed dismally.

*I do realise that men suffer abuse too, but estimates are that 85 per cent plus of victims are women, so for ease I've referred to women/girls throughout. Not meaning to be sexist - this would have been just as unacceptable if Hazel and Daley's roles were reversed.