I snorted coke yesterday.
Well, technically it was Pepsi, but the principle's the same.
Longer-term readers will know that I've become a sniffer of desserts since beginning this ridiculous experiment. And I swear, that urban myth about people who go blind getting their other senses intensified works for Disappearing folk too - I can sniff a dessert now and give you a complex breakdown of ingredients, processes, combinations, the lot. And yesterday, I sniffed Pepsi.
Now, it's important to realise that this is a craving, because the more convoluted and frankly mental the cravings get, it becomes apparent that they're not related to anything in real life. What I mean is, it's not as if I'm not getting great food - d made a beautiful meal last night, and prepped another for today, and I'm gonna enjoy today's as much as I enjoyed last nights, but that doesn't stop me craving. It's like...y'know when douchebag men get caught having an affair, and claim "it meant nothing to me"? It's like that - it's not rational, or the result of not getting enough good food, it's just a craving for things you're not allowed, and it's enough to turn your brain inside out.
I rarely get cravings for coke these days, despite drinking up to six litres of the stuff per day just a handful of years ago. Today, after just a couple of sniffs, I'm over yesterday's craving. But it's been pretty much replaced by a more regular insanity - the urge to go to the biscuit aisle of the local supermarket, and just rip everything open and bury my face in them, chewing only briefly, like the Cookie Monster, cramming marshmallow and chocolate and sweetmeal and jam and more chocolate into my system like there's no tomorrow. Right now, I could probably exchange all the good healthy nutritious meals in the world for one marvellous, glorious, Roald Dahl-style orgy of excess in a chocolate factory or a biscuit aisle...
Sigh...
Time for hard physical exercise or a cold freakin' shower, I think. Gonna go hack the bejeesus out of some weeds in the garden, and wait for this particular craving to run its course.
Rassen-frassen-goddammm....COOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!
Sunday 31 July 2011
Saturday 30 July 2011
The Boxer
Took three of my 'reduced' pills yesterday, rather than two, and blood this morning was 4.9.
Now we've got that out of the way, I know what you're all breathless to know - what the hell was the big-ass boxful of boxes for yesterday, right?
Bottom line, we have a smallish apartment (or flat, for my fellow Brits), and waaaaaay too much stuff. It's threatening to become the subject of a disturbing documentary about the hoarder-people of Olde London Towne...
Hence the boxes. Plus, in case I haven't mentioned this before, we're hoping to get the hell out of our current place before this time next year.
Our current place is sbout a mile away from the arenas that'll be on all your TV screens this time next year, as the London Olympics takes over the wooooooorld. It's pretty much taken over our world for quite some time now, with tube restructuring meaning you have to treat every weekend as if a bomb's gone off somewhere in the city, and plot alternative routes, and then alternatives to your alternatives, and roadworks...well, pretty much looking as if a bomb's gone off somewhere in the city. From tomorrow, they tear down and re-surface our local bus station, which sucks the ass out of most local transport plans and makes me glad I got the new walking shoes last week.
For complicated reasons, I've interviewed the chief poo-bah of Transport for London involved with planning for 2012, and the numbers of extra human beings that'll be tramping through both the city and specifically our home turf just don't add up to 'good times for Tony and d'. So, again, hence the boxes. And yes of course, technically it's a little pre-emptory to box up all our possessions in the hope of moving out without, in fact, having anywhere to move to. But if I can refer you to the documentary film crew sleeping on our doorstep, at the very least it looks a little less deranged.
So today (after finally getting back to a normal amount of biking), we've been boxing up, throwing out, sorting for sale, discovering lost objects long thought stolen by vicious yet literate east end rats, and basically instilling in ourselves a sense of positivity and progress. So even though no, technically, I still haven't got out the weights, it pretty much feels like I have, as the burn of gentle but unaccustomed exercise thrums through my forearms.
Now it's time to get my ass out into our garden for chess and Monopoly and possibly cards.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard of sex and drugs and rock and roll, honestly I have. Hey - I've taken drugs and listened to rock and roll already today, leave me to my own peccadilloes, alright!
Now we've got that out of the way, I know what you're all breathless to know - what the hell was the big-ass boxful of boxes for yesterday, right?
Bottom line, we have a smallish apartment (or flat, for my fellow Brits), and waaaaaay too much stuff. It's threatening to become the subject of a disturbing documentary about the hoarder-people of Olde London Towne...
Hence the boxes. Plus, in case I haven't mentioned this before, we're hoping to get the hell out of our current place before this time next year.
Our current place is sbout a mile away from the arenas that'll be on all your TV screens this time next year, as the London Olympics takes over the wooooooorld. It's pretty much taken over our world for quite some time now, with tube restructuring meaning you have to treat every weekend as if a bomb's gone off somewhere in the city, and plot alternative routes, and then alternatives to your alternatives, and roadworks...well, pretty much looking as if a bomb's gone off somewhere in the city. From tomorrow, they tear down and re-surface our local bus station, which sucks the ass out of most local transport plans and makes me glad I got the new walking shoes last week.
For complicated reasons, I've interviewed the chief poo-bah of Transport for London involved with planning for 2012, and the numbers of extra human beings that'll be tramping through both the city and specifically our home turf just don't add up to 'good times for Tony and d'. So, again, hence the boxes. And yes of course, technically it's a little pre-emptory to box up all our possessions in the hope of moving out without, in fact, having anywhere to move to. But if I can refer you to the documentary film crew sleeping on our doorstep, at the very least it looks a little less deranged.
So today (after finally getting back to a normal amount of biking), we've been boxing up, throwing out, sorting for sale, discovering lost objects long thought stolen by vicious yet literate east end rats, and basically instilling in ourselves a sense of positivity and progress. So even though no, technically, I still haven't got out the weights, it pretty much feels like I have, as the burn of gentle but unaccustomed exercise thrums through my forearms.
Now it's time to get my ass out into our garden for chess and Monopoly and possibly cards.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard of sex and drugs and rock and roll, honestly I have. Hey - I've taken drugs and listened to rock and roll already today, leave me to my own peccadilloes, alright!
Friday 29 July 2011
In Appreciation Of The Kilo
I've said for years, since doing the Maggie's Night Hike, walking twenty miles around London in the space of one night, that such a mad exploit really gives you an appreciation of quite how long a mile actually is, in our generally artificially-transported world.
Had a similar evelation tonight regarding the humble kilo.
Now, if you've been with me a while, you'll know that I make few, if any, apologies for not having a frame of reference for the kilo. I grew up (and indeed out) with pounds, and as we've said at Druid-mistrusting length before, stones (stones being markers of every fourteen pounds in case there are any newbies in the crowd - hellooo if you are, lovely to have you here and all that). Pounds, therefore, I understand - they have an analogue for me in the real world, and certainly since beginning this experiment, that appreciation has deepened and devolved into calories not eaten, or hours of exercise slogged over, drugs taken, weigh-ins worried about, celebration banners waved and yadda yadda very thoroughly yaddad.
But the kilo...
Much like the metre, I've never had much use for the kilo - it's one of those things I have to look up convertors for. Like French. And generally, in my life, as much use.
But tonight, for reasons you needn't be troubled with, I had to collect a lot of boxes, packed flat, from Argos in Kensington, and bring them home. When I say 'a lot of boxes', I mean something like 900 litres of storage space, flattened. And no, before you ask, I wouldn't know a litre if it kicked my face off. Which is why, when d called and said she'd meet me in Kensington and help me carry it home, I chuckled and waved a macho hand (which is a tricky combo to pull off, believe me), and tried to do the Good Husband Thing, and said "Oh no, honey, you don't need to come out here, it's only some boxes..."
Yeah...
As it turned out, it was 11 kilos of boxes. Even as the biiiiiig box was shoved across the counter, I still didn't get it. Big, but light, I figured.
Nnnnno.
Big and freakin' ridiculously heavy. And awkward to boot. Staggered my lame-ass up the Kensington High Street in search of a bus for me and my leviathan load. Found one, but couldn't get on it - Friday night in London, don'tcha know. Staggered out into four lanes of traffic, crossing the road to find a different bus in a different direction, carried that sonofabitch down into the tube system, and got to Tottenham Court Road. Sat there for nearly forty minutes, sweltering and moistening the cardboard of my box of boxes, as apparently, a broken train further up the line was repaired, and towed by gerbils to the next station.
Finally, after the world ended in sweat and ground teeth, I carrried the thing down through Stratford station, into a cab, and got it through the door. Now, having done all that, I am here to tell you fine ladies and gents that 11 kilos is freakin' heavy.
I mean, reeeeally freakin' heavy. Arm-aching, muscle-straining, what-the-hell-is-this-thing-full-of heavy.
It was only when I got through the door that I remembered something. At last weigh-in, I'd lost 16.some-odd kilos.
That's not possible. I mean, it's just not. I cannot have melted away that boxful and almost half as much again. I could hardly carry the damned 11 kilos strung between both hands, how the hell would I have been able to carry them dangling from my body?
So - in case anyone missed the central thrust of this post, 11 kilos - heavy. So now I have a real-world analogue for what a kilo is and feels like. Still feels like French, but now it feels like the world's biggest chocolate croissant.
Not sure whether that makes it more appealing, or more Hellish. Still, it's kinda good to know.
Couple of housekeeping details - for the Twilight fans, blood has been 5.4, 6.3 and 7.3 on the first three mornings of my reduced-med regime. So - as instructed by the doc, might go back to full meds since it's doing that, until the exercise regime is back to something approaching normal. Walked 4.5 miles this morning, but did nothing...other than pratting about with 11 kilos of cardboard box...this evening. Really found it difficult to hold up those 11 kilos...
Maybe it really is finally time to break out the weights!
Had a similar evelation tonight regarding the humble kilo.
Now, if you've been with me a while, you'll know that I make few, if any, apologies for not having a frame of reference for the kilo. I grew up (and indeed out) with pounds, and as we've said at Druid-mistrusting length before, stones (stones being markers of every fourteen pounds in case there are any newbies in the crowd - hellooo if you are, lovely to have you here and all that). Pounds, therefore, I understand - they have an analogue for me in the real world, and certainly since beginning this experiment, that appreciation has deepened and devolved into calories not eaten, or hours of exercise slogged over, drugs taken, weigh-ins worried about, celebration banners waved and yadda yadda very thoroughly yaddad.
But the kilo...
Much like the metre, I've never had much use for the kilo - it's one of those things I have to look up convertors for. Like French. And generally, in my life, as much use.
But tonight, for reasons you needn't be troubled with, I had to collect a lot of boxes, packed flat, from Argos in Kensington, and bring them home. When I say 'a lot of boxes', I mean something like 900 litres of storage space, flattened. And no, before you ask, I wouldn't know a litre if it kicked my face off. Which is why, when d called and said she'd meet me in Kensington and help me carry it home, I chuckled and waved a macho hand (which is a tricky combo to pull off, believe me), and tried to do the Good Husband Thing, and said "Oh no, honey, you don't need to come out here, it's only some boxes..."
Yeah...
As it turned out, it was 11 kilos of boxes. Even as the biiiiiig box was shoved across the counter, I still didn't get it. Big, but light, I figured.
Nnnnno.
Big and freakin' ridiculously heavy. And awkward to boot. Staggered my lame-ass up the Kensington High Street in search of a bus for me and my leviathan load. Found one, but couldn't get on it - Friday night in London, don'tcha know. Staggered out into four lanes of traffic, crossing the road to find a different bus in a different direction, carried that sonofabitch down into the tube system, and got to Tottenham Court Road. Sat there for nearly forty minutes, sweltering and moistening the cardboard of my box of boxes, as apparently, a broken train further up the line was repaired, and towed by gerbils to the next station.
Finally, after the world ended in sweat and ground teeth, I carrried the thing down through Stratford station, into a cab, and got it through the door. Now, having done all that, I am here to tell you fine ladies and gents that 11 kilos is freakin' heavy.
I mean, reeeeally freakin' heavy. Arm-aching, muscle-straining, what-the-hell-is-this-thing-full-of heavy.
It was only when I got through the door that I remembered something. At last weigh-in, I'd lost 16.some-odd kilos.
That's not possible. I mean, it's just not. I cannot have melted away that boxful and almost half as much again. I could hardly carry the damned 11 kilos strung between both hands, how the hell would I have been able to carry them dangling from my body?
So - in case anyone missed the central thrust of this post, 11 kilos - heavy. So now I have a real-world analogue for what a kilo is and feels like. Still feels like French, but now it feels like the world's biggest chocolate croissant.
Not sure whether that makes it more appealing, or more Hellish. Still, it's kinda good to know.
Couple of housekeeping details - for the Twilight fans, blood has been 5.4, 6.3 and 7.3 on the first three mornings of my reduced-med regime. So - as instructed by the doc, might go back to full meds since it's doing that, until the exercise regime is back to something approaching normal. Walked 4.5 miles this morning, but did nothing...other than pratting about with 11 kilos of cardboard box...this evening. Really found it difficult to hold up those 11 kilos...
Maybe it really is finally time to break out the weights!
Thursday 28 July 2011
Lets Do The Time Warp Again...
So - I know what you're all dying to find out; how am I doing now that I can walk and cycle and generally run and jump and skip like a little spring lamb (unaware of the existence of mint sauce or the curious part it will play in his short-term future)?
Well, the truth is, not so good, really. It's not that the spirit is not willing to jump straight back in to (a sensibly modified, recovery-plan version of) the exercise routine. It's that there simply don't seem to be enough hours in any one day.
I vaguely intended to try out a longer walk again en route to work this morning. Then I woke up at 7.10, stared at the clock in a fairly psychopathic attempt to make its horrid little digital brains explode, and slumped back beneath my blanket, snoring loudly just to spite it. By the time I woke up again, the chance to carpe the diem had really rather buggered off, so I did the wuss-ass short version of walking to Plaistow and then walking up the High Street Kensington - a paltry 1.5 miles, as opposed to my 5 mile plan. Likewise, this evening, I intended to walk at least 2.5 miles, but, as things turned out, I absolutely had to meet d in Kensington and eat gorgeous Italian food for several hours...Yeah, sometimes, life's just a bitch, isn't it?
Tonight, when we got home, I was going to jump on the bike, but as it turned out, we didn't get home till gone ten, when it was absolutely necessary for me to write this and then get busy with some top-level snoring that I've been putting off for about fourteen hours.
So we're shifting the energetic relaunch of exercise-boy to tomorrow morning, when I'm hoping to do that whole healthy boy-scout 'jumping out of bed at 6 o'something' routine and positively glow with righteous energy all day freakin' long.
On the upside, these boots? Definitely made for walking - they're like foot-quilts on springs. You walk in them and want to sing Police songs - "Giant steps are what you take...walking in these boots..."
So the equipment is there. What I really need now is either a Tardis, or a time-turner, to cram at least a handful of extra hours into each day. Or alternatively of course, I could just shake off the sloth of a week off and get my ass in gear.
Wonder how you make a time-turner...
Well, the truth is, not so good, really. It's not that the spirit is not willing to jump straight back in to (a sensibly modified, recovery-plan version of) the exercise routine. It's that there simply don't seem to be enough hours in any one day.
I vaguely intended to try out a longer walk again en route to work this morning. Then I woke up at 7.10, stared at the clock in a fairly psychopathic attempt to make its horrid little digital brains explode, and slumped back beneath my blanket, snoring loudly just to spite it. By the time I woke up again, the chance to carpe the diem had really rather buggered off, so I did the wuss-ass short version of walking to Plaistow and then walking up the High Street Kensington - a paltry 1.5 miles, as opposed to my 5 mile plan. Likewise, this evening, I intended to walk at least 2.5 miles, but, as things turned out, I absolutely had to meet d in Kensington and eat gorgeous Italian food for several hours...Yeah, sometimes, life's just a bitch, isn't it?
Tonight, when we got home, I was going to jump on the bike, but as it turned out, we didn't get home till gone ten, when it was absolutely necessary for me to write this and then get busy with some top-level snoring that I've been putting off for about fourteen hours.
So we're shifting the energetic relaunch of exercise-boy to tomorrow morning, when I'm hoping to do that whole healthy boy-scout 'jumping out of bed at 6 o'something' routine and positively glow with righteous energy all day freakin' long.
On the upside, these boots? Definitely made for walking - they're like foot-quilts on springs. You walk in them and want to sing Police songs - "Giant steps are what you take...walking in these boots..."
So the equipment is there. What I really need now is either a Tardis, or a time-turner, to cram at least a handful of extra hours into each day. Or alternatively of course, I could just shake off the sloth of a week off and get my ass in gear.
Wonder how you make a time-turner...
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Weights And Measures
d and I were both reading our separate books tonight – she a classic Mills and Boon, for research on a writing project she’s involved in, me, Homer's Iliad, because sometimes, there’s just not enough bloodshed and slaughter in my metropolitan life. Especially on craving days.
“Y’know,” she said, without looking up, “for every ten pounds you lose, it’s supposed to be worth an inch...elsewhere.”
“An inch?” I asked, distractedly, as Achilles pissed about nursing his hurt feelings and not helping out. “You mean like an inch of flab around the midriff dear?”
“Nono,” she said, still with her nose in Cinderella In Mink. “I mean elsewhere.”
Achilles stopped moaning about his hurt feelings in a great big freaking hurry. He looked up and blinked at me, shrugging.
“You mean...?”
“I’m just saying,” she said. “If you need an incentive...”
I did the maths. Over the course of this experiment, I’m intending to lose 104 pounds. That’s near-as –dammit ten and a half extra inches of Elsewhere. I'll apparently already have added three solid inches of Elsewhere. I blinked back at Achilles. He studied his feet. I wanted to mention the whole heel thing, but I was a bit distracted.
“I’ve never had that much Elsewhere dear. I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I’m pretty sure there was never-”
She shrugged.
“I think it’s a sensation thing,” she explained.
I considered this. Achilles shrugged at me again. Clearly, while he might be an arse-kicking semi-divine warrior dudes, he had no information to offer on this subject.
I sniffed.
“I reckon it’s a desperate housewives’ tale, put about to make husbands feel the burn so the wives don’t resort to Enrique the Houseboy,” I muttered.
We both went back to our respective reading. Achilles slid his sword smoothly into its scabbard. He coughed. A minute passed in peaceful quiet between us, then
“I’m just checking,” said d, turning a page with a languid thumb. “We don’t happen to have a Houseboy, do we?”
I put down the Iliad, and got on the bike...
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Pick Up Thy Metabolism And Walk
Alrighty, so my damping down of the flames of expectation last night turned out to be unwarranted: Official weigh-in stats this morning are:
Yes, it's barely a sparrow-fart into the 17s, but it's there, dammit - next challenge is to reach 17 stone 7.5 - my three-stone marker. In headline terms, this means I've now officially broken the two-and-a-half stone barrier, and the 18 stone barrier. As usual, none of this means a damn thing unless you're British, so for my geographically diverse readers - I've now lost 35.75 pounds, or 16.2 kilos. See what I mean? No identifiable boundaries in either of those stats; it's one of the many reasons I'm doing this on British standards - many many more reasons to think I'm special and have a party of self-celebration!
Other news today - the arch-support shoes have arrived. Have yet to take them out of their box, but have permission from d to at least give them a try after work (NB - this sounds like I'm six and she's my mom or something; this is not the case, but I know she'll be worried if I go re-injuring myself, so we talked it out). Talking to the doc and the dietician yesterday, I sort of worked out that having had a week off from any sort of exercise at all (and still losing 4.5 pounds - LOVE this metabolism thing!), then when I start it up again, I could actually drop it down a bit from my previous levels. That way the body still reacts like it's getting a lot of exercise, because it's new again, but it doesn't kill me to do or take forever. And from there we can build up again. In the event that this proves to be the wrong way to go, doubtless I'll be bitching and moaning next week...
So there's something to look forward to, eh?
Something else to look forward to was pointed out to me by my pal and former work colleague, Sue, yesterday. Sue, who for reasons of self-identification, I've pretty much thought of as Gromit for as long as we've known each other, read yesterday's entry, and actually went and did some research for me on the BMI (Body-Mass Index). She came back with the comment that apparently, (at least according to Wikipedia), the borderline between Morbidly Obese and just ordinary, run-of-the-mill 21st century Obese. Having come down from 45.4 in March to 41.some-odd yesterday, I figured that was something to aspire to. Just checked out the NHS BMI calculator, and it turns out that in my butt-naked state (not something I felt worth sharing with the doctor yesterday), my actual BMI as of today is 40.55. Of course, on the NHS calculator, they don't actually show Morbidly Obese as an option. It just goes Obese...and then the end of the world - and right now of course, my arrow is just a little off that cliff of should-be-deadness. But yeeeeahhh...watch out, Ordinary Obesity, I'm comin' to getcha!
So today, it's a case of picking up my metabolism again, in my new funky shoes, and walking on.
17 stone, 13.75
Yes, it's barely a sparrow-fart into the 17s, but it's there, dammit - next challenge is to reach 17 stone 7.5 - my three-stone marker. In headline terms, this means I've now officially broken the two-and-a-half stone barrier, and the 18 stone barrier. As usual, none of this means a damn thing unless you're British, so for my geographically diverse readers - I've now lost 35.75 pounds, or 16.2 kilos. See what I mean? No identifiable boundaries in either of those stats; it's one of the many reasons I'm doing this on British standards - many many more reasons to think I'm special and have a party of self-celebration!
Other news today - the arch-support shoes have arrived. Have yet to take them out of their box, but have permission from d to at least give them a try after work (NB - this sounds like I'm six and she's my mom or something; this is not the case, but I know she'll be worried if I go re-injuring myself, so we talked it out). Talking to the doc and the dietician yesterday, I sort of worked out that having had a week off from any sort of exercise at all (and still losing 4.5 pounds - LOVE this metabolism thing!), then when I start it up again, I could actually drop it down a bit from my previous levels. That way the body still reacts like it's getting a lot of exercise, because it's new again, but it doesn't kill me to do or take forever. And from there we can build up again. In the event that this proves to be the wrong way to go, doubtless I'll be bitching and moaning next week...
So there's something to look forward to, eh?
Something else to look forward to was pointed out to me by my pal and former work colleague, Sue, yesterday. Sue, who for reasons of self-identification, I've pretty much thought of as Gromit for as long as we've known each other, read yesterday's entry, and actually went and did some research for me on the BMI (Body-Mass Index). She came back with the comment that apparently, (at least according to Wikipedia), the borderline between Morbidly Obese and just ordinary, run-of-the-mill 21st century Obese. Having come down from 45.4 in March to 41.some-odd yesterday, I figured that was something to aspire to. Just checked out the NHS BMI calculator, and it turns out that in my butt-naked state (not something I felt worth sharing with the doctor yesterday), my actual BMI as of today is 40.55. Of course, on the NHS calculator, they don't actually show Morbidly Obese as an option. It just goes Obese...and then the end of the world - and right now of course, my arrow is just a little off that cliff of should-be-deadness. But yeeeeahhh...watch out, Ordinary Obesity, I'm comin' to getcha!
So today, it's a case of picking up my metabolism again, in my new funky shoes, and walking on.
Monday 25 July 2011
I Rule All!
Blood sugar was down to 3.7 this morning, despite two helpings of a pasta meal last night. Couldn't resist the urge to weigh when I got up, and the result was mystifyingly good after a morning Xenical attack, and stunningly better still after what could only be described as a really big pee(!). Clearly of course, neither of these weigh-ins are official, and by the time I get on the scales tomorrow, there's every chance things will have gone spectacularly man-tits up, but it gave me rather a spring in my step as I headed to the doctors for the annual diabetic review. Well, that and Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like A Lady' anyway...
Got to the docs on time for my 11 o'clock appointment. Waited till 12 to see him (though I did get called in halfway through the wait to talk to a medical rep about upgrading my blood testing equipent and using their DVD and website and would I like to subscribe to their magazine. Hardly very NHS, this direct exposure of patients to reps, but I just said no to most of it and went back out to the waiting room to continue my seethe as the appointment got more and more delayed.
When finally I got in to see him, it appeared that I was a paragon of slimming virtue and common sense. Ahem...those of you who read this blog will know sooooo differently, it was nice to get a bit of objective adoration! Wrong on so many levels of course but nice all the same.
Apparently, my HBA1C reading (blood sugar averaged over time) has come down to "perfect, practically borderline diabetic" levels at 6.4. Don't ask me what the numbers mean, I haven't the first idea. All I know is that three years ago, they were 13.some-odd. They've been coming down year on year ever since I stopped drinking fizzy drinks and eating desserts, but now they were apparently rapturously delightful to the doc. My Body-Mass Index is...well, still morbidly obese, let's not kid ourselves here, but it's gonna be that for a good while to come (I'm sort of in the upper echelons of Morbidly Obese. I think the next level up from me is "How the fuck are you not dead?"), but it's come down from 45.something in March to 41.something today. Again, not sure what the numbers mean exactly, just sure that from where I was (and indeed from where I am), the only smiley direction is down, so the doc was all smiley about that too.
We discussed the uber-low blood sugars, and he said much lower than this and I'd begin to get snappy and irritable. I swallowed the obvious "more than usual?" comment, and then he said the thing that made my day.
"Well, I suppose we'd better drop your medication down then," he said.
Now...I know we've talked, in airy-fairy terms about 'curing' people of diabetes by getting rid of the weight, but somehow I sort of assumed this would be a thing that happened in one big line-drawing block, when one achieved one's target weight and was...I dunno, sort of 'signed off' the list or something. It never occurred to me that this might be a gradual process of improvement and weaning off the drugs.
But Hell, I'll take weaning any day of the week - wean me, doctor baby, wean me right goooood!
So as of now, I'm gonna start taking just half my previous dose of one of my pills. Like I said, I rule all!
I also asked about why I appeared still to be losing weight and geting low blood sugar results even though I was in Hell Week, doing absolutely nothing in terms of exercise. Again, his answer was pleasing. It's because my metabolism has kicked up a gear, he said, now that it wasn't dragging those two extra stones around everywhere. On this rationalisation, surely fat is one of the Devil's own traps - harder to get out of at the start, and getting easier the further you go and the longer you do it?! What kind of justice is that, eh?! Nevertheless, if my metabolism's woken up and is now actually starting to do the job I pay it for, then all to the good, and forward we go!
Everything in the doctor's office being rosy, I hot-footed it to the local hospital for my long-deferred dietician's appointment.
I may have shared this thought with you before, but at the start of this experiment, I probably needed a dietician. I needed a way to circumnavigate the culinary hatred in my heart for everything remotely fresh and vegetable-based, and my abiding love-affair with carbs. Now that I'm nearly five whole months into this thing, with no further fear of salads, and an increasing love of fruits both fresh and dried, with an active metabolism, an active exercise regime and a dedication to Disappearing, I was a bit at a loss to say why exactly the dietician appointment was necessary. Clearly, so was she one I'd explained what I eat and what I've been doing.
"Erm...keep doing...um...that," she said. "S'nice to see someone who's doing it!" I chuckled, and decided not to tell her I was making up for 39 years of dietary fuckwittery. Anyhow, she wants to see me again in about four months, just to see how things are going (which I think is dietician code for 'to see whether you've cracked and gorged on Mars bars', but we'll let it pass).
So that was today. Damn fine day to be me, frankly. Tomorrow will, as I say, undoubtedly not be quite as rosy-cheeked and good-newsed, but that's OK. As long as there are occasionally days like today, I can refill my determination-hump, and carry on forward.
Got to the docs on time for my 11 o'clock appointment. Waited till 12 to see him (though I did get called in halfway through the wait to talk to a medical rep about upgrading my blood testing equipent and using their DVD and website and would I like to subscribe to their magazine. Hardly very NHS, this direct exposure of patients to reps, but I just said no to most of it and went back out to the waiting room to continue my seethe as the appointment got more and more delayed.
When finally I got in to see him, it appeared that I was a paragon of slimming virtue and common sense. Ahem...those of you who read this blog will know sooooo differently, it was nice to get a bit of objective adoration! Wrong on so many levels of course but nice all the same.
Apparently, my HBA1C reading (blood sugar averaged over time) has come down to "perfect, practically borderline diabetic" levels at 6.4. Don't ask me what the numbers mean, I haven't the first idea. All I know is that three years ago, they were 13.some-odd. They've been coming down year on year ever since I stopped drinking fizzy drinks and eating desserts, but now they were apparently rapturously delightful to the doc. My Body-Mass Index is...well, still morbidly obese, let's not kid ourselves here, but it's gonna be that for a good while to come (I'm sort of in the upper echelons of Morbidly Obese. I think the next level up from me is "How the fuck are you not dead?"), but it's come down from 45.something in March to 41.something today. Again, not sure what the numbers mean exactly, just sure that from where I was (and indeed from where I am), the only smiley direction is down, so the doc was all smiley about that too.
We discussed the uber-low blood sugars, and he said much lower than this and I'd begin to get snappy and irritable. I swallowed the obvious "more than usual?" comment, and then he said the thing that made my day.
"Well, I suppose we'd better drop your medication down then," he said.
Now...I know we've talked, in airy-fairy terms about 'curing' people of diabetes by getting rid of the weight, but somehow I sort of assumed this would be a thing that happened in one big line-drawing block, when one achieved one's target weight and was...I dunno, sort of 'signed off' the list or something. It never occurred to me that this might be a gradual process of improvement and weaning off the drugs.
But Hell, I'll take weaning any day of the week - wean me, doctor baby, wean me right goooood!
So as of now, I'm gonna start taking just half my previous dose of one of my pills. Like I said, I rule all!
I also asked about why I appeared still to be losing weight and geting low blood sugar results even though I was in Hell Week, doing absolutely nothing in terms of exercise. Again, his answer was pleasing. It's because my metabolism has kicked up a gear, he said, now that it wasn't dragging those two extra stones around everywhere. On this rationalisation, surely fat is one of the Devil's own traps - harder to get out of at the start, and getting easier the further you go and the longer you do it?! What kind of justice is that, eh?! Nevertheless, if my metabolism's woken up and is now actually starting to do the job I pay it for, then all to the good, and forward we go!
Everything in the doctor's office being rosy, I hot-footed it to the local hospital for my long-deferred dietician's appointment.
I may have shared this thought with you before, but at the start of this experiment, I probably needed a dietician. I needed a way to circumnavigate the culinary hatred in my heart for everything remotely fresh and vegetable-based, and my abiding love-affair with carbs. Now that I'm nearly five whole months into this thing, with no further fear of salads, and an increasing love of fruits both fresh and dried, with an active metabolism, an active exercise regime and a dedication to Disappearing, I was a bit at a loss to say why exactly the dietician appointment was necessary. Clearly, so was she one I'd explained what I eat and what I've been doing.
"Erm...keep doing...um...that," she said. "S'nice to see someone who's doing it!" I chuckled, and decided not to tell her I was making up for 39 years of dietary fuckwittery. Anyhow, she wants to see me again in about four months, just to see how things are going (which I think is dietician code for 'to see whether you've cracked and gorged on Mars bars', but we'll let it pass).
So that was today. Damn fine day to be me, frankly. Tomorrow will, as I say, undoubtedly not be quite as rosy-cheeked and good-newsed, but that's OK. As long as there are occasionally days like today, I can refill my determination-hump, and carry on forward.
Sunday 24 July 2011
Amy Winehouse and the Brigstocke Alternative
Blood sugar was 3.9 this morning, after a big meaty meal last night. This continues to perplex and confuse me, but am assuming as long as I'm not having hypos, the smaller the figure in terms of sugar in the blood, the better. Am probably wrong, but will get a verdict from the doc tomorrow.
In the wider world, Amy Winehouse has been found dead. There have been a range of reactions to this news, perhaps the most common of which is surprise that it took this long - the singer (who was only 27) was famously addicted to things that were likely to kill her sooner or later, mainly alcohol and some fairly serious drugs.
I was never a fan of her music, though in fact if you played me some right now, I probably wouldn't be able to definitively say "that's the Winehouse". Nevertheless, the death of an addictive personality is something that blows cold across the day of any Disappearing man or woman. There's a sense of "there but for the grace of....something...go I." Successful struggle, probably.
Oddly enough, I was thinking about this last week, before the Winehouse news ever broke. I'm currently listening to the audiobook version of God Collar, by Marcus Brigstocke. Marcus is a hilarious comedian with an arse-kicking conscience, and he's written perhaps the most honest book about the experience of atheism I've ever read - go get it, go get it now. The relevant point here though is that one of the many revelations in the book is that as a teenager, Marcus was both addictive and compulsive - he rose to something over 25 stone, as well as getting involved in similar addictions to Winehouse. Eventually, he faced a realisation, went into rehab and (while establishing a different relationship with the Christian god), dropped about half his bodyweight in seven months or so. These days, Marcus is not someone you'd look at and think "Wow, bet he was a fat fuck as a teenager". His penchant for corduroy might make you think "Wow, that's one funny, angry geography teacher", but you wouldn't think of him as an addictive man, who's battled with food. But in the book, he says he's bored with the effort it takes not to relapse every bloody day.
Without daring or wanting to claim any kind of martyrdom after 39 years of addictive fuckwittery and only four months of trying to survive, I know what he means there - especially while trying to blog every day about the experience of trying to lose a life-saving amount of weight. Christ, it's dull. And it would be so fantastically easy to say sod it, and just fall back into the way of living that part of me - possibly even most of me - wants to; eating everything in sight, careering towards the cliff-edge of pure self-revolving destruction and jumping off, feeling happy and full and sweetened to death.
I'm also not breaking addicts down into two categories - the Winehouses and the Brigstockes - because it's actually a very individual thing; the triggers that kick addictive or compulsive behaviours into play tend to be individual, and the moments of relapse are sometimes circumstantial, other times down to being distracted, or steeling the resolve against the temptation to do what you really want to do.
So what am I saying?
I guess that Winehouse is an example of what can happen...and so is Brigstocke. Plenty of people go the Winehouse route ever day, and plenty do a Brigstocke too, and come to that, huge swathes of people are Disappearing at any one time without feeling the need to pollute the internet daily with their whinges about how hard the whole thing is. No remote example is likely to actually save the life of any other addict, because everyone fights their own battle, ultimately against their own addictions. But if the principles of rehab have any genuine value, it is, I suppose, knowing that other people are fighting at least a similar fight to you, and that probably, if you try, you can be as strong as they are. So while I'm not a mourner for her music, I could happily wish that Winehouse had won her battle, had won herself a future. Plenty of people appeared to enjoy her creative contribution, and of course her family would undoubtedly love to have had her there going forward. I for one am glad Brigstocke won the main part of his battle (addicts will know of course it's never really exactly won, except on a daily basis) many years ago, so he could still be here to see his kids grow up, and make a lot of us laugh off our chairs, and think while we're doing it. So perhaps ultimately what I'm saying in this fairly tortured entry is that if you lose, you lose all the potential of your future, its love, its pain, its friendships and its creativity. So every day is worth fighting for, no matter how wretchedly dull it is to do. Everybody should be encouraged to fight their battles.
Except Simon Cowell. He, I think, should probably be locked in a room with three tons of crack, just see what would happen. But...yeah, almost everybody else...
In the wider world, Amy Winehouse has been found dead. There have been a range of reactions to this news, perhaps the most common of which is surprise that it took this long - the singer (who was only 27) was famously addicted to things that were likely to kill her sooner or later, mainly alcohol and some fairly serious drugs.
I was never a fan of her music, though in fact if you played me some right now, I probably wouldn't be able to definitively say "that's the Winehouse". Nevertheless, the death of an addictive personality is something that blows cold across the day of any Disappearing man or woman. There's a sense of "there but for the grace of....something...go I." Successful struggle, probably.
Oddly enough, I was thinking about this last week, before the Winehouse news ever broke. I'm currently listening to the audiobook version of God Collar, by Marcus Brigstocke. Marcus is a hilarious comedian with an arse-kicking conscience, and he's written perhaps the most honest book about the experience of atheism I've ever read - go get it, go get it now. The relevant point here though is that one of the many revelations in the book is that as a teenager, Marcus was both addictive and compulsive - he rose to something over 25 stone, as well as getting involved in similar addictions to Winehouse. Eventually, he faced a realisation, went into rehab and (while establishing a different relationship with the Christian god), dropped about half his bodyweight in seven months or so. These days, Marcus is not someone you'd look at and think "Wow, bet he was a fat fuck as a teenager". His penchant for corduroy might make you think "Wow, that's one funny, angry geography teacher", but you wouldn't think of him as an addictive man, who's battled with food. But in the book, he says he's bored with the effort it takes not to relapse every bloody day.
Without daring or wanting to claim any kind of martyrdom after 39 years of addictive fuckwittery and only four months of trying to survive, I know what he means there - especially while trying to blog every day about the experience of trying to lose a life-saving amount of weight. Christ, it's dull. And it would be so fantastically easy to say sod it, and just fall back into the way of living that part of me - possibly even most of me - wants to; eating everything in sight, careering towards the cliff-edge of pure self-revolving destruction and jumping off, feeling happy and full and sweetened to death.
I'm also not breaking addicts down into two categories - the Winehouses and the Brigstockes - because it's actually a very individual thing; the triggers that kick addictive or compulsive behaviours into play tend to be individual, and the moments of relapse are sometimes circumstantial, other times down to being distracted, or steeling the resolve against the temptation to do what you really want to do.
So what am I saying?
I guess that Winehouse is an example of what can happen...and so is Brigstocke. Plenty of people go the Winehouse route ever day, and plenty do a Brigstocke too, and come to that, huge swathes of people are Disappearing at any one time without feeling the need to pollute the internet daily with their whinges about how hard the whole thing is. No remote example is likely to actually save the life of any other addict, because everyone fights their own battle, ultimately against their own addictions. But if the principles of rehab have any genuine value, it is, I suppose, knowing that other people are fighting at least a similar fight to you, and that probably, if you try, you can be as strong as they are. So while I'm not a mourner for her music, I could happily wish that Winehouse had won her battle, had won herself a future. Plenty of people appeared to enjoy her creative contribution, and of course her family would undoubtedly love to have had her there going forward. I for one am glad Brigstocke won the main part of his battle (addicts will know of course it's never really exactly won, except on a daily basis) many years ago, so he could still be here to see his kids grow up, and make a lot of us laugh off our chairs, and think while we're doing it. So perhaps ultimately what I'm saying in this fairly tortured entry is that if you lose, you lose all the potential of your future, its love, its pain, its friendships and its creativity. So every day is worth fighting for, no matter how wretchedly dull it is to do. Everybody should be encouraged to fight their battles.
Except Simon Cowell. He, I think, should probably be locked in a room with three tons of crack, just see what would happen. But...yeah, almost everybody else...
Saturday 23 July 2011
The De-Caff Debacle
It's not often that d goes ballistic in restaurants, and when she does, she's usually acting on my behalf, saying the things I'm altogether too bloody British to say. One day, if you're lucky and I'm bored, I'll tell you the story of the ladybug in the Spaghetti House bolognaise. This morning though, prior to hitting the Old Vic for Spacey and Shakespeare, we went for breakfast at what, to us, was a new place. Belushis, London Bridge.
The website had promised the 'best American Diner in London'. Having heard this kind of sentiment from many places that failed to live up to their own hype, we didn't hold our breath, but even so, I don't think we were prepared for the staggering aggression and stupidity we encountered.
Firstly, it turned out to be a sports bar - that's fine, be a sports bar if you can't afford the education to be a real restaurant. It was more the woman behind the bar that was the problem. We had to book our meal at the bar, and pay for it there, before taking a numbered wooden spoon downstairs to a grubby dark corner with torn seats, and a nasty whiff of the bathrooms.
We 'went large' on our breakfasts, and there, on the menu, it said 'free coffee with large breakfasts'.
Right, we said, we'll have the coffee, but can we get it de-caff?
You'd think we'd asked for aborted foetuses in bambi-tears. No! said the horrified bar-woman. We don't have de-caff - coffee without coffee, as I swear she called it. Alright, we said, what can we have in its place. NO! she said, no de-caff! We sighed, said we understood that, so what could we get instead? She pretended not to hear us, so we said it again. Then, in a new twist, she pretended not to understand us.
"Where does it say this?" she demanded. "About the coffee?!"
We sighed again - we'd pretty much moved on by now, but it was becoming a matter of principle.
"Here," we pointed out. "On your menu."
Personally, I was reflecting that I'd expected this whole de-caff thing to get me in trouble one day, but more on the grounds of pretension than because people had never heard of it, or questioned the existence of coffee of any kind.
She read the menu.
"Ach, I don't understand this," she spat.
"Can we just get a Coke and a pineapple juice?" we asked. She poured them for us sullenly, slapped our wooden spoon on the bar and turned her back on us. We slumped down to our darkened room, muttering about how you just can't get the staff these days.
About twenty minutes later, she turned up with our breakfasts, and her agenda on full.
"Listen," she said. "Why are you being like this about the coffee?"
"Seriously?" we asked. "Can we just drop it?"
"No!" she almost shouted at us. "I just don't understand you people, I told you we don't have the de-caff!!"
"Can we eat breakfast now?"
"But why?! Why are you being like this??!"
It was that second assertion that we were being unreasonable that seemed to break d's composure finally.
"Because you're being like you!" she said. "Look, can we see the manager?"
"No, I want to know..."
"Can we see the manager...please," said my girl, with the kind of emphasis that said "get me the manager now...if you like having kneecaps, you demented, psychotic, monomaniacal bitch".
"Oh sure, manager..." muttered the demented, psychotic monomaniacal bitch before fucking most assuredly off.
She came back another half an hour later, with a smile, to take our plates away.
"What, no manager?" said d.
"Oh yeah, sorry - my manager's not here today," she smirked, before, as it happened, fucking most assuredly off...again.
I needed to pee before we left. As it turned out, the faint whiff of bathroom was in fact the overpowering stench of bathroom once you dared go anywhere near them. They were about a degree and a half better than British railway platform toilets.
By the time I came out and walked back up the stairs, you could hear the respectful hush of d talking to the manager.
Yep, the manager who wasn't there today. He was. He was listening as d told him the story, with the psycho-bitch standing, denying every word. I turned up, nodded meaningfully. The bitch was just about to try and tear a strip off d, when d surprised her by...well, frankly by being American.
"Nono - this is my time now, you say nothing," she told the bitch, who, taken aback by not being able to browbeat her, said nothing.
We left, and the bitch followed us out.
"Just keep moving honey," I murmured, "she's behind us." We got on a bus before the mad bint threw sharp cutlery items at our retreating spines.
The upside of all this is that we discovered that sometimes, Prets are open.
I should explain that over here, there's a chain of cafes, called Pret A Manger. We've never, when we've been together, seen one that was a) open and b) selling anything edible.
This might sound glib, but it's actually become a running gag between the two of us.
"Oh look dear, there's a Pret."
"It's closed."
Except today, we found a Pret that was both open, and actually able to sell us things that were edible. It was a weird kind of revelation, and one with which I'm not sure we're ultimately comfortable. Only time will tell.
Spacey and Shakespeare were pretty much as you'd expect Spacey and Shakespeare to be - three and a half hours of mesmerising performance. There was some scenery-chewing, but there was also undoubtedly the best performance in the role of Buckingham that I've ever seen, and a highly memorable Richard.
Tomorrow, there's a day of doing buggerall and not going outside our door - because it's Sunday goddammit, and we don't have to do anything if we don't want to, so nehh!
Oh and for my fellow vampires, blood today was 4.8 - particularly weird, given that we actually had a fairly hefty Indian meal last night...
Have to wonder if this means I'm getting steadily less diabetic as this project continues.
The website had promised the 'best American Diner in London'. Having heard this kind of sentiment from many places that failed to live up to their own hype, we didn't hold our breath, but even so, I don't think we were prepared for the staggering aggression and stupidity we encountered.
Firstly, it turned out to be a sports bar - that's fine, be a sports bar if you can't afford the education to be a real restaurant. It was more the woman behind the bar that was the problem. We had to book our meal at the bar, and pay for it there, before taking a numbered wooden spoon downstairs to a grubby dark corner with torn seats, and a nasty whiff of the bathrooms.
We 'went large' on our breakfasts, and there, on the menu, it said 'free coffee with large breakfasts'.
Right, we said, we'll have the coffee, but can we get it de-caff?
You'd think we'd asked for aborted foetuses in bambi-tears. No! said the horrified bar-woman. We don't have de-caff - coffee without coffee, as I swear she called it. Alright, we said, what can we have in its place. NO! she said, no de-caff! We sighed, said we understood that, so what could we get instead? She pretended not to hear us, so we said it again. Then, in a new twist, she pretended not to understand us.
"Where does it say this?" she demanded. "About the coffee?!"
We sighed again - we'd pretty much moved on by now, but it was becoming a matter of principle.
"Here," we pointed out. "On your menu."
Personally, I was reflecting that I'd expected this whole de-caff thing to get me in trouble one day, but more on the grounds of pretension than because people had never heard of it, or questioned the existence of coffee of any kind.
She read the menu.
"Ach, I don't understand this," she spat.
"Can we just get a Coke and a pineapple juice?" we asked. She poured them for us sullenly, slapped our wooden spoon on the bar and turned her back on us. We slumped down to our darkened room, muttering about how you just can't get the staff these days.
About twenty minutes later, she turned up with our breakfasts, and her agenda on full.
"Listen," she said. "Why are you being like this about the coffee?"
"Seriously?" we asked. "Can we just drop it?"
"No!" she almost shouted at us. "I just don't understand you people, I told you we don't have the de-caff!!"
"Can we eat breakfast now?"
"But why?! Why are you being like this??!"
It was that second assertion that we were being unreasonable that seemed to break d's composure finally.
"Because you're being like you!" she said. "Look, can we see the manager?"
"No, I want to know..."
"Can we see the manager...please," said my girl, with the kind of emphasis that said "get me the manager now...if you like having kneecaps, you demented, psychotic, monomaniacal bitch".
"Oh sure, manager..." muttered the demented, psychotic monomaniacal bitch before fucking most assuredly off.
She came back another half an hour later, with a smile, to take our plates away.
"What, no manager?" said d.
"Oh yeah, sorry - my manager's not here today," she smirked, before, as it happened, fucking most assuredly off...again.
I needed to pee before we left. As it turned out, the faint whiff of bathroom was in fact the overpowering stench of bathroom once you dared go anywhere near them. They were about a degree and a half better than British railway platform toilets.
By the time I came out and walked back up the stairs, you could hear the respectful hush of d talking to the manager.
Yep, the manager who wasn't there today. He was. He was listening as d told him the story, with the psycho-bitch standing, denying every word. I turned up, nodded meaningfully. The bitch was just about to try and tear a strip off d, when d surprised her by...well, frankly by being American.
"Nono - this is my time now, you say nothing," she told the bitch, who, taken aback by not being able to browbeat her, said nothing.
We left, and the bitch followed us out.
"Just keep moving honey," I murmured, "she's behind us." We got on a bus before the mad bint threw sharp cutlery items at our retreating spines.
The upside of all this is that we discovered that sometimes, Prets are open.
I should explain that over here, there's a chain of cafes, called Pret A Manger. We've never, when we've been together, seen one that was a) open and b) selling anything edible.
This might sound glib, but it's actually become a running gag between the two of us.
"Oh look dear, there's a Pret."
"It's closed."
Except today, we found a Pret that was both open, and actually able to sell us things that were edible. It was a weird kind of revelation, and one with which I'm not sure we're ultimately comfortable. Only time will tell.
Spacey and Shakespeare were pretty much as you'd expect Spacey and Shakespeare to be - three and a half hours of mesmerising performance. There was some scenery-chewing, but there was also undoubtedly the best performance in the role of Buckingham that I've ever seen, and a highly memorable Richard.
Tomorrow, there's a day of doing buggerall and not going outside our door - because it's Sunday goddammit, and we don't have to do anything if we don't want to, so nehh!
Oh and for my fellow vampires, blood today was 4.8 - particularly weird, given that we actually had a fairly hefty Indian meal last night...
Have to wonder if this means I'm getting steadily less diabetic as this project continues.
Friday 22 July 2011
The Bucket o'Pointlessness
You may remember my ongoing palaver with Starbucks. It began when they tried to kill me with the glorious evil that was caffeine.
Then I conquered with and conquered my macho demons and began ordering de-caff from them.
Recently though I've noticed that, de-caff or not de-caff, weeks when I go regularly to Starbucks tend to be heavier weeks than weeks when I forego the evil genius that is a big-ass cup of coffee and take in only the purity of water.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned this to d. "Well, you know, you could always ask them for skimmed milk," she said. "Plenty of people do it, and it's supposed to make better froth."
"Yyyyeah, that'll be right," I said. "The day I order a skinny latte is the day I cut my own balls off and prance around the room, declaring that my name is Anastasia and I'm, like, soooo pleased to meet you all...
Ahem.
Hi. My name's apparently Anastasia. I'm, like, soooo pleased to meet you all.
Tried it, didn't vomit man-blood out of my nostrils, tried it again, and now it's my regular thing. I burn with pretentious, could-I-be-more-Metrosexual shame every time I go up to the counter now, but this, this is what I'm now regularly asking for:
"A Venti de-caff skinny latte please."
Let's just deconstruct that for a second. I'm asking for coffee which isn't coffee, made with milk that isn't milk. Needless to say I then sidle over to the self-prep are, and add a couple of Sweet and Lows - sugar that isn't sugar - into a cup the size of a cauldron. It's a bucket of pointlessness, fakery and pretension, but in the absence of real cofee made with real milk and real sugar...like, I suspect, real people drink!...it'll have to do.
Blood was a weirdly low 4.2 this morning. Have had to go back through the entries of this blog this afternoon collating blood-sugar data for my annual diabetic review on Monday. Am also meeting the dietician finally on Monday, so a mega-day before the inevitably hideous weigh-in on Tuesday. Oh, and d - having had her payday today - has ordered me a pair of proper arch-supporting shoes, which should be here about mid-week. I was thrilled when she told me:
"Cool - does that mean I can get back to the walking and the cycling and the...and the...y'know, stuff when they arrive???"
"No!" she said. "You've got to let that foot heal first."
I sulked, but of course she's right.
So on, to the not-bike. Tomorrow's gonna be kick-ass - me, and d, and Kevin Spacey; we're going to see the critically acclaimed Richard III at the Old Vic. Or perhaps more accurately, I'm going to see the critically-acclaimed Richard III at the Old Vic, I think d's going to see the critically-acclaimed and genuinely impressive Kevin Spacey. As luck would have it, we get to go together.
Now, who wants coffee?
Then I conquered with and conquered my macho demons and began ordering de-caff from them.
Recently though I've noticed that, de-caff or not de-caff, weeks when I go regularly to Starbucks tend to be heavier weeks than weeks when I forego the evil genius that is a big-ass cup of coffee and take in only the purity of water.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned this to d. "Well, you know, you could always ask them for skimmed milk," she said. "Plenty of people do it, and it's supposed to make better froth."
"Yyyyeah, that'll be right," I said. "The day I order a skinny latte is the day I cut my own balls off and prance around the room, declaring that my name is Anastasia and I'm, like, soooo pleased to meet you all...
Ahem.
Hi. My name's apparently Anastasia. I'm, like, soooo pleased to meet you all.
Tried it, didn't vomit man-blood out of my nostrils, tried it again, and now it's my regular thing. I burn with pretentious, could-I-be-more-Metrosexual shame every time I go up to the counter now, but this, this is what I'm now regularly asking for:
"A Venti de-caff skinny latte please."
Let's just deconstruct that for a second. I'm asking for coffee which isn't coffee, made with milk that isn't milk. Needless to say I then sidle over to the self-prep are, and add a couple of Sweet and Lows - sugar that isn't sugar - into a cup the size of a cauldron. It's a bucket of pointlessness, fakery and pretension, but in the absence of real cofee made with real milk and real sugar...like, I suspect, real people drink!...it'll have to do.
Blood was a weirdly low 4.2 this morning. Have had to go back through the entries of this blog this afternoon collating blood-sugar data for my annual diabetic review on Monday. Am also meeting the dietician finally on Monday, so a mega-day before the inevitably hideous weigh-in on Tuesday. Oh, and d - having had her payday today - has ordered me a pair of proper arch-supporting shoes, which should be here about mid-week. I was thrilled when she told me:
"Cool - does that mean I can get back to the walking and the cycling and the...and the...y'know, stuff when they arrive???"
"No!" she said. "You've got to let that foot heal first."
I sulked, but of course she's right.
So on, to the not-bike. Tomorrow's gonna be kick-ass - me, and d, and Kevin Spacey; we're going to see the critically acclaimed Richard III at the Old Vic. Or perhaps more accurately, I'm going to see the critically-acclaimed Richard III at the Old Vic, I think d's going to see the critically-acclaimed and genuinely impressive Kevin Spacey. As luck would have it, we get to go together.
Now, who wants coffee?
Thursday 21 July 2011
Hell Week
Yes yes, I know, it's like reading the diaries of Sybil at the moment, isn't it? "I'm sad, I'm happy, I'm angry, I'm confused, I'm seven different things at once, give a damn, you buggers!!"
I'm not in Hell right now. Not really. The thing is, yesterday, I did...something...to this wretched foot of mine again. Could hardly walk by the time I got in from work - the foot was hot and swollen and shooting the kind of pain that works like toothache, just drilling weariness through my system. d went to work doing what she's extremely good at, wrapped the foot in two layers, elevated the bejeesus out of my leg and pretty much knocked me out for the night (in a loving, caring way, of course). This morning, I was in serious pain, so there was a certain amount of existential hatred coursing through my veins as I stood on the tube, walked into the office and threw some pills down my neck.
But the Hell dawned on me talking to d. Because what I've done, clearly, is irritate the crap out of my ligaments, and then fail to let them heal properly, and then irritate the crap out of them alllll over again. So what this means is that what I really need to do...is the thing I didn't do previously - let the damn things heal.
Which means no strong exercise. No long walking, none of my ten mile cycles. Not a damn thing of any consequence. And you know what that means. That means I'm not only not going to lose anything this week, there's every likelihood in the world that I'm gonna gain. Gaining more than a couple of pounds means falling back below the line of losing two stone. That's a serious symbolic setback, if not, in real terms, a terribly significant actual one.
S'gonna drive me up the wall, clearly. I'll try not to make it do the same to you...honest. The truly weird thing of course is that the best thing in the world for the old me would be a cast-iron excuse to sit on my ass for a week doing abbbbsolutely nothing. Did I mention I've changed, cos right now that sounds like a pathetic, minor incarnation of living Hell to me...
Still - let's think - more time to write, more time to write, more time to write...
Blood was a particularly interesting 4.6 this morning after no walking whatsoever.
I'm not in Hell right now. Not really. The thing is, yesterday, I did...something...to this wretched foot of mine again. Could hardly walk by the time I got in from work - the foot was hot and swollen and shooting the kind of pain that works like toothache, just drilling weariness through my system. d went to work doing what she's extremely good at, wrapped the foot in two layers, elevated the bejeesus out of my leg and pretty much knocked me out for the night (in a loving, caring way, of course). This morning, I was in serious pain, so there was a certain amount of existential hatred coursing through my veins as I stood on the tube, walked into the office and threw some pills down my neck.
But the Hell dawned on me talking to d. Because what I've done, clearly, is irritate the crap out of my ligaments, and then fail to let them heal properly, and then irritate the crap out of them alllll over again. So what this means is that what I really need to do...is the thing I didn't do previously - let the damn things heal.
Which means no strong exercise. No long walking, none of my ten mile cycles. Not a damn thing of any consequence. And you know what that means. That means I'm not only not going to lose anything this week, there's every likelihood in the world that I'm gonna gain. Gaining more than a couple of pounds means falling back below the line of losing two stone. That's a serious symbolic setback, if not, in real terms, a terribly significant actual one.
S'gonna drive me up the wall, clearly. I'll try not to make it do the same to you...honest. The truly weird thing of course is that the best thing in the world for the old me would be a cast-iron excuse to sit on my ass for a week doing abbbbsolutely nothing. Did I mention I've changed, cos right now that sounds like a pathetic, minor incarnation of living Hell to me...
Still - let's think - more time to write, more time to write, more time to write...
Blood was a particularly interesting 4.6 this morning after no walking whatsoever.
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Reasons To Be Cheerful
Well, so much for that - back on the bike last night? Notsomuch - Italian meal and buggerall in the way of exercise. Got up this morning, weighed, it was hideous as you'd expect, resolved not to let it get to me, and in fact to shed the cloak of yesterday's despondency. So, here, in the spirit of new positivity, is a list of Reasons To Be Cheerful.
Not, it should be said, a comprehensive list - those of us in the Western world have a list of Reasons longer than any of our arms. These, I think, are specific Reasons that I've inherited since I started Disappearing.
Not, it should be said, a comprehensive list - those of us in the Western world have a list of Reasons longer than any of our arms. These, I think, are specific Reasons that I've inherited since I started Disappearing.
1. I no longer appear to pee blood on a regular basis - presumably, after all the poking and prodding and spreaders and wide-bores, we might be able to conclude that basically I was just putting one shedload too many of pressure on my tubes!
2. I no longer go to bed with rampant heartburn on a regular basis.
3. Foot issues notwithstanding, walking no longer scares the bejeesus out of me. I can contemplate relatively long walks now with pleasure, rather than fear and pain and misery.
4. I no longer feel bloated almost all the time.
5. Clothes fit differently. Not perfectly by any means, but days of going clothes-shopping are an improving experience.
6. While I still can't see my feet, I can at least see the idea of my feet from here.
7. The man-breasts about which I appear to obsess, while still relatively full and pert, are emptier and droopier than they used to be. Much more of this and I might one day have smaller breasts than my wife...
8. Since giving up caffeine as part of this process, I've only had very occasional 'heart attacks.'
9. While it's true that in some directions, my food choices have narrowed as a result of this process, in other directions, it's opened me up to new experiences - salads of course being the chief among them. I hardly recognise myself. I'm sure in many ways this is a good thing...right?
10. Clearly when dispirited, I should read the introduction to my own blog - the chief Reason to be Cheerful of this process is that so far they haven't had to open me up and cut away large chunks of my stomach.
11. My blood sugar control is far better than it's ever been since my diagnosis as a diabetic. 5.3 today.
11. My blood sugar control is far better than it's ever been since my diagnosis as a diabetic. 5.3 today.
Tuesday 19 July 2011
The Great Manipulator
Had a fight with d last night. Grew up seemingly out of nowhere, and was one of our rare huffy moments. It was late, and we were going to bed. I said I was going to take some stool softeners because it was Monday. Those of you with memories stretching back a week will remember I was going to start doing that the night before a weigh-in, because the insidious whispering of weighing in "full" to speak, and then convincing myself I was doing better than I really was, was becoming a serious annoyance. d reacted to the news last night as though I were a brittle-boned pale and trembling pill-popping anorexic, claiming I was trying to "manipulate the results". Me...a journalist...manipulate information?? I don't know where she gets these ideas...
We ended up huffing onto our respective sides for about half an hour of "I'm-not-going-to-sleep-until-I-get-an-apology" sighing. In the end, we kind of found our way back together, played a very good game of chess (seriously, not a metaphor for anything, we played chess at about one in the morning. I thought I had it sewn up, but as it turned out, the only thing sewn up was the sack in which I found myself), and fell asleep more united.
This morning, just for the sheer narkiness of it, I weighed twice - pre and post, as it were. Pre-bathroom, the result was 18 stone 5.75 - up two and a half pounds on last week. Post-bathroom...
18 stone 4.75! Oh yeah, just call me the great manipulator...Machiavelli'd be dead proud, I'm sure.
So, as forecast, I've gone up - by my reckoning, by a pound and a half. This is hardly cause to rend one's garments and go wailing through the streets, but still, on top of everything this week, it seems to have dispirited me more than somewhat. Actually, it's not the pound and a half, it's more a throwaway comment I made to a Facebook friend this week that sort of skewed my self-perception. Andrew's a relatively new friend, and also, as it happens, the guy who edits my Devil's Guide entries. He posted a status this week that said he hadn't drunk alcohol for nine months.
While in no way seeking to equate the two, given that he likes a laugh, I said "Haven't had dessert for sixteen months. Or fun..."
Of course it's overblown, self-regarding and, above all its other crimes, inaccurate. I've had plenty of fun since giving up desserts and fizzy drinks. But something about the line just won't let me go. It's that sense of woe-is-me, so hard-done-by, don't-I-deserve-more-for-my-efforts self-pity that frankly makes me nauseated with myself, but behind it, I think there may be some little kernel of hard, nuggetty utterly unpleasant truth. I've said before that with the exception of the medical consequences, I was perfectly happy eating whatever I liked, when I liked, in quantities that I liked. Since I've stopped, I've been miserable for great swathes of the time, and insanely neurotic for the remainder. That, I think, is why I try and work hard for good news on a Tuesday morning - it reminds me why I'm putting myself and every poor sod around me through all this, because otherwise, between the foot pain, and the muscle spasms and the hunger and the still-fairly-noxious green embrace of salads and the dessert-sniffing, I'm not at all sure it's worth all the freakin' heartache.
Incidentally, while at the time I thought it was the most melodramatic twaddle, d's argument from last night, when viewed in the cold light of day, is frighteningly plausible. You'll have gathered enough by now to know I'm a creature of habits, which if given their head can easily become addictions. In fact, I have a nasty sense that I really rather like being addicted to things - it convinces some lame-ass part of my brain that I'm exciting, that there's something rather dangerous and self-destructive about me, when most of the time, the truth is really rather unprepossessing. So the idea of simply switching addictions, becoming addicted to the process of slimming, or the feeling of being thin, and going to extremes to achieve that, and/or maintain it, is not at all far-fetched to me. She also noted my inability so far to take particular pleasure in any of the progress that I've made, but always to be looking to the next thing, driven on like a whipped thing by my own dissatisfaction. This too would probably easily fit into a switch of addictions if I chose to abandon my last shreds of perspective, although at this stage, I think it's fair to say I'm still in the training wheels stage, and there's still so very far to go, there's also a real danger in stopping to congratulate myself - the danger of saying that I've done enough, and slipping all the way back and then beyond.
That said, on a day when I have in fact slipped back a little, I didn't exactly redouble my efforts today. In fact, I haven't walked anywhere today, I've taken buses everywhere. Did I mention the dispiriting effect of the week?
Ach, here's to getting back on the bike tonight, and back to positive thinking and positive actions tomorrow.
We ended up huffing onto our respective sides for about half an hour of "I'm-not-going-to-sleep-until-I-get-an-apology" sighing. In the end, we kind of found our way back together, played a very good game of chess (seriously, not a metaphor for anything, we played chess at about one in the morning. I thought I had it sewn up, but as it turned out, the only thing sewn up was the sack in which I found myself), and fell asleep more united.
This morning, just for the sheer narkiness of it, I weighed twice - pre and post, as it were. Pre-bathroom, the result was 18 stone 5.75 - up two and a half pounds on last week. Post-bathroom...
18 stone 4.75! Oh yeah, just call me the great manipulator...Machiavelli'd be dead proud, I'm sure.
So, as forecast, I've gone up - by my reckoning, by a pound and a half. This is hardly cause to rend one's garments and go wailing through the streets, but still, on top of everything this week, it seems to have dispirited me more than somewhat. Actually, it's not the pound and a half, it's more a throwaway comment I made to a Facebook friend this week that sort of skewed my self-perception. Andrew's a relatively new friend, and also, as it happens, the guy who edits my Devil's Guide entries. He posted a status this week that said he hadn't drunk alcohol for nine months.
While in no way seeking to equate the two, given that he likes a laugh, I said "Haven't had dessert for sixteen months. Or fun..."
Of course it's overblown, self-regarding and, above all its other crimes, inaccurate. I've had plenty of fun since giving up desserts and fizzy drinks. But something about the line just won't let me go. It's that sense of woe-is-me, so hard-done-by, don't-I-deserve-more-for-my-efforts self-pity that frankly makes me nauseated with myself, but behind it, I think there may be some little kernel of hard, nuggetty utterly unpleasant truth. I've said before that with the exception of the medical consequences, I was perfectly happy eating whatever I liked, when I liked, in quantities that I liked. Since I've stopped, I've been miserable for great swathes of the time, and insanely neurotic for the remainder. That, I think, is why I try and work hard for good news on a Tuesday morning - it reminds me why I'm putting myself and every poor sod around me through all this, because otherwise, between the foot pain, and the muscle spasms and the hunger and the still-fairly-noxious green embrace of salads and the dessert-sniffing, I'm not at all sure it's worth all the freakin' heartache.
Incidentally, while at the time I thought it was the most melodramatic twaddle, d's argument from last night, when viewed in the cold light of day, is frighteningly plausible. You'll have gathered enough by now to know I'm a creature of habits, which if given their head can easily become addictions. In fact, I have a nasty sense that I really rather like being addicted to things - it convinces some lame-ass part of my brain that I'm exciting, that there's something rather dangerous and self-destructive about me, when most of the time, the truth is really rather unprepossessing. So the idea of simply switching addictions, becoming addicted to the process of slimming, or the feeling of being thin, and going to extremes to achieve that, and/or maintain it, is not at all far-fetched to me. She also noted my inability so far to take particular pleasure in any of the progress that I've made, but always to be looking to the next thing, driven on like a whipped thing by my own dissatisfaction. This too would probably easily fit into a switch of addictions if I chose to abandon my last shreds of perspective, although at this stage, I think it's fair to say I'm still in the training wheels stage, and there's still so very far to go, there's also a real danger in stopping to congratulate myself - the danger of saying that I've done enough, and slipping all the way back and then beyond.
That said, on a day when I have in fact slipped back a little, I didn't exactly redouble my efforts today. In fact, I haven't walked anywhere today, I've taken buses everywhere. Did I mention the dispiriting effect of the week?
Ach, here's to getting back on the bike tonight, and back to positive thinking and positive actions tomorrow.
Monday 18 July 2011
The Drizzle Imp
Because of our generally opposite views of life, I defined d and I a long time ago as the Sunshine Fairy and the Drizzle Imp. She doesn't believe it rains...in Wales...because every time we go there together, it's preturnaturally warm and sunny there. Whenever I go...well, practically anywhere, it pisses down almost constantly. Hence the Sunshine Fairy and the Drizzle Imp.
I went to bed on the wrong metaphorical side of the bed last night, pure Drizzle Imp badness, and for once, it seemed to infect d overnight, so this morning, she was just about as snarly and clothes-flingy and "see ya bye" as I was. Possibly this was something to do with the fact that we didn't get to bed till nearly midnight, and we were now awake at 6.30. Anyhow, I was snarly and growly and Drizzle Impish all day long - walked four and a half miles this morning, did the day biting people's head off, and walked three miles after work...
And that's when everything changed. Because on the way home, just about as I got to Westminster Abbey, the heavens opened. And striding down Whitehall, with the rain pouring on me, I felt clean, and happy for the first time today. I started vaguely spinning, almost dancing down the street, running the rain through what's left of my hair till I got to Embankment.
When I got home, the day got even better - firstly cos I was home, and secondly, cos the Inland Revenue had been in touch, with a tax refund. Funky arch-supporting shoes, here I come.
But not before tomorrow, with its weigh-in. I know I've done this before, and this really isn't a case of expectation-management - but I'll have gone back up at least a couple of pounds on last week. And no, that's not just my Drizzle Impness either. Like I said, I'm OK with that, but hopefully, come cool shoes, I'll be able to hit it properly again.
So this is the Drizzle Imp, signing off until weigh-in.
I went to bed on the wrong metaphorical side of the bed last night, pure Drizzle Imp badness, and for once, it seemed to infect d overnight, so this morning, she was just about as snarly and clothes-flingy and "see ya bye" as I was. Possibly this was something to do with the fact that we didn't get to bed till nearly midnight, and we were now awake at 6.30. Anyhow, I was snarly and growly and Drizzle Impish all day long - walked four and a half miles this morning, did the day biting people's head off, and walked three miles after work...
And that's when everything changed. Because on the way home, just about as I got to Westminster Abbey, the heavens opened. And striding down Whitehall, with the rain pouring on me, I felt clean, and happy for the first time today. I started vaguely spinning, almost dancing down the street, running the rain through what's left of my hair till I got to Embankment.
When I got home, the day got even better - firstly cos I was home, and secondly, cos the Inland Revenue had been in touch, with a tax refund. Funky arch-supporting shoes, here I come.
But not before tomorrow, with its weigh-in. I know I've done this before, and this really isn't a case of expectation-management - but I'll have gone back up at least a couple of pounds on last week. And no, that's not just my Drizzle Impness either. Like I said, I'm OK with that, but hopefully, come cool shoes, I'll be able to hit it properly again.
So this is the Drizzle Imp, signing off until weigh-in.
Sunday 17 July 2011
Mugging Muggles For Maltesers
We went to the movies this evening, to see the final installment of the Harry Potter movies.
Now, I know, these are movies that divide the thinking populace, based on books that did the same. For the longest time, I refused to read the Potter books because having read a few pages of the first one, I could see what the writer was trying to do, and that turned me off. At d's enthusiasm for them though, I tried them again, and read them all, watching the movies as I went. I think they're hyped more than the imagination behind them is actually worth, but - and this is crucial - I do recognise there's an active imagination at work, which if you don't get carreid away with your expectations, will work its way in and charm you into giving a damn. There is also - and here I apologise for trotting out a cliche - a solid moral principle running through the series, which is pleasing to note (as is the fact that Rowling often doesn't make it too easy for her characters - sometimes, she hits them where it really hurts. Any writer who isn't afraid to do that, you have to respect, because the natural instinct is to make your characters as brilliant as you can, and give them a good time of it).
I read a quote from Stephen King a few days ago, and it really appealed. The Harry Potter books are about the importance of doing what is right, rather than what is easy. The Twilight books are about the importance of having a boyfriend.
So - as I say, we went to see the final Potter movie. Pretty faithful to the book, as many of them are, and an enjoyable climax to the series.
Interesting too from a Disappearing Man point of view.
Went in, and of course there was the option of the popcorn, the nachos, the sweets, the whole thing...I gritted my teeth and got a couple of bottles of water.
Sitting in the dark, there were a handful of kids two rows ahead. I couldn't stop a small growl coming out of me.
"Honey..." murmured d. "You cannot mug small girls for their Maltesers."
"But whyyyy?" I whined softly.
It wasn't exactly that I wanted to mug the little girl with her family size bag of Maltesers. I just think that maybe, Disappearing people should be allowed a threshold of muggery in times of severe calorific of chocolate-based stress. Y'know, like women have been known to get off murder charges if they can prove they were in the throes of harsh PMT (or PMS for my American friends). How about that? DCS - Disappearing Chocolatey Syndrome - as a get-out-of-jail free card when slimming people are feeling desperate?
On the broader scale, it was an interesting reminder of how much food is an inherent part of the cinematic experience. How much we've grown to connect eating certain types of food with enjoying a trip to the movies. Does that mean that, while Disappearing, one should steer clear of the flicks? Hell no - just be aware that you're in the lion's den of sweet and salty joyful goodness. And apparently, because of our Liberal pinko laws, you can't - yet - mug children for their chocolates. So much for taking candy from a baby? Humph.
Now, I know, these are movies that divide the thinking populace, based on books that did the same. For the longest time, I refused to read the Potter books because having read a few pages of the first one, I could see what the writer was trying to do, and that turned me off. At d's enthusiasm for them though, I tried them again, and read them all, watching the movies as I went. I think they're hyped more than the imagination behind them is actually worth, but - and this is crucial - I do recognise there's an active imagination at work, which if you don't get carreid away with your expectations, will work its way in and charm you into giving a damn. There is also - and here I apologise for trotting out a cliche - a solid moral principle running through the series, which is pleasing to note (as is the fact that Rowling often doesn't make it too easy for her characters - sometimes, she hits them where it really hurts. Any writer who isn't afraid to do that, you have to respect, because the natural instinct is to make your characters as brilliant as you can, and give them a good time of it).
I read a quote from Stephen King a few days ago, and it really appealed. The Harry Potter books are about the importance of doing what is right, rather than what is easy. The Twilight books are about the importance of having a boyfriend.
So - as I say, we went to see the final Potter movie. Pretty faithful to the book, as many of them are, and an enjoyable climax to the series.
Interesting too from a Disappearing Man point of view.
Went in, and of course there was the option of the popcorn, the nachos, the sweets, the whole thing...I gritted my teeth and got a couple of bottles of water.
Sitting in the dark, there were a handful of kids two rows ahead. I couldn't stop a small growl coming out of me.
"Honey..." murmured d. "You cannot mug small girls for their Maltesers."
"But whyyyy?" I whined softly.
It wasn't exactly that I wanted to mug the little girl with her family size bag of Maltesers. I just think that maybe, Disappearing people should be allowed a threshold of muggery in times of severe calorific of chocolate-based stress. Y'know, like women have been known to get off murder charges if they can prove they were in the throes of harsh PMT (or PMS for my American friends). How about that? DCS - Disappearing Chocolatey Syndrome - as a get-out-of-jail free card when slimming people are feeling desperate?
On the broader scale, it was an interesting reminder of how much food is an inherent part of the cinematic experience. How much we've grown to connect eating certain types of food with enjoying a trip to the movies. Does that mean that, while Disappearing, one should steer clear of the flicks? Hell no - just be aware that you're in the lion's den of sweet and salty joyful goodness. And apparently, because of our Liberal pinko laws, you can't - yet - mug children for their chocolates. So much for taking candy from a baby? Humph.
Saturday 16 July 2011
Flaming Hell
Today of course was my pal Mae's tea party. Got up early, put on our blue outfits (We were supposed to to wear something blue or yellow - the Marie Curie Cancer Care colours), then I went to pee. The ankle was twinging something rotten.
"Maybe we should go and get it checked out honey," said d. "Should have time before the party..."
Bless.
Went to our local hospital and encountered the NHS. Layer after layer of delightful free British bureaucracy, fresh from the tap. Time ticked. Then time got tired of ticking and poured. We watched a surprising number of Saturday-morning hobblers go in, get processed, move on, get processed again, move forward, get x-rayed, move on and sod finally off back into their lives. And I hobbled with them. Answered the questions, sat and waited, shuffled to another part of the hopsital, answered the questions, sat and waited, shuffled back, answered some more questions, finally got x-rayed.
Thankfully, and as I'd pretty much assumed, nothing was broken. But apparently, my ligaments were enflamed to buggery.
"You know why this has happened?" asked the doc.
"Well, I was crossing Mile End and-"
"Nono, I mean because of your weight," said the doc. "You've got to lose the weight."
Really? Well, no shit, Sherlock...
"But you're doing all this exercise and your ligaments aren't strong enough to take it," he explained.
"Ohhhkay."
"Shoes," he said. "Get better shoes. Arch support, you know. I suffer from that myself. Till then, Ibuprofen for the inflammation, and you can do the walking and the cycling - but ONLY within the limits of the pain, you understand: Don't go mad with it..."
Well, whoop-de-doo.
On the one hand, hoorah, cos that means I can get back on the bike today. On the other, bugger - special shoes, late in the monthly pay cycle. Humph. And also, humph, lost all this time in a week when I was hoping to push down into 17 stone. Did the stupid thing when I got home - did a mid-day weigh-in, which was always gonna be Hell, and I knew it. So sticking fingers in my ears right now going 'lalalalala stupid mid-day weigh-ins', and gonna get on the bike in a bit. Clearly, not gonna reach the 17 stone mark this week, and am feeling surprisingly well-balanced and mature about the whole thing - given the week, it'll be entirely understandable, not only if I don't make progress, but if I put back on some of last week's progress-weight. Xen breath of acceptance time again, I reckon.
In the meantime, am a bit miffed to have missed Mae's party. Will of course be doing my surrogate bit by donating via the Justgiving page - http://www.justgiving.com/Karen-Thomas33 - and encourage you to do the same, a) cos it's a fantastically worthy cause, and b) cos it'll stop me feeling quite so guilty that my hopalong arsery made me miss the thing.
Meant to mention - blood result yesterday morning was 4.7. Now - a little dinner, a chunk of cycling, and on with some writing for fun.
"Maybe we should go and get it checked out honey," said d. "Should have time before the party..."
Bless.
Went to our local hospital and encountered the NHS. Layer after layer of delightful free British bureaucracy, fresh from the tap. Time ticked. Then time got tired of ticking and poured. We watched a surprising number of Saturday-morning hobblers go in, get processed, move on, get processed again, move forward, get x-rayed, move on and sod finally off back into their lives. And I hobbled with them. Answered the questions, sat and waited, shuffled to another part of the hopsital, answered the questions, sat and waited, shuffled back, answered some more questions, finally got x-rayed.
Thankfully, and as I'd pretty much assumed, nothing was broken. But apparently, my ligaments were enflamed to buggery.
"You know why this has happened?" asked the doc.
"Well, I was crossing Mile End and-"
"Nono, I mean because of your weight," said the doc. "You've got to lose the weight."
Really? Well, no shit, Sherlock...
"But you're doing all this exercise and your ligaments aren't strong enough to take it," he explained.
"Ohhhkay."
"Shoes," he said. "Get better shoes. Arch support, you know. I suffer from that myself. Till then, Ibuprofen for the inflammation, and you can do the walking and the cycling - but ONLY within the limits of the pain, you understand: Don't go mad with it..."
Well, whoop-de-doo.
On the one hand, hoorah, cos that means I can get back on the bike today. On the other, bugger - special shoes, late in the monthly pay cycle. Humph. And also, humph, lost all this time in a week when I was hoping to push down into 17 stone. Did the stupid thing when I got home - did a mid-day weigh-in, which was always gonna be Hell, and I knew it. So sticking fingers in my ears right now going 'lalalalala stupid mid-day weigh-ins', and gonna get on the bike in a bit. Clearly, not gonna reach the 17 stone mark this week, and am feeling surprisingly well-balanced and mature about the whole thing - given the week, it'll be entirely understandable, not only if I don't make progress, but if I put back on some of last week's progress-weight. Xen breath of acceptance time again, I reckon.
In the meantime, am a bit miffed to have missed Mae's party. Will of course be doing my surrogate bit by donating via the Justgiving page - http://www.justgiving.com/Karen-Thomas33 - and encourage you to do the same, a) cos it's a fantastically worthy cause, and b) cos it'll stop me feeling quite so guilty that my hopalong arsery made me miss the thing.
Meant to mention - blood result yesterday morning was 4.7. Now - a little dinner, a chunk of cycling, and on with some writing for fun.
Friday 15 July 2011
The Dieter's Prayer
Dear Determination,
Which art sometimes in my brain,
Hallowed be thy aim.
My Slimdom come,
Thy will be done
On girth, this would be my Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our exercises,
And forgive us our exercises,
As we forgive those whose exercises empain us,
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from strudel,
For mine is the Slimdom,
The power and the story.
Forever, if ever
I can.
Thursday 14 July 2011
Crunch Time
Right, well first let me say:
OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow you goddamnsonofabitchinbastard.
And second let me say: It's not what you think.
It's NOT the ordinary bodyshock horror of a fat fuck waking up the day after turning over a new leaf and walking a truckload of miles (7.5 all in all yesterday), it really isn't. It is not the simple effect of walking a lot while unprepared for it - this needs to be made absolutely clear, or my new direction of walking long distances will be seen as an overenthusiastic blip, which it isn't.
What it is is that last night, in a hurry to make an appointment with the nurse to renew my Xenical prescription, and possibly moderately inspired by Mae's tale of me "sprinting" here and there, I leapt from a District Line tube at Mile End, and ran to jump on a Central Line one to get back to Stratford. And somewhere in the leaping and running and leaping again, something in my right foot went CRUNCH.
Not Kerrrr-unch, Not CRACK. This was nothing "fall down on the ground now, Pilgrim, you're done", nothing "something important has just twanged up to your knee". As pain goes, it wasn't anything serious. It was just a consistent, pressurised toothache-pain in the foot every time I took a step on it. As warnings go, it was more like "You keep this walking shit up, I'm gonna have to bitchslap ya."
Naturally, I took the opportunity last night to act like a right bloody Maharajah - bath poured for me, dinner in bed with me leg up, frozen fruit brought to me for dessert, all that malarkey. If it wasn't for the dull throb, it'd have been quite the fantasy life. This morning, I thought about walking up to Plaistow on the ankle, but it quickly disabused me of that notion.
Somewhere unobtrusive in the middle of the afternoon though, it just....disappeared. Business as usual and on we jolly well go. So I decided to try a bit of walking again. And to give it its credit, it did the job admirably. By the time I got home though it was starting to throb again, so I'm writing this, once more, from my bed with me leg up - though within ten minutes tonight it was feeling fine again. So there's now a moratorium on proper walking and cycling until at least tomorrow night when I'll see how I feel about getting back on the bike - if nothing else, I've learned from the blisterfest that a little sacrifice at the start can save you a world of frustration and disappointment later as you wait to heal.
And yes, as I sit here, typing one handed with my beardy face buried in tacos, I'm not about to lie to you - yes, the whisper-voice is running a fine old commentary at the back of my head, counting calories consumed and calories conspicuously not burned in exercise and slithering about back there doing Devil-laughs, just because it can.
The trick, I think, is not to let that drive you either a) stark raving bonkers, or b) to do something stupid and injure yourself further - because if you do that, chances are in the long run it wins. you just have to endure the crunch time and move on when able.
Blood was 5.5 this morning by the way.
Oh yeah, one final side-bar - had a lovely text last night from my mate Karen. This is not Karen Pulley, or Karen, who shall be known as Mae...this is Karen who for reasons altogether lost in the mists of time, I know as KrazyKlaws. She's been mentioned in passing before in this blog - she's my champion-slimmer friend, and actually, now I think of it, she's the Karen in my world of Karens who I've known the longest. Anyhow, she texted out of the blue to say she was loving the blog, and she was back on the weightloss train herself at the moment. Then she said something truly amazing. "You're inspiring me".
Blimey - the responsibility! I've never been an inspiration in my life before; I'm not sure I know the moves!
Still - was a lovely thing for her to say. Almost feel like I should try and be a better Disappearing Man now.
Probably won't be of course, but still...
OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow you goddamnsonofabitchinbastard.
And second let me say: It's not what you think.
It's NOT the ordinary bodyshock horror of a fat fuck waking up the day after turning over a new leaf and walking a truckload of miles (7.5 all in all yesterday), it really isn't. It is not the simple effect of walking a lot while unprepared for it - this needs to be made absolutely clear, or my new direction of walking long distances will be seen as an overenthusiastic blip, which it isn't.
What it is is that last night, in a hurry to make an appointment with the nurse to renew my Xenical prescription, and possibly moderately inspired by Mae's tale of me "sprinting" here and there, I leapt from a District Line tube at Mile End, and ran to jump on a Central Line one to get back to Stratford. And somewhere in the leaping and running and leaping again, something in my right foot went CRUNCH.
Not Kerrrr-unch, Not CRACK. This was nothing "fall down on the ground now, Pilgrim, you're done", nothing "something important has just twanged up to your knee". As pain goes, it wasn't anything serious. It was just a consistent, pressurised toothache-pain in the foot every time I took a step on it. As warnings go, it was more like "You keep this walking shit up, I'm gonna have to bitchslap ya."
Naturally, I took the opportunity last night to act like a right bloody Maharajah - bath poured for me, dinner in bed with me leg up, frozen fruit brought to me for dessert, all that malarkey. If it wasn't for the dull throb, it'd have been quite the fantasy life. This morning, I thought about walking up to Plaistow on the ankle, but it quickly disabused me of that notion.
Somewhere unobtrusive in the middle of the afternoon though, it just....disappeared. Business as usual and on we jolly well go. So I decided to try a bit of walking again. And to give it its credit, it did the job admirably. By the time I got home though it was starting to throb again, so I'm writing this, once more, from my bed with me leg up - though within ten minutes tonight it was feeling fine again. So there's now a moratorium on proper walking and cycling until at least tomorrow night when I'll see how I feel about getting back on the bike - if nothing else, I've learned from the blisterfest that a little sacrifice at the start can save you a world of frustration and disappointment later as you wait to heal.
And yes, as I sit here, typing one handed with my beardy face buried in tacos, I'm not about to lie to you - yes, the whisper-voice is running a fine old commentary at the back of my head, counting calories consumed and calories conspicuously not burned in exercise and slithering about back there doing Devil-laughs, just because it can.
The trick, I think, is not to let that drive you either a) stark raving bonkers, or b) to do something stupid and injure yourself further - because if you do that, chances are in the long run it wins. you just have to endure the crunch time and move on when able.
Blood was 5.5 this morning by the way.
Oh yeah, one final side-bar - had a lovely text last night from my mate Karen. This is not Karen Pulley, or Karen, who shall be known as Mae...this is Karen who for reasons altogether lost in the mists of time, I know as KrazyKlaws. She's been mentioned in passing before in this blog - she's my champion-slimmer friend, and actually, now I think of it, she's the Karen in my world of Karens who I've known the longest. Anyhow, she texted out of the blue to say she was loving the blog, and she was back on the weightloss train herself at the moment. Then she said something truly amazing. "You're inspiring me".
Blimey - the responsibility! I've never been an inspiration in my life before; I'm not sure I know the moves!
Still - was a lovely thing for her to say. Almost feel like I should try and be a better Disappearing Man now.
Probably won't be of course, but still...
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Walking The Line
Discovered a new website last night, called Walkit.com. Essentially, it provides you with waling maps and instructions from any address in London to any other address in London, along with distances, durations (for three speed levels), and the corresponding calories burned.
Me liiiiiike.
Truth be told, my normal walks of 'up to the local tube stop,' 'up the Kensington High Street,' and 'from Kensington to Marble Arch, through the park,' have been becoming a bit dull, and after nearly four and a half months and almost two and a half stone lost, I'm pretty much itching to stretch myself a bit, get back (if you'll excuse the appalling upcoming reference) into my stride, and really feel like I've walked somewhere.
So this morning I set out at about 6.40AM, with the intention of maybe walking from our house in Stratford to Mile End tube station, and picking up the tube from there into the office. it was easier, and more fun than I'd expected, and I still had a lot of time to spare, so I pushed on - past Stepney Green, to Whitechapel. At Whitechapel, I knew, I was sort of reaching the point in time where I should get on the tube. But then I saw the Gherkin and it called to me...
The Gherkin (or, being married to an American, 'The Pickle' as I now instinctively think of it), is a famous London landmark. It looks...well, it looks like many things, probably the safest of which to envisage is a Gherkin. Alternatively, it looks like a bejewelled spaceship from a 50s B-movie or adventure comic, or a kind of multi-coloured glass dildo. I'm assuming The Dildo would never have caught on, and so it's known more or less universally as The Gherkin (or the Pickle in some of the more discerning households). The point about the Pickle is that it's more or less associated with the area around Liverpool Street Station. I shouldn't really have pushed on to try and reach it, but you know how it is with new projects, you pretty much want them to start with a bang, so on I went. Except that the area around Liverpool Street is really rather complex at the moments, with Olympic roadworks and a series of rabbit-warren subways. Oh, and it should probably be remembered that I have the navigational instincts of a corpse. So I sort of lost track of both The Pickle and Liverpool Street. But never fear - whenever you lose one tube station, there'll be another one along in a minute. There was. It was Bank station.
Which is where things started to go seriously wrong.
I've always said I love the tube, and even that I love rush-hour. What was made apparent to me this morning is that I've always loved these things because I always usually get a seat by about Mile End. Bank station, if I can use a little vernacular here, takes the great big hairy-arsed, King Kong-sized monkey piss. It has a staircase of about 128 steps that you have to go down, followed by a bunch of Doctor Who-style corridors, followed by an upward staircase of about half the length of the downward one, and then you sit and wait forever, for a Central Line tube to breathe out some people, and suck you in on its in-breath. Personally, I waited 20 minutes, then started making use of my size and my elbows. got to work just about on time - though not before buying a small tub of Sudocreme for the office to smear into my feet when I got there - not buggering about with blisters again for weeks on end! What became clear was in the time it took me to force my way onto a train this morning, I could have walked on to St Pauls, by which point the tube was far more agreeable and empty. So - that's a plan for the future - though not tomorrow, as I have a big do on at work and therefore a) must be absolutely on time, and b) must not arrive looking like a bedraggled sweaty rat...
Hmm...well maybe if I only went as far as Whitechapel tomorrow...
Anyhow, the point of this is a) I've just looked it up and apparently, I walked 5.1 miles (or 8.2 km in the new money) this morning, am a medium-speed walker (with fairly heavy backpack), and burned around 472 calories in the doing of it. This is fasssscinating - takes me ten miles of static cycling at level 8 to burn 500 calories. Granted, it only takes me just under an hour on the bike, whereas it took me about 1 hour 40 to walk it. But of the two, the walk was far more enjoyable - and I don't intend to stop doing the cycling just because I'm doing the walking. So I think I've added a new dimension to my regime, and a really thoroughly fun one too. Must goop the feet though. Must allllways goop the feet.
In other news, had a call from my friend Mae last night. Bit annoyed all in all - she went to the doc to find out about some blood test results for her arthritis, only to be told "Oh you're borderline diabetic, have fun, b-bye..."
The thing that most annoyed her, I think, is that the blood was the same as it had been several times before, when she'd been judged just fine, and now she's being judged as borderline diabetic. Was able to relate to that - a while ago, I went to my doc and they said my blood sugar had come seriously down, to the point where, if I'd presented the year before, they'd have said I wasn't even diabetic....but the medical profession had reassessed diabetes since then, and made the diagnostic level more strict, so I still was, nehh! Bastards!
I think another element of her irritation was that she's holding a Tea Party on Saturday (to which d and I are going), in aid of Macmillan Cancer Care, and now, she'll be in the Miserable Foodie Corner (previous occupants - me), staring mournfully as people eat cake and Tiramisu and all the other Good Things In Life. Bit of a sugarholic, our Mae, so this will, in no uncertain terms, add an extra dimension of ass-suckery to a life already pretty well-stacked with ass-sucking.
So...erm...in case you missed it, that sucked.
In other news (ie news that's not all about me, me, me!), d had a CT scan this morning. Of her head.
Wish I could have been there, to be honest, but this close to the big work do tomorrow, they're a bit frowny about things like that. Apparently, she was having her head examined because pretty much the whole inside of her face is aflame with infection - ear infections, sinus infections, tooth infections - they booked her in for a retinal screening yesterday, but hopefully we won't find out her eyeballs are infected! Anyhow, after some long years of bitching to NHS doctors that no, really, it wasn't just a cold, the last time she went to see them, they referred her to a specialist, who took one look inside her lugholes and went "Holy Christ woman, you're infected to buggery!" - hence today's scan. Results in about a fortnight, assuming you believe anything the NHS tells you any more...
Back to me, me, me - forgot to record this a couple of days ago - Monday's blood was 5.4, and this morning's was 5.7 - after my 5 mile walk, which means it was probably Too Bloody High beforehand. Need to keep recording these, as on the 25th, I have my annual diabetic review AND a dietician's appointment, and they're gonna want to know these kinds of scintillating details. Oh, and I just found a picture of myself online, from February this year - just before I started this experiment. Erm...wow. I'm still no supermodel, but damn, I can see what people men when they say I've changed since starting this thing. Which takes me briefly back to Mae - I went to interview her for a feature in my magazine last week. Last night, she told me something that made me happy...
Being a journo, I bought her breakfast in a pub before we started on all the interview stuff. It was, I think, the first time we'd actually seen each other since I'd started this experiment. I took her order, and went to the bar with it. Then I realised I didn't have the table number, so I bounded back to get it, and dashed back up to the bar. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but last night she told me: "I watched you do that, and you sprinted back to the bar. I watched that, and I had to smile, cos I was thinking 'Well, no way would you have done that a few months ago..."
She's right actually. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have voluntarily gotten out of the house at 6.40 in the morning and walked five miles before going to work either. Seems I'm not just Disappearing after all.
I'm Changing...
Me liiiiiike.
Truth be told, my normal walks of 'up to the local tube stop,' 'up the Kensington High Street,' and 'from Kensington to Marble Arch, through the park,' have been becoming a bit dull, and after nearly four and a half months and almost two and a half stone lost, I'm pretty much itching to stretch myself a bit, get back (if you'll excuse the appalling upcoming reference) into my stride, and really feel like I've walked somewhere.
So this morning I set out at about 6.40AM, with the intention of maybe walking from our house in Stratford to Mile End tube station, and picking up the tube from there into the office. it was easier, and more fun than I'd expected, and I still had a lot of time to spare, so I pushed on - past Stepney Green, to Whitechapel. At Whitechapel, I knew, I was sort of reaching the point in time where I should get on the tube. But then I saw the Gherkin and it called to me...
The Gherkin (or, being married to an American, 'The Pickle' as I now instinctively think of it), is a famous London landmark. It looks...well, it looks like many things, probably the safest of which to envisage is a Gherkin. Alternatively, it looks like a bejewelled spaceship from a 50s B-movie or adventure comic, or a kind of multi-coloured glass dildo. I'm assuming The Dildo would never have caught on, and so it's known more or less universally as The Gherkin (or the Pickle in some of the more discerning households). The point about the Pickle is that it's more or less associated with the area around Liverpool Street Station. I shouldn't really have pushed on to try and reach it, but you know how it is with new projects, you pretty much want them to start with a bang, so on I went. Except that the area around Liverpool Street is really rather complex at the moments, with Olympic roadworks and a series of rabbit-warren subways. Oh, and it should probably be remembered that I have the navigational instincts of a corpse. So I sort of lost track of both The Pickle and Liverpool Street. But never fear - whenever you lose one tube station, there'll be another one along in a minute. There was. It was Bank station.
Which is where things started to go seriously wrong.
I've always said I love the tube, and even that I love rush-hour. What was made apparent to me this morning is that I've always loved these things because I always usually get a seat by about Mile End. Bank station, if I can use a little vernacular here, takes the great big hairy-arsed, King Kong-sized monkey piss. It has a staircase of about 128 steps that you have to go down, followed by a bunch of Doctor Who-style corridors, followed by an upward staircase of about half the length of the downward one, and then you sit and wait forever, for a Central Line tube to breathe out some people, and suck you in on its in-breath. Personally, I waited 20 minutes, then started making use of my size and my elbows. got to work just about on time - though not before buying a small tub of Sudocreme for the office to smear into my feet when I got there - not buggering about with blisters again for weeks on end! What became clear was in the time it took me to force my way onto a train this morning, I could have walked on to St Pauls, by which point the tube was far more agreeable and empty. So - that's a plan for the future - though not tomorrow, as I have a big do on at work and therefore a) must be absolutely on time, and b) must not arrive looking like a bedraggled sweaty rat...
Hmm...well maybe if I only went as far as Whitechapel tomorrow...
Anyhow, the point of this is a) I've just looked it up and apparently, I walked 5.1 miles (or 8.2 km in the new money) this morning, am a medium-speed walker (with fairly heavy backpack), and burned around 472 calories in the doing of it. This is fasssscinating - takes me ten miles of static cycling at level 8 to burn 500 calories. Granted, it only takes me just under an hour on the bike, whereas it took me about 1 hour 40 to walk it. But of the two, the walk was far more enjoyable - and I don't intend to stop doing the cycling just because I'm doing the walking. So I think I've added a new dimension to my regime, and a really thoroughly fun one too. Must goop the feet though. Must allllways goop the feet.
In other news, had a call from my friend Mae last night. Bit annoyed all in all - she went to the doc to find out about some blood test results for her arthritis, only to be told "Oh you're borderline diabetic, have fun, b-bye..."
The thing that most annoyed her, I think, is that the blood was the same as it had been several times before, when she'd been judged just fine, and now she's being judged as borderline diabetic. Was able to relate to that - a while ago, I went to my doc and they said my blood sugar had come seriously down, to the point where, if I'd presented the year before, they'd have said I wasn't even diabetic....but the medical profession had reassessed diabetes since then, and made the diagnostic level more strict, so I still was, nehh! Bastards!
I think another element of her irritation was that she's holding a Tea Party on Saturday (to which d and I are going), in aid of Macmillan Cancer Care, and now, she'll be in the Miserable Foodie Corner (previous occupants - me), staring mournfully as people eat cake and Tiramisu and all the other Good Things In Life. Bit of a sugarholic, our Mae, so this will, in no uncertain terms, add an extra dimension of ass-suckery to a life already pretty well-stacked with ass-sucking.
So...erm...in case you missed it, that sucked.
In other news (ie news that's not all about me, me, me!), d had a CT scan this morning. Of her head.
Wish I could have been there, to be honest, but this close to the big work do tomorrow, they're a bit frowny about things like that. Apparently, she was having her head examined because pretty much the whole inside of her face is aflame with infection - ear infections, sinus infections, tooth infections - they booked her in for a retinal screening yesterday, but hopefully we won't find out her eyeballs are infected! Anyhow, after some long years of bitching to NHS doctors that no, really, it wasn't just a cold, the last time she went to see them, they referred her to a specialist, who took one look inside her lugholes and went "Holy Christ woman, you're infected to buggery!" - hence today's scan. Results in about a fortnight, assuming you believe anything the NHS tells you any more...
Back to me, me, me - forgot to record this a couple of days ago - Monday's blood was 5.4, and this morning's was 5.7 - after my 5 mile walk, which means it was probably Too Bloody High beforehand. Need to keep recording these, as on the 25th, I have my annual diabetic review AND a dietician's appointment, and they're gonna want to know these kinds of scintillating details. Oh, and I just found a picture of myself online, from February this year - just before I started this experiment. Erm...wow. I'm still no supermodel, but damn, I can see what people men when they say I've changed since starting this thing. Which takes me briefly back to Mae - I went to interview her for a feature in my magazine last week. Last night, she told me something that made me happy...
Being a journo, I bought her breakfast in a pub before we started on all the interview stuff. It was, I think, the first time we'd actually seen each other since I'd started this experiment. I took her order, and went to the bar with it. Then I realised I didn't have the table number, so I bounded back to get it, and dashed back up to the bar. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but last night she told me: "I watched you do that, and you sprinted back to the bar. I watched that, and I had to smile, cos I was thinking 'Well, no way would you have done that a few months ago..."
She's right actually. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have voluntarily gotten out of the house at 6.40 in the morning and walked five miles before going to work either. Seems I'm not just Disappearing after all.
I'm Changing...
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Softly, Softly
Yellow jersey be buggered, I was knackered so I went straight to bed.
Yes, it's Tuesday, so I suppose you'll be wanting weekly weigh-in figures, won't you? Well...y'know last week I said I'd quite like to bitchslap the two stone mark out of the way and head straight to 18 stone 4, which was really the quarter-mark of this whole mad project?
Well, excuse me a little smug, sluglike smirk if I say: Been there, done that, moving on...
Weigh-in this morning reads:
Of course, yesterday's Tour De living Room probably helped significantly here, but I should also, in the interests of unnecessarily unpleasant full disclosure, cite an extra bit of help in recording this result. My resistance to drug-taking in the quest for weightloss has slipped another notch - last night I took some...well, there's no easy way to say this, no matter how soft-focus their advertising is...they're stool-softeners, plain and simple. Not laxatives, you understand - that's a whole other level of dementia to which I might only sink if Composto the salad-monster returns from the dead for another encounter. These are simply designed to allow me to make progress before I leave the house on a Tuesday morning, and thus record a more accurate weigh-in, because there's almost nothing worse than that whispering voice in the back of your head after you've weighed in...erm..."full" as it were, going "Yeah, but you know you're probably lighter than that really, aren't you, I mean, probably quite a lot lighter really, given everything, so I wouldn't worry if I were you, have a cake..." - that final little twist of temptation coming, as all the best temptations do, on the back of a mini-wave of self-congratulation. So I've decided to knock that voice on the head by the rigorous, occasional use of science...which, yes, I'm fully aware, is a fantastically high-falutin' way to describe the chemical equivalent of taking a stick-blender to one's rectum...
Ahem...
So that's the disclosure section over with. Time to do yet another little mini-wave - we're a quarter of the way through this thing! In fact, we're technically more than a quarter of the way through, because the original intention was to lose two pounds per week (on average), every week for a year - making 104 pounds in total. That wouldn't have actually taken me to my healthy weight. To reach my healthy weight, I'd have to lose 126 pounds - and it's that second, significantly larger figure that we're now slightly more than a quarter of the way to achieving. On the original 104 pounds target, we're actually slightly more than a third of the way there - which is pretty cool when you consider we're just two weeks beyond a third of the way through the year of the experiment's proposed duration. In fact, for the joyful number-crunchers out there, there have now been 19 weigh-ins since the first one (which doesn't count as a weight-loss week). Two pounds per week consistently would have resulted in 38 pounds by this point. So 32 pounds actually lost puts me just three weeks behind the original schedule, which, given the ups and downs of the year so far, I'm relatively happy with.
Who knows? If I do another Tour De Living Room kind of week, by this time next week, I could have another stone-number to celebrate. At which point, things start getting really freaky, because as long as I've known d, I've never been as low as 17 stone something - I was over 18 when we first met. So like I say, freaky, but fun, times ahead. But for now - awoohoo!
Yes, it's Tuesday, so I suppose you'll be wanting weekly weigh-in figures, won't you? Well...y'know last week I said I'd quite like to bitchslap the two stone mark out of the way and head straight to 18 stone 4, which was really the quarter-mark of this whole mad project?
Well, excuse me a little smug, sluglike smirk if I say: Been there, done that, moving on...
Weigh-in this morning reads:
18 stone 3.25 pounds.
That means, for the Americans here, I've now lost 32 and a quarter pounds, and for the Metrically-inclined, that's 14.7 kg.
Ahem...
So that's the disclosure section over with. Time to do yet another little mini-wave - we're a quarter of the way through this thing! In fact, we're technically more than a quarter of the way through, because the original intention was to lose two pounds per week (on average), every week for a year - making 104 pounds in total. That wouldn't have actually taken me to my healthy weight. To reach my healthy weight, I'd have to lose 126 pounds - and it's that second, significantly larger figure that we're now slightly more than a quarter of the way to achieving. On the original 104 pounds target, we're actually slightly more than a third of the way there - which is pretty cool when you consider we're just two weeks beyond a third of the way through the year of the experiment's proposed duration. In fact, for the joyful number-crunchers out there, there have now been 19 weigh-ins since the first one (which doesn't count as a weight-loss week). Two pounds per week consistently would have resulted in 38 pounds by this point. So 32 pounds actually lost puts me just three weeks behind the original schedule, which, given the ups and downs of the year so far, I'm relatively happy with.
Who knows? If I do another Tour De Living Room kind of week, by this time next week, I could have another stone-number to celebrate. At which point, things start getting really freaky, because as long as I've known d, I've never been as low as 17 stone something - I was over 18 when we first met. So like I say, freaky, but fun, times ahead. But for now - awoohoo!
Monday 11 July 2011
Tour De Living Room
I'm sitting here watching the Tour De France...for the first time in my life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not remotely interested in the Tour De France; it strikes me that, bar the scenery, they're all pretty much doing what I do right here - they're pedalling stupidly to not particularly get anywhere (I know they actually get somewhere, but it's a race, it's not as if they couldn't get where they're going much faster in a moderately priced car). If I'm honest, I'm only watching it now because it's too much like hard work to get off my ass, take two steps, pick up the remote control and press a button. Hey, it's still a big ass, it takes some shifting, alright?
There's very little to tell you about today - It was another day at home, proofreading, so pretty much spent it laying around in my jim-jams staring at scientific formulae and wondering a) if they mean anything in the real world, and b) who it is that's got a life sadder than me, so they come up with this shit, rather than just having to read it. But on the upside, I did manage to get two stints on the bike today - err, yes, that's the "god-rotted evil-bastard bike" of a couple of nights ago. d mentioned this to me shortly after she read that entry - "this'd be the bike you whined and bitched about endlessly when it stopped working, cos it was 'crucial to your weightloss plan'?" she asked.
"Errr...yeah," was all I could manage. She's right of course - I'm glad it's here, and clearly it's doing me good, it's just that occasionally, it squats there like a big malevolent raven going "Rawk!!!" pitched somewhere between Edgar Allan Poe and Damien - Omen II, staring at me. That "Rawk!!!" translates as "Yeah, I'm still here ya fat bastard, and you know...you just know that if you ignore me, I'll come in the night while you're snoring your fool head off and stick big wobbly globules of fat back on your belly. So...talk to me...!"
So today, I shut the freaking bike-bird up with twenty miles at level eight, doing my own Tour De Living Room. Except even as I'm sitting here, I can hear a muffled squawk behind me, saying "You're not hurting yet, are you, ya big wobbly bastard, and it's Tuesday tomorrow...ya wanna dance with the Devil? Or you wanna dance with meeeee???"
We'll see, frankly. d, bless her, wants to kick my ass at a game or two tonight, and I want to let her try. We'll see whether the Devil-BirdBike wins out later on, or whether I come dancing, naked and wobbly into the living room, flipping it the double bird before I drag my ass off to snore. I will say, twenty miles at level eight burns up a lot of exercise-guilt. Still...thirty miles...that really would feel like a Yellow Jersey moment...
Ach, quit your squawking, I said we'd see...
Whaddaya mean, "Nevermore!"??
There's very little to tell you about today - It was another day at home, proofreading, so pretty much spent it laying around in my jim-jams staring at scientific formulae and wondering a) if they mean anything in the real world, and b) who it is that's got a life sadder than me, so they come up with this shit, rather than just having to read it. But on the upside, I did manage to get two stints on the bike today - err, yes, that's the "god-rotted evil-bastard bike" of a couple of nights ago. d mentioned this to me shortly after she read that entry - "this'd be the bike you whined and bitched about endlessly when it stopped working, cos it was 'crucial to your weightloss plan'?" she asked.
"Errr...yeah," was all I could manage. She's right of course - I'm glad it's here, and clearly it's doing me good, it's just that occasionally, it squats there like a big malevolent raven going "Rawk!!!" pitched somewhere between Edgar Allan Poe and Damien - Omen II, staring at me. That "Rawk!!!" translates as "Yeah, I'm still here ya fat bastard, and you know...you just know that if you ignore me, I'll come in the night while you're snoring your fool head off and stick big wobbly globules of fat back on your belly. So...talk to me...!"
So today, I shut the freaking bike-bird up with twenty miles at level eight, doing my own Tour De Living Room. Except even as I'm sitting here, I can hear a muffled squawk behind me, saying "You're not hurting yet, are you, ya big wobbly bastard, and it's Tuesday tomorrow...ya wanna dance with the Devil? Or you wanna dance with meeeee???"
We'll see, frankly. d, bless her, wants to kick my ass at a game or two tonight, and I want to let her try. We'll see whether the Devil-BirdBike wins out later on, or whether I come dancing, naked and wobbly into the living room, flipping it the double bird before I drag my ass off to snore. I will say, twenty miles at level eight burns up a lot of exercise-guilt. Still...thirty miles...that really would feel like a Yellow Jersey moment...
Ach, quit your squawking, I said we'd see...
Whaddaya mean, "Nevermore!"??
Sunday 10 July 2011
Bits And Pieces
It occurs to me that, for a blog that promised to tell you how things go on this experiment, I'm falling down a little when i just say "got back on the bike". I should probably tell you how long I'm doing, and what resistance level, and all that guff. Would you really be interested in things like that though? Does it materially improve your day to know that from starting, all that time ago, doing five miles at resistance level 0, I'm not doing at least ten miles at resistance level 8? And if it does, can I just ask - how freakin' sad are you?? Almost as sad as sweaty-boy here, I'd say.
So I don't know, whether I should actually be telling you this stuff. Anyhow, that's where we're at.
Today's been a good day, but in purely Disappearing terms, I'm feeling heavy and slow and full.
Saw an advert for a new sitcom with Mark Addy in a couple of days ago. d laughed. "Y'know, I love that guy," she said. "Pretty much the whole reason to watch 'The Full Monty' was Mark Addy..."
She saw me thinking.
"No, you don't have to go out into the shed and wrap yourself in Saran-wrap and eat Snickers bars!"
I thought a little more.
"Honey, if I thought I could eat a guilt-free Snickers bar, I'd walk around all damn day wrapped in the stuff!"
Apparently, it doesn't work that way. So thanks for nothing, Mark! You lied to me, dammit...
"Y'know I love you, but you're probably the worst person to be married to while doing this..." I mentioned briefly to d as I wandered through her kitchen. Yep, she's baking again. Today, it was a coffee pecan cake, which apparently, she's sort of forcing on a colleague - they didn't ask for this, she just loves baking, so she volunteered to make one. It shook its pecans at me seductively as I wandered through the room, and I sniffed it lasciviously.
"I could stop for a while," she offered. But a) I wouldn't impinge on her passion that way, and b) as I mentioned, she's giving me a glimpse of a life that one day, I hope to be able to safely resume.
Till then, if anyone wants me, I'll be out back, kicking the neighbour's cat.
Sigh...
Or alternatively, I'll be on the god-rotted, evil-bastard bike.
So I don't know, whether I should actually be telling you this stuff. Anyhow, that's where we're at.
Today's been a good day, but in purely Disappearing terms, I'm feeling heavy and slow and full.
Saw an advert for a new sitcom with Mark Addy in a couple of days ago. d laughed. "Y'know, I love that guy," she said. "Pretty much the whole reason to watch 'The Full Monty' was Mark Addy..."
She saw me thinking.
"No, you don't have to go out into the shed and wrap yourself in Saran-wrap and eat Snickers bars!"
I thought a little more.
"Honey, if I thought I could eat a guilt-free Snickers bar, I'd walk around all damn day wrapped in the stuff!"
Apparently, it doesn't work that way. So thanks for nothing, Mark! You lied to me, dammit...
"Y'know I love you, but you're probably the worst person to be married to while doing this..." I mentioned briefly to d as I wandered through her kitchen. Yep, she's baking again. Today, it was a coffee pecan cake, which apparently, she's sort of forcing on a colleague - they didn't ask for this, she just loves baking, so she volunteered to make one. It shook its pecans at me seductively as I wandered through the room, and I sniffed it lasciviously.
"I could stop for a while," she offered. But a) I wouldn't impinge on her passion that way, and b) as I mentioned, she's giving me a glimpse of a life that one day, I hope to be able to safely resume.
Till then, if anyone wants me, I'll be out back, kicking the neighbour's cat.
Sigh...
Or alternatively, I'll be on the god-rotted, evil-bastard bike.
Saturday 9 July 2011
Franklin My Dear, I Just Gave A Damn
Today has been one of those weird days where nothing was as it seems.
I woke up and weighed and pushed myself into an anorexic-teenager funk, for the simple reason that, weighing every day as I promised myself and you long ago I wouldn't do, I took notice of the daily fluctuations that occur - put simply, a few days ago, I was down some impressive number of pounds, whereas this morning, following a day at home proofreading, I was not only not down those few pounds, I was up on Tuesday's result, and so felt myself drawn into the funk.This is what I believe they call a "First World Problem" of the highest order - which is to say a self-revolving non-problem when looked at with even the slightest shred of rationalism.
The day degenerated into some sort of geographical farce as soon as we left the house. We were scheduled to meet my friend Sian and her two daughters, who were on a day trip to London, for dinner, or lunch, or somesuch thing. Have you met my friend Sian yet? She's insane, bless her. She's the kind of person that runs ultra-marathons and climbs mountains and the like "because they're there." I keep telling her that "because they're there" is not so much a reason to climb mountains as a reason to go around them, but she refuses to see the logic somehow. Stubborn, I call it.
Anyhow, in particular, we were hoping to celebrate with her eldest daughter Brianna, who's having quite a week - she won a substantial first prize in an essay competition earlier this week, and was the reason they were up in London, as she was also down to the top 60 comptitors (from some 14000) in a junior beauty competition. B, as she's almost universally known (I know, I know, you were just getting used to me being married to d, now there's a B in the mix too - it's starting to sound like a Bond movie, isn't it?) and her sister Epona, or Po, are our Godchildren, and we love them both dearly.
Errr....yes, that's right, our Godchildren. Followers of the blog will be frowning at that, going "but you're an atheist, aren't you?" Yes yes, but if I tell you that a) we were asked, and b) I did ask their mother, quite a number of times, whether there'd be any of that "renouncing of the Devil and all his works" malarkey, and she breezily told me on each and every occasion "Ohhhhhh noooo, it's not that kind of church..."
It was, of course. After the ceremony, their mother just grinned at me cheekily. "Oops," she said.
So anyhow, we were keen to see the girls, and were scheduled to meet them in Trafalgar Square "any time after one" for a meal in one of our favourite, most reliable spots - The Texas Embassy. Once we got to the Square, we got a message saying "Any time after three - girls wanted to see Camden." Stuck in Trafalgar Square for a couple of hours we looked sideways into Craven Street...and grinned.
36 Craven Street is what has become known as "The Benjamin Franklin House." We first heard about it some years ago, when d worked with a volunteer at the place, and have meant to hunt it down ever since, but have never combined the will with the geographical nous, and so have never actually made it there until today.
What to say...? "Just go" springs to mind.
Benjamin Franklin has long been a source of inspiration to us both (indeed, if we ever had had a son, we had already determined he would be named Benjamin Thomas, after Franklin and Jefferson). The ultimate American polymath, Franklin did almost everything you could imagine - he was a businessman, an author, a civic developer, a botanist, a philosopher, a scientist, a humorist, a thinker, a politician, a diplomat and of course, an eminence grise among that amazing confederacy of genius that was the Founding Fathers of the United States. Look into almost any corner of human endeavour, and you'll find Franklin (most often quietly) beavering away for the betterment of himself and the rest of Mankind. We knew all that before we walked in the door of what had been his London home, and effectively the very first American Embassy in London for sixteen years, today.
I hadn't known about his work pioneering understanding of the Gulf Stream, or the unofficial anatomy school run on the site by his fellow occupant Dr Hewson, until today though. More moving than either of these two new elements though, the presentation at the Franklin House is simple and effective, bringing the man to life with audio recordings, moving pictures and live performance. And somehow better even that that is just being in the house, seeing the worn steps of the staircase he claimed to use for his daily exercise, being in the room he used as a laboratory, touching the walls of his parlour and just daring, so many years after his death, to be in the space where he used to live. (Note for my American friends - none of Franklin's American residences exist any longer - this would be the difference between building in wood and building in stone...just saying). It's easy to over-sentimentalise these places, but somehow, the Franklin House avoids this by a simplicity of which it's probable the man himself would have heartily approved. At the end, you can sign the guest-book and fill in comment cards, on which there was a deceptively tricky question.
"Who would you say is the modern-day Benjamin Franklin?"
Apparently, the closest anyone has come to answering this adequately in recent years has been "Dumbledore", and this is of course made rather dubious by the latter's faintly depressing fictional status. Franklin - and indeed the other polymaths of a breathtaking age of energy and enlightment - belongs to a breed we have forgotten the enthusiasm to emulate.
Emerging from the Franklin House, we got a text to say Sian and the girls had moved on to the British Museum. We schlepped up there, but I think somewhere in the journey, they had turned off their cellphones, so we stayed there a while, looking for them, trying to contact them...and then gave up and went for dinner (Gourmet burgers, since you ask, and since this is technically a diet-blog). Came home saddened to have missed the girls, but with brains buzzing with Franklin and his life story. And - and for this I make no apologies - immediately went to bed for a nap, rather than jumping on the bike as had been my plan. Some days, you simply have to play the cards your body deals you, and today was a "go to bed" day, rahter than a "bike yourself stupid" day. Will try and buck the trend towards wailing teenage introspection when the comparative lack of exercise makes itself felt on Tuesday. Indeed, will try to emulate Doctor Franklin's usual sanguinity.
Hey, I said I'll try, alright?!
I woke up and weighed and pushed myself into an anorexic-teenager funk, for the simple reason that, weighing every day as I promised myself and you long ago I wouldn't do, I took notice of the daily fluctuations that occur - put simply, a few days ago, I was down some impressive number of pounds, whereas this morning, following a day at home proofreading, I was not only not down those few pounds, I was up on Tuesday's result, and so felt myself drawn into the funk.This is what I believe they call a "First World Problem" of the highest order - which is to say a self-revolving non-problem when looked at with even the slightest shred of rationalism.
The day degenerated into some sort of geographical farce as soon as we left the house. We were scheduled to meet my friend Sian and her two daughters, who were on a day trip to London, for dinner, or lunch, or somesuch thing. Have you met my friend Sian yet? She's insane, bless her. She's the kind of person that runs ultra-marathons and climbs mountains and the like "because they're there." I keep telling her that "because they're there" is not so much a reason to climb mountains as a reason to go around them, but she refuses to see the logic somehow. Stubborn, I call it.
Anyhow, in particular, we were hoping to celebrate with her eldest daughter Brianna, who's having quite a week - she won a substantial first prize in an essay competition earlier this week, and was the reason they were up in London, as she was also down to the top 60 comptitors (from some 14000) in a junior beauty competition. B, as she's almost universally known (I know, I know, you were just getting used to me being married to d, now there's a B in the mix too - it's starting to sound like a Bond movie, isn't it?) and her sister Epona, or Po, are our Godchildren, and we love them both dearly.
Errr....yes, that's right, our Godchildren. Followers of the blog will be frowning at that, going "but you're an atheist, aren't you?" Yes yes, but if I tell you that a) we were asked, and b) I did ask their mother, quite a number of times, whether there'd be any of that "renouncing of the Devil and all his works" malarkey, and she breezily told me on each and every occasion "Ohhhhhh noooo, it's not that kind of church..."
It was, of course. After the ceremony, their mother just grinned at me cheekily. "Oops," she said.
So anyhow, we were keen to see the girls, and were scheduled to meet them in Trafalgar Square "any time after one" for a meal in one of our favourite, most reliable spots - The Texas Embassy. Once we got to the Square, we got a message saying "Any time after three - girls wanted to see Camden." Stuck in Trafalgar Square for a couple of hours we looked sideways into Craven Street...and grinned.
36 Craven Street is what has become known as "The Benjamin Franklin House." We first heard about it some years ago, when d worked with a volunteer at the place, and have meant to hunt it down ever since, but have never combined the will with the geographical nous, and so have never actually made it there until today.
What to say...? "Just go" springs to mind.
Benjamin Franklin has long been a source of inspiration to us both (indeed, if we ever had had a son, we had already determined he would be named Benjamin Thomas, after Franklin and Jefferson). The ultimate American polymath, Franklin did almost everything you could imagine - he was a businessman, an author, a civic developer, a botanist, a philosopher, a scientist, a humorist, a thinker, a politician, a diplomat and of course, an eminence grise among that amazing confederacy of genius that was the Founding Fathers of the United States. Look into almost any corner of human endeavour, and you'll find Franklin (most often quietly) beavering away for the betterment of himself and the rest of Mankind. We knew all that before we walked in the door of what had been his London home, and effectively the very first American Embassy in London for sixteen years, today.
I hadn't known about his work pioneering understanding of the Gulf Stream, or the unofficial anatomy school run on the site by his fellow occupant Dr Hewson, until today though. More moving than either of these two new elements though, the presentation at the Franklin House is simple and effective, bringing the man to life with audio recordings, moving pictures and live performance. And somehow better even that that is just being in the house, seeing the worn steps of the staircase he claimed to use for his daily exercise, being in the room he used as a laboratory, touching the walls of his parlour and just daring, so many years after his death, to be in the space where he used to live. (Note for my American friends - none of Franklin's American residences exist any longer - this would be the difference between building in wood and building in stone...just saying). It's easy to over-sentimentalise these places, but somehow, the Franklin House avoids this by a simplicity of which it's probable the man himself would have heartily approved. At the end, you can sign the guest-book and fill in comment cards, on which there was a deceptively tricky question.
"Who would you say is the modern-day Benjamin Franklin?"
Apparently, the closest anyone has come to answering this adequately in recent years has been "Dumbledore", and this is of course made rather dubious by the latter's faintly depressing fictional status. Franklin - and indeed the other polymaths of a breathtaking age of energy and enlightment - belongs to a breed we have forgotten the enthusiasm to emulate.
Emerging from the Franklin House, we got a text to say Sian and the girls had moved on to the British Museum. We schlepped up there, but I think somewhere in the journey, they had turned off their cellphones, so we stayed there a while, looking for them, trying to contact them...and then gave up and went for dinner (Gourmet burgers, since you ask, and since this is technically a diet-blog). Came home saddened to have missed the girls, but with brains buzzing with Franklin and his life story. And - and for this I make no apologies - immediately went to bed for a nap, rather than jumping on the bike as had been my plan. Some days, you simply have to play the cards your body deals you, and today was a "go to bed" day, rahter than a "bike yourself stupid" day. Will try and buck the trend towards wailing teenage introspection when the comparative lack of exercise makes itself felt on Tuesday. Indeed, will try to emulate Doctor Franklin's usual sanguinity.
Hey, I said I'll try, alright?!
Friday 8 July 2011
Taking The Pizz
Sometimes, you just can't catch a break, you know.
It's Friday night, d's feeling poorly, I'm an unskilled ham-fisted kitchen numbskull (did you catch the story of my slicing my finger open this week while preparing cereal?), so it was Pizza Time...
Except, sometimes, you just can't catch a break. Now, we're something of a pair of conneisseurs when it comes to delivery pizza. Pizza Hut? Puh-lease...In the restaurant, it works just fine, as a delivery pizza it tends to be lame, and wet, and floppy, and the delightful acne-ridden brain-trusts they tend to employ are perhaps not entirely...shall we say...committed to giving a fuck whether you have a good time or not when you're another voice on the phone messing up their Friday night.
Dominos...Maybe, at a pinch, in a clinch, but our pizza of choice is Papa John's.
Tonight, we tried their website, only to be met with site error after site error. Then, being in a pinch, we tried Dominos. Their site failed a couple of times for us too. Then we teeeeeased and cajoled it through the motions, and got to the stage of the "Verified By Visa" stage. When the computer threw its toys out of the shopping cart, and blocked my card, we weren't sure whether to laugh or fume. We changed browers, while I called the bank to get my card unblocked. On the second browser...Papa John's appeared to work. Right up till the point where we tried to pay for our pies, when the damn thing fell over again. Dominos on the new browser worked all the way through, though d had to pay for it - I was still talking to Bangalore or somewhere similar, where my bank has decided to move its call centres.
No sooner had the order gone through than d swore.
"I forgot my dip!" she muttered. "Honey mustard. It's just not the same without it!"
She called up the local restaurant, from which our dinner would eventually be coming.
"Hi," she began.
"CAN'T HEAR YOU!" bellowed a teenaged girl.
"HIIII!" d shouted. "I JUST PLACED AN ORDER ONLINE AND-"
"ARE YOU 24 RIVER WALK?"
We considered it by this point. It would be so easy to be 24 River Walk...but...
"NO," said d, "WE'RE..." And she gave our address. Five minutes more of shouting at each other, and she'd managed to work out a deal to pay the delivery guy for her dip.
He arrived, as ever, just a little after the point where we'd given up all hope of ever seeing him, or any friendly human face again in this life. I ate my starter, a handful of chicken strips, then contemplated the idea of eating pizza at what, by then, was 9.30 at night.
I couldn't do it. I hadn't walked or biked at all today by that point, and I was feeling full and bloated. So after all the palaver we'd had, I ended up not having Friday night pizza after all.
Like I say, some days you just can;'t catch a break. I guess, some days, you end up not wanting one either.
It's Friday night, d's feeling poorly, I'm an unskilled ham-fisted kitchen numbskull (did you catch the story of my slicing my finger open this week while preparing cereal?), so it was Pizza Time...
Except, sometimes, you just can't catch a break. Now, we're something of a pair of conneisseurs when it comes to delivery pizza. Pizza Hut? Puh-lease...In the restaurant, it works just fine, as a delivery pizza it tends to be lame, and wet, and floppy, and the delightful acne-ridden brain-trusts they tend to employ are perhaps not entirely...shall we say...committed to giving a fuck whether you have a good time or not when you're another voice on the phone messing up their Friday night.
Dominos...Maybe, at a pinch, in a clinch, but our pizza of choice is Papa John's.
Tonight, we tried their website, only to be met with site error after site error. Then, being in a pinch, we tried Dominos. Their site failed a couple of times for us too. Then we teeeeeased and cajoled it through the motions, and got to the stage of the "Verified By Visa" stage. When the computer threw its toys out of the shopping cart, and blocked my card, we weren't sure whether to laugh or fume. We changed browers, while I called the bank to get my card unblocked. On the second browser...Papa John's appeared to work. Right up till the point where we tried to pay for our pies, when the damn thing fell over again. Dominos on the new browser worked all the way through, though d had to pay for it - I was still talking to Bangalore or somewhere similar, where my bank has decided to move its call centres.
No sooner had the order gone through than d swore.
"I forgot my dip!" she muttered. "Honey mustard. It's just not the same without it!"
She called up the local restaurant, from which our dinner would eventually be coming.
"Hi," she began.
"CAN'T HEAR YOU!" bellowed a teenaged girl.
"HIIII!" d shouted. "I JUST PLACED AN ORDER ONLINE AND-"
"ARE YOU 24 RIVER WALK?"
We considered it by this point. It would be so easy to be 24 River Walk...but...
"NO," said d, "WE'RE..." And she gave our address. Five minutes more of shouting at each other, and she'd managed to work out a deal to pay the delivery guy for her dip.
He arrived, as ever, just a little after the point where we'd given up all hope of ever seeing him, or any friendly human face again in this life. I ate my starter, a handful of chicken strips, then contemplated the idea of eating pizza at what, by then, was 9.30 at night.
I couldn't do it. I hadn't walked or biked at all today by that point, and I was feeling full and bloated. So after all the palaver we'd had, I ended up not having Friday night pizza after all.
Like I say, some days you just can;'t catch a break. I guess, some days, you end up not wanting one either.
Thursday 7 July 2011
Capistrano-Face
"Err..."
d blinked.
"Erm...wow. OK. Ermm..."
I smiled, nervously. The staff in the restaurant backed a little away from the crazy nervy smiley guy.
"Erm..." she said again. "What's happened to your face?"
I didn't know - as far as I could tell, it was my normal face, pretty much in the same place I'd left it last time I'd looked. I shrugged. She smiled.
"You have Capistrano-face," she said. Now it was my turn to blink. The words pushed me back through a me-shaped hole through time and space, and the universe did that thing where everybody walks backwards very fast, as time rewound itself through the years.
Seven years to be more or less precise.
Seven years ago, d and I were still, to use the old-fashioned term most appropriate to us, courting, and I went over to California to visit her and her pretty darned amazing friend, Annie. Annie was one of those people who, once you've met them, you know you're never going to meet anyone quite like them again. She lived a movie-script life - for better or worse, and the visit stands in our memories as a golden time - and not just because we didn't have Annie with us on the planet for very much longer once we'd been there. While there, we visited the mission at San Juan Capistrano (home of the famous swallows), and d took what she's always said was her favourite picture of me. I looked...well, pretty fat actually, but, by the standards of what came later, not so bad at all.
The universe ground to a screeching halt, then sped up again, zzzzhhhhooooming me back to tonight.
"Oh," I said, smiling less nervously. The waitresses breathed a sigh of relief and approached our table.
"That's cool," I grinned. Those who were here for the "My Body Is A Tardis" entry will understand why this rocks so much. While there're no turning back the years of being alive (and hey, I've been married for six of those seven years, why would I want to?), but there is a sort of way of turning back my body-clock, to look at least vaguely like I did at a different, younger age.
So...yay for Capistrano-face. Of course, it probably didn't help that we then enjoyed a hefty, gorgeous Chinese meal. So - just time to report that yesterday's blood was 5.2, and today's was 4.7, before I get my Capistrano-ass on the bike and try to push back to being someone d's never actually met. Now that'll be freaky! If I turn up at a restaurant one night and sit down at our table and d goes "Who the Hell are you?" I'll have made some real progress!!
d blinked.
"Erm...wow. OK. Ermm..."
I smiled, nervously. The staff in the restaurant backed a little away from the crazy nervy smiley guy.
"Erm..." she said again. "What's happened to your face?"
I didn't know - as far as I could tell, it was my normal face, pretty much in the same place I'd left it last time I'd looked. I shrugged. She smiled.
"You have Capistrano-face," she said. Now it was my turn to blink. The words pushed me back through a me-shaped hole through time and space, and the universe did that thing where everybody walks backwards very fast, as time rewound itself through the years.
Seven years to be more or less precise.
Seven years ago, d and I were still, to use the old-fashioned term most appropriate to us, courting, and I went over to California to visit her and her pretty darned amazing friend, Annie. Annie was one of those people who, once you've met them, you know you're never going to meet anyone quite like them again. She lived a movie-script life - for better or worse, and the visit stands in our memories as a golden time - and not just because we didn't have Annie with us on the planet for very much longer once we'd been there. While there, we visited the mission at San Juan Capistrano (home of the famous swallows), and d took what she's always said was her favourite picture of me. I looked...well, pretty fat actually, but, by the standards of what came later, not so bad at all.
The universe ground to a screeching halt, then sped up again, zzzzhhhhooooming me back to tonight.
"Oh," I said, smiling less nervously. The waitresses breathed a sigh of relief and approached our table.
"That's cool," I grinned. Those who were here for the "My Body Is A Tardis" entry will understand why this rocks so much. While there're no turning back the years of being alive (and hey, I've been married for six of those seven years, why would I want to?), but there is a sort of way of turning back my body-clock, to look at least vaguely like I did at a different, younger age.
So...yay for Capistrano-face. Of course, it probably didn't help that we then enjoyed a hefty, gorgeous Chinese meal. So - just time to report that yesterday's blood was 5.2, and today's was 4.7, before I get my Capistrano-ass on the bike and try to push back to being someone d's never actually met. Now that'll be freaky! If I turn up at a restaurant one night and sit down at our table and d goes "Who the Hell are you?" I'll have made some real progress!!
Wednesday 6 July 2011
The Ancient's Tale
Another evening spent at the Rose, this time watching my favourite Shakespeare play - Othello. Ironically enough, given that last time I was at the Rose, d had a power cut at home, as we were waiting in line to go in tonight....the Rose had a power cut.
I've often wondered why whenever people cast the part of Iago - the furiously jealous 'Ancient' or Ensign who spins webs of lies and deceit and spins a whole handful of characters to untimely deaths - they always tend to cast a stick-thin man, because I can guarantee you, any fat male teenager who's exposed to the play will identify hugely with the character. Overlooked by his boss despite his own sense of self-worth, lustful but seen as everybody's best friend, furious that his pretty-boy colleague is promoted over him, and absolutely certain that his brain is more powerful than that of anyone else around him...Oh and let's not forget, paranoid that his own good fortune in getting a wife (for which, in schoolboy terms, substitute girlfriend) is fake, and that everybody the world sees as better or more masculine than he is has slept with her - an idea which, to use his line 'gnaws his innards like a poisonous mineral.'
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying only fat fucks can feel that paralysing, and yet empowering, white hot fluid jealousy that Shakespeare talks about - of course I'm not. I'm just saying that in terms of the dynamics of the play - the character who feels paranoid and isolated and in his own world, yet trusted by men and women alike as no threat - it's a very fat-friendly character.
And yes of course I'm biassed by the fact that I'd love to have been able, as a teenager, to say those wonderful, insightful words in public, in front of an audience...instead of frankly saying them to a mirror that reflected my wobbling chins as I actually felt the jealousy towards all my friends who were hooking up and leaving me behind, and then coming to me when things went wrong, to take advantage of my scheming, analtyical mwahahaing brain.
Erm...did I mention I had a weird teenagerhood? It was half-Iago, half-Richard III (when he says his only joy in the world is to command and check those who were of 'better person than myself'). And while I'm not saying fat fucks are naturally cleverer and more devious than the pretty people in the world, being fat as a teenager, when I first encountered the play, was certainly a strong element in my own sense of isolation, and the world's sense of who I was, and why that didn't matter very much.
Annnyway - not sure what all that was about. Just drivel, probably. A good night at the theatre, eating buggerall and walking quite a way. Going to bed hungry, if I'm honest, cos I ended up having a heavyish lunch. Still determined to kick the bejeesus out of the two-stone marker and make some progress. Hell, could use some gnawing like a poisonous mineral right about now!
I've often wondered why whenever people cast the part of Iago - the furiously jealous 'Ancient' or Ensign who spins webs of lies and deceit and spins a whole handful of characters to untimely deaths - they always tend to cast a stick-thin man, because I can guarantee you, any fat male teenager who's exposed to the play will identify hugely with the character. Overlooked by his boss despite his own sense of self-worth, lustful but seen as everybody's best friend, furious that his pretty-boy colleague is promoted over him, and absolutely certain that his brain is more powerful than that of anyone else around him...Oh and let's not forget, paranoid that his own good fortune in getting a wife (for which, in schoolboy terms, substitute girlfriend) is fake, and that everybody the world sees as better or more masculine than he is has slept with her - an idea which, to use his line 'gnaws his innards like a poisonous mineral.'
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying only fat fucks can feel that paralysing, and yet empowering, white hot fluid jealousy that Shakespeare talks about - of course I'm not. I'm just saying that in terms of the dynamics of the play - the character who feels paranoid and isolated and in his own world, yet trusted by men and women alike as no threat - it's a very fat-friendly character.
And yes of course I'm biassed by the fact that I'd love to have been able, as a teenager, to say those wonderful, insightful words in public, in front of an audience...instead of frankly saying them to a mirror that reflected my wobbling chins as I actually felt the jealousy towards all my friends who were hooking up and leaving me behind, and then coming to me when things went wrong, to take advantage of my scheming, analtyical mwahahaing brain.
Erm...did I mention I had a weird teenagerhood? It was half-Iago, half-Richard III (when he says his only joy in the world is to command and check those who were of 'better person than myself'). And while I'm not saying fat fucks are naturally cleverer and more devious than the pretty people in the world, being fat as a teenager, when I first encountered the play, was certainly a strong element in my own sense of isolation, and the world's sense of who I was, and why that didn't matter very much.
Annnyway - not sure what all that was about. Just drivel, probably. A good night at the theatre, eating buggerall and walking quite a way. Going to bed hungry, if I'm honest, cos I ended up having a heavyish lunch. Still determined to kick the bejeesus out of the two-stone marker and make some progress. Hell, could use some gnawing like a poisonous mineral right about now!
Tuesday 5 July 2011
Getting Stoned
Alrighty, stand by your beds!
Well, Hell, stand IN your beds if you like, what do I care. Y'know what, let me take another crack at this...
Alrighty, lay in your beds!
Well, the results of this morning's weigh-in are disappointing, looked at one way. I failed to lose my regulation two pounds this week. I did lose a pound and a half though, so it's only the tiniest bit disappointing, even if looked at that way. But you know what? I'm determined not to look at it that way. I'm gonna turn that frown upside-down, even if I have to stand on my head to do it, because, looked at from that angle, the result is great and meaningful and party-worthy and deserves a night off. Which of course, I had last night, so there we go - let's say I suffer from premature celebration, and get on with the facts of the thing, which are these:
Well, Hell, stand IN your beds if you like, what do I care. Y'know what, let me take another crack at this...
Alrighty, lay in your beds!
Well, the results of this morning's weigh-in are disappointing, looked at one way. I failed to lose my regulation two pounds this week. I did lose a pound and a half though, so it's only the tiniest bit disappointing, even if looked at that way. But you know what? I'm determined not to look at it that way. I'm gonna turn that frown upside-down, even if I have to stand on my head to do it, because, looked at from that angle, the result is great and meaningful and party-worthy and deserves a night off. Which of course, I had last night, so there we go - let's say I suffer from premature celebration, and get on with the facts of the thing, which are these:
Weight this morning: 18 stone, 7.5.
That, in case you're new to this inane flab-related rambling, means I've lost exactly two stones.
(A friendly clueless tumbleweed tumbles by).
Yeah, you see, this only makes sense in Britain, where our numbering system appears to date back to the Druids (well, who else would you imagine counting in stones?). In America, of course, you share our system of pounds, but being of a relatively well-ordered mindset, you just keep 'em coming, the numbers climbing in a well-established, mathematically-respectable fashion. To my American friends, this morning's headline simply means I've lost some 28 pounds since starting this demented experiment...which is all very well, but lacks a certain something in terms of headline drama. For my European, Australian and other modern friends who use the equally mathematically-sound metric system of kilos, it means I've lost 12.7 kg - which takes the remaining whiff of drama and pours it right down the drain, frankly.
But, here in Britain, where every fourteen pounds equals one stone (Why fourteen? Who the Hell knows? It's probably something to do with the mystical cycles of the Solstices or something equally mental: never trust a race who make great stone circles and then lose the instructions, that's what I say), I can still claim that today's announcement is significant, because it's a marker-point in this quest. When I started, I had some nine stones to lose (those of you who've been with me for a while will know we did all the conversions of this number early on; those of you who haven't, remedial conversion classes will be available throughout the Summer, when you should be out having fun). Now, I have just seven.
Naturally, when I say 'just seven', what I mean is seven long, slogging, evil-bastard stones of self-denial, salad and static cycling, but since we're talking about mathematical principles, allow me the thought that seven is less than nine, cos it's a happy little thought, and we all need those just to get through the day. Two stone is more than a fifth of the way to my target weight. In fact, having just briefly abused a calculator, I can tell you that in 3.5 pounds more, I'll have lost exactly one quarter of my excess weight, so yes, frankly, when I reach 18 stone 4, there will be another impromptu moment of celebration that I'll probably have to explain. And I shall.
Now of course, this wouldn't be my blog if it didn't have a little miserygutsing in it. If I'm honest, two stone feels pretty much like the training-wheels section of the journey, the bit you do just to prove you're serious this time, goddammit. Two stone feels positive but vulnerable, in need of constant reassurance and renewed effort not to slide slickly back to its former (happy, let's not forget!) ways. I'd really like to bitchslap two stone out of the way and sprint towards the safer ground of the 18 stone marker, just so it knows there's no going back and Hellyeah, I'm serious. In fact, I want to rush on to the three-stone-lost marker, because three stone is what fraction of nine stone...? Anyone...? That's right, it's a third, isn't it? That will feel like a proper benchmark, something to say I've done. Completing 'a bit more than a fifth' of the task is nice of course, but it's not the kind of place at which you can stop and rest on your laurels. Go ahead, ask a bridge builder. Or a cardiologist, come to that.
So, the briefest of hoorahs for me from all the Brits in the house, while all the people with more sense than to trust a Druid scratch their heads and go "Whatever, dude", then on we jolly well go. Next stop, 18 stone 4. Then 18 stone. Then 17 stone 7.5...
OK, seriously, let me have another go at that.
Next stop - the future!
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