Weigh in this morning puts me at:
16 stone 8 pounds.
I nearly fell off the Nazi Scales when I saw that, frankly. That's the second consecutive week of losing a full six pounds. Nearly a stone in a fortnight.
Blimey.
"I don't mean to burst your bubble honey," said my pal Wendy when I told her this, "but it's mostly water."
"Oh," I said. "Is it? Really?"
"Yep," she asserted. "First two weeks it's the water that is lost. After that comes the hard stuff as the fat begins to break up."
Hmm...well, alrighty then. Either way, if I happened to have been carrying twelve pounds of excess liquid in the equivalent of a giant subcutaneous water-balloon, it's good to have gotten rid of it. It's also good to feel my clothes fit better, and yesterday, my aunt and uncle, who haven't seen me for the last two weeks, were cooing about how "obvious" my weight loss was. If it was all water, then I can now be considered thoroughly dried out. Look at me - The Dehydrated Man!
Apart from anything else, it gives me a satisfyingly lower platform from which to start the effort to lose fat. 17 stone 9 does not feel anything like the same as 16 stone 8, let me tell you. At 16st 9, I feel focused, sharp, and with the requisite stubborn-gittery to push on through the summer of walks and biking and weight-machines and salad-plantations, and achieve real success. I'm not, of course, expecting more weeks like this. Hell, I didn't expect this week to be like this, frankly - by Friday of last week, a surreptitious weigh-in still had me at 17 stone. I'm aware from the previous attempt that this is where things settle down a bit and get hard and slower, but that's OK. This has to be a long-term process or it's nonsense. And right now, I'm entirely up for long, hard, slow processes...though of course the high-speed restart is a delicious bonus.
On we go.
Oh - had the meeting with the Practice Manager by the way. Within 28 days, I can expect an official response from the practice. After which there are decisions to be made about official complaints, potential suits for reparative damages and the like. Sigh...everything would just be so much easier if they'd given me the steroids when they might have done some good. Then I might well have two working lugholes, and they could have avoided all this potential hassle. Still - have to deal with the world in which we actually live, I suppose. So as with Disappearing, so with the Practice - on we go!
Tuesday 30 April 2013
Monday 29 April 2013
The Happiness of Zonk
You know that sensation when you get to the end of the day and have an absolute shitload crossed off?
That's me. Right now.
Happy in a kind of blissed-out, what-the-hell-happened-to-that-day kind of way. Got a LOT done today, including a walk down the Trail this morning and an hour of burning, sweating biking this evening. Still have another shitload to do tomorrow - and pretty much every day till mid-July (thanks Graeme ;o) ) - but can honestly say I feel pretty darned serene with the idea of getting up from this computer in less than five minutes, waving obliquely at my wife, and going to bed.
Caloriewise, for those who want to know, cereal breakfast, 400 this morning, and a lovely cheese and ham saladfest this evening. Something about the Spring and Summer makes this feel altogether like the right kind of thing to do of an evening, rather than the incipient madness it becomes as Autumn kicks one in the goolies, and Winter farts in one's face and one's thoughts turn inevitably to stew.
Down the Trail again in the morning. Back for a quick weigh-in, then to take a chunk out of Practice Manager's arse.
The Breakfast of Champions!
That's me. Right now.
Happy in a kind of blissed-out, what-the-hell-happened-to-that-day kind of way. Got a LOT done today, including a walk down the Trail this morning and an hour of burning, sweating biking this evening. Still have another shitload to do tomorrow - and pretty much every day till mid-July (thanks Graeme ;o) ) - but can honestly say I feel pretty darned serene with the idea of getting up from this computer in less than five minutes, waving obliquely at my wife, and going to bed.
Caloriewise, for those who want to know, cereal breakfast, 400 this morning, and a lovely cheese and ham saladfest this evening. Something about the Spring and Summer makes this feel altogether like the right kind of thing to do of an evening, rather than the incipient madness it becomes as Autumn kicks one in the goolies, and Winter farts in one's face and one's thoughts turn inevitably to stew.
Down the Trail again in the morning. Back for a quick weigh-in, then to take a chunk out of Practice Manager's arse.
The Breakfast of Champions!
Sunday 28 April 2013
The Twice Night
Sometimes, you just can't stop doing what you're doing, you know?
I carried on working after d went to bed last night, expecting to just do a couple of hours of work.
At 6AM, I was preparing to get dressed and go down the Trail, when d came into the office.
"You coming to bed...like...at all?" she asked blearily.
"Nnnnnotsomuch, I don't think honey," I admitted.
She made a face. It was the kind of face that our kids, if we'd had any, would have probably described as "Mom's Counting To Three Face."
"Bed, mister," said d. "Just get an hour, then do what you like. You cannot do two days on no sleep!"
I huffed my way to bed, and if she'd been in the mood, I'd have some some comedy kid-stuff - pouting and moping and going "'s'not fair..."
I judged that she probably...alll things considered...wasn't in that kind of mood.
I woke up next at 8.30, having been asleep for two and a half times the length of time I'd promised. I was seized with a certain existential panic, thinking of my Stuff To Do List - which, before you feel too sorry for me, had two hours of Iron Man movie slap bang in the middle of it. Came down, did some mental mathematics, abandoned the idea of walking the Trail this morning, and then frankly milled about like the proverbial spare appendage at an orgy, huffing and pouting and biting my nails.
"You look all kinds of discombobulated," said d.
"Hmm..." I agreed, unable to change my own gears. I had my cereal breakfast and took my steroids.
"Ach..." I said, shaking myself by the scruff of the neck. "On we go..." - and went up and did and hour'd hard biking, sweating away more than six hundred calories.
That turned today entirely around for me. The music, the pushing, the drenching in my own delightful oils and juices - it was as though it burned the fog of chaos off my brain. I feel like I need that on a daily basis to clear the brain at the minute, so am grateful that d put me to bed, and grateful that she called me on my huffy dickishness, cos that lead me to find a way out of it.
Oh - dinner, for the calorific completists, was home made meatbeals (yep, she does that too!) in a tomato sauce, one bread roll, green beans and a bowl of sald, with a giant, glorious, Snow Whitey apple for an additional vitamin kick afterwards.
Dinner of champions. Now - off to Choir, more work with TV, bed at a far more reasonable hour, and back down the trail in the morning. Hoping to get an hour in the gym at lunchtime tomorrow, and back to see the accountant in the afternoon. Tuesday's weigh-in should be...interesting - will have to fit it in before going to eat the Practice Manager at my doctor's office for breakfast. Still...that's a day and a half away. Focus is the key to getting there with my Stuff To Do list withered and full of crossings-off.
I carried on working after d went to bed last night, expecting to just do a couple of hours of work.
At 6AM, I was preparing to get dressed and go down the Trail, when d came into the office.
"You coming to bed...like...at all?" she asked blearily.
"Nnnnnotsomuch, I don't think honey," I admitted.
She made a face. It was the kind of face that our kids, if we'd had any, would have probably described as "Mom's Counting To Three Face."
"Bed, mister," said d. "Just get an hour, then do what you like. You cannot do two days on no sleep!"
I huffed my way to bed, and if she'd been in the mood, I'd have some some comedy kid-stuff - pouting and moping and going "'s'not fair..."
I judged that she probably...alll things considered...wasn't in that kind of mood.
I woke up next at 8.30, having been asleep for two and a half times the length of time I'd promised. I was seized with a certain existential panic, thinking of my Stuff To Do List - which, before you feel too sorry for me, had two hours of Iron Man movie slap bang in the middle of it. Came down, did some mental mathematics, abandoned the idea of walking the Trail this morning, and then frankly milled about like the proverbial spare appendage at an orgy, huffing and pouting and biting my nails.
"You look all kinds of discombobulated," said d.
"Hmm..." I agreed, unable to change my own gears. I had my cereal breakfast and took my steroids.
"Ach..." I said, shaking myself by the scruff of the neck. "On we go..." - and went up and did and hour'd hard biking, sweating away more than six hundred calories.
That turned today entirely around for me. The music, the pushing, the drenching in my own delightful oils and juices - it was as though it burned the fog of chaos off my brain. I feel like I need that on a daily basis to clear the brain at the minute, so am grateful that d put me to bed, and grateful that she called me on my huffy dickishness, cos that lead me to find a way out of it.
Oh - dinner, for the calorific completists, was home made meatbeals (yep, she does that too!) in a tomato sauce, one bread roll, green beans and a bowl of sald, with a giant, glorious, Snow Whitey apple for an additional vitamin kick afterwards.
Dinner of champions. Now - off to Choir, more work with TV, bed at a far more reasonable hour, and back down the trail in the morning. Hoping to get an hour in the gym at lunchtime tomorrow, and back to see the accountant in the afternoon. Tuesday's weigh-in should be...interesting - will have to fit it in before going to eat the Practice Manager at my doctor's office for breakfast. Still...that's a day and a half away. Focus is the key to getting there with my Stuff To Do list withered and full of crossings-off.
Saturday 27 April 2013
The Saladacious Re-Dawn
OK, so this has been an entirely unexpected day.
d and I were heading to Cardiff this morning for breakfast, you remember, to re-introduce ourselves to one another.
Didn't do that. Decided late last night not to do that after all. So, as I found myself awake at 6AM and full of the joys of what I think might well be counted now as Spring (or, alternatively, on a steroid high, depending on your outlook), I did an hour of work, then headed off down the Trail for my 5.5 miles. Picked us up McDonalds breakfast on the way back - plain porridge and water for me...s'kinda like a slightly enjoyable version of being in prison.
Went back to work happily, joyfully, while d went and got her hair straightened and her nails done - grapefruit sparkle, if you want nails like my girl - and we met up instead for lunch at Trenchers, our probably-best local coffee house. I'd finished an editing project, so we felt inclined to sit a while and chat and reintroduce ourselves, just half a day later, and much much cheaper, than the trip to Cardiff would have allowed us.
In fact, having reintroduced ourselves, we discovered we actually rather still liked each other, so we stayed for lunch. Shared a ploughman's lunch-cum-salad. Bits of cheese, ham, pickled onions, bit of bread, pickle, and various crunchy greenish bits of stuff, which - as though some locked program has been deciphered in my brain again by drugs and sunshine and energy - I chomped on.
There's a certain look d gets whenever this happens. Whenever I do something utterly unlike the man she thinks she knows. It's pretty much composed in equal measures of "OK, scared now, you're obviously an alien imposter" and "Hello alien imposter, how you doin'?"
I grinned at her.
"Apparently," I said, my body's open to salads again. Who saw that coming?"
She kissed me and buggered off to Tesco, to get in some saladacious provisions for future salad days.
This evening (I went back to work when we got back in the flat around 3.30), we went American, and, having biked nearly 600 calories off before dinner, I ate, with no fear and quite a lot of favour, a generous scoop of American baked beans (like British baked beans which have led an exceptionally virtuous life and been allowed to ascend to the next level of karmic advancement), and a home-made burger. Yeah, you heard me - my wife makes burgers...I've never known another human being who actually does that. But d does. One bun, two patties, one fried egg, one slice of cheese. Oh and some green beans, just to wave a veggie at the proceedings.
Yes, it felt like a lot of food, but yes, it was good food, and overall, it was fairly balanced - protein in both the meat and beans, fat in the egg and cheese, carb in the bun, vitamins in the beans. Given that prior to eating it, I'd worked off about 1100 calories today, and probably, overall, not taken in much more than that, I'm not worried about it.
The headline though is this re-introduction of salads. This rather opens up the potential of my week - Salad lunches, to spur on the metabolism, and swindle it all at the same time. I feel a greeny, crunchy week coming on...
d and I were heading to Cardiff this morning for breakfast, you remember, to re-introduce ourselves to one another.
Didn't do that. Decided late last night not to do that after all. So, as I found myself awake at 6AM and full of the joys of what I think might well be counted now as Spring (or, alternatively, on a steroid high, depending on your outlook), I did an hour of work, then headed off down the Trail for my 5.5 miles. Picked us up McDonalds breakfast on the way back - plain porridge and water for me...s'kinda like a slightly enjoyable version of being in prison.
Went back to work happily, joyfully, while d went and got her hair straightened and her nails done - grapefruit sparkle, if you want nails like my girl - and we met up instead for lunch at Trenchers, our probably-best local coffee house. I'd finished an editing project, so we felt inclined to sit a while and chat and reintroduce ourselves, just half a day later, and much much cheaper, than the trip to Cardiff would have allowed us.
In fact, having reintroduced ourselves, we discovered we actually rather still liked each other, so we stayed for lunch. Shared a ploughman's lunch-cum-salad. Bits of cheese, ham, pickled onions, bit of bread, pickle, and various crunchy greenish bits of stuff, which - as though some locked program has been deciphered in my brain again by drugs and sunshine and energy - I chomped on.
There's a certain look d gets whenever this happens. Whenever I do something utterly unlike the man she thinks she knows. It's pretty much composed in equal measures of "OK, scared now, you're obviously an alien imposter" and "Hello alien imposter, how you doin'?"
I grinned at her.
"Apparently," I said, my body's open to salads again. Who saw that coming?"
She kissed me and buggered off to Tesco, to get in some saladacious provisions for future salad days.
This evening (I went back to work when we got back in the flat around 3.30), we went American, and, having biked nearly 600 calories off before dinner, I ate, with no fear and quite a lot of favour, a generous scoop of American baked beans (like British baked beans which have led an exceptionally virtuous life and been allowed to ascend to the next level of karmic advancement), and a home-made burger. Yeah, you heard me - my wife makes burgers...I've never known another human being who actually does that. But d does. One bun, two patties, one fried egg, one slice of cheese. Oh and some green beans, just to wave a veggie at the proceedings.
Yes, it felt like a lot of food, but yes, it was good food, and overall, it was fairly balanced - protein in both the meat and beans, fat in the egg and cheese, carb in the bun, vitamins in the beans. Given that prior to eating it, I'd worked off about 1100 calories today, and probably, overall, not taken in much more than that, I'm not worried about it.
The headline though is this re-introduction of salads. This rather opens up the potential of my week - Salad lunches, to spur on the metabolism, and swindle it all at the same time. I feel a greeny, crunchy week coming on...
Friday 26 April 2013
The Carving and the Carved
One of those days. Started working later than planned, because there was Other Work to shove in and do ahead of it. Did my Twyn walk this morning - which I've just checked out, and which turned out to be just about 4 miles, though it probably scores over the Taff Trail 5.5 miler on the grounds that very much of the Twyn walk is uphill.
Anyhow, did it, ended up at Ma's to load her car with stuff she's getting rid of, then had a lift down from hers, in order to be at my desk by 9. Had my cereal breakfast, which at the time I didn't realise I'd just burned enough calories to negate. As I say, Other Work came in to put my Work schedule back, which is frankly rude, but then, such is the nature of Work and Other Work. Worked the work-day through, and d came home with potential options for the evening. Apparently, there's a new Iron Man movie out, and she dangled it provocatively in front of me.
"I'm behind schedule honey," I told her, "and I really need to carve out some time to bike too..."
This I think is true - the morning walking is all very well, but it's not giving me active exercise time in terms of calorie-burning, so I need, over the next handful of days, to add something else in too if I'm to make the kind of progress I want to make. So I did - I carved out a chunk of our evening, and went and sweated on the bike.
While this is all very fine and dandy from a Disappearing standpoint of course, I'm entirely aware that when I carve like this, it's d who generally bears the brunt of the blade. It's a Friday night, and she's entirely entitled to expect to..y'know...see her husband. It's a source of some guilt, to be sure.
Tomorrow, we're off to Cardiff for breakfast - just, mainly, because we have seen so little of each other over this last week that we'd like to mark our shared existence somehow. Have to be back for lunchtime though, as there are groceries coming and I will have to go back to work, and again, at some point, carve out some exercising time.
Work looks pretty solid until at least the middle of June at the minute. Tomorrow's breakfast, and moments like it, are how we ensure that with all the carving I need to do, there's still the recognisable shape of Us left underneath it all.
Anyhow, did it, ended up at Ma's to load her car with stuff she's getting rid of, then had a lift down from hers, in order to be at my desk by 9. Had my cereal breakfast, which at the time I didn't realise I'd just burned enough calories to negate. As I say, Other Work came in to put my Work schedule back, which is frankly rude, but then, such is the nature of Work and Other Work. Worked the work-day through, and d came home with potential options for the evening. Apparently, there's a new Iron Man movie out, and she dangled it provocatively in front of me.
"I'm behind schedule honey," I told her, "and I really need to carve out some time to bike too..."
This I think is true - the morning walking is all very well, but it's not giving me active exercise time in terms of calorie-burning, so I need, over the next handful of days, to add something else in too if I'm to make the kind of progress I want to make. So I did - I carved out a chunk of our evening, and went and sweated on the bike.
While this is all very fine and dandy from a Disappearing standpoint of course, I'm entirely aware that when I carve like this, it's d who generally bears the brunt of the blade. It's a Friday night, and she's entirely entitled to expect to..y'know...see her husband. It's a source of some guilt, to be sure.
Tomorrow, we're off to Cardiff for breakfast - just, mainly, because we have seen so little of each other over this last week that we'd like to mark our shared existence somehow. Have to be back for lunchtime though, as there are groceries coming and I will have to go back to work, and again, at some point, carve out some exercising time.
Work looks pretty solid until at least the middle of June at the minute. Tomorrow's breakfast, and moments like it, are how we ensure that with all the carving I need to do, there's still the recognisable shape of Us left underneath it all.
Thursday 25 April 2013
The Indian Diversion
Another busy day - back down the Trail this morning...with more vigour and a dreadful admission.
When I took over the day job from my predecessor some...blimey...seven years ago now, she already had an iTunes account set up in the office, and I basically inherited what she had. Over the years I'd dumped a lot of mystic whale music and peruvian nose-fluting, but some of her stuff, I've kept.
Bear in mind please the fact that I was raised on Buddy Holly, Status Quo, Black Sabbath, Queen and Free - these were the vinyl relics of my mother's musical taste. My dad was 70s, fat Elvis, Slim Whitman, Glen Campbell and Charlie Pride.
As a teenager, I was an unrepentant hair-rocker. Of course, as a teenager, I had unrepentent, and indeed entirely present, hair. Twisted Sister, Kiss, Poison, Bon Jovi, Guns 'n' Roses, Whitesnake, Thunder...and on and on it went. I had (and actually somewhere still have) a denim jacket covered in patches bearing true and faithful allegiance to the United States of Rock.
But all this does little to counterbalance the evidence of the last 48 hours, which I quail to tell you reveals one terrifying fact above all others:
The Beatles are not as good, as walking music, as the Greatest Hits of George Formby.
George "turned out nice again" Formby. The name will mean little, I should imagine, to most non-UK readers. George Formby was a cheeky British performer, of the "heavy euphemism and lots of winks" style, who looked dim and played with a ukelele, but was actually a rather unhappy man in his own life, during the Second World War. He sang songs of naughty suggestion about, for instance, the things he saw "when I'm cleaning windows", or what happened when he went "Swimmin' With The Wimmin'". He winked at audiences while singing about what he got up to - or indeed, didn't, "with my little ukelele in my hand"...
The point of all this is that there is no scale - muscial, lyrical, emotional - on which George Formby should work as workout or walking music. There is also no known scale on which, having admitted to listening to him, my hard-rocking friends can possibly fail to rip the unconscionable piss out of me from now to kingdom probably-not-come. But there it is. This morning, George and I blazed a trail.
The day took up its usual tone - head down, bum up, ass-off-working, and tonight, we went to see June, a family friend who has, in all likelihood, days to live, carrying around with her an inoperable stomach cancer and shrinking into huskishness with every day that passes. She's has a difficult journey to get to this stage, but the thing that impressed me most about her was her attitude to death. There was no heaviness about it - she talked about it, laughed about it, we shared good funny memories, we trash-talked, we made sure that her affairs were ordered pretty much as she wants them to be, and she was unsentimental - not looking forward to the moment of death exactly, but apparently sanguine about its imminence and certainty. And there was no palaver about seeing people on the other side. She has a "Church of Wales" faith, which, if it mirrors its Church of England counterpart will have been mainly a social convenience to her, rather than a fundamental position on the idea of an afterlife. If it gives her comfort now, I'm glad. If it makes her able to face this moment with the dignity she displayed tonight, I'm impressed. But actually, I don't think that's a matter of faith or non-faith - I think that's just June. June's cool.
After visiting, we went looking for a bite to eat, and ended up in an Indian restuarant in Aberdare. By that point I'd only had my cereal breakfast today, and had expended more calories than it was worth, so I had, I figured, a little leeway, but nevertheless, finding something reasonably low-calorie that was still worth eating was an interesting challenge. I ended up choosing a Tandoori sizzling platter. Seemed the safest calorific option - basically a plateful of meat, so a good protein shot, but of course, marinated, treated and then fried. We'll see whether this undoes the week's work, or whether I can still coax a 16 out of the Nazi Scales on Tuesday.
I think, to do that, I need to actively take more time over these next few days for biking or gymming or something in addition to the morning walk, to try and surprise the muscles and make them work. Fitting it into deadline structures is, as per recently usual, the tricky part. But - Master of My Own Destiny and all that cobblers: Forward, in the direction of 16 stone 7!
When I took over the day job from my predecessor some...blimey...seven years ago now, she already had an iTunes account set up in the office, and I basically inherited what she had. Over the years I'd dumped a lot of mystic whale music and peruvian nose-fluting, but some of her stuff, I've kept.
Bear in mind please the fact that I was raised on Buddy Holly, Status Quo, Black Sabbath, Queen and Free - these were the vinyl relics of my mother's musical taste. My dad was 70s, fat Elvis, Slim Whitman, Glen Campbell and Charlie Pride.
As a teenager, I was an unrepentant hair-rocker. Of course, as a teenager, I had unrepentent, and indeed entirely present, hair. Twisted Sister, Kiss, Poison, Bon Jovi, Guns 'n' Roses, Whitesnake, Thunder...and on and on it went. I had (and actually somewhere still have) a denim jacket covered in patches bearing true and faithful allegiance to the United States of Rock.
But all this does little to counterbalance the evidence of the last 48 hours, which I quail to tell you reveals one terrifying fact above all others:
The Beatles are not as good, as walking music, as the Greatest Hits of George Formby.
George "turned out nice again" Formby. The name will mean little, I should imagine, to most non-UK readers. George Formby was a cheeky British performer, of the "heavy euphemism and lots of winks" style, who looked dim and played with a ukelele, but was actually a rather unhappy man in his own life, during the Second World War. He sang songs of naughty suggestion about, for instance, the things he saw "when I'm cleaning windows", or what happened when he went "Swimmin' With The Wimmin'". He winked at audiences while singing about what he got up to - or indeed, didn't, "with my little ukelele in my hand"...
The point of all this is that there is no scale - muscial, lyrical, emotional - on which George Formby should work as workout or walking music. There is also no known scale on which, having admitted to listening to him, my hard-rocking friends can possibly fail to rip the unconscionable piss out of me from now to kingdom probably-not-come. But there it is. This morning, George and I blazed a trail.
The day took up its usual tone - head down, bum up, ass-off-working, and tonight, we went to see June, a family friend who has, in all likelihood, days to live, carrying around with her an inoperable stomach cancer and shrinking into huskishness with every day that passes. She's has a difficult journey to get to this stage, but the thing that impressed me most about her was her attitude to death. There was no heaviness about it - she talked about it, laughed about it, we shared good funny memories, we trash-talked, we made sure that her affairs were ordered pretty much as she wants them to be, and she was unsentimental - not looking forward to the moment of death exactly, but apparently sanguine about its imminence and certainty. And there was no palaver about seeing people on the other side. She has a "Church of Wales" faith, which, if it mirrors its Church of England counterpart will have been mainly a social convenience to her, rather than a fundamental position on the idea of an afterlife. If it gives her comfort now, I'm glad. If it makes her able to face this moment with the dignity she displayed tonight, I'm impressed. But actually, I don't think that's a matter of faith or non-faith - I think that's just June. June's cool.
After visiting, we went looking for a bite to eat, and ended up in an Indian restuarant in Aberdare. By that point I'd only had my cereal breakfast today, and had expended more calories than it was worth, so I had, I figured, a little leeway, but nevertheless, finding something reasonably low-calorie that was still worth eating was an interesting challenge. I ended up choosing a Tandoori sizzling platter. Seemed the safest calorific option - basically a plateful of meat, so a good protein shot, but of course, marinated, treated and then fried. We'll see whether this undoes the week's work, or whether I can still coax a 16 out of the Nazi Scales on Tuesday.
I think, to do that, I need to actively take more time over these next few days for biking or gymming or something in addition to the morning walk, to try and surprise the muscles and make them work. Fitting it into deadline structures is, as per recently usual, the tricky part. But - Master of My Own Destiny and all that cobblers: Forward, in the direction of 16 stone 7!
Wednesday 24 April 2013
The Pill Dribble
Been counting pills today...
There are sooo not enough steroid pills to fulfill the prescription here. I'm nearly out, and I haven't finished the 60mg per day portion, let alone the climb-down to 40mg and then 20mg. Will of course be seeing the Practice Manager on Tuesday, so am going to continue with what I have at least till then.
Another thing that is either a concern or a bright spot is that I have a feeling my GP has also taken me off the Xenical, because of course at my last diabetic review I'd put on a couple of stone over the course of the year, and there's a general requirement for you to have lost a certain percentage of your bodyweight to be allowed to have them. So I'm running out of those too - in about a week or so, I'll probably be out. That'll mean I'm down to just two pills a day, and those are for diabetic control. We'll see what effect that has on the weightloss of course.
Today was fairly straightforward - walked the Trail this morning, though with less vigour than the last couple of days; got into a Beatles loop, which frankly doesn't work with one working ear. Worked well and hard all day, including an hour at lunch to continue, and nearly finish, the office organisation. Managed to grab a quick half hour of butt-screaming biking before choir, and in terms on intake, today, had my normal cereal breakfast - three Weetabix and a banana, in case any calorie-junkies actually wanna know what I mean when I say that - and some cheese on toast for an early dinner. And that's it. May grab a coffee before going to bed, but it's hardly a heavy day.
Tomorrow, more of the same, I think, but instead of choir, a sad visit to a hospice to see a friend of the family, who's been given just days to live.
Which, if nothing else, puts any given sub-set of problems right the hell into perspective, no.
There are sooo not enough steroid pills to fulfill the prescription here. I'm nearly out, and I haven't finished the 60mg per day portion, let alone the climb-down to 40mg and then 20mg. Will of course be seeing the Practice Manager on Tuesday, so am going to continue with what I have at least till then.
Another thing that is either a concern or a bright spot is that I have a feeling my GP has also taken me off the Xenical, because of course at my last diabetic review I'd put on a couple of stone over the course of the year, and there's a general requirement for you to have lost a certain percentage of your bodyweight to be allowed to have them. So I'm running out of those too - in about a week or so, I'll probably be out. That'll mean I'm down to just two pills a day, and those are for diabetic control. We'll see what effect that has on the weightloss of course.
Today was fairly straightforward - walked the Trail this morning, though with less vigour than the last couple of days; got into a Beatles loop, which frankly doesn't work with one working ear. Worked well and hard all day, including an hour at lunch to continue, and nearly finish, the office organisation. Managed to grab a quick half hour of butt-screaming biking before choir, and in terms on intake, today, had my normal cereal breakfast - three Weetabix and a banana, in case any calorie-junkies actually wanna know what I mean when I say that - and some cheese on toast for an early dinner. And that's it. May grab a coffee before going to bed, but it's hardly a heavy day.
Tomorrow, more of the same, I think, but instead of choir, a sad visit to a hospice to see a friend of the family, who's been given just days to live.
Which, if nothing else, puts any given sub-set of problems right the hell into perspective, no.
Tuesday 23 April 2013
The Borderline Return
OK. Sing songs of celebration, Disappearing-fans! (I'll only be able to half-hear them, but it's the spirit that counts...)
Today's official weigh-in figure has me at:
17 stone...dead.
That's me on the 35 stone milestone, right there, and the landmark I laughably set to achieve by the beginning of May. Technically, the beginning of May's not for another week, so who knows, maybe I can see a 16 by then.
Of course, I'm not stupid - it's gotta be mainly the drugs. They seem to be filling me with energy and more importantly acting as an appetite suppressant, meaning I'm tending to get by on a cereal breakfast, fruit for snacking, and a largely proteinaceous dinner. What that also means of course is when I finish the steroids, in about ten days time, I daresay there'll be an energy crash, a mood crash, and a hunger rage. Mind you, if I can make progress while this goes on, then wherever the crash happens, I'm in a better place to handle it and deal with it and keep my big boy pants on when it happens, I guess.
But for the good of today - hoorah, we're back on the borderline of 17 stone. Next week, dammit, the numbers will show 16s!
Today's official weigh-in figure has me at:
17 stone...dead.
That's me on the 35 stone milestone, right there, and the landmark I laughably set to achieve by the beginning of May. Technically, the beginning of May's not for another week, so who knows, maybe I can see a 16 by then.
Of course, I'm not stupid - it's gotta be mainly the drugs. They seem to be filling me with energy and more importantly acting as an appetite suppressant, meaning I'm tending to get by on a cereal breakfast, fruit for snacking, and a largely proteinaceous dinner. What that also means of course is when I finish the steroids, in about ten days time, I daresay there'll be an energy crash, a mood crash, and a hunger rage. Mind you, if I can make progress while this goes on, then wherever the crash happens, I'm in a better place to handle it and deal with it and keep my big boy pants on when it happens, I guess.
But for the good of today - hoorah, we're back on the borderline of 17 stone. Next week, dammit, the numbers will show 16s!
Monday 22 April 2013
Dicks and Groovy Peeps
Yeah, that's more like it.
Blasted down the Taff Trail this morning, and it only took me about an hour and pocket change to do the 5.5 miles. Kind of on a mission, kind of just enjoying the feel of my legs working.
Not to come off all "and the moral is..." here , but having recently lost a bit of the bodily control I'm used ot in my ear, it really did remind me of all the things I'm still perfectly capable of doing, to go and do the Trail this morning. Also of course, it blew the last remnants of yesterday's "whiny head" off me. Came back, had my 400 calorie cereal breakfast (so technically, as far as I know, I was still calorifically ahead of the game at that point).
Went to my hospital appointment for a proper, soundproofy hearing test. Very strange - positively Victorian metal head-contraption, plus two sets of headphones, one of which blasted various levels of white noise into my working ear.
Bottom line is this: The steroids might feel freakin' dandy for the most part, and I still feel there's a bit of an improvement in what I'm picking up in the right ear since I started taking them, but on a graph - zilcho!
"Sooo," I asked the same nice doc that I saw privately last week, "what does that mean?"
"They're probably not going to work," he said. "In fact, it would be a miracle if they worked now, and I'm not looking for miracles."
(Ulp...)
"Sooo," I said again, grinning to cover the bobbing of my Adam's Apple..."what does that mean?"
"I'm going to have to put you on the waiting list for a hearing aid," he said, as I aged a couple of decades quietly, the grin getting tighter.
"It'll take about three or four months to get one," he explained, "and I don't want to see you again in three months and then have to tell you it's another three months before we can get you some help on this.
"A hearing...right," I said. "Yes...yes, of course, that makes sense..."
(Ulp).
"I'll keep taking the steroids, though, right?" I asked. "I mean...y'never know..."
He nodded. "Miracles," he said. "But yes, we'll watch you closely. It might come back on its own. And if it doesn't, then the hearing aid can go to someone else. Really though, the steroids would have been effective in the first week after you lost your hearing, not eight weeks down the line..."
My mouth set in something of a firm line of its own.
"Yyyyyeah, I have a question about that," I said. "I presented this to my GP after three days, the first chance I could get an appointment. They told me Ear, Nose and Throat wouldn't touch me for six weeks, cos people got better from this on their own. In fact, I went back about four or five times over the space of a few weeks, and was told the same thing every time. One of them even told me if he had a pound for everyone who came in with this condition, he'd be a rich man..."
I paused - breath seemed like a necessity.
"Now you tell me that if I'd been given a treatment on my first or second or even third presentation with this, I might not now be facing the prospect of having to wear a hearing aid. How does that work?"
"You have every right to fel aggreived," he said, seeming not a little horrified at my GPs.
"Can I quote you on that?" I asked, a flame of fury lighting in my brain, and a journalistic instinct kicking in.
"Of course, yes," he agreed.
So - In today's column of Groovy Peeps, we put: Nice Consultant.
In today's colum of Dicks, on the other hand, we put: about four different GPs at my surgery.
I announced the news to my friends on Facebook. Most of them, I'm delighted to say, ripped the piss absolutely mercilessly. Step right this way, pals o'mine, right into this nice enclosure of Groovy Peeps...sure, yeah, hang out with Consultant Boy, it's not like he's busy or anything.
Then some dude with whom I've been having spirited debates on philosphy for a couple of years in a closed group popped up, and made a snarky comment, to the effect that my GPs were practicing my own kind of skepticism back at me. It kinda sat on the atmostphere of the thread - most of which cheered me up enormously - so I deleted the comment, and emailed him to tell him why I'd done so.
He deleted me, and as we speak is trying to get me democratically booted from the group.
Dude, seriously, come this way, got some GPS you might like to meet...
As for me - I have a meeting with the Practice Manager a week tomorrow, and have checked with the Community Health Council, which seems to be encouraging me to make a formal complaint. Might have to - apart from waiting 3-4 months, the NHS hearing aids have the style and sophistication of a 1972 Nissan Sunny, whereas the private sector (and yes, I know about the irony of this coming from Red Tone the Socialist, but socialised medicine's rather let me down on this occasion!) are all sleek and sexy and made by Lotus and Jaguar on a good day...which is why they cost around two grand a pop...If the Dicks will just keep me in sexy hearing aids as a result of their fuck-uppery, that'd be fab. Also, if they could stop misdiagnosing the FUCK out of people and letting them go deaf...that'd be kinda nice too...
Going downstairs for...well, technically lunch, I suppose, now...Catch you chickadeess tomorrow for weigh-in day!
Blasted down the Taff Trail this morning, and it only took me about an hour and pocket change to do the 5.5 miles. Kind of on a mission, kind of just enjoying the feel of my legs working.
Not to come off all "and the moral is..." here , but having recently lost a bit of the bodily control I'm used ot in my ear, it really did remind me of all the things I'm still perfectly capable of doing, to go and do the Trail this morning. Also of course, it blew the last remnants of yesterday's "whiny head" off me. Came back, had my 400 calorie cereal breakfast (so technically, as far as I know, I was still calorifically ahead of the game at that point).
Went to my hospital appointment for a proper, soundproofy hearing test. Very strange - positively Victorian metal head-contraption, plus two sets of headphones, one of which blasted various levels of white noise into my working ear.
Bottom line is this: The steroids might feel freakin' dandy for the most part, and I still feel there's a bit of an improvement in what I'm picking up in the right ear since I started taking them, but on a graph - zilcho!
"Sooo," I asked the same nice doc that I saw privately last week, "what does that mean?"
"They're probably not going to work," he said. "In fact, it would be a miracle if they worked now, and I'm not looking for miracles."
(Ulp...)
"Sooo," I said again, grinning to cover the bobbing of my Adam's Apple..."what does that mean?"
"I'm going to have to put you on the waiting list for a hearing aid," he said, as I aged a couple of decades quietly, the grin getting tighter.
"It'll take about three or four months to get one," he explained, "and I don't want to see you again in three months and then have to tell you it's another three months before we can get you some help on this.
"A hearing...right," I said. "Yes...yes, of course, that makes sense..."
(Ulp).
"I'll keep taking the steroids, though, right?" I asked. "I mean...y'never know..."
He nodded. "Miracles," he said. "But yes, we'll watch you closely. It might come back on its own. And if it doesn't, then the hearing aid can go to someone else. Really though, the steroids would have been effective in the first week after you lost your hearing, not eight weeks down the line..."
My mouth set in something of a firm line of its own.
"Yyyyyeah, I have a question about that," I said. "I presented this to my GP after three days, the first chance I could get an appointment. They told me Ear, Nose and Throat wouldn't touch me for six weeks, cos people got better from this on their own. In fact, I went back about four or five times over the space of a few weeks, and was told the same thing every time. One of them even told me if he had a pound for everyone who came in with this condition, he'd be a rich man..."
I paused - breath seemed like a necessity.
"Now you tell me that if I'd been given a treatment on my first or second or even third presentation with this, I might not now be facing the prospect of having to wear a hearing aid. How does that work?"
"You have every right to fel aggreived," he said, seeming not a little horrified at my GPs.
"Can I quote you on that?" I asked, a flame of fury lighting in my brain, and a journalistic instinct kicking in.
"Of course, yes," he agreed.
So - In today's column of Groovy Peeps, we put: Nice Consultant.
In today's colum of Dicks, on the other hand, we put: about four different GPs at my surgery.
I announced the news to my friends on Facebook. Most of them, I'm delighted to say, ripped the piss absolutely mercilessly. Step right this way, pals o'mine, right into this nice enclosure of Groovy Peeps...sure, yeah, hang out with Consultant Boy, it's not like he's busy or anything.
Then some dude with whom I've been having spirited debates on philosphy for a couple of years in a closed group popped up, and made a snarky comment, to the effect that my GPs were practicing my own kind of skepticism back at me. It kinda sat on the atmostphere of the thread - most of which cheered me up enormously - so I deleted the comment, and emailed him to tell him why I'd done so.
He deleted me, and as we speak is trying to get me democratically booted from the group.
Dude, seriously, come this way, got some GPS you might like to meet...
As for me - I have a meeting with the Practice Manager a week tomorrow, and have checked with the Community Health Council, which seems to be encouraging me to make a formal complaint. Might have to - apart from waiting 3-4 months, the NHS hearing aids have the style and sophistication of a 1972 Nissan Sunny, whereas the private sector (and yes, I know about the irony of this coming from Red Tone the Socialist, but socialised medicine's rather let me down on this occasion!) are all sleek and sexy and made by Lotus and Jaguar on a good day...which is why they cost around two grand a pop...If the Dicks will just keep me in sexy hearing aids as a result of their fuck-uppery, that'd be fab. Also, if they could stop misdiagnosing the FUCK out of people and letting them go deaf...that'd be kinda nice too...
Going downstairs for...well, technically lunch, I suppose, now...Catch you chickadeess tomorrow for weigh-in day!
Sunday 21 April 2013
The Swirling Fug
Not sure any more what's drugs and what's me, but today I've been under a rock of heaviness - a bodily heaviness, a mental heaviness, a slab of granite on my shoulders and a fug of swirling dark befuddlement around my head.
Not the best day on which to make progress in any way, really, but the organisation is nearly finished. I feel sluggish though - time to burn my ass down the Trail in the morning, to let go of some of the fug, and get hold of the energised feeling again. Think, to be honest, it's all mainly mental - don't think I've particularly put a shedload on so far this week, just feel static and swamped suddenly. Hence the plan to burn down the Trail and back in the morning, to get some focus again and push on into a week that's pleasingly full of probably good stuff. One part of which of course is the second, more conclusive hearing test.
See - progress, positivity, and Really Good Stuff this week...just need to get out of my own head in order to get there.
Not the best day on which to make progress in any way, really, but the organisation is nearly finished. I feel sluggish though - time to burn my ass down the Trail in the morning, to let go of some of the fug, and get hold of the energised feeling again. Think, to be honest, it's all mainly mental - don't think I've particularly put a shedload on so far this week, just feel static and swamped suddenly. Hence the plan to burn down the Trail and back in the morning, to get some focus again and push on into a week that's pleasingly full of probably good stuff. One part of which of course is the second, more conclusive hearing test.
See - progress, positivity, and Really Good Stuff this week...just need to get out of my own head in order to get there.
Saturday 20 April 2013
The Van Winkle Nap
So what do we learn from yesterday, boys and girls?
We learn that when on steroids, with their reputation for blood-sugar soaring, Tony can't do stupid shit and get away with it.
In fact, yesterday was like going back three years in time. Did the Pizza Hut thing, as I mentioned, and pretty much consumed an entire daysworth of calories at one meal, with no exercise throughout the course of the day to mitigate it. I was dragging my ass when I wrote the blog entry, then I dragged it downstairs to spend some time with d.
Think my eyes were closed and my nose was snoring within ten minutes. Slept pretty much till 3AM - around 5 hours solid, there on the couch. Then I turned over, d said "bed," and we went up, to sleep away another five solid hours till 8 this morning.
I used to do that when my blood sugar was "naturally" out of control and soaring, and it sucked then. Sucks now too, inasmuch as you lose time of being alive every time you do it, and your body just can't fight the sleeping. But - woke up this morning, apparently naturally re-zingified after my Van Winkle Nap, and eager to get on with the organisation of my world. Did quite a bit of good work in ghtat regard today. Bought file dividers and everything! Tomorrow, in all likelihood, will complete the reorganisation of my world and can even then provide figured to the accountant that's talking about something called a "home used as office" tax allowance...which sounds exciting...
Signed off my magazine last night before the Hutfest too, so that's another thing I don't have to think about in the week to come - which is just as well, cos it's gonna get edit-heavy this week, but again, hopefully shoudl be able to incorporate some more exercise.
Managed to do an hour on the bike today, which burned off my cereal breakfast. Had cheese and toast for dinner, and that will now see my through till tomorrow.
Off tonight to sing in Brecon. Tomorrow I finish the organisation, and Monday, apart from the editing fun, have an appointment with my audiology consultant, to repeat the hearing test he gave me last week, but in a sound-proofed booth, like a game-show contestant from the 70s. Fun!
On that score, could be wishful thinking, but I'd have to say I'm getting a little bit more response in the right ear each day. At some points today I could actually pick out and sing along with lyrics in the right ear through the iPod. What are we now, three days into the steroidfest? Week and a half to go, but only four more days on my current dosage. Let's see what happens as we go along, I guess.
Right - To Brecon!
We learn that when on steroids, with their reputation for blood-sugar soaring, Tony can't do stupid shit and get away with it.
In fact, yesterday was like going back three years in time. Did the Pizza Hut thing, as I mentioned, and pretty much consumed an entire daysworth of calories at one meal, with no exercise throughout the course of the day to mitigate it. I was dragging my ass when I wrote the blog entry, then I dragged it downstairs to spend some time with d.
Think my eyes were closed and my nose was snoring within ten minutes. Slept pretty much till 3AM - around 5 hours solid, there on the couch. Then I turned over, d said "bed," and we went up, to sleep away another five solid hours till 8 this morning.
I used to do that when my blood sugar was "naturally" out of control and soaring, and it sucked then. Sucks now too, inasmuch as you lose time of being alive every time you do it, and your body just can't fight the sleeping. But - woke up this morning, apparently naturally re-zingified after my Van Winkle Nap, and eager to get on with the organisation of my world. Did quite a bit of good work in ghtat regard today. Bought file dividers and everything! Tomorrow, in all likelihood, will complete the reorganisation of my world and can even then provide figured to the accountant that's talking about something called a "home used as office" tax allowance...which sounds exciting...
Signed off my magazine last night before the Hutfest too, so that's another thing I don't have to think about in the week to come - which is just as well, cos it's gonna get edit-heavy this week, but again, hopefully shoudl be able to incorporate some more exercise.
Managed to do an hour on the bike today, which burned off my cereal breakfast. Had cheese and toast for dinner, and that will now see my through till tomorrow.
Off tonight to sing in Brecon. Tomorrow I finish the organisation, and Monday, apart from the editing fun, have an appointment with my audiology consultant, to repeat the hearing test he gave me last week, but in a sound-proofed booth, like a game-show contestant from the 70s. Fun!
On that score, could be wishful thinking, but I'd have to say I'm getting a little bit more response in the right ear each day. At some points today I could actually pick out and sing along with lyrics in the right ear through the iPod. What are we now, three days into the steroidfest? Week and a half to go, but only four more days on my current dosage. Let's see what happens as we go along, I guess.
Right - To Brecon!
Friday 19 April 2013
The Mistake Hut
More of the same today, though les extreme. Still up and bouncy - though no longer talking fast or seized by the obsessive desire to tidy.
Had my cereal breakfast at about midday though, because that was the first time I looked up from work. Took ALL my steroids for the day at that point - 60mg with one meal. Am told by some people that's the way to do this. There were, oddly, no instructions along with the drugs, except to take them with food and watch out for mental problems a couple of weeks after you stop taking them - so that bodes well.
Would like to say the hearing's improving. Might even, cautiously, say just that. We'll see how it fares in another day or so, when it's been through the business end of a Choir performance - Brecon, Saturday night, The Plough Chapel - come along, listen to some REAL Voices...
Was coasting along just nicely on one boal of cereal, when we decided to celebrate pay-day at Pizza Hut. Pretty much blew all my satiate congeniality on one pizza. Now, rather sitting here, feeling bloated, and lacking the exercise in the day to counterbalance a move like this.
Thoroughly enjoyed the going and the doing and the eating, but now, feel sluggish and done and not a little low as a result. Still - done is done - I'm not getting on the bike at this point: It's ten o'clock. A wander around the B&Q homestores turned into What We Did Tonight. Ahem...came home with a new toilet seat. This is the life, folks...
Still, we did need a new toilet seat, so at least it's one more thing to tick off our combined Stuff To Do list...
Tomorrow, dammit - biking, walking...Disappearing, in a word.
Had my cereal breakfast at about midday though, because that was the first time I looked up from work. Took ALL my steroids for the day at that point - 60mg with one meal. Am told by some people that's the way to do this. There were, oddly, no instructions along with the drugs, except to take them with food and watch out for mental problems a couple of weeks after you stop taking them - so that bodes well.
Would like to say the hearing's improving. Might even, cautiously, say just that. We'll see how it fares in another day or so, when it's been through the business end of a Choir performance - Brecon, Saturday night, The Plough Chapel - come along, listen to some REAL Voices...
Was coasting along just nicely on one boal of cereal, when we decided to celebrate pay-day at Pizza Hut. Pretty much blew all my satiate congeniality on one pizza. Now, rather sitting here, feeling bloated, and lacking the exercise in the day to counterbalance a move like this.
Thoroughly enjoyed the going and the doing and the eating, but now, feel sluggish and done and not a little low as a result. Still - done is done - I'm not getting on the bike at this point: It's ten o'clock. A wander around the B&Q homestores turned into What We Did Tonight. Ahem...came home with a new toilet seat. This is the life, folks...
Still, we did need a new toilet seat, so at least it's one more thing to tick off our combined Stuff To Do list...
Tomorrow, dammit - biking, walking...Disappearing, in a word.
Thursday 18 April 2013
The Satiety Sensation
Sooooo either I'm just on a naturally bouncy, Tiggerish, getting-stuff-done part of a biorhythm cycle, orrrrr I'm high as a freakin' kite on steroids. Woke up this morning ready to walk six miles. Then I thought "Y'know what? No. Lots to do, lots to do, I can get lots done in this mood, woohoo!"
And I have. I've gotten lots done. None of the walking and none of the biking I'd planned to do, admittedly, but LOTS of other cool stuff. One of the main goals of the day was to tidy my office, and I certainly haven't done that - I've pretty much made it look like a paper-bomb exploded in here, but it's creative chaos. Tomorrow comes the bit where I re-form chaos into order, and more order than there's been for a year.
Yes, I know, I sound almost drunk, or drunk with power or somesuch. I'm drunk, more, on FUN! Fun, and potential, and taking charge...and yes, all on a day when I've done precisely zero exercise, so have nothing but gibber and the jitters and a still-deaf ear to bolster this ridiculous self-confidence.
Case in point for you. I woke up at 6.45 to go walk, and then didn't go. And I worked, worked like I was on fire - on all sorts of things, including a vaguely obsessional cleaning and organising jag. I was due to meet Rebecca for coffee at 2, and it was only at 1.45 I remembered I hadn't had breakfast. I bolted down a measured bowl of cereal (400 calories) just in time to get out the door to her.
Was gonna have lunch after we parted, but just had another couple of things to do, and then another couple, and before I knew it, d was home from work and I hadn't had lunch or particularly missed it. We had small pizzas, but I could probably have skipped them. And here I am, heading to midnight and still feeling wired and buzzy and gonna pull at least a half-nighter, I think, because getting me to sleep right now would be lunacy.
I can see how people get addicted, if this is the chemical effect of these pills.
If it's just me, then hell, I could get ddicted to being me!
And I have. I've gotten lots done. None of the walking and none of the biking I'd planned to do, admittedly, but LOTS of other cool stuff. One of the main goals of the day was to tidy my office, and I certainly haven't done that - I've pretty much made it look like a paper-bomb exploded in here, but it's creative chaos. Tomorrow comes the bit where I re-form chaos into order, and more order than there's been for a year.
Yes, I know, I sound almost drunk, or drunk with power or somesuch. I'm drunk, more, on FUN! Fun, and potential, and taking charge...and yes, all on a day when I've done precisely zero exercise, so have nothing but gibber and the jitters and a still-deaf ear to bolster this ridiculous self-confidence.
Case in point for you. I woke up at 6.45 to go walk, and then didn't go. And I worked, worked like I was on fire - on all sorts of things, including a vaguely obsessional cleaning and organising jag. I was due to meet Rebecca for coffee at 2, and it was only at 1.45 I remembered I hadn't had breakfast. I bolted down a measured bowl of cereal (400 calories) just in time to get out the door to her.
Was gonna have lunch after we parted, but just had another couple of things to do, and then another couple, and before I knew it, d was home from work and I hadn't had lunch or particularly missed it. We had small pizzas, but I could probably have skipped them. And here I am, heading to midnight and still feeling wired and buzzy and gonna pull at least a half-nighter, I think, because getting me to sleep right now would be lunacy.
I can see how people get addicted, if this is the chemical effect of these pills.
If it's just me, then hell, I could get ddicted to being me!
Wednesday 17 April 2013
The Steroid Effect
Well - went to see the last conceivable doctor this morning, and he told me that all my recent results were spot on - long-term blood sugar, cholesterol, liver function, kidney function, practically-everything function, absolutely fine. Ergo, he said, and to echo a Facebook friend of mine, "Take the damn steroids, dude."
I started taking the steroids - 60mg of Prednisolone a day, thankyouverymuch.
The thing about steroids, as I've mentioned, is that your blood sugar's gonna soar. You're probably - I mean, seriously probably - gonna put on weight while you take them. So to some extent, my expectations for the next two weeks of weigh-ins have been put on a kind of steroid-hold. I walked this morning, and I'm gonna be able to walk and bike tomorrow, and so on, but I'm kinda poised for a couple of weeks of not only disappointment, but weight-gain, irrespective of the effort I put in. Gonna give it my best possible, of course, but let's not pretend, if things go wrong, that it's the end of the world. It's not the end of the world - it's what I need to do right now to hopefully - sooooo hopefully - get my hearing back. I can kick the crap out of the weight loss when that's done.
I started taking the steroids - 60mg of Prednisolone a day, thankyouverymuch.
The thing about steroids, as I've mentioned, is that your blood sugar's gonna soar. You're probably - I mean, seriously probably - gonna put on weight while you take them. So to some extent, my expectations for the next two weeks of weigh-ins have been put on a kind of steroid-hold. I walked this morning, and I'm gonna be able to walk and bike tomorrow, and so on, but I'm kinda poised for a couple of weeks of not only disappointment, but weight-gain, irrespective of the effort I put in. Gonna give it my best possible, of course, but let's not pretend, if things go wrong, that it's the end of the world. It's not the end of the world - it's what I need to do right now to hopefully - sooooo hopefully - get my hearing back. I can kick the crap out of the weight loss when that's done.
Tuesday 16 April 2013
The Balancing Insult
Well...here's a question for you.
If you had a choice between going half-blind and going half-deaf, which would you choose?
Have a ponder on that one, this could be a longish blog.
Initial headline of the day - turned out my digestive system woke up nice and early, so weighed in, and got a pleasant surprise: 17st 6.25 - I actually managed to lose a fartsworth of weigh this week. Whodathunkit? Not me, clearly.
Then - to Cardiff, to meet with a private lughole specialist. Sort of agonised about this for a good long while, my Socialist principles tormenting me.
Bottom line, screw it - I met this guy, paid my money and found out a whooooooole mess o'stuff. He's now going to treat me on the NHS going forward. So...yeah, that works.
Thing is, it should have worked a little while ago.
Breaks down like this. I've had and may still have viral labyrinthitis. I now have pretty severe hearing loss in the right ear. In fact - get this it's sick - my hearing in the right ear may be even worse than it currently looks - apparently when you blast sounds into one ear in a hearing test, it travels over the bone of your skull, so you hear some of it with your other ear!
I may not ever get the hearing back...or I may. The best thing to deal with viral labyrinthitis-induced hearing loss is an aggressive course of steroid. The steroids are most effective after about four days of hearing loss...rather than eight pigging weeks of hearing loss.
The steroids are the centre of my current dilemma. Because of course, just last week or thereabouts, I was told my the retinopathy doctor that I've had bleeds at the back of my left eye, and I absolutely need to keep my blood sugars low. Steroids, in case you missed this, send your blood sugar soaring and haywire.
So - deaf or blind?
I'm gonna talk to one more doctor tomorrow, to make sure I'm doing everything I can do to protect the eyeballs while trying to coax the ear back to productivity and life.
The ear doc was very nice and charming - which of course you rather expect when you're paying for it - but one weird thing kinda blew my mind. He gave me a hearing test, then made me stand and close my eyes with my hands out. Apparently, people with hearing loss often sway one way or the other. I didn't. Then he made me stand with my eyes closed and my hands out and march on the spot. I wondered, briefly, whether I was gonna end up on Youtube. Then he told me to open my eyes.
I'd turned round a full 180 degrees, without ever knowing I was moving.
"What?" I asked. "I mean...what?"
"Besides the hearing loss, you have experienced a severe insult to the organ of balance," he explained.
I blinked.
"Really?"
"Yes," he said. "Monday - hospital, another ear test, in a soundproof booth. Maybe an MRI. Steroids. And then..." He sighed.
"Then we watch you verrrrry closely. And we wait. And we hope..."
Soooo that's a plan then.
Woohoo!
If you had a choice between going half-blind and going half-deaf, which would you choose?
Have a ponder on that one, this could be a longish blog.
Initial headline of the day - turned out my digestive system woke up nice and early, so weighed in, and got a pleasant surprise: 17st 6.25 - I actually managed to lose a fartsworth of weigh this week. Whodathunkit? Not me, clearly.
Then - to Cardiff, to meet with a private lughole specialist. Sort of agonised about this for a good long while, my Socialist principles tormenting me.
Bottom line, screw it - I met this guy, paid my money and found out a whooooooole mess o'stuff. He's now going to treat me on the NHS going forward. So...yeah, that works.
Thing is, it should have worked a little while ago.
Breaks down like this. I've had and may still have viral labyrinthitis. I now have pretty severe hearing loss in the right ear. In fact - get this it's sick - my hearing in the right ear may be even worse than it currently looks - apparently when you blast sounds into one ear in a hearing test, it travels over the bone of your skull, so you hear some of it with your other ear!
I may not ever get the hearing back...or I may. The best thing to deal with viral labyrinthitis-induced hearing loss is an aggressive course of steroid. The steroids are most effective after about four days of hearing loss...rather than eight pigging weeks of hearing loss.
The steroids are the centre of my current dilemma. Because of course, just last week or thereabouts, I was told my the retinopathy doctor that I've had bleeds at the back of my left eye, and I absolutely need to keep my blood sugars low. Steroids, in case you missed this, send your blood sugar soaring and haywire.
So - deaf or blind?
I'm gonna talk to one more doctor tomorrow, to make sure I'm doing everything I can do to protect the eyeballs while trying to coax the ear back to productivity and life.
The ear doc was very nice and charming - which of course you rather expect when you're paying for it - but one weird thing kinda blew my mind. He gave me a hearing test, then made me stand and close my eyes with my hands out. Apparently, people with hearing loss often sway one way or the other. I didn't. Then he made me stand with my eyes closed and my hands out and march on the spot. I wondered, briefly, whether I was gonna end up on Youtube. Then he told me to open my eyes.
I'd turned round a full 180 degrees, without ever knowing I was moving.
"What?" I asked. "I mean...what?"
"Besides the hearing loss, you have experienced a severe insult to the organ of balance," he explained.
I blinked.
"Really?"
"Yes," he said. "Monday - hospital, another ear test, in a soundproof booth. Maybe an MRI. Steroids. And then..." He sighed.
"Then we watch you verrrrry closely. And we wait. And we hope..."
Soooo that's a plan then.
Woohoo!
The Busyness Fallback
Damn. Feels like Week Two of the new regime has pretty much
gone off the rails, without me doing anything especially wrong. The point, I
suppose is that I haven’t done enough especially right. Got too caught up in
deadlines and Stuff To Do to devote as much time as I should have to the
Disappearing – most particularly the exercise regime. Still…tomorrow’s
weigh-in, as I mentioned yesterday, looks like a tricky feat to manage, as I’m
out the door at the crack of sparrowfart, before my digestive system will have
woken up, to try, please all the non-existent gods, to get something sorted out
about this wretched deaf ear, which…yes…continues to be both practically deaf
and insanely sensitive to a noise-floor, at one and the same time. The next few
weeks though are much more relaxed than the previous week has been, work wise,
so with luck, or more particularly, dedication, I should be able to devote the
proper time to the Disappearing, and make some more proper progress. I still
hold a probably-mad hope of entering May along the 17 stone border, though
obviously, that will have made madder and more difficult by this week of
dilettante exercising.
Still – it’s a hope, and hopes are good for holding on
to and focusing the mind. So this is how I’m going into this week.
Well, this, and thinking about the poor sods in Boston who just
went out to run a marathon, about whom I’ve just heard. What was I saying about
hope being good to hang on to. Here’s a hope for peace and some comfort in the
cradle of American Independence tonight.
Sunday 14 April 2013
The Michael Moment
Had a Michael Moment yesterday. d nearly died.
Oh, right...you don't know what a Michael Moment is, do you?
OK, couple of years ago, d and I were staying over in the States with Lori (d's best friend and practical sister). We were out at an evening at the local high school, watching a show with her step-daughter in it. her step-son Michael came along to support his sister. Before the curtain went up, he was sitting with his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him.
"Hey Mike, got a test to see if you like girls," said Lori.
"Yeah?" he aked.
"Yeah," she said, and squeezed his kneecap. Unprepared for the spasm reaction, he folded up like a deckchair and headbutted his own knees, giving himself a dented head and making d and Lori collapse into laughter that turned them both red and breathless. Anything since then that would go viral on Youtube if only someone had had a camera running has been known as a Michael Moment.
So yesterday morning I got out of bed, walked out of the bedroom, pulled the door closed behind me and headbutted the door. d exploded into hysterics in the bed.
"Meant to do that!" I muttered, clomping off to work. d cried herself to sleep for another three hours, with tears of laughter.
Today has been fairly deadline-free. Which is funny when you consider I've still spent most of it in front of a computer. And am still working, come to that, at 9.25 at night.
Didn't go to choir tonight either - my ear has been playing me up something chronic this weekend. Which is why, Tuesday morning, I'm going to stifle my Socialistic principles and go to a private medical appointment to get the damn thing finally looked at. I'm actually on the NHS waiting list now, but apparently, it's a waiting list with no prospective dates on it, so it's like something out of George Orwell - a waiting list where you just...wait. I'm done waiting, screw it.
Calorifically speaking, not sure how today's gone. Had a McDonalds plain porridge and an OJ for breakfast. biked 600 calories off, then had rice and sticky sesame chicken for a late lunch. Now, am about to have a Swiss steak sandwich for a late supper.
UberCommuting tomorrow, and Tuesday's weigh-in is gonna be...tricky, given that the appointment with the ear specialist is at 8.30. Not, if I'm honest, expecting either progress or plateau this week; haven't done the walking, haven't done enough of the other exercise, though have still been pretty good with my eating. Probably will have slipped back over the landmark into 17stone 7+. And so, we deal. If the ear can get fixed, I'll be able to put a lot more oomph into the exercise. Cross your fingers for me and my lughole...
Oh, right...you don't know what a Michael Moment is, do you?
OK, couple of years ago, d and I were staying over in the States with Lori (d's best friend and practical sister). We were out at an evening at the local high school, watching a show with her step-daughter in it. her step-son Michael came along to support his sister. Before the curtain went up, he was sitting with his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him.
"Hey Mike, got a test to see if you like girls," said Lori.
"Yeah?" he aked.
"Yeah," she said, and squeezed his kneecap. Unprepared for the spasm reaction, he folded up like a deckchair and headbutted his own knees, giving himself a dented head and making d and Lori collapse into laughter that turned them both red and breathless. Anything since then that would go viral on Youtube if only someone had had a camera running has been known as a Michael Moment.
So yesterday morning I got out of bed, walked out of the bedroom, pulled the door closed behind me and headbutted the door. d exploded into hysterics in the bed.
"Meant to do that!" I muttered, clomping off to work. d cried herself to sleep for another three hours, with tears of laughter.
Today has been fairly deadline-free. Which is funny when you consider I've still spent most of it in front of a computer. And am still working, come to that, at 9.25 at night.
Didn't go to choir tonight either - my ear has been playing me up something chronic this weekend. Which is why, Tuesday morning, I'm going to stifle my Socialistic principles and go to a private medical appointment to get the damn thing finally looked at. I'm actually on the NHS waiting list now, but apparently, it's a waiting list with no prospective dates on it, so it's like something out of George Orwell - a waiting list where you just...wait. I'm done waiting, screw it.
Calorifically speaking, not sure how today's gone. Had a McDonalds plain porridge and an OJ for breakfast. biked 600 calories off, then had rice and sticky sesame chicken for a late lunch. Now, am about to have a Swiss steak sandwich for a late supper.
UberCommuting tomorrow, and Tuesday's weigh-in is gonna be...tricky, given that the appointment with the ear specialist is at 8.30. Not, if I'm honest, expecting either progress or plateau this week; haven't done the walking, haven't done enough of the other exercise, though have still been pretty good with my eating. Probably will have slipped back over the landmark into 17stone 7+. And so, we deal. If the ear can get fixed, I'll be able to put a lot more oomph into the exercise. Cross your fingers for me and my lughole...
Saturday 13 April 2013
The Exercise Failure
Sigh.
Well...I've done nearly everything I planned to do today. Finished an edit I didn't think I'd finish. Didn't actually go to the Community Opera either, I suppose, but apparently there was no need to go anyway and...y'know...it's Community Opera and I had a deadline tomorrow morning at ten.
The only big thing I haven't done today that I should have done is...pretty much....annnny freakin' exercise whatsoever.
Caloriewise so far, have had a cereal breakfast (about 400 calories) and one and a bit slices of Welsh Rarebit (posh cheese and toast, to you lot). Am going downstairs in a minute for dinner though, so will probably, technically, if ya wanna be pedantic about it, be calorifically over on the day by the end of it.
I don't particularly wanna be pedantic about it. I'm gonna sit with my wife, watch some TV, and just chill, and be, cos frankly the whole thing starts again tomorrow, with a final edit on my magazine, and getting ahead of the game with the next two edits I'm booked to do (did I mention - business...going pretty well right about now!).
So sayonara, goodnight, arriverderci and bog off - I'll exercise again in the morning. Honest, guv!
Well...I've done nearly everything I planned to do today. Finished an edit I didn't think I'd finish. Didn't actually go to the Community Opera either, I suppose, but apparently there was no need to go anyway and...y'know...it's Community Opera and I had a deadline tomorrow morning at ten.
The only big thing I haven't done today that I should have done is...pretty much....annnny freakin' exercise whatsoever.
Caloriewise so far, have had a cereal breakfast (about 400 calories) and one and a bit slices of Welsh Rarebit (posh cheese and toast, to you lot). Am going downstairs in a minute for dinner though, so will probably, technically, if ya wanna be pedantic about it, be calorifically over on the day by the end of it.
I don't particularly wanna be pedantic about it. I'm gonna sit with my wife, watch some TV, and just chill, and be, cos frankly the whole thing starts again tomorrow, with a final edit on my magazine, and getting ahead of the game with the next two edits I'm booked to do (did I mention - business...going pretty well right about now!).
So sayonara, goodnight, arriverderci and bog off - I'll exercise again in the morning. Honest, guv!
Friday 12 April 2013
The Wedding Arhythmia
No, before you panic - just relax, this entry has nothing to do with my heart.
It has to do with the way a wedding completely screws with your rhythms, your ways of doing things.
Got up this morning, jumped on the bike, did only about half an hour, intending to cover my cereal breakfast.
Then got in the shower and got clean. Sian, whose sister Rhiannon was the One In White Down The Front today, was travelling from Somewhere In England (did I mention I'm crap at georgraphy?), and had said she'd be in Merthyr for 10.30 so we could get a coffee before the wedding.
She arrived at 10 - before I'd had a chance to put my "breakfast" plan into operation - in search of chips and gravy. I took her and my goddaughters (who, I should like it put on record, must now stop growing immediately) for the said wodges of carb in animal juice, then Sian and I grabbed a coffeee at what is probably the best local coffee bar - Trenchers.
We hung out for a bit together, then it was time to get kick-started with wedding prep - Sian and the girls went to their hotel to get changed, I went to collect d from work, and head to Ma's so d could get ready. There, I managed a quick bowl of cereal before we headed off for the wedding itself at about 1.45.
There's something about churches, clearly. Every time I go into one, I lose my hat. We'd moved on to the reception by the time Sian texted me to say "Oi...I have your hat..." - luckily, Brianna, her elder daughter, had spotted it under the pew where we'd been sitting, and grabbed it. Thanks, B!
We waited for everyone to arrive, waited through the speeches, and eventurally tore into the buffet. Then the entertainment came out, and my ear nearly drove me stark raving bonkers. She was a singer with a powerful voice, who could probably have done a really good job without the microphone. With it, my deaf ear vibrated like a thoroughly pissed off cricket. I couldn't actually stand the pain of it very long...mainly cos I'm a wuss...and we made our way out.
Oddly enough though, we decided we were both still hungry, so we poped over to the local pub-grub place, the Dragonfly - which normally is quite kind to us, and skinflintingly cheap.
Tonight though, notsomuch. I abandoned my dry, fishy-smelling plaice and freezerburned peas, and d had only half of her gammon.
So although I didn't actually start eating till quite late in the day today, the actual gross intake of food is probably quite high, with only half and hour's biking to offset it.
Tomorrow, am pretty much bound to my chair all day...except for a couple of hours in the afternoon, when I'm going to watch a "community opera"...
...No, I'm not entirely sure either...
Nevertheless, hopefully, biking in the morning, maybe biking in the evening too, and lots of work - have a deadline Sunday morning which I'm still hoping to make.
It has to do with the way a wedding completely screws with your rhythms, your ways of doing things.
Got up this morning, jumped on the bike, did only about half an hour, intending to cover my cereal breakfast.
Then got in the shower and got clean. Sian, whose sister Rhiannon was the One In White Down The Front today, was travelling from Somewhere In England (did I mention I'm crap at georgraphy?), and had said she'd be in Merthyr for 10.30 so we could get a coffee before the wedding.
She arrived at 10 - before I'd had a chance to put my "breakfast" plan into operation - in search of chips and gravy. I took her and my goddaughters (who, I should like it put on record, must now stop growing immediately) for the said wodges of carb in animal juice, then Sian and I grabbed a coffeee at what is probably the best local coffee bar - Trenchers.
We hung out for a bit together, then it was time to get kick-started with wedding prep - Sian and the girls went to their hotel to get changed, I went to collect d from work, and head to Ma's so d could get ready. There, I managed a quick bowl of cereal before we headed off for the wedding itself at about 1.45.
There's something about churches, clearly. Every time I go into one, I lose my hat. We'd moved on to the reception by the time Sian texted me to say "Oi...I have your hat..." - luckily, Brianna, her elder daughter, had spotted it under the pew where we'd been sitting, and grabbed it. Thanks, B!
We waited for everyone to arrive, waited through the speeches, and eventurally tore into the buffet. Then the entertainment came out, and my ear nearly drove me stark raving bonkers. She was a singer with a powerful voice, who could probably have done a really good job without the microphone. With it, my deaf ear vibrated like a thoroughly pissed off cricket. I couldn't actually stand the pain of it very long...mainly cos I'm a wuss...and we made our way out.
Oddly enough though, we decided we were both still hungry, so we poped over to the local pub-grub place, the Dragonfly - which normally is quite kind to us, and skinflintingly cheap.
Tonight though, notsomuch. I abandoned my dry, fishy-smelling plaice and freezerburned peas, and d had only half of her gammon.
So although I didn't actually start eating till quite late in the day today, the actual gross intake of food is probably quite high, with only half and hour's biking to offset it.
Tomorrow, am pretty much bound to my chair all day...except for a couple of hours in the afternoon, when I'm going to watch a "community opera"...
...No, I'm not entirely sure either...
Nevertheless, hopefully, biking in the morning, maybe biking in the evening too, and lots of work - have a deadline Sunday morning which I'm still hoping to make.
Thursday 11 April 2013
The Thursday Mis-Step
There was no blog yesterday. I did an hour's biking in the morning, but after that, was pretty much locked into my chair till about 1.30AM.
Today was even more mental under the pump - up at 7...something, worked through till now (9.48PM), with absolutely no exercise, for the first time in a week. Must do some biking in the morning. Tomorrow we have a wedding to go to - Rhiannon, Sian's sister. Looking forward to that, and don't intend to think of a big ticking clock during the whole thing.
Honest...
Meanwhile, having done very little of interest during the day, there's very little to say and very little time to say it tonight. So something of a mis-step today. Must get back to the idea of pushing on downward tomorrow.
Annnnd on we go.
Today was even more mental under the pump - up at 7...something, worked through till now (9.48PM), with absolutely no exercise, for the first time in a week. Must do some biking in the morning. Tomorrow we have a wedding to go to - Rhiannon, Sian's sister. Looking forward to that, and don't intend to think of a big ticking clock during the whole thing.
Honest...
Meanwhile, having done very little of interest during the day, there's very little to say and very little time to say it tonight. So something of a mis-step today. Must get back to the idea of pushing on downward tomorrow.
Annnnd on we go.
Tuesday 9 April 2013
The New First Step
Sooooooooo yeah...
Weigh-in today has me at: 17st 6.5.
That's a loss of three pounds, with which I'm happy. It's interesting that previously when I've had a week of really hitting the exercise, my body's gone into shock and dropped me by a big chunk, but this is good enough for me. Crucially of course, it puts me over my first new milestone - 17st 7 (or actually, as it should have been, 17 st 7.5), and allows me to think and say that once more, I've lost three stone since we started all this.
So now on we go to the next milestone, which I'm not expecting to hit for at least three weeks. If I can go into May having cracked the 17 stone (3.5 stone lost) barrier, and count myself in among the 16s, I'll be more than happy. On that basis, I'll go into June in the lower half of the 16s, and July will see me in the 15s again. By September, we'll be counting in 14s again. and so on. November, will bring the 13s into view, and be Christmas, we may be dabbling with the number 12.
Of course, this is in an ideal world, a consistent world of weightloss, where every single week sees me lose two pounds, and we all know that's not actually the world in which we live. There will be plateaus, there will be setbacks, there will be complete pains in the arse.
But we've taken the first step. Now...forward to 17 stone...
Weigh-in today has me at: 17st 6.5.
That's a loss of three pounds, with which I'm happy. It's interesting that previously when I've had a week of really hitting the exercise, my body's gone into shock and dropped me by a big chunk, but this is good enough for me. Crucially of course, it puts me over my first new milestone - 17st 7 (or actually, as it should have been, 17 st 7.5), and allows me to think and say that once more, I've lost three stone since we started all this.
So now on we go to the next milestone, which I'm not expecting to hit for at least three weeks. If I can go into May having cracked the 17 stone (3.5 stone lost) barrier, and count myself in among the 16s, I'll be more than happy. On that basis, I'll go into June in the lower half of the 16s, and July will see me in the 15s again. By September, we'll be counting in 14s again. and so on. November, will bring the 13s into view, and be Christmas, we may be dabbling with the number 12.
Of course, this is in an ideal world, a consistent world of weightloss, where every single week sees me lose two pounds, and we all know that's not actually the world in which we live. There will be plateaus, there will be setbacks, there will be complete pains in the arse.
But we've taken the first step. Now...forward to 17 stone...
Monday 8 April 2013
The Positivity Vibe
OK, so maybe not the Fifteen Miles+Stretchy Bits Monday I'd anticipated.
Walked with Ma this morning, but we took an odd path, and ended up doing just, essentially a couple of miles. Had a McDonalds porridge (plain) and a large de-caff skinny latte from Costa for my breakfast, which put me in a calorific surplus, irritatingly enough.
Had a frankly mad morning of work and work and more work, and was planning to go to the gym at unchtime, as I mentioned yesterday. When the time came, I was tied up in work phone calls and family visits and, needing to get back on track, I never made it to the gym. So - not great, all in all. Had a tin of soup (218 calories) and four slices of granary bread - yeah, you heard me, four - each at 85 calories, so about 560 calories of lunch, sue me! - then worked on till d came home.
Did an hour of biking though, that burned me 580 calories - so lunch and a gulp of my morning coffee were voided. The biking still feels good, the pushing, the sweating, the getting back into a daily routine with it.
And for dinner tonight, d make Swiss steak, which was glorious, and some fingerling potatoes, which were carb, yes, but not much of it. Feel full and content now though, so happy to call that a night on the eating front.
Who knows what tomorrow's weigh in will show? To be honest, I'm philosophical. I'm keeping the goal in mind: to reach 17st 7, my first new milestone, which will push me back to having lost three full stone since I started. Three more stone and I'll have usurped my previous best!
I feel like I've done enough this week to warrant reaching the goal, but who knows? Since the National win though, I'm feeling positive, energised, committed and generally like things are going my way - a feeling enhanced tonight by checking into the business bank account and realising I can pay a chunk off the credit card. So as I say, am riding a positivity vibe tonight, that won't be rocked to death if tomorrow it turns out I haven't met the milestone.
Back to the 5.5 mile trek down the Trail in the morning though, certainly...
Although d says we're due a couple of blizzards overnight. Hmm...
Walked with Ma this morning, but we took an odd path, and ended up doing just, essentially a couple of miles. Had a McDonalds porridge (plain) and a large de-caff skinny latte from Costa for my breakfast, which put me in a calorific surplus, irritatingly enough.
Had a frankly mad morning of work and work and more work, and was planning to go to the gym at unchtime, as I mentioned yesterday. When the time came, I was tied up in work phone calls and family visits and, needing to get back on track, I never made it to the gym. So - not great, all in all. Had a tin of soup (218 calories) and four slices of granary bread - yeah, you heard me, four - each at 85 calories, so about 560 calories of lunch, sue me! - then worked on till d came home.
Did an hour of biking though, that burned me 580 calories - so lunch and a gulp of my morning coffee were voided. The biking still feels good, the pushing, the sweating, the getting back into a daily routine with it.
And for dinner tonight, d make Swiss steak, which was glorious, and some fingerling potatoes, which were carb, yes, but not much of it. Feel full and content now though, so happy to call that a night on the eating front.
Who knows what tomorrow's weigh in will show? To be honest, I'm philosophical. I'm keeping the goal in mind: to reach 17st 7, my first new milestone, which will push me back to having lost three full stone since I started. Three more stone and I'll have usurped my previous best!
I feel like I've done enough this week to warrant reaching the goal, but who knows? Since the National win though, I'm feeling positive, energised, committed and generally like things are going my way - a feeling enhanced tonight by checking into the business bank account and realising I can pay a chunk off the credit card. So as I say, am riding a positivity vibe tonight, that won't be rocked to death if tomorrow it turns out I haven't met the milestone.
Back to the 5.5 mile trek down the Trail in the morning though, certainly...
Although d says we're due a couple of blizzards overnight. Hmm...
Sunday 7 April 2013
The Fifteen Mile Sunday
As I get back into this Disappearing lark properly, the rhythms are kind of coming back to me.
Got up this morning, did a few hours' of editing work, then at 11, headed off down the Taff Trail for my 5.5 mile walk, which I did in an hour and a half. Came home, did a few more hours' work. Then got on the bike and did 9.5 miles of pedalling.
So that's 15 miles. Which is a moment of cognitive dissonance to think about, because what I remember about the day is sitting on my ass, editing like a mad man (Had a project of 245 pages to do at lunchtime Friday, and am now down to fewer than a hundred pages left). But really it was a 15 mile Sunday...
As I say, the rhythms are coming back to me, but coming to the end of the day and realising there's actually a reason why you feel as tired as you do feels pretty good.
Ma's back from Berlin tonight, and she's here at 7 in the morning for another Taff Trail walk. Tomorrow's a three-session day - walk before work, lunchtime gymming, evening biking, prior to Tuesday's weigh-in. Two weeks ago, I'd have been whinging about that, but now I'm looking forward to doing the work. This is probably demented of course, but it feels like it's allowed me to up my mental game, just as my To Do List has grown itself back into a full, Triffidy beanstalk and needs me to focus on it 24/7. Oddly, by taking the time out to do the exercise, I feel like I'm actually working better, faster, and more clearly than I was a couple of weeks ago, when I was dedicating more time to work and no time to the exercise.
So tomorrow should be a 15 mile+stretchy exercise Monday. And on we go.
Got up this morning, did a few hours' of editing work, then at 11, headed off down the Taff Trail for my 5.5 mile walk, which I did in an hour and a half. Came home, did a few more hours' work. Then got on the bike and did 9.5 miles of pedalling.
So that's 15 miles. Which is a moment of cognitive dissonance to think about, because what I remember about the day is sitting on my ass, editing like a mad man (Had a project of 245 pages to do at lunchtime Friday, and am now down to fewer than a hundred pages left). But really it was a 15 mile Sunday...
As I say, the rhythms are coming back to me, but coming to the end of the day and realising there's actually a reason why you feel as tired as you do feels pretty good.
Ma's back from Berlin tonight, and she's here at 7 in the morning for another Taff Trail walk. Tomorrow's a three-session day - walk before work, lunchtime gymming, evening biking, prior to Tuesday's weigh-in. Two weeks ago, I'd have been whinging about that, but now I'm looking forward to doing the work. This is probably demented of course, but it feels like it's allowed me to up my mental game, just as my To Do List has grown itself back into a full, Triffidy beanstalk and needs me to focus on it 24/7. Oddly, by taking the time out to do the exercise, I feel like I'm actually working better, faster, and more clearly than I was a couple of weeks ago, when I was dedicating more time to work and no time to the exercise.
So tomorrow should be a 15 mile+stretchy exercise Monday. And on we go.
Saturday 6 April 2013
The National Romp
We lay in bed this morning, and d stroked my chest.
"Y'know...there's a thing about what you do...you hit it hard, and then you get blisters, and get frustrated and whiney," she explained, stroking extra soft to mitigate the "whiney".
"Soooo...you mean I shouldn't walk today?" I asked, cutting to the chase.
"I do, yes..." Stroke, stroke, stroke...
"OK," I said, giving up the idea quickly, largely because yesterday, I got half a shedload more work to do, so there was plenty of reason to sit on my ass for most of the day.
As it happened though, I didn't end up sitting down for very long at all today. We went to McDonalds for breakfast (I had porridge and water). Then to Tescos, for a quick shopping trip. Then back for a few hours of working, while d went back out. I had a couple of handfuls of nuts, and coffee.
We met up again for a coffee break, went shopping in a couple of other places. One of the main places we went was to a local betting shop, because it was Grand National day. We only ever bet on horses on Grand National day. Long-term readers will remember that two years ago on National day, we won some money, and then I had to be taken to hospital with a major tachycardic incident.
We spent £23 all told, had some fun, and went home. I was going to get straight on the bike, but as it turned out, there was only half an hour before the National was being run, so I did half an hour of work. When the National was over, it turned out we'd backed not only the winner, but the third place horse, twice, and the fourth too. We pretty much romped home, and won about four times our stake back. Good day in the Disappearing household!
What's more, no hospital. Things are looking determinedly up! In celebration, d did a thing she's been contemplating for a while, and got her ears re-pierced. After all, what could go wrong on a day like today?
Nothing, as it happens. She now has sparkly golden lugholes. I keep wanted to nibble them, but she says she'll punch me in the face if I do...
When I finally got on the bike tonight, I resurrected a practice from the original Disappearing - tried to maintain a burn of 10 calories per minute, minimum. Managed it, and was able to do 520 calories of work, or 10 miles of pedalling, in just 52 minutes. So - woohoo for that.
Dinner was chicken, asparagus, rice and a Japanese katsu curry sauce. Not sure about the calorific value, but at least I managed the 500 calories beforehand. Should be alright, I reckon. As I say, what could go wrong on a day when we've won a shedload on the National, and I've not been admitted to hospital?!
Result all round, really...
"Y'know...there's a thing about what you do...you hit it hard, and then you get blisters, and get frustrated and whiney," she explained, stroking extra soft to mitigate the "whiney".
"Soooo...you mean I shouldn't walk today?" I asked, cutting to the chase.
"I do, yes..." Stroke, stroke, stroke...
"OK," I said, giving up the idea quickly, largely because yesterday, I got half a shedload more work to do, so there was plenty of reason to sit on my ass for most of the day.
As it happened though, I didn't end up sitting down for very long at all today. We went to McDonalds for breakfast (I had porridge and water). Then to Tescos, for a quick shopping trip. Then back for a few hours of working, while d went back out. I had a couple of handfuls of nuts, and coffee.
We met up again for a coffee break, went shopping in a couple of other places. One of the main places we went was to a local betting shop, because it was Grand National day. We only ever bet on horses on Grand National day. Long-term readers will remember that two years ago on National day, we won some money, and then I had to be taken to hospital with a major tachycardic incident.
We spent £23 all told, had some fun, and went home. I was going to get straight on the bike, but as it turned out, there was only half an hour before the National was being run, so I did half an hour of work. When the National was over, it turned out we'd backed not only the winner, but the third place horse, twice, and the fourth too. We pretty much romped home, and won about four times our stake back. Good day in the Disappearing household!
What's more, no hospital. Things are looking determinedly up! In celebration, d did a thing she's been contemplating for a while, and got her ears re-pierced. After all, what could go wrong on a day like today?
Nothing, as it happens. She now has sparkly golden lugholes. I keep wanted to nibble them, but she says she'll punch me in the face if I do...
When I finally got on the bike tonight, I resurrected a practice from the original Disappearing - tried to maintain a burn of 10 calories per minute, minimum. Managed it, and was able to do 520 calories of work, or 10 miles of pedalling, in just 52 minutes. So - woohoo for that.
Dinner was chicken, asparagus, rice and a Japanese katsu curry sauce. Not sure about the calorific value, but at least I managed the 500 calories beforehand. Should be alright, I reckon. As I say, what could go wrong on a day when we've won a shedload on the National, and I've not been admitted to hospital?!
Result all round, really...
Friday 5 April 2013
The Occular Consequence
Walked my Alma Row, Dowlais walk again this morning, but with a twist - on coming down through Dowlais, turned up along a road you'd really think I knew the name of, it being my home town and all...For any Merthyrians, it's the big long road with a pub I think is called the Horse & Groom at the bottom of it, and the entry to Galon Uchaf at the other end. It's always seemed like quite a steep hill.
It is.
The reason for this demented diversion was that I was walking to Prince Charles Hospital. Last time I got my diabetic retinopathy screening, it picked up something that needed more investigation.
I wasn't worried - that's what they said the last time, and it turned out to be minor, and nothing to worry about.
Last time of course was a year or so ago. I've been out of blood control for almost a year since then.
That's altogether not a very smart thing to have been.
Apparently, there's been quite a lot of change at the back of my eye since my last screening. My left eye, apparently, is "coming close to needing laser treatment". On behalf of the You're Not Sticking That In My Eyeball Party, can I just give a quick "Waaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!" and move on.
I'm now on a three month review, after which time, if the doctor feels it's necessary, she'll laser my eyeball that freakin' day!
"You know, the best thing for this is good diabetic control," said the doctor. I hate that bitch...
Ironically, my referral to Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic arrived today too, for the ongoing deafness in my right ear. I'm now on the waiting list for an appointment.
I say ironically, because in three months' time, something which gives me no pain or discomfort might be treated with high-tech laser equipment, whereas something that's already been going on for nearly two months now, and which DOES give me both pain and discomfort, goes on a waiting list with no date as to when I'll even be seen for it.
Anyhow - that was one long-assed walk this morning. Came home, had a bowl of cereal at lunchtime, did only half an hour's biking - 300 caloriesworth - and met d for a meal out tonight - Salsa Chicken (butterfly chicken breast, some red goo, some cheese, melted) with some new potatoes. Am now staring at a couple of apples, willing them to turn into...y'know...desserts. Nothing apparently doing.
Oh yeah, and one other delightful detail of being back on the Disappearing wagon. Stomach spasms. Not, I think mainly, orange spasms, for which of course I'm grateful. But probably stretchy, exercise-related, water-drinking spasms that have so far been a big feature of the last two nights.
So - exhaustion, muscle aches and stomach cramps...ahhhh it's great getting healthy. No really, it is...wouldn't swap it for all the lardassery and desserts in Texas...
It is.
The reason for this demented diversion was that I was walking to Prince Charles Hospital. Last time I got my diabetic retinopathy screening, it picked up something that needed more investigation.
I wasn't worried - that's what they said the last time, and it turned out to be minor, and nothing to worry about.
Last time of course was a year or so ago. I've been out of blood control for almost a year since then.
That's altogether not a very smart thing to have been.
Apparently, there's been quite a lot of change at the back of my eye since my last screening. My left eye, apparently, is "coming close to needing laser treatment". On behalf of the You're Not Sticking That In My Eyeball Party, can I just give a quick "Waaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!" and move on.
I'm now on a three month review, after which time, if the doctor feels it's necessary, she'll laser my eyeball that freakin' day!
"You know, the best thing for this is good diabetic control," said the doctor. I hate that bitch...
Ironically, my referral to Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic arrived today too, for the ongoing deafness in my right ear. I'm now on the waiting list for an appointment.
I say ironically, because in three months' time, something which gives me no pain or discomfort might be treated with high-tech laser equipment, whereas something that's already been going on for nearly two months now, and which DOES give me both pain and discomfort, goes on a waiting list with no date as to when I'll even be seen for it.
Anyhow - that was one long-assed walk this morning. Came home, had a bowl of cereal at lunchtime, did only half an hour's biking - 300 caloriesworth - and met d for a meal out tonight - Salsa Chicken (butterfly chicken breast, some red goo, some cheese, melted) with some new potatoes. Am now staring at a couple of apples, willing them to turn into...y'know...desserts. Nothing apparently doing.
Oh yeah, and one other delightful detail of being back on the Disappearing wagon. Stomach spasms. Not, I think mainly, orange spasms, for which of course I'm grateful. But probably stretchy, exercise-related, water-drinking spasms that have so far been a big feature of the last two nights.
So - exhaustion, muscle aches and stomach cramps...ahhhh it's great getting healthy. No really, it is...wouldn't swap it for all the lardassery and desserts in Texas...
Thursday 4 April 2013
The Measurement Unit Remembrance
And so we begin again.
Walked my Twyn Hill...which is actually my Alma Row...walk this morning - about 5 miles - and saw Ma off for her trip to Berlin.
Didn't actually eat breakfast. Not cos I was worried about calories, I was just actually full and contented.
Went to the gym at lunchtime - did a little rowing, just to raise the heart rate to "Holy Fuck I'm Dying" levels, then did a bunch of arm work and sixty weighted sit-ups. I didn't push it or stress it, cos I had plans for the day.
Had lunch of four slices of wholemeal toast, scraped with butter, and a tin of cold tomatoes. Then worked through till about 5.40, and did an hour of actual, musical, sweat-dripping biking, which felt insanely good, given the accompanying pain. Worked off 10 miles and 500 calories, jumped in the shower.
Dinner was chicken goujons, a sweet potato, a small amount of mac and cheese and, as a quirky touch, a couple of hard boiled eggs.
And that's me done for the day. Have had a bottle of water and two coffees. Gonna have at least one more before the end of the day, but all in all, it feels like a good Disappearing Reboot.
The thing about today has been a remembering of a thing from the old days. When I started, and throughout the first phase, I wasn't really looking at the long-term goal very often or for very long. It was all about the next milestone. The next seven pounds (or half a stone). So, the way I'm thinking about it is that from my original starting weight, I'm currently between milestones - I've lost 2.5 stone, and an additional 4.some-odd pounds. That leaves me something like 2.5 pounds to my next milestone of having lost three stone at the 17st 7 marker. That's got to be doable this week, but if it isn't, it'll be done next week instead. But it will be done. After which, we keep one eye on not falling back to the 2.5 stone marker, and one eye, and a shitload of effort, on getting to the 3.5 stone mark, at 17 stone.
This, right now, feels like a much more intelligent way of going about this thing than focusing on the fact that I still have about six and a half stone to lose before getting to my allegedly "ideal" weight. Baby steps, seven pound increments, journey of a thousand miles, yadda yadda yadda. I feel like I'm back. Not to make wuss-ass excuses, but I feel like most of 2012 was consumed in worry about my Dad. Still miss him every day, cos he was one of those men who had a take on everything, even if his take was "don't worry about it", or, which I admired about him, "say 'bollocks' to it".
But now it's time to say "bollocks to using him as an excuse to not be what I want to be. He wouldn't want that and nor do I. We go forward again from here, I say - seven pound marker by seven pound marker, setback by setback, plateau by godforsaken plateau, and when they come, triumph by triumph.
So, fix your stars to the next goal, ladies and gentlemen - 17 stone 7, here we bloody well come...
Walked my Twyn Hill...which is actually my Alma Row...walk this morning - about 5 miles - and saw Ma off for her trip to Berlin.
Didn't actually eat breakfast. Not cos I was worried about calories, I was just actually full and contented.
Went to the gym at lunchtime - did a little rowing, just to raise the heart rate to "Holy Fuck I'm Dying" levels, then did a bunch of arm work and sixty weighted sit-ups. I didn't push it or stress it, cos I had plans for the day.
Had lunch of four slices of wholemeal toast, scraped with butter, and a tin of cold tomatoes. Then worked through till about 5.40, and did an hour of actual, musical, sweat-dripping biking, which felt insanely good, given the accompanying pain. Worked off 10 miles and 500 calories, jumped in the shower.
Dinner was chicken goujons, a sweet potato, a small amount of mac and cheese and, as a quirky touch, a couple of hard boiled eggs.
And that's me done for the day. Have had a bottle of water and two coffees. Gonna have at least one more before the end of the day, but all in all, it feels like a good Disappearing Reboot.
The thing about today has been a remembering of a thing from the old days. When I started, and throughout the first phase, I wasn't really looking at the long-term goal very often or for very long. It was all about the next milestone. The next seven pounds (or half a stone). So, the way I'm thinking about it is that from my original starting weight, I'm currently between milestones - I've lost 2.5 stone, and an additional 4.some-odd pounds. That leaves me something like 2.5 pounds to my next milestone of having lost three stone at the 17st 7 marker. That's got to be doable this week, but if it isn't, it'll be done next week instead. But it will be done. After which, we keep one eye on not falling back to the 2.5 stone marker, and one eye, and a shitload of effort, on getting to the 3.5 stone mark, at 17 stone.
This, right now, feels like a much more intelligent way of going about this thing than focusing on the fact that I still have about six and a half stone to lose before getting to my allegedly "ideal" weight. Baby steps, seven pound increments, journey of a thousand miles, yadda yadda yadda. I feel like I'm back. Not to make wuss-ass excuses, but I feel like most of 2012 was consumed in worry about my Dad. Still miss him every day, cos he was one of those men who had a take on everything, even if his take was "don't worry about it", or, which I admired about him, "say 'bollocks' to it".
But now it's time to say "bollocks to using him as an excuse to not be what I want to be. He wouldn't want that and nor do I. We go forward again from here, I say - seven pound marker by seven pound marker, setback by setback, plateau by godforsaken plateau, and when they come, triumph by triumph.
So, fix your stars to the next goal, ladies and gentlemen - 17 stone 7, here we bloody well come...
Wednesday 3 April 2013
The Perspex Melt
Today feels weird. Feels like I'm pressing my nose and forehead against a perspex wall, looking in at a sweaty, knackered, pathologically miserable, calorifically haunted version of myself chained to a bike, and not really daring to laugh. As though the perspex is softening, and melting as I push my face against it, trying to see some glimmer of happiness in the sweaty me's eyes. And just as I think I can't see it, that it's not even there to be seen, he looks up, and there it is. The smile of Getting Healthy. The smile of pulling jeans off the shelf at at least reasonably trendy stores and meeting the sales clerk's eyes defiantly, not defensively. The smile of looking forward to annual doctors' appointments because he's greeted with smiles and laughs and "My-word-you've-done-so-well". And the perspex continues to melt, till my nose pokes through into his world of hard work, self-denial, self-improvement and ability to Do Stuff. The perspex pulls at my fingers, and I can't let it go, and suddenly it's like a scene from a 70s sci-fi. I struggle to pull myself away from the melting perspex, but my hairy belly's stuck to it...stuck in it...and the melt continues, wrapping around my feet and tripping me up, and in an instant - a twelve-hour instant - I'm in his world and I can't get out again. It's like he won't let me out again, or like some Bill Murray movie where I can only get out again when I am the sweating, healthy man on the bike. The man with the smile.
"About bloody time," he mutters. "I'm off for a curry."
And off he jolly well fucks, through the melted perspex, leaving me staring in horrified resignation at the bike he's vacated, which seems to grow larger as I look at it. And I nod, alone in this perspex bubble, with just the bike and the promise of pain and hard work.
And then I get on my bike. It becomes my bike, because it has a prescription for the future of me. And as the vision begins to fade, I begin to peddle, lacklustre at first, then growing in speed as we fade out...
To leave me in Starbucks at Paddington Station.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Re-Perspex Day.
"About bloody time," he mutters. "I'm off for a curry."
And off he jolly well fucks, through the melted perspex, leaving me staring in horrified resignation at the bike he's vacated, which seems to grow larger as I look at it. And I nod, alone in this perspex bubble, with just the bike and the promise of pain and hard work.
And then I get on my bike. It becomes my bike, because it has a prescription for the future of me. And as the vision begins to fade, I begin to peddle, lacklustre at first, then growing in speed as we fade out...
To leave me in Starbucks at Paddington Station.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Re-Perspex Day.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
The Triple Stoniverssary
Weighed in this morning at 17st 9.25. Dead on the same as last week, despite all the walking. Still...better than I'd thought it would be at many points this week.
Then we went to the annual Diabetic Check-Up.
That was sobering.
The last time I had one of those was in March last year. Apparently, then I weighed 14st 13.
That means in the space of a year, I've put on nearly three stone, or 42 pounds.
There was talk of putting me back on Gliclazide - the drug whose removal was one of the crowning achievements of my first Disappearing.
That was more than sobering actually, that was downright depressing.
Thing is, at a rate of just two pounds per week, it would be just 21 weeks of loss - five and a quarter months. Less than half a year to get back to what (from this vantage point) looks like the Golden Age of Disappearing.
To do this successfully, there's an adjustment that needs to be made to the Pleasure Principle in my brain. I need once again to be able to take pleasure from want. Pleasure from physical exertion and pain. Pleasure from hunger and self-denial. We all know I'm not entirely comfortable with the person this turns me into, but a weird thing has obviously happened along this journey. I used to be fat and happy - I used to eat what I wanted and take pleasure from it. Now, I don't think the same can be said of me. The numbers are running all the time in the back of my head, each mouthful is x amount of work needed to neautralise it.
The perverse thing of course is that I still eat things that I probably shouldn't, or in quantities I probably shouldn't. I do it now in spite of getting no real pleasure from it. Talk about masochistic. Surely then, if I'm going to punish myself and my body, doing it in the way that gets me going in the direction I want to go is better. Perspex walls, strict self-denial, and very much more exercise...
Tomorrow of course is an UberCommute, which tend to be light days: I don't eat much to compensate for the fact that I'm basically sitting all day long. But maybe, come Thursday, it's time for a little productive self-hatred. The truth is, while it's better than being 20 stone, I hate being the way I am right now. I hate feeling like this and feeling less confident in myself than I think I should. So basically, why not put all that hatred to good use, and essentially, over time, devour myself?
Why not? Because it makes the world a slightly colder, slightly crazier place. I'm not sure that's enough of a deterrent any more.
Then we went to the annual Diabetic Check-Up.
That was sobering.
The last time I had one of those was in March last year. Apparently, then I weighed 14st 13.
That means in the space of a year, I've put on nearly three stone, or 42 pounds.
There was talk of putting me back on Gliclazide - the drug whose removal was one of the crowning achievements of my first Disappearing.
That was more than sobering actually, that was downright depressing.
Thing is, at a rate of just two pounds per week, it would be just 21 weeks of loss - five and a quarter months. Less than half a year to get back to what (from this vantage point) looks like the Golden Age of Disappearing.
To do this successfully, there's an adjustment that needs to be made to the Pleasure Principle in my brain. I need once again to be able to take pleasure from want. Pleasure from physical exertion and pain. Pleasure from hunger and self-denial. We all know I'm not entirely comfortable with the person this turns me into, but a weird thing has obviously happened along this journey. I used to be fat and happy - I used to eat what I wanted and take pleasure from it. Now, I don't think the same can be said of me. The numbers are running all the time in the back of my head, each mouthful is x amount of work needed to neautralise it.
The perverse thing of course is that I still eat things that I probably shouldn't, or in quantities I probably shouldn't. I do it now in spite of getting no real pleasure from it. Talk about masochistic. Surely then, if I'm going to punish myself and my body, doing it in the way that gets me going in the direction I want to go is better. Perspex walls, strict self-denial, and very much more exercise...
Tomorrow of course is an UberCommute, which tend to be light days: I don't eat much to compensate for the fact that I'm basically sitting all day long. But maybe, come Thursday, it's time for a little productive self-hatred. The truth is, while it's better than being 20 stone, I hate being the way I am right now. I hate feeling like this and feeling less confident in myself than I think I should. So basically, why not put all that hatred to good use, and essentially, over time, devour myself?
Why not? Because it makes the world a slightly colder, slightly crazier place. I'm not sure that's enough of a deterrent any more.
Monday 1 April 2013
The Right Turn Adventure
Went walking with Ma again this morning. After the first hill of our usual route down the Taff Trail, she pointed out a sign.
"What's up there?"
I shuddered. "Up there" was the sign which I'd followed on my first ever misadventure on the Taff Trail, leading to mud, puddles, desolation and horseshit. I said as much. Ma smiled, a thinnish smile.
"Let's call it an adventure!" she said, striding off determinedly up the hill.
I tried to protest that rather than calling it an adventure, we could just call it mud, puddles, desolation and horseshit, and pointed out that I knew we could call it that, because I was pretty sure I'd just done so. She slowed as the degree of uphillitude - it's a word, honest - took its toll, and we stopped to admire the "view" of monoxide-belching traffic from the vantage point of what's generally known as "The A Bridge" at the bottom of the town. Nevertheless, when Ma has the bit between her teeth, or the scent of adventure - or, admittedly, horseshit - in her nostrils, there's very little stopping her, and off we went. Any unorthodox direction she found, we turned towards. It led us through the mud, puddles, desolation and horseshit I had mentioned, round a couple of buildings that shouldn't have been there, past a whole raft of buildings that pretty much weren't there, but would be in a couple of months of further construction, through a housing estate and up another "fuck you" hill, till we emerged, at least one of us blinking and disorientated, at a place I reognised. It was the local business park.
They have a Costa at the local business park.
"C'mon!" I said, setting off like a coffee-seeking missile.
"I haven't got any money with me," protested Ma.
"I've got plastic, come on!" I ordered. We sat, and I had a bucket of pointlessness for breakfast.
The way back was equally tangential - every time we came to something we recognised, we turned the opposite way, almost purposefully getting lost in the longest manner possible.
I eventually stumbled back into the flat ttwo and a half hours after having set out, and having walked over six miles.
Fairly confident it's gonna do me no good at all though - doesn't seem to have done any good the rest of the week and tomorrow's not just a weigh-in day. Tomorrow's an "annual diabetic check" day. Highly likely, what with one thing and another, that I'll have my Xenical prescription rescinded - I will have put on at least a stone since the last time they saw me for one of these annual check-ups. But - it is what it is. Tomorrow we reintroduce proper, muscially-pushed, sweat-inducing into the mix...only to be moderately nixed on Wednesday by one of my quarterly Wednesday UberCommutes.
Sigh...Let's see what tomorrow holds, shall we?
Probably another great big bloody Adventure...
"What's up there?"
I shuddered. "Up there" was the sign which I'd followed on my first ever misadventure on the Taff Trail, leading to mud, puddles, desolation and horseshit. I said as much. Ma smiled, a thinnish smile.
"Let's call it an adventure!" she said, striding off determinedly up the hill.
I tried to protest that rather than calling it an adventure, we could just call it mud, puddles, desolation and horseshit, and pointed out that I knew we could call it that, because I was pretty sure I'd just done so. She slowed as the degree of uphillitude - it's a word, honest - took its toll, and we stopped to admire the "view" of monoxide-belching traffic from the vantage point of what's generally known as "The A Bridge" at the bottom of the town. Nevertheless, when Ma has the bit between her teeth, or the scent of adventure - or, admittedly, horseshit - in her nostrils, there's very little stopping her, and off we went. Any unorthodox direction she found, we turned towards. It led us through the mud, puddles, desolation and horseshit I had mentioned, round a couple of buildings that shouldn't have been there, past a whole raft of buildings that pretty much weren't there, but would be in a couple of months of further construction, through a housing estate and up another "fuck you" hill, till we emerged, at least one of us blinking and disorientated, at a place I reognised. It was the local business park.
They have a Costa at the local business park.
"C'mon!" I said, setting off like a coffee-seeking missile.
"I haven't got any money with me," protested Ma.
"I've got plastic, come on!" I ordered. We sat, and I had a bucket of pointlessness for breakfast.
The way back was equally tangential - every time we came to something we recognised, we turned the opposite way, almost purposefully getting lost in the longest manner possible.
I eventually stumbled back into the flat ttwo and a half hours after having set out, and having walked over six miles.
Fairly confident it's gonna do me no good at all though - doesn't seem to have done any good the rest of the week and tomorrow's not just a weigh-in day. Tomorrow's an "annual diabetic check" day. Highly likely, what with one thing and another, that I'll have my Xenical prescription rescinded - I will have put on at least a stone since the last time they saw me for one of these annual check-ups. But - it is what it is. Tomorrow we reintroduce proper, muscially-pushed, sweat-inducing into the mix...only to be moderately nixed on Wednesday by one of my quarterly Wednesday UberCommutes.
Sigh...Let's see what tomorrow holds, shall we?
Probably another great big bloody Adventure...
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