The Einstein Hair Explosion

Sigh...
Have you ever had a day that sarts off all sensible and groovy and then just explodes in a gazillion different directions all at once, like Einstein's hair?

That's today. Slept late, was gonna leave the Trail, but went because - and get this, it's positively Pavlovian - I wouldn't have enjoyed my breakfast if it wasn't "free", which it becomes by going down the Trail.

While on the way back up, I decided to give that "running" malarkey another go, and really quite enjoyed it, from the Abercanaid Question-Mark (it's a kind of sculpture...thing...that announces to all the world in the shape of a question-mark that no really, you're in Abercanaid. Given the inquisitive shape of the thing, I can't help thinking it's really asking why, for the love of any reasonable god, you would be in Abercanaid, but anyway...) back up to the "Merthyr 1 Mile" sign. I mean, I stopped at that point, because that's where the Trail decides what you really need in your life if more Uphill, and I'm not yet quite that masochistic...but clearly I'm getting there. Running today actually felt like running, rather that "frunning" - the kind of sideways speed flab-wobble that fat fucks think is running, but which non-fat fucks look at somewhat pityingly, the line "what does he think he's doing?" never far from the forefront of their brain.

Came home, got on with stuff, ignored the insistent pull of the Nazi Scales. In fact, I Had Breakfast in Anger, specifically so the result would have been meaningless...nehh, that showed them.

Then, pretty much, the day went to hell. Went out, ostensibly to get shaved for tomorrow's performance, and to go to the gym to do more arm work. Stopped for coffee and lunch first - a baked potato with what described itself as chilli chicken in. Man, that was hideous. Didn't finish it - partly cos it was hideous and partly cos I resented spending carb-calories ON something that gave me no pleasure at all. Got up to go to the barbers, and the line was out of the door. Stomped off, crossly, to head to the gym, and my iPod died. Stomped, even more crossly, back to the flat to Get On With Stuff in a mood. Eventually spent half an hour later in the day waiting in the barber line, to achiev an effect which only accentuates the flab-rolls at the back of my neck, like a proper Old Bloke. d was working late tonight, which meant I just had time to do some biking before she got home.

"Hey honey," she said when I returned the call I'd missed by leaving my phone at home while going to get shorn. "Guess what? I didn't need to stay!"
"Cool baby," I said, and I need to be clear here that it is.
"You didn't get to the gym, right?" she asked. "Cos you could bike right now."
And I could have. The To Do List laughed at me.
"I'll do it while she's making dinner," I said - I'd been out to get fish earlier in the day, and she was bringing home some healthy veggies.
The phone rang again.
"Ello," said my brother. Oh yeah, did I mention, my brother's in town this weekend. Sadly, cos of the Choir commitment, tonight's the only time we'll get to spend together.
"Wanna do a Qmin?" he said.
"Suuuuure," I agreed - and once again, I need to stress, this is really cool - good food, good company, good weather, what could be bad?
I just need to slap myself upide the head and stop disaster-fantastising about Tuesday. There seems to be a strong chance, as I read back over the course of my mental processes throughout the day, that I'm getting a tad demented about the whole thing again.

KER-THUNK!!!

Ah. That's better. Right. Scuse me - gonna go get changed into Real Clothes (am still sat here in my would-be gym clothes!), and go spend the evening with my wife and my brother, catching up and eating good food. Tuesday Schmuesday...

The Being Alive High

"Think I'm all sort of focussed again at the moment, like when I was taking the steroids," I explained to my friend Sian.

"What the hell are you taking now?" she asked, not unreasonably.

"Buggerall. Just seem to be upbeat and focused on being alive and getting stuff done," I said. Her texted reply had skeptical eyebrows.

"No, really," I said. "Just pushing on with stuff, you know?"

"Push on with this then - get to 15st 11 by Tuesday."

I laughed.

No pressure, then. Bottom line, I'm not aiming for her target. I'll be what I'll be, but I'm beginning to do the work - walked the Trail this morning, got to the gym for some arm and back work this afternoon, biked this evening. Am hoping to stay up late tonight and finish a really rather cool edit, so as not to have to dedicate any thought to it on Saturday...so I can dedicate enough thought to trying to remember words in at least a couple of languages which I don't have any pretensions to speak.

But yes, am happy and bouncy and reasonably clear-headed about the world at the moment. So on we go - 15st 11? (Shrugs). Maybe. 15s is all I'm actually aiming for...

The Flappity Decision

Evening, all.

A reasonably perfect straightforward day today - Trail and back this morning, cereal breakfast, goodish, honestish day's work, beans on toast for lunch for a carb-and-protein boost through the afternoon, an hour's biking to coincide with d walking through the door, and then a quick, reinvigorating, not to say warming, shower. Now about to have an egg-based dinner (again for the protein), before going to join my brothers in song for a couple of hours of getting the last verse of Amazing Grace monstrously wrong, and probably checking off what we know and what we sort-of-know for Saturday, when we're all bogging off to Birmingham at the crack of sparrowfart for a concert that evening.
Note for the Americans reading this - no, Birmingham's not that far. Yes, it'll still take us most of the day to get there. The UK is especially gifted at Putting Shit In The Way of people trying to just get to places. Seriously, it's an art form known colloquially as Evil Bastard Town Plannery.

Anyway, so that's the day. It was as I was showering though that I spotted something. Now, relax, I'm not about to go off on an intimately detailed description of myself in the shower...you haven't pissed me off enough for that. But one thing I did notice is that I'm once again getting loose, flappity skin on my upper arms. Having a good old dangle, it was, as I moved the shower puff about the still fairly vast acreage of me.

"Seriously, need to get back in the gym," I decided. "Need to start doing all that weight-pulling and rowing and muscle-growing shite again, to fill up the skin-bags. Cos we've got a British Summer ahead of us, and one good gust of wind right now, and I'll be off like an amateur hang-glider."

So...I have spokeneth. Back to the gym for this Disappearing Man, shortly, to remind my muscles they exist. Hopefuly that'll couter my current somewhat froglike appearance - powerful, toned-as-fuck legs, flappity everywhere else.

To the gym, Disappearing Man!

The Next! Compulsion

Sooooo...cool.
Rebecca texted to cancel this morning and I bogged off down the Trail on my own as has become usual and groovy. Got back, weighed in:
16st 2 pounds.

Two pounds, dammit - that's a week's hard work to the borderline, after which it's 15 city! I feel kinda like "Alright, what's next, let's put this week on fast forward baby, and get there!"

Should mention, didn't have the rice last night after all - had a salad instead. Clearly the power of mystic weightloss sorcery is in all this green, healthy shit. Any idea how generally fucked-up that is? The best food for you in the world if you wanna lose weight is, generally, the kind of stuff that makes you not want to eat anything at all...

Which is not to impugn the salad I had last night. There's just a time - or rather a temperatute - and a place for salads, and given that the weather right now clearly doesn't know what the Hell it wants to do, days can start off saladacious and end up stewy, or vice versa.So it's impossible to plan.

The rest of today has been dominated by fiddly bits of work - had a 45 minute skype meeting which left me grinding my teeth, did a pile of work, went to the wake of June, our family friend who, last time you heard of her, was in a hospice. Now it's 6.25, and d's out buying supportive undergarments with - and more importantly, it should be stressed, for a friend. I'm about to jump on the bike, because...well hell, because I can, essentially. The To Do list is still pretty hectic, the tachy-yawn thing is still happening, but nowhere near as often (I begin to ponder the wisdom of my Starbucks days - OK it's de-caff, but still...it's about five large ones a day...), and this weekend promises to be interesting - apparently my brother's coming over to collect what can colloquially be thought of as "A Whole Bunch Of Stuff" from Ma's house...and I probably won't get to see him, cos I'm away on Saturday in Brimingham with the Choir. Don't get back till some insane time in the morning, and then back to Choir practice Sunday night, to get up Monday morning for an UberCommute. Just...ouch...

So this is me, wanting to put the week on fast forward, and thinking about it, from Saturday, that's probably how it will feel. Good result this week...Next!

The Tachy-Yawn

Hmm...
Having a weird thing at the moment.

The last few days, I've been plagued by an oddity. Normally when I have a tachycardic incident, it begins...well, in the chest, with a kind of catherine wheely feeling, which then escalates into a rapid heartbeat, which I have to lay down and stick my feet up to stop.

For the last few days, I've been having a different thing - if I turn my head suddenly...or yawn...or hiccup...I get a sudden rapid heartbeat that instantly slows down on its own - the sort of thing you'd feel if you ran a hundred yards for no good reason.

If goes away, as I say, instantly and on its own, and I'm not even...entirely convinced it's heart-related, because of course I don't feel it in the heart, I almost...and this is where I start to sound loopy...but I almost hear it, more than anything, as though listening to the pulse in my own neck...which is admittedly a line I never thought I'd write.

Today, incidentally, has been pretty good so far - walked the Trail this morning as per usual, and had my normal cereal breakfast on return. Lunch was again fairly mega - rice and home-made sweet and sour. Truly excellent stuff, and there's more available for dinner, though as yet, as we race foolhardily on to 7pm I haven't graced the bike seat with my arse, and am perhaps a little demented about the imapct of a bike-free double-dose of rice on tomorrow's result.

One fun thing is that Rebecca, my jet-setting journo star pal, has determined that she'd like to come walking of a morning with me, starting tomorrow...and then being put on a degree of hiatus while she goes to be brilliant in Greece for a bit. This deal was rather sealed and sold when she asked if I used music when I walked.
"Normally, yeah," I admitted.
"Cool...me too," she said, so tomorrow we'll be notionally "together" schlepping down the Trail, while actually each being in our own musical world.

Assuming of course a rogue yawn doesn't kill me in the meantime!

The HumungoLunch

This morning was exciting - d said she might come down at least part of the Trail with me. Then she determined what she'd need in order to actually go down the Trail - water, pain pills, rucksack, Bearly...and it turned out that by the time we got halfway down the Trail and had breakfast, she'd be late for an outing with our friend Brenda (that's Merthyr Brenda, not London Brenda)...so we stopped into McDonalds for breakfast instead. Then she went off to meet Brenda and I legged it down the Trail after all...with Bearly...in a rucksack...

Came home, got on with work. Then had what can only be described as a humungoLunch - two piees of fish, a little mash, green beans, and, bizarrely enough, an arancini (Itlaian rice balls, to you!). This, it turned out, was to be the main meal of the day, as I had Choir and d had bingo this evening, so it was a case of "eat early, eat healthy, but eat big, so you don't crave through the night."

Can safely say that worked. Still feel insanely full, some six hours or so later, and after biking for an hour. It's funny...in a kind of demented paranoic way. Feeling this full used to be the norm. Now it make me fret and worry about my weigh-in. The thing is of course, she's right - as a main meal, two pieces of fish and some veg is all fine and dandy. It's just because I feel this full that the weigh-in...erm...weighs on me.

Sigh. Enough mentalness - extra day off tomorrow, more Trail, more biking, more healthy food, and then let Tuesday come and bash my brains in if it dares!

The Return of the Pedaller

Didn't go down the Trail this morning.
Was gonna...honestly. d woke up with a plan though.
"You've got lots to do, right?"
"Yep," I agreed.
"How about going to Cardiff?" she suggested. "You always get more done in Cardiff..."
My ass was out the door practically before she'd pronounced the second 'f''.
Great productive day, and the joy was that d went to have her hair done and then came down to Cardiff for lunch.

Lunch at Madame Fromage was huge. A goats cheese, bacon and caramelised onion baguette which was actually was big enough to only eat half of. We brought the other half home, and I'm actually not sure I want it for dinner - big chunk of bread and cheese at 10.30 at night? Hmm...

Oh - by the way: FINALLY got back on the bike tonight - pedalled for only about 45 minutes, burned 400  calories, (or a few coffeesworth). Woo...freakin'...how.

Lots still to do, but a good day, and a broken streak of indolence. Two more days before the weigh-in...here's hoping...

The So-Close Diversion

Went down the Trail this morning, and came over all deep and meaningful within  a few steps of leaving the flat. Which is all very well of course, but when you're listening to Abba songs and finding deep philosophical meaning in Dancing Queen, you know it's time to shake the shit out of your brain and reboot.

Oddly enough, I only managed to actually do that after consulting Wendy, who advised "walk faster and change the freakin' tune." I walked faster, and kept listening to the Abba. It was actually during a spirited rendition of "On and On and On," which, perversely, does posit a deep and meaningful question - "Who am I and Who are You and Who are We?" - yeah, exactly, ponder that while you're trying to Disappear and redefine who you are, why don'tcha? - For the last hill on the way home, I was light and free of thought, and just revelling in the exercise of muscles and the pumping of lungs.

None of which is really relevant to the day. The day really is about another excuse, and the reasoning behind it. Today, as well as my day job, I've been "so-close" to finishing an edit. All day. And despite having worked on it since the day job was done, it feels like I've been just as "so-close" all day. And I'm still just as "so-close" now. The point of which is that I've been telling myself all day that as soon as I was "done", I'd jump on the bike. And the edit hadn't got shorter, so the bike has stayed unjumped-on. Which, all in all, is irritating and energy-draining.

On the other hand, I did a comparative unofficial weigh-in this morning, to test yesterday's apparent niceness of the Nazi Scales. I figured it was possible yesterday's result...which I'm still not gonna tell you...was an aberration following a day at Starbucks. But apparently not, which was good to discover. But man, I need to complete some stuff. I need to turn "so-close" into "so-done", and then I need to jump on the bike and feel my heart pump and the sweat pour and the music roar in my head till I feel like it's exorcised the need to push and power and not bloody think, and just be a creature of physical effort again. That too feels, at the moment, "so-close". Tomorrow...and tomorrow...and tomorrow...dammit, tomorrow I get beyond "so-close" and the bike and I get back together after what has felt like a self-enforced break-up. Enough diversions and deadline-excuses. Sick of so-close now.

The Nazi Kindness Inexplicability

Back down the Trail this morning, after yesterday's arsebunclery. Enjoyed it, and kept promising myself all day that today, I'd break my no-biking streak and get on the thing.

Didn't.

So, in a very real way, arse.

Did a bad thing this morning too - got on the Nazi Scales. They were inexplicably kind to me. Not gonna tell you what they said, because a) I think they were being inexplicably kind, which they probably won't be on Tuesday, and b) cos I don't wanna, in case I jinx it!

Tomorrow - and read my freakin' lips here - tomorrow, dammit, there will be biking!

Yesterday, I mused to d that maybe I should only do spin class on a Friday. Tomorrow's Friday. Gotta tell you, I have zero intention right now of going to spin class tomorrow, cos all it leads to is a weekend of me whinging about the pain in my ass - and this being a long weekend, that's good for no-one.

But will do the Trail, and WILL do some proper biking - possibly immediately when I get back, just to make sure I get it out of the way!

And then, just possibly, will get back on the scales to see if today really was just an inexplicable aberration...or...y'know...not...
In the meantime, more deadlines, and on we jolly well go...

The Arsebuncle

Today, the opportunity arose to spend the day not at home in my office, but at what is fast becoming my home from home – Starbucks, near Cardiff Central station. I grabbed the opportunity and throttled the bejeesus out of it. What this means in Disappearing terms is a) no walking down the Trail this morning, and b) no exercise of any other kind whatsoever. I have spent the day joyously growing arsebuncles, sitting on trains and in coffee shops, working, and enjoying my life to an almost ridiculous degree for a day of work.

I’m writing this while doing some moderately high-level sitting - on a train back to Merthyr, where, perhaps perversely given the day, I’m meeting Ma for a nice sit down and a cup of coffee before she goes off to finish packing (she’s off to Ireland in the morning to visit my brother, sister-in-law and their two children – one of whom is new), and I go off to Choir…to sit on my arse some more, while attempting to be musical out of what I’m assured is the other end.

So in Disappearing terms, and entirely null day. But – having done all this work should mean that from tomorrow till Tuesday, I can carve out more time for proper exercise, and actually focus some time in my days on the unsubtle art of Disappearing. Here’s to it!

The Perspective Distortion

Forgot to mention - blood sugar yesterday was 6.2. Blood sugar this mornign was something I entirely forgot about.

Got up this morning, and while saying my morning goodbyes to d, she rubbed a hand over my stomach.
"You're getting flat again," she said, smoothing down the curving line of my belly.
"Na-uh," I said, casting a neurotic eye over my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. "Gonna be up this week. Haven't put the time in to the exercise..."
"Well, to me you look slimmer," she protested.
"We'll see," I said, winking and going off to my walk - yes, blew out the spin class for the second morning in a row. Maybe Friday, we'll see...Maybe it could become a Friday thing.

Sure enough, when I got back from my walk, and did the weigh-in, the numbers were against me - up to 16st 7 - so back to my previous milestone, as I vaguely prophesied an entry or so ago.

Not upset about this - as also mentioned an entry or two ago, I really haven't carved out the time to Disappear this week, and if you don't do the work, you don't get the rewards. This is, after all, something of a rule of biological and economic law. Hopefully, after Thursday (next crunchy deadline), I should be able to kick things up a gear, and get moving in the right direction again. No falling off wagons this time.

I think the perspective difference is interesting though. Not ruling out the idea that d was Just Being Nice, cos she actually Is Really Nice, it's interesting to me that her perspective was to see me as slimmer, while mine was to see myself as fatter. On the one hand, she probably hasn't taken a hard look at me in a few weeks, so this morning, she got the advantage of perceiving me from the perspective of the sudden drop that there has been - let's not bitch here, I've still gone from 17st 9 to 16st 7 in a matter of a few weeks, and it's faaaaaabulous - and the presumed alteration to my shape as a result. I on the other hand, have been Mr Neurotic, flattening out clothes and staring surreptitiously into windows, mirrors, shiny surfaces at any given moment to try and guage how I'm doing without reference to the Nazi Scales, so I'm perceiving myself through the perspective of the smaller, daily fluctuations, which I'm treating to all intents and purposes as Real Things. Which in essence, they're really not.

Anyhow, that's all the news that's fit to print here today. Mostly thinking of people in Oklahoma now. The idea of a tornado literally tearing everything you own, or even tearing your life, to shreds puts everything we think is important on a blah-blah-blah day-to-day basis into a proper perspective. Wouldn't really matter if I had fish and chips and cheesecake tomorrow; I could get up Thursday and start again from scratch. How those poor people do anything remotely similar, I don't know...

The Gump Imperative

Right....so...
Didn't go spinning this morning. Determined that I wouldn't last night, although technically, I determined to do absolutely nothing last night, in a moment of feeling hurt and battered and exhausted and frankly full of a British Sunday dinner. Didn't put an alarm on or anything last night, and was quite prepared to wake up at 8.54, stumble out of my pit, scratch myself in all the necessary places and get into the office for 9.

So when I woke up naturally at 6.15, it came with a combination of opportunity and off-pissedness. I then could have gone to spin class, but something located in my ass-bones told me it would send me back to sleep instantly if I tried to pull that kind of crap.

Instead, as a halfway-house manouevre, I went to what has become learned instinct, strapped on my walking boots and buggered off down the Taff Trail.

All very fine and wuss-ass, but...
You know that moment in the Forrest Gump movie where he just decides to go running one morning, and then....decides to keep going...?
For some unknown reason, I got the sudden inexplicable urge to start running this morning...

Now of course, I'm a deeply unfit fat fuck, so I didn't entirely decide to keep going, but I certainly ran enough to get my heart up and dancing. Then went back to walking. Then, after a while, decided to run again. Annnnnnd then went back to walking. And so on.

This might be a new "thing"...we'll have to see if the urge strikes me the next time I go down the Trail, I suppose. Tomorrow really should be spinning. The thing, I suppose is that even in the pissing-down rain, walking - or even walk-running - down the Taff Trail is more enjoyable than a spin class by a truly quite staggering margin. So who knows? It's a bit of a roulette wheel at the moment. I'll let you know tomorrow...

The Bikeless Seven

Seven days it's been now since I got on the exercise bike here at home.

Seven days.

There are two ways of looking at this information. The traditional Disappearing way, which is full of woe, woe and thrice woe, self-abnegation and torment and guilt and all that other fun stuff.
Or the way that looks at things with a more measured eye and says "That sucked...next!"

This second course is the one I am currently disposed to take (apologies, by the way - I'm reading Moby Dick at the moment, and interminable as it may be, the idiom does rather seep into one's lexicon!)

There is very little hope, I would imagine, of even maintaining last week's surprising good result, and very great likelihood of backsliding, perhaps even as far as my previous milestone at 16st 7. Or potentially even more.

But what needs to happen in such circumstances is clear - More work, less heavy food, more metabolic boosting. Mad as this pronouncement may seem, given that I'm currently on the economic delight of rolling deadlines for both my day job and my company (Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney...), this week coming up should see me more free to carve out time to dedicatedly Disappear than its predecessor has done.

And let's not forget, there's a whole...what, 39 hours, maybe, before weigh-in, and two spin sessions before that.

Went down the Trail this morning, and my blood sugar was pleasing at 6.0, so some things at least are doing acceptably well. More exercise in the week to come should address any backsliding and put me back on schedule - though it now seems unlikely that I'll see a 15 on the Nazi Scales before June.

But such its life. Whether May or June, the 15 will come, and the 15 will go, and progress will both accountably and unaccountably be made. Forward!

The Weekend Launcher

Good day today - took my blood this morning - 6.4, which was good enough for me after last night's barbecue sauce-fest.
Went down the Trail first thing, and then, as d went off to do...Stuff...I went to Cardiff for a day's editing at Starbucks. That was fab - progress on a beautiful sunny day, and more coffee that one could shake a stick at.
Now I'm home, and intending to do verrrrry little else - there's Who to watch, dammit!

But as the first half of a weekend, it was fab. Tomorrow, going up to Ma's for a traditional British lunch...
Soooo that'll be glorious and fabulous and calorifically explosive. We'll have to see what I can manage in terms of exercise tomorrow...

For now, am just enjoying the day, and now being home with my girl. Now...erm...not to be impolite, but get the hell on with your own lives for an hour, I have Who to devour...

Spinning Out of Control

Now, I kow my readers (such as they are). I now that, on the day I went back to a spin class for the first time in about a year, you'll be expecting lots of bitching about the pain, the agony, the instructor, the music, the blah de blah de bloody bah blah...

Nope.

Went, did it, sweated like a roasting hog, but the legs and the lungs were mostly fine - evidence, probably, of my not putting enough tension on the bike on this first day back - while the things I'd forgotten - the severe pain the actual ass that doesn't ever let you find a comfortable position on a spin bike, and the tension in the arms brought about by holding onto the handlebars for 45 minutes - took me by more of a surprise. The music's changed for the slightly better since the last time I was there. There were even a couple of tracks I'd listen to for...y'know...pleasure. Going again on Monday, and Tuesday next week.

Beyond that, the failure of this week continues though. Planned to either bike or go to the gym this afternoon to add back the second element of my exercise routine. Failed to do either, then went out with d for a payday meal which...thinking about it...was crammed with sugar, delivered via a barbecue sauce.

Damn...

But - tomorrow's another day. The point, as I seem to keep saying lately and never actually to keep doing, is to not fall off the wagon completely because you have a less-than-perfect day. You get back up, and you get back on...And that's what ultimately separates those who attain their goals from the rest of us, who largely sit around whining into the blogosphere about how hard things are.

Tomorrow, I'm back down the Trail in the morning, then going to Cardiff for a Starbucks editing day.  Forward, folks. It's the only direction that counts.

The Spin Re-Cycle

Ah. Didn't go spinning this morning because...well...simply because I'd misread the programme, and spin wasn't running this morning. Went down the Trail instead.

Still didn't manage to do my biking today, which is beginning to really get to me. I feel like I've lost control of something that was working well. Tomorrow is when spin is actually running. Soooo take everything I said yesterday about today, and re-apply it to tomorrow. Also tomorrow, for the first time this week, I don't have to be anywhere else at any point, so tomorrow, damn it, I get back on my own bike too.

Too much too late? Yes, possibly, but it's not all about week to week, it's partly about long-term thinking, long-term patterns and the like. I've had the best part of a week with no biking, and yes, there's a whiff of desperation to the idea of starting spin tomorrow. But I figure it's about time I started adding something new to the regime. So here we go, I guess. Let's see what happens.

The Ambidextrous Challenge

Soooo here's the situation. Need to push to Disappear to any degree over the coming week. Haven't biked now in several days, and am jam-packed with editing work for about the next two and a half months (yay!)

So - technically there's not time enough to do all that needs to be done. In addition to which, d hasn't seen me for an evening this week - Monday was London, Tuesday was choir committee, tonight was a movie with Phil the Kiwi before he bogs off back home, followewd immediately by choir practice. And tomorrow is the movies again, this time with Lee for a filmed presentation of a play about British politics in 1974. Was invited to go and see The Great Gatsby on Friday with Rebecca too, but frankly need a night off from this hectic social whirl. The reality that I actually need it to work in is neither here nor there. I think the best strategy is to learn to edit on four different machines, with one limb working on a project on each. PC, Laptop,  netbook and iPad...surely that could work?

However,  in terms of the Disappearing, there's an altogether more realistic strategy. You  remember I said I got the list of classes from the leisure centre on Tuesday? Welllll technically, there's a spin classes tomorrow morning that I could go to. Time to get a bit serious and severe and sweaty, maybe? Maybe. Certainly, something must be done.

Whether going back to spin classes is the thing that must be done is a whole other question...which won't really be decided till I stumble out of my pit in the morning and see whether I have that level of masochism in me on a Thursday morning.

Let's see, shall we?

The Almost-Free Gift

OK...so that makes no sense.

This has not been a great Disappearing week. Curry night (where, I forgot to mention, I didn't go for the slightly-more-sensible proteinfest after all, but shared a honey-sweetened curry and a biryani, along with a naan bread), plus several days of just walking, no biking.

So how I came away from the Nazi Scales this morning with a weigh-in of 16st 3.25 - down 3.25 pounds on last week - I don't quite understand. Yes, presumably, there's some latitude in those figures from the fact that yesterday was an UberCommute, on which days I'm usually - as yesterday - too busy to each much of anything. But still and all - this feels almost like a free gift week, given that I didn't work that hard for it.

Woohoo! Brief little happy dance from the still-fat fuck, as he realises that there are pictures of him where he felt he looked pretty good...ish...and at the time, he was 16st 9, so he's nearly half a stone better off now than then. Additional little flourish of happy dancing on the end as he realises that if he does this week what he did last week, then at the next weigh-in, he'll be on 16 stone dead...

Whoah...that hit home. I've really barely started again, but apparently come a fair way in a short time. If I can hit 16st by next week (when, incidentally, I don't have an UberCommute the day before the weigh-in). not only is it another milestone (will then have lost 1st 9 pounds since properly re-starting again), but it sets 15 stone firmly in my sights...and this time I'm hungry for more. I want to hit 14 stone. Hell, I want to see 13s, but let's not go wild and crazy, let's focus on short and medium term goals. Short term - 16 stone. Medium-short term - 15 stone. Medium term - 14 stone. And on...

Oh, addendum. My friend Wendy, ex-Forces and something of an exercise junkie, can always be relied on to add some science to the mystification in which I sometimes find myself.
"Ah," she said. "Positive news indeed...I suspect your metabolism is now becoming more efficient during rest..."
I vaguely remember this from the first time round. It's one of the unfairest bonuses not paid to bankers - the more you do of this stuff, the more effective it becomes. That's ridiculously unfair on the people who need fairness most - those just starting out - but on the other hand, if you get some way in, then all the bonuses you can get are handy, helpful and hugely bleedin' appreciated.

Not that I'm going to rest on any putative metabolic laurels this week. Before I came home from my walk this morning I stopped in at the leisure centre to pick up their new timetable of classes. It's time I got back to doing a bit more in terms of muscle-work to help change my shape. Will report back with plans tomorrow. For now, this happy Disappearing Man is off to do a day's work.

Oh and incidentally - didn't go to Hammersmith yesterday for chocolate covered nuts and the like. I will admit though - this being a place of eventual, if not immediate, honesty, that once I'd posted the blog, I did get a sever attack of habit-cravings and sugar-cravings and "treat-cravings", if that's not an insane concept, and the sly little thought did enter my head..."Well, I've told everyone I'm not going to go there now...that'd be perfect cover for a sneaky visit, and no-one'd need to know..."
"Well I'd bloody well tell 'em," I said to myself.
"Fine...bloody spoilsport. Have your no-fun, then, ya selfish bastard..."

Sigh...strange life, being a nark for your own worst instincts...

The Temptation Ticket

Have you ever seen a ghost? Ever had an echo or shade make you an offer it thought you couldn’t refuse?

That happened to me today.

Now, before you all switch off your computers in disgust at my clearly having lost the plot, let me reassure you that I’m not about to go all Twilight Zone and weird on you all. You should know enough about me by now to know that I’m faaaaar too egotistical to let the ghost of anyone else into this blog. This is the ghost of me from a couple of months ago, when I bought my train ticket for today’s UberCommute.

Back then, I was still having occasional treats, most specifically including trips to the last remaining Cranberry store in London for bagfulls – often literally bagfulls – of fruit and nuts. More than occasionally, some of those fruits and nuts would be coated in chocolate or yoghurt, Cranberry offering these kinds of temptations right alongside its technically more healthy options (what is with that, by the way? Are you a sweet shop or a health food store? The same is true of Graze boxes, I’ve noticed: it’s a philosophical conundrum every time you go in or order one – which you are you today, the healthy one or the treat-having one?). These Cranberry trips, as I’ve mentioned before, involve a significant detour on these never-ending Mondays. There used to be a store there at Paddington station, which is how I first got started on the whole Cranberry choco-nut madness – to slightly misquote Hannibal Lecter, “how do we begin to crave? We crave what we see…”

Now though, only the one store remains, at Hammersmith, which for me involves getting a daily travelcard once I get to London, and taking a tube detour from Paddington to Hammersmith, and then a bus up to my office – or likewise at the end of the day, getting a bus from the office to Hammersmith, then taking a tube ride back to Paddington. The effort of this is of course significant, because for a while there, the Cranberry trips were a kind of surrogate addiction, a feeding of the need for treats, rather than specifically for the product I’d pick up there and consume usually on the way home from the UberCommute. Oddly enough, these trips never seems to adversely affect my Tuesday weigh-ins, which added to the sense of the “freebie treat” and even – despite their frequent chocolate-covered nature – the healthy treat.

All of which is by way of explaining that when you book train tickets, they give you the option of building a travelcard in to the cross-country ticket, and whenever it was that I booked today’s ticket, I had clearly thought that a Cranberryfest was on the cards, because I booked the travelcard option.

I hadn’t considered the option of going for a Cranberryfest today…until I discovered the travelcard ticket last night. I’m in a different headspace now, and I don’t need to give myself treats nearly as often as I did back when I booked the ticket. The stone of mostly-water I’ve lost in recent weeks has been a seriously good incentive to very specifically not do this.

All the same, I had the ticket that would make it easy. Those without an addictive personality will forever be mystified at how persuasive such a circumstantial element can be. “Well, I’ve got the ticket” is akin to “Well, I’ve opened the wrapper” to those of us not accustomed to control over our own urges. It’s almost like the universe giving us a nod and a wink and saying “Go onnnnnn…you might as well now, I’ve cleared the obstacles out of your way…” – even though in this case I know it wasn’t the universe, it was an earlier version of me, planning ahead.

And last night I seriously considered it, even though I didn’t particularly want the product. The scarcity of opportunity to visit this particular shop egged me on. “It’s the only time you’ll have a chance this month,” I thought. “And you’ll regret it if you come home without having been there…”

These are the demons of Habit. And I am, whatever else I may be, a creature in appalling thrall to Habit. The issue – to go or not to go – was still in doubt while I slept. Then I woke up this morning at 6AM (notably, the first morning in a couple of weeks where I actually thought “Ah, sod it, I’m not getting up yet, I’ll walk later…” – and then remembered), and the question had resolved itself in my brain.

“Just because you have the opportunity, doesn’t mean you have to take it”. The words battered me upside the head with a simplicity that seemed deceitful somehow. Which is why I’m writing this blog on the train to Cardiff – to put it out there, so that you’ll know, and I’ll feel like a heel if I should crumble and obey Habit over desire as the day rolls on. I don’t need to do this. I really don’t.