Tuesday 27 August 2013

Escape And Return

Hellooooo out there.

Apologies - been a mad old time.

This week has been particularly bad - have barely made it down the Trail, there are cobwebs on the exercise bike, and just yesterday, when we had a bank holiday in Tenby, I had fish and chips and a chocolate sundae. Neither of these events are unique for the week.

So this morning, with a return to exercise and restraint, I figured I'd be much heavier, and with blood that was, to quote Victoria Wood, A Resus Nougat.

Surprisingly then, the weigh-in showed me at 17st 3.75 - up just a pound and three-quarters - and my blood sugar was 6.6 (not bad for a British diabetic). Went down the Trail this morning, and kept the food to reasonable, generally - cereal breakfast, toast lunch, and a sausage sandwich dinner. Probably a little heavy on the bread, but it's day one of the return to discipline.

I worked out this morning that there are just 18 weeks till the end of the year (which presumably explains why there are Christmas cards in the shops already. 18 weeks means an average of 36 pounds. Two and a half stone, to the Brits. So according to the numbers, I can get to the borders of 15 stone again before the dawn of 2014. Let's make it so...

Tuesday 20 August 2013

The Hereversary

Nine years ago right now, I was collecting d from Heathrow Airport. She'd sent everything she owned and couldn't bear to be parted from over from the States in a procession of mystery boxes, and all that was left was her and the clothes she stood. One month and nine days later, we were married.

This Hereversary has always meant quite a bit to us, and today was no different. We went out for dinner at a local Chinese, thuough it would be stretching it to call that celebratory. Probably the celebration will come two days from now when we meet up with friends at our current favourite Indian restaurant, the Qmin.

Other news from today - sadness as only the second author in over a year and a half takes issue or umbrage with our work at Jefferson Franklin. On reflection, he may have rather more of a point than the first one did. Something should, and something will, be done. It's a weird dynamic, really - I don't ever ask that people like what we say, but if they don't find value in what we do I feel like we've let them down. As I say, something will be done, once I'm doe with pondering on it.

Also, sent my work to a Writing Conference I'm attending in September, to be assessed by agents - that'll prove a deeply humbling experience, I've no doubt, but one through which one must go to grow the necessary carapace...

Oh and the weigh-in. As predicted, over the 17st mark - 17st 2 in fact. But went down the Trail this morning. Going again tomorrow, and cracking out the bike as well.

I'd be lying if I said my going back into the perspex box just yet - we have Thursday to do, after all.

All in all, feel like I've taken a fair share of kickings today - my mate Sally-Anne said I was patronising her today when I pointed something out to her. My pal Wendy just text-laughed when I mentioned my perspex boxes. Plus the author found little value in our work, so I feel like I've conned him, even though the work was done in good faith. Like I say, a day of many kickings, this Hereversary.

So I'm putting an end to it now and going to bed. See you, folks, am doing a Scarlett O'Hara - Tomorrow is another day. It starts around 6am...

Monday 19 August 2013

The Fear Factor

You know how some people, when they know they don't have enough money, refuse to look at their bank balance, for fear of the truth it will tell them?

That's the relationship I'm having with the Nazi Scales at the moment.

It's been almost a week since I wrote. The weigh-in this week was weird - for slightly convoluted reasons, it didn't take place on Tuesday, but Wednesday saw me up and looking at a 17. 17 stone...again.

Thursday, however, was kinder, and put me back at 16 stone 11. Since then, I've taken this only partially catastrophic news and run with it, but haven't carved out the time to exercise, and haven't eaten within any kind of logical moderation. And so I cower somewhat from the weigh-in this coming Tuesday, knowing it will probably see me 17 and then some, a deeply unaccetable turn of events for which, if blame were remotely useful, I would have no-one to attach it to but myself.

There are whispers of perspex again in my brain - go back behind my walls of absolutism again, regain control of my life, my weight, my metabolism and my energy levels. To some extent, the deadlines and demands of the day-to-day are rather drowning them out, those helpful, healthy whispers right now and I am in a degree of turmoil. A year ago now, things were coming to some sort of head with my dad, though there was hope, still, so much hope of him coming through and coming home to us.

I was out of control then too, and have only been inconsistently in control since - as d has put it - "you'll be losing this same stone time and time and time again..."

I know what I need to do.

Doing it is entirely another thing...

Saturday 10 August 2013

The Inelastic Button

OK, well this week has really not gone according to plan. I've been OK...ish on the eating, but the exercise I planned to have time to do this week has pretty much been eaten alive, working on editing projects and the day job.

Which makes the inelastic button depressing but understandable.
The inelastic button? Hmm...the one that holds my jeans together at the moment. On Tuesday it had no particular problem performing the single, generally undemanding duty I required of it. Since yesterday though, it's pretty much turned into a wheezing, fortysomething corporal in a forgotten regient somewhere - fulls of aches and grumbles and dark mutterings about how it doesn't get padi enough to put up with the things it has to.

It's been straining somewhat - because of course, it's inelastic. That doesn't bode well for Tuesday, but we'll have to let Tuesday take care of itself to some extent I'm afraid. Gonna buy a week's train ticket to Cardiff on Monday morning, I think - there's insano-building work going on directly opposite out place, and it's like geographical dentistry. The good thing about this of course is that it's likely to be a rather calorifically lighter week if I spend most of my time (and yes, probably, most of my pay cheque) in Starbucks.

Is this a sensible plan, I hear you scoff.
Fuck sensible, it's coffee, goddammit, I hear me reply, getting my wuss-ass de-caff Jones on...

The inelastic button is looking at me now in soft disgust.
"Dude," it's saying, "we used to be friends. What the hell happened?"

Great, now I have button-guilt. Sigh - less food, more metabolic snacking, more exercise; that was how we became friends, o button on a smaller pair of jeans than I once ever dreamed of cramming my legs into again. You want me to try again and come back to you?

"Y...yes please...I'm dyin' here..."

Sigh...Fine...
FINE! Something...something will be done, now get off my case, inelastic button, I'v barely moved from this computer since 6.30 this morning and I want to try and guess what my wife looks like...

Tuesday 6 August 2013

The Quarter-Pounder Fairy

Well, that was pleasing.
Nazi Scales this morning show me as 16st 7 - down four pounds in a week. Happy enough with that.
Thinking about it, I realised that means I've lost sixteen quarter-pounds this week. Sixteen quarter-pounds in the space of seven days.

I feel like I've been flinging quarter-pounder hamburgers left and right this week, skipping merrily through the world like the quarter-pounder fairy. Not bad considering I haven't had that disciplined a week. Just imagine if I had been disciplined as all get-out? I could have been the half-pounder fairy, or maybe even the Big Mac Fairy.

The next week starts now. Big deadline Monday, but still, let's try and nail some discipline into place, shall we? I could get used to these wings...

Saturday 3 August 2013

The Randomiser Factor

As the world waits to discover the identity of the 12th Doctor in Doctor Who tomorrow, I feel a little like the 4th Doctor myself tonight - at one point in the show's history (Really dude, a Who blog? Yep, go with it, there's sort of a half-assed attempt at a point), the 4th Doctor fitted a Randomiser to the Tardis specifically to not know where he was going next. That's what this week feels like.
yes, I've done some walking this week, yes, I've done...alright fine, technically, one session on the bike this week, and yes I've been trying to do better with eating this week. But on the other hand, last night, I had a burger and chips for dinner, and this morning I had a McDonalds breakfast, which I probably shouldn't have had.

So it feels as though I'm throwing elements - good and bad - in randomly to the week, meaning I can have no genine idea what my next Nazi Scales destination will be - up or down.

In the show the Randomiser was added simply to add a bit of mystery to the destination in which the Doctor would find stories. In my life, the Randomiser feels like a symptom of incipient chaos which I should control.

Sigh...still some of the week left in which to control it, I guess. Let's see what happens if I press this big red button here...