Apologies all, obviously meant to post this blog yesterday.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
Wednesday 25 April 2018
Tuesday 17 April 2018
The Apparent Inconsequence of Inaction
'Don't take this as a mark of what you can get away with!'
'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).
This week, after having flopped over the first real border line in the downward push, two things happened.
Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.
Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.
So those were some interesting kicks in the head.
But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.
Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.
The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.
Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'
This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'
She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.
So...what? I hear you ask.
Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.
I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.
But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.
There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.
There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.
But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.
18 stone 13.25.
That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.
I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...
'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).
This week, after having flopped over the first real border line in the downward push, two things happened.
Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.
Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.
So those were some interesting kicks in the head.
But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.
Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.
The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.
Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'
This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'
She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.
So...what? I hear you ask.
Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.
I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.
But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.
There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.
There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.
But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.
18 stone 13.25.
That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.
I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...
Tuesday 10 April 2018
The Evolutionary Flop
There are moments, when you've been swimming against tiny, irritating eddies, and suddenly find yourself gulping for air, flopped on the sand, when you take a breath, and think 'Blimey, that was harder work than it should have been. Maybe some lungs and some legs would help.'
It feels, in short, like changing from one environment to another, hand having the whole long palaver of 'being a land animal' ahead of you. Still, you gasp, and rest, and then begin to waggle your tail to stop the water seizing you and dragging you back.
Did the stupid 'day-before' unofficial weigh-in again yesterday - no, I have no idea why, you'd think I'd no better. Did it in the middle of the day, when I was sloshing with a variety of liquids and packed down with a cereal breakfast - weighed-in at 19st 4.75.
After which came a day including some roasted cashew nuts, a baked potato, and a chunky ciabatta chicken sandwich.
Then...
Well, then I went to sleep.
Was up at three with a belly that felt like you could bounce canonballs off it. Much peeing later, I appeared to have let out the rigidity.
Up at five, startled from a dream of being about to go on stage, live, in my first stand-up gig to a hostile audience, and searching backstage for any kind of bathroom before the show began and I naturally died in front of a home-town crowd who would hate every word I said. Anxiety dream? Sure, if you like, but it did wonders for the solid stomach - seemed to shave another shirt size off the ball bearing belly.
Woke this morning, went to weigh-in.
18st 12, said the Nazi Scales.
'Fuck off,' I casually whispered. Losing nearly half a stone in the space of about 18 hours?
I stepped on them again. 'Wellll, alright, see if this feels more realistic then,' they wheedled.
18 stone 13.75.
I got off, switched them off, got on. 18 stone 13.75.
I did it one more time for a confirmation reading, vaguely kicking myself that I hadn't taken my luck when I'd first found it.
18 stone 13.75 pounds. 265.75 pounds, for the Americans.
Finally pushed down beyond the 19 stone barrier. 18 is still nothing to celebrate - I tend not to feel like I'm genuinely Disappearing till I see a 17 - but still, given this time's rather slower beginning, this is me panting breathless, taking my first waggle up the beach as some kind of land animal.
It feels, in short, like changing from one environment to another, hand having the whole long palaver of 'being a land animal' ahead of you. Still, you gasp, and rest, and then begin to waggle your tail to stop the water seizing you and dragging you back.
Did the stupid 'day-before' unofficial weigh-in again yesterday - no, I have no idea why, you'd think I'd no better. Did it in the middle of the day, when I was sloshing with a variety of liquids and packed down with a cereal breakfast - weighed-in at 19st 4.75.
After which came a day including some roasted cashew nuts, a baked potato, and a chunky ciabatta chicken sandwich.
Then...
Well, then I went to sleep.
Was up at three with a belly that felt like you could bounce canonballs off it. Much peeing later, I appeared to have let out the rigidity.
Up at five, startled from a dream of being about to go on stage, live, in my first stand-up gig to a hostile audience, and searching backstage for any kind of bathroom before the show began and I naturally died in front of a home-town crowd who would hate every word I said. Anxiety dream? Sure, if you like, but it did wonders for the solid stomach - seemed to shave another shirt size off the ball bearing belly.
Woke this morning, went to weigh-in.
18st 12, said the Nazi Scales.
'Fuck off,' I casually whispered. Losing nearly half a stone in the space of about 18 hours?
I stepped on them again. 'Wellll, alright, see if this feels more realistic then,' they wheedled.
18 stone 13.75.
I got off, switched them off, got on. 18 stone 13.75.
I did it one more time for a confirmation reading, vaguely kicking myself that I hadn't taken my luck when I'd first found it.
18 stone 13.75 pounds. 265.75 pounds, for the Americans.
Finally pushed down beyond the 19 stone barrier. 18 is still nothing to celebrate - I tend not to feel like I'm genuinely Disappearing till I see a 17 - but still, given this time's rather slower beginning, this is me panting breathless, taking my first waggle up the beach as some kind of land animal.
Tuesday 3 April 2018
The False Hope Factory
Never, ever, ever, weigh-in the day before an official weigh-in.
Never.
Ever.
I did that yesterday.
I'm here to tell you, it's a crock, and it's made me Captain Crankypants today, ready to kick stones and break ankles and butt heads with everything and everybody in the world.
Yesterday - unofficial, just-for-laughs yesterday, I weighed in and saw my first 18 this year. 18 stone, 13.5.
This, mind you, was after a recumbent Easter - I'd spend Easter Saturday in Cardiff, sitting in a Starbucks, growing carbuncles on my ass, drinking big milky coffees and one ill-advised but delicious mocha frappucino. I ate chips that day too. And Easter Sunday involved a Sunday lunch out with the family, followed by a 'Oh go on then, seeing as it's Easter' dessert. So I rather expected to have put on when I weighed-in yesterday.
Zoiks - there's my 18. A loss of three-quarters of a pound which took me under the 19 stone barrier. All was light and joy and potential, hoorah - all I had to do to celebrate today was to maintain. I had a simple cereal dessert, a relatively straightforward Scotch Egg, and a small bowl of rice and beef.
Woke up this morning, did all my usual things, took a quick uphill walk to the doctors to sign some paperwork, came back, weighed in.
19 stone 1.25!
Up a pound from last week, I could understand. Up a pound and three-quarters since yesterday can get to all kinds of holy ungovernable fuck.
I'm off to the corner to kick pebbles and feel sorry for myself in a wanton display of 'No No, I'm FINE!' Syndrome.
Grr.
Never.
Ever.
I did that yesterday.
I'm here to tell you, it's a crock, and it's made me Captain Crankypants today, ready to kick stones and break ankles and butt heads with everything and everybody in the world.
Yesterday - unofficial, just-for-laughs yesterday, I weighed in and saw my first 18 this year. 18 stone, 13.5.
This, mind you, was after a recumbent Easter - I'd spend Easter Saturday in Cardiff, sitting in a Starbucks, growing carbuncles on my ass, drinking big milky coffees and one ill-advised but delicious mocha frappucino. I ate chips that day too. And Easter Sunday involved a Sunday lunch out with the family, followed by a 'Oh go on then, seeing as it's Easter' dessert. So I rather expected to have put on when I weighed-in yesterday.
Zoiks - there's my 18. A loss of three-quarters of a pound which took me under the 19 stone barrier. All was light and joy and potential, hoorah - all I had to do to celebrate today was to maintain. I had a simple cereal dessert, a relatively straightforward Scotch Egg, and a small bowl of rice and beef.
Woke up this morning, did all my usual things, took a quick uphill walk to the doctors to sign some paperwork, came back, weighed in.
19 stone 1.25!
Up a pound from last week, I could understand. Up a pound and three-quarters since yesterday can get to all kinds of holy ungovernable fuck.
I'm off to the corner to kick pebbles and feel sorry for myself in a wanton display of 'No No, I'm FINE!' Syndrome.
Grr.
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