The Denial of Disappearing Climate Change

You know that phenomenon when people who stand to gain from the ruination of the earth  say 'Brr, it's cold today. See, there can't be any global warming?'

I feel almost embarrassed to have been able to type that sentence, but you know what I mean.

Yyyyeah, that is me, right now, in relation to the ecosystem of my body.

Yesterday, I went to get my semi-traditional beating by the usually-not-listening drug-mule diabetic nurse, after submitting some vials of the old red stuff for testing last week.

I knew I'd be getting a beating, because I haven't been particularly good for a while. And fair enough, she knew her role in the proceedings, and beat me within an inch of my life. Blood sugar down on a year ago, but still pretty freaking high. Choloesterol up. Liver enzyme count up. She changed my prescription slightly, offered me her latest 'super safe, honest, in the trials' gizmo - a kind of injectable nausea, that makes you feel a bit sick and makes you feel full. I said I'd read up on it, but that if I could avoid the whole injectable pathway, that'd be good thanks.
The one thing she impressed on me, several times, looking me straight in the eye and annunciating importantly, like a character in a Chris Chibnall Doctor Who story delivering plot-exposition, was that 'Doing nothing...is the wrong thing.'

My body, it seems, is finding ways to cope with my dumb ass. It's working just fine...ish, despite elevated blood sugar levels and all the rest of it. Just as Mother Nature's finding ways to deal with our shit, but she doesn't have to be happy about it. You can run it this way, said the nurse, but if you do, one day it'll break. Badly. And that'll more or less be that.

Which of course I already knew, but which doesn't especially help. I'm going to 'talk to someone' she recommended, because I feel the need to unravel this shit at the root - the sense of self, the sense of identity, the sense of giving myself a ready explanation for things, and the self-detructive lemming factor, and the self-war...so that'll be fun for whoever it is I talk to. Get an overthinker to tell you about themselves. What could possibly go wrong there?

And then, today, it was weigh-in day, and I tipped the Nazi Scales at 17 stone 4.25 (I would do it in Kilos for you, but we've had a memor through from Jacob Rees-Poshgit to only use imperial measurements). Down a pound and a half on last week, down...I think a couple of pounds or so on two weeks ago. And in my brain, immediately the line sprang up: 'See? Can't be all that bad - I'm losing weight!'

A...ha. And the rain means there's no global warming too, asshole. Get your shit together Fyler, for fuck's sake...

Ths Inexplicable Trip

Hello again.

Been three weeks since I wrote. On the one hand, that's because there's been little to say - three weeks of more or less stability - 17st 6 and change.

On the other, have been busy trying to swim against a current of Stuff to Do, or at least get my head above the water of work. Haven't quite got there, but certainly getting there.

Haven't, if truth be known - and why not know it? That would seem to be the point, after all - been all that good. d's been making fruity summer tarts and the like for sale in the local deli, and I've denied myself little. Which is perhaps why the summons from the nurse to come and see her before I go and get my next medication has struck such abject inevitability into my heart - it's not fear, per se, but it is the understanding of a grindingly miserable, patronising, 'Stop acting like a child or I'll have to punish you' lecture from the nurse that my life will shortly have to contain, coupled with the knowledge that she has historically listened to not a word I've said and has been rather too keen in my view to try out the newest Thing on me. I'm entirely happy to leave my body to medical science of course, I just could wish they'd wait till I'm actually dead before treating me like a guinea pig for their latest toys.

Anyhow - that's just a ramble about the imminence of patronising deafness. Does nothing to explain the inexplicable good fortune of recent days. While still denying myself nothing, I discovered I'd shed some pounds late last week. I even - because I've been jerked around like that by the Nazi Scales before - took a picture on what the scales said on Monday, in case I'd need to prove to you that I'm not just making this up. As it happens though, I don't need it.

Weighed in yesterday at 17st 3.5. Down some 2.5 to 3 pounds. Happy with that, certainly - and of course, from the moment I realised it was possible, have re-started my walking, now having done a whopping two days of schlepping.


So - somewhere along the line, I appear to have tripped, fallen over, and fallen down a couple of pounds. They're mysterious pounds, certainly - hell, for all I know, in the fairly heavy heat of this week, I've just evaporated or expirated a couple of pints of water, and when the weather breaks I'll go back up. Except of course whatever the reason, it's kicked me into a kind of gear again - walking, not eating things that are outright stupid for me, portion control and all that good happy stuff.

So this is just a quick note from the front to say hoorah, let's crack on. Three and a half to the borderline.

The Flaw In the Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick

Of course, the trouble with the Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick (I'm SO gonna write that book...) is that you have to...y'know...NOT be a dick.

Totally been a Dick this week. In almost every conceivable way, this week, I own the Dickitude.

Walking: no. Exercise: no. d's home-made Bread To Die For? Oh hellyes, to the point of utter enstuffedness. Sunday lunch with a sleep afterwards, just so it can realise there's nowhere to go and get stored as fat? Yep. All that and more. More or less took a flamethrower to the idea of Not Being A Dick this week. Don't ask me why, that gets us nowhere of value. Sometimes, just 'Because' is all the answer there is.

Therefore, it's not really a surprise that the only time I've unofficially weighed-in this week (having scared the living daylights out of myself by a casual mirror-glance on getting out of the bath), I've seen the Nazi Scales punch me in the paunch, with readings of 17 stone 12.75!

However, that has turned out to be something of a malicious beating, as this morning's official weigh-in has me clocking in at 17 stone 5 pounds. Down, by half a pound. Yes, absolutely it's pathetic - in the words of comedian Peter Kay on the experience of watching people being congratulated at a Slimming World meeting, 'What's a pound? I shit a pound!' - but given the endickitude of the week, I'm more than happy to take it.

Of course the danger there is that one begins to believe the universe is on one's side - 'Wahay, I was a dick and still went the right way.'

This. Is. Never. True.

This, in fact, is the very acme of a false sense of security. This attitude must be punched repeatedly in the face until it shuts up and allows reason to rule again.

So, another week of resolving to Not Be A Dick. Just like last week...

Hmm. Fight the endickitude!

The Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick

No whinging this week - can't be arsed, don't have time, have deadlines to meet.

Did buggerall by way of exercise again - I know, quelle surprise, eh? As such, this morning, was up a apound and a half - 17 stone 5.5. Grr, waah, humph, etc etc - I'm trying to condense the mourning cycle into a pellet-form, so as to swallow it and get it out of the way. Next couple of days will be fairly brutal and housebound, but I'm hoping, after that, to get back on the walking trail, elbowing tourists in the throat left and right as the moment requires, and so adding back some actual exercise into a routine that I absolutely know has become too sedentary again.

Here's a thing.
Far too frequently, in this life we lead, I take the Path of the Dick.
Bear with me, this is going somewhere.

My pal Sian, also, famously within our circle, whenever given a choice between two options, takes the Path of the Dick.

We are two Dicks together.

Over the last couple of days, we've been getting our heads together, coming clean on our various Dick-Path choices, and resolving, whenever possible, to take the Non-Dick Path from now on.

For instance, the Dick-Path approach to my job involves winging every deadline to the limit, on the basis that I can do things really fast if I need to, but not, perversely, UNTIL I need to. The Non-Dick-Path would involve setting daily achievement targets to achieve work goals on or ahead of time. The Dick-Path approach to finance is to spend entirely theoretical money on the basis that it'll be coming in; the Non-Dick-Path would involve impulse control, saving, eating Rice Krispies out of the box and possibly bank robbery.

The Dick-Path approach to Disappearing of course is to eat as though I'm going to counteract it with exercise...and then do buggerall exercise. The Non-Dick-Disappearing Man would not only do the exercise to counteract the calories taken in, but also wouldn't, for instance regard Tuesdays, post-weigh-in, as a kind of 'Fuck it, I'll make up for it the rest of the week' day on the eating front.

Now, I should tell you that THIS Tuesday has been marked with a fish-and-chip supper, and apparently may yet contain apple crumble, which I intend to embrace like a long-lost friend.

But...y'know...starting tomorrow...the Non-Dick Path for sure.

Hmm...been audiobook-listening to some oddish self-help books this year. Maybe The Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick has a future?

The Disappearing Disappearance

'Course, you know what'll happen now, don't you?' I challenged.

'Go on,' said d, stretching out a conversational foot in front of her on the thin ice of my assumptions.

'It'll be bloody gone in the morning,' I declared. 'The thing about unofficial weigh-ins the day before the actual weigh-in is they're just there to taunt you and put you off your guard so they can kick your face in with disappointment on the day. This is The Way Of the Disappearing Universe. I Have Spoken...eth. So Shall It Be...'

Bloody was, an' all.

For reasons that passeth all understanding, but have more to do with the fact that yet another week has passed with me doing more stupid stuff than sensible stuff, I weighed-in yesterday. Oooh, I was tempted to blog it and so make it an 'official' weigh-in. Not that it was exactly a stellar result or anything - last week, I was 17 stone 4 pounds. Yesterday, I was 17 stone 3.5 pounds. But I was sooooo tempted to take it, make up some reason why yesterday was 'official' and go with it.

But no. Nooooo, Captian Big-Boy-Pants here decided to let it go, to act all sensible over dinner and trust to whatever the universe had in store for the 'properly' official weigh-in day.

You wanna know what the universe had in store for the 'properly' official weigh-in day?

Mm-hmm. 17 stone 4, that's what.

My minisicule little half-pound Disappearance this week - Disappeared overnight. I even did the stupid, desperate thing of waiting around for what I've taken to thinking of as 'Second Bathroom' (S'like a Hobbit's Second Breakfast, only...rather further along the process), but noooo. 17 stone 4. Still.

So that's that.

What we used to call a 'non-mover' in the days when music charts appeared to matter to the nation. On the one hand, disappointing, especially after the glimmer of even a tiny loss. On the other hand, given the week and its lack of much by way of serious effort, I should probably be all full of sunshine, light and gratitude. So - yay, I didn't put any weight on this week!

Yeah, I don't know either, it's a thing I'm trying, this positivity schtick, let's go with it and see where it leads...

The Hamster-Wheel of Panic

Last week I wrote this blog three days after my weigh-in, and, in that kind of maudlin, silent signalling of self-inflicted martrydom that I vaguely believe I learned from my bio-dad (He had a knack with a muscial choice, did my bio-dad, throwing down the late Elvis tracks like Suspicious Minds and My Boy, and singing his heart out to affect the mood of the room, while claiming he'd just fancied the sound of them), but which I can justly claim to have refind into a rather more fully sickening brow-clutching 'Woe is me! No, really, I'm fine' double standard, I reported that, in the wake of having dropped two pounds in a day and then maintained that level for a week, I would probably celebrate by injecting chocolate into my eyeballs or somesuch.

The point of which of course is that I wrote it on Friday, not Tuesday. So by Friday, I already knew what the intervening three days had looked like - sedentary, and while not exactly crammed from end to end with intra-venous chocolate, certainly not by any stretch as seriously dedicated to healthy eating as I should have been. So I prepped you for disaster by that throwaway line of what would 'probably' happen.

This, by the way, is the kind of hamster-wheel that circles all. The. Time in my brain. Reality, perception, work, non-work, how to justify and find the appropriate answers, the appropriate pose. Now, imagine that kind of acidic over-analysis applying to every single thing. Every single choice, every single action, where to stand, how to be, what to say and not-say-now, what to do and why not to do it till it's almost too late, and how, above all, to wage war. war on myself, war between the selves that want to succeed and want to fail, want to do what they set out to do and want to coolly revel in the epicness of failure. The war between the urge to triumph and the urge to self-destroy, and round, and round, and round, and round it goes, never stopping, never pausing, never ever shutting up - just in case you were wondering why I wear headphones 80% of the time, it's to block out this ungovernable nonsense in my brain.

I tried explaining this to a doctor once - he gave me more diet pills.

And yes, of course, incidentally, I know that this particular entry sounds like I just did an 8-ball of coke and have nowhere to go. Partially, that's because that's what it sounds like inside my head all the time, partially, it's because it's vaguely cathartic to get this out of my fingertips for a moment, and partially of course it's because some level of hamster-wheeling said 'Let them know - THAT'll be fun!'

All of which is by way of explaining that last week's entry was written with insider knowledge that I'd probably go up this week.
Then there was a Walk.

A walk I agreed to when there seemed fewer clouds in the sky and less work to do and fewer encroaching deadlines, and a walk which, when I woke up an hour before it was due to start, I gave a hearty 'Oh fuck!' about because by then I really didn't want to do it, because it was a 'led' walk, with Other Human Beings, which if you've been here a while you'll know I applaud in the abstract but detest in the reality. Nevertheless, the hamster-wheel turned, and the idea of having to explain I'd booked a place on the walk and then had been too put off by the proximity of humans to actually go through with it gave me a result of at the very least looking like I was having some kind of real problem with the outside world and its humans, and so, to disprove the appearance of that, irrespective of the reality of that, I should get my arse out the door and go.

So I went.

The walk itself was fine. The having to be sociable sucked - I'm not entirely sure why. They were nice people, good people, each with their own interesting backstory, but something deep in my heart resented the fact that I was obliged to be sociable with them, to ask them questions to which I could give not the most shrivelled of figs for the answers, to try and make them smile and laugh and, frankly, fail - tough crowd, your average ramblers, it appears - and JEEESUS, I swear I'm not on coke right know, but if you're reading this with spaces between the words it's only because my fingers are more courteous than my brain and they're cutting you a break. Anyyyyhow, did the walk. Longish walk, over 10,000 steps, many of them uphill, came home, collapsed, whinged in muscle-ache for the next day and a half, did nothing.

Weighed in this morning.
17 stone 4.

Might not sound like much to you, this half-pound of progress, but really, honestly, I will take it and kiss it and stroke it, and I shall call it George, because the onnnnly goddamn thing that can have got me there is yomping through the local nature with a bunch of people I'd much rather have shut out behind the safety of some earbuds. So - yay to them.

I know, right - this didn't go quite where you were thinking it would go, probably, because of all the high-octane fatalism at the front end, you probably expected a result of grandiose failure - hell, I kind of did. Again, thank the fingertips, they're far more often where the actual processing power of my brain is located - the majority of my ACTUAL brain is locked into spirals of hamster-wheeling about every decision from 'Tea or coffee?' to 'What do we need to do with the day?' to actually get anything constructive done, which is why a) the processing power's in the fingertips, and b) that's a good thing.

I think perhaps the thing is that this blog's been written not on cocaine, nor even on the grandly self-castigating melodrama of 'Oh woe is me, I've put on weight!' I have just checked my bank balance though, which rather spurred the self-revolving lemming in my brain to a series of monotonous 'Oh fuck''s, and it's probably that that started me off in such an insane spirit in this blog. Even as I write this, I can feel the panic levels falling, dropping, the boiling hot fear of crashing myself into the ever-loving ground eeeeeasing, even though nothing whatsoever has actually changed in that reality since I started writing the blog. Don't get me wrong, the hamster-wheel absolutely does revolve in the way I've detailed, all the time, without end (though crucially, gazing at the sea sometimes helps), but I can feel myself coming down from the abject, world-punching panic and fear of peering down the gunbarrel of financial oblivion, as the hamster-wheel revolves. Send the emails one needs to send. Get the money in the door. Pay the bills one has to pay, Revolve, revolve, revolve...

If this is now just sounding like splurge on a page, there's one important piece of connective tissue. Saw the weigh-in this morning, was all kinds of 'Cool - I'll take that this week. Saw the bank account, went 'Bang!' and started revolving at coke-speed. First thing I did? Went to Tesco, grabbed a sleeve of chocolate biscuits.

That's not even comfort eating, that's panic-eating. I didn't even particularly want them, I'm not, today, especially motivated by the sweetness and the chocolatey fantasticness of things. But get this - in response to a moment of stone cold panic, I spent money I do not have, on food that's practically guaranteed to elevate my blood sugars and is likely to be stored, in the absence of exercise, as fat. I paid...to self-harm.

I had four, as the basis of a bowl of cereal. Breakfast of self-defeating windbags, right there.

Now of course, I've come clean about them to you here, which means I'm not going to eat any more of them. But ultimately, the point is that the way my wind works is a constant wheel of questions, choices, judgements and random moments of panic.

And the immediate, unthinking response to a moment of panic was to grab the chocolate biscuits.

Did I mention that I ttried to explain this to a doctor once? Yyyyeah - diet pills.
While I know that the fundamental equation of weightloss is straightforward - take in less of the 'bad' stuff, do more of the good stuff that burns up the bad stuff, hoorah, all is well in the land of Oz - it is possibly worth acknowledging that what you're dealing with in many people's cases is not the calm, sunny-weathered mental landscape that can simply follow this equation to Positivityville. More often, you're throwing the equation (and the pills) into a cyclotron full of forks and expecting it to survive and make sense, even when the cyclotron panics.

My cyclotron panicked this morning. Fortunately, of course, it panicked after the weigh-in. Here's to not panic-eating evvvvvverything in the district before we do this again.

The Temporal Irrelevance

So last week, I had to report a rise in weight to 17 stone 6.5, despite not really feeling like it was a valid reading.

The day after the weigh-in, with a more...shall we say regular approach to the business of digestion, I did an unofficial weigh-in and tipped the scales at 17 stone 4.5.

After a certain amount of jumping up and down, yelling 'Ha! Bloody told you so!' and flicking somewhat vehement Vs at the Nazi Scales, I went about my business, and, thinking that, with a two pound lead on the week, I should really do my best to capitalise on it. Went walking for three consecutive days (only slightly embuggeranced on the way by the fact that d started making mini pineapple upside-down cakes). The rest of the week I didn't walk, due to deadlines, but I did act rather more like a human being determined to live - smaller portions, relatively sensible lunch choices, protein and vegetation-rich dinners etc.

Which means it is with a certain pride that I can tell you I weighed in this week at:
17 stone 4.5.

The whole week might as well not have existed after Wednesday. Buggerall moved, buggerall changed, I might as well have locked myself in a deep freeze and gone cryogenic from Wednesday to Tuesday - the result would have been the same.

So, on the one hand, and I mean this sincerely - BUM.

On the other of course, I have at least technically moved two pounds in the right pigging direction. So yay - let tiny banners be waved, let tiny trumpets be blown, let tiny vuvuzuelas be confiscated immediately, because they inarguably should be, irrespective of the celebration.

And on we go. At this point, I just want to be done. More immediately, I'm booooooored of writing a 17 at the front of my weight. I want the creamy goodness of a 16, because it feels at this point like there's still so far to go, and right now I'm merely dicking about, back and forth in the shallow end of the 17s. 

Will that mean I work extra hard to push on down this week?
You know me - what do you think? Probably means I'll mainline chocolate biscuits into my eyeballs or somesuch dumbass thing.

But let's see. At least for now, I'm heading in the right bloody direction again.

The Worm-Eater's Blues

Nobody likes me,
Everybody hates me,
Think I'll go and eat worms...

Not really, no - I'm on much more of an upswing, emotionally, this week than I was last, when for some reason, things just seemed to get on top of me and I posted from my blanket-fort.

Sigh...in the interests of honesty, not a real blanket-fort, a thoroughly fictional one - got stuck in to editing a great novel that'll be coming atcha sometime vaguely soonish, and it provided a bit of an escape from the real world, as I wasn't doing Reality as such last week.

Nevertheless, I did actually get on the Nazi Scales last Tuesday morning, and then his that knowledge allll to myself like a squirrel with its nuts of nonsense. I was 17st 5 pounds last Tuesday. Up again. Understandably up, so I'm told I can't complain.

I'd quite like to complain about not being able to complain. Quite like to stamp my foot into mashed banana, overturn my dish of pudding and cry till I'm red in the face and people run around and mortgage the house to buy me things to soothe me.

But, as that's not gonna happen, apparently, I can't complain.

Can't complain about this week's result either. Because for a whoooole other week, I've done precisely nothing to help myself lose weight. There has been lackadaisical eating, there has been fudge and Other Stuff, there has been almost less than zero walking. I wouldn't be surprised to find my ass is growing moss, frankly.

Which is why today found me getting on the Nazi Scales, seeing them tell me I was 17st 6.5, and twisting round to shout at my own ass.

'Seriously? What the fuck? You're full of shit!'

No, really. I got off the scales, got on with things, refused to get entirely dressed because surely, if it knew what was good for it, my ass would be doing its thing any minute, and then I'd have to weigh again to get the real figure.

An hour and a half later, I was actively threatening my own ass.
'Straighten up and fly right, damn you, or I'll get a tapeworm. Then you'll be sorry... Shurrup, I know I'll be sorry too, that's not the point. You're an ass, you have very few jobs to do in your life. Do what you're there for, otherwise I'll have to write a blog about going up another pound and a half this week, and I'll make ya look really bad. I know, I know, you're an ass, it's not like you're exactly a looker to begin with, but gimme a goddamn break here!'

It was more or less when I heard that line, out in the open, bounding off the concrete walls of my office, that I swallowed, took a deep breath, got dressed and made myself some breakfast. When you're threatening your own ass with a tapeworm, it's time to get over yourself and get on with the day.

Still decided to constipation-shame my ass in this blog though. Hey, you have to take your moments of self-determination where you can.

Onward, to more walking and the being of the sensible...

Also maybe a worm...

Despatches From A Blanket-Fort

*Tony peeks out of blanket-fort*. 'Nope.'


*Tuesday beckons, sets up the Nazi Scales.* 'Come on, Disappearing Man, you used to write this nonsense every day. Step on, let's tell the people what they want to know.'

*Tony blinks.*. 'Nope. Can't make me. So yah-boo sucks to you, Tuesday!'

'At least let people know you won't be here tomorrow.'

*Tony sighs.* 'Fiiiiiiine. *Stomps out from blanket-fort, gets tangled up, falls to the floor with a distinctly heavy thump, as of a beef carcass on an abatoir slab.*

'Ouch. I'm gonna blame you for that, Tuesday.'

'Ach, you blame me for everything, ya wuss. I've lost count of the things that have been my fault.'

'Smartass.'

'Better than a dumbass, as you always say.'

'Y'know sometimes, you're too clever by half.'

Better than being too stupid by half, as you-'

'-always say, yes, I know. God, you make me sound like an insufferable git...'

'Only because-'

'I know! I know!'

'Annnnnyway...'

'Right. Yes. can't be doing with the whole ghastly business tomorrow - haven't walked, haven't done a damn thing, want to be able to sleep tonight, rather than be tormented by the thought of the Nazi Scales. So hello, Monday.'

*Monday rubs sleep out of its eyes.* 'What?'

'You're up.'

'What? I don't do this any more. This is Tuesday's deal. Get him to do something. My deal is seeing how much I can get away with.'

'Not that much. You're up. You're blog day this week.'

'I'll complain to my union.'

'You don't have a union, you lived through the eighties, remember?'

'I'll go on strike, see how you like that. There'll be placards. They will be cutting and witty.'

'On a Monday? Good luck with that. Besides, I would freakin' love that. You go on strike, I'm going back to my blanket-fort, everybody's happy.'

*d wanders in. *

'I'm not doing the Nazi Scales thing in the morning, honey.'

*Chews bacon*. 'How come?'

'Just...blech.'

'Is this not you just running away from stuff?'

'Yeah. Good, innit?'

'Hmm. Don't really want you to stop trying to be better.'

'I know. I'm not. I just...'

'Maybe you should ask the people of the Facebook what to do.'

'Hmm. Every risk of something Sensible happening then though.'

*Chews more bacon in a non-judgmental manner. 'OK.'

'OK?'

'Sure. OK.'

*Tony narrows eyes, goes immediately for a post-dinner weigh. It's hideous.*

'OK, then...blanket-fort...'

*Monday coughs*. 'So...anyway...he's buggered off for a couple of days. Apparently. Gawd knows what he's playing at. Being an arse, prob'ly. Ahem...sorry. *Walks away from microphone, leaving awkward silence behind.*

The Human Extraction

OK, so last night there was gnocchi for dinner, and cornflakes for 'dessert', and occasional mouthfuls of the ridiculously good fudge d's taken to making. It was as if, dumbass-like, I'd said 'Sod it!' to the notion that today was Tuesday, with its appointment with the Nazi Scales, and decided to sail right off that cliff-edge of idiocy once more with feeling.

This morning though - 17st 3.5. Down 2.5 pounds on last week.

That'll be the walking, then.

Haven't, by any means, walked every day over the last week. Walked about three, maybe four days out of seven. But still, clearly, that unexpected addition of movement gave the system a tiny shock and let me claw back some progress towards the 17 stone border. So yay. As the song says though, more, more, more is what's needed. More sense, more walking, more biking, less late-night lunacy. It's not as if this fundamental equation is particularly hard to grasp. It's the human factor that in Disappearing, as in most things, is the doorway for error.

So I guess what I'm saying is I need to be less human.
It's arguable, actually, that that was part of what led me to be able to Disappear the first time - being less human. Shutting down the intrinsic emotional responses to pleasure-stimuli, by looking ahead to longer-term strategic goals. Or at the very least re-training myself as to what should trigger those emotional responses.

Hmm...something in that. Be less human. Be more robot. Be the Disappearing Man.

Hehe, yes, I know it starts to sound like a trailer for a new Netflix sci-fi drama, but if you're going to get anywhere in this game, you do sort of have to believe your own hype, see yourself in some starring role, otherwise it just becomes a parade of daily self-abnegation and self-denial, more or less because you hated how you were yesterday.

And yes, incidentally, you get more boring - or at least, I do. If I go full-on Disappearing Man, I become the most boring human being to talk to, because my internal clockwork is always somewhere else, running not entirely silently behind my eyes - intake, calorie value, exercise, calorie burn, balance, day by day, week by week and so on until an objective is achieved.

But there's another factor to the being less human, something that's fundamentally changed in my life since the first time I did this. The first time, I was heading towards my fortieth birthday. This year, I'll be 48. There's a degree to which you have to be able to see the point of the end goal, and at 40, that feels rather different to how it feels at 48. Disappearing did good things for my body - allowed me to radically reduce my medication-burden, allowed me to be more active without thinking about it or bitching about it, and so on. All that felt positive at 40. If I allow my human nature to hold sway, all that feels like a shrug at 48. Vanity - woo! Who cares, really? The irony of course is that vanity's a human element, so shutting that down in pursuit of the longer-term goal leaves you with less, at 48 (or rather, leaves me, at 48 with less) reason to give a Disappearing Fuck about the end result. The only time I've ever really been physically vain was during and at the end of that first Disappearing. It was the only time in my life I ever thought I had any kind of right to be vain. I'm not sure at 48 anybody benefits from the vain version of me, which means I'm left with the end-result of the Disappearing being little more than an increased ability to do the things I do because I want to Disappear...which makes the process rather blurred and unfocused.

Ach, so much for long-term strategic thinking. This is the kind of circular thinking that makes me dizzy when I let myself dwell on it. Enough - in the short-term, I'm down 2.5 pounds this week. Whoop-de-doo. Same again next week would put me within sniffing distance of the 17 stone borderline. That's my next objective, so let's focus on that for now, rather than on the diminishing returns of the Disappearing Man.

Yoga For Dumbasses

'Nope. Fuck it, s'gotta be done.'

Those, ladies, gentlemen and other groovers, are the words of a dumbass.

A dumbass who, on the night before a weigh-in, just an hour or so after eating a bowlful of glorious Chinese carbs (rice AND noodles, motherfucker!), decides the only thing that will do in the best of all possible words is to top it off with a bowl of cornflakes before falling, stupefied into bed.

So - yeah, when the Nazi Scales this morning were all uppity and 'What the fuck did you do? Man, you're 17 stone 6 pounds, take it and get the hell away from me,' there was a certain inescapable logic to their decision.

Up a pound and a half on last week. This...is not how things were supposed to go, quite frankly. I'd complain to the Department of Dumbasses (Don't tell me there's no such thing, have you seen the world lately?), but they'd probably, rightly, tell me to go fuck myself because we live in a deterministic universe with laws of cause and effect and all that gubbins.

Sometimes, cause and effect can kiss my flabby old ass.

So this is Yoga for Dumbasses - where I twist myself into pretzels of rationalisation and reality-denial, more or less solely for your amusement.

Here's where I plead that halfway through this week, the Nazi Scales were being my friends, and had dropped me down a pound from last week, to 17st 3.5. Where I rationalise the carbitude of the meal, and the bigness thereof. Where I add that probably the cornflakes hadn't had time to pass through my system, and so between them and the meal, there was probably more than a pound and a half of sheer food-weight in my system, just waiting for the first train out of there. (Don't look at me, I didn't say it would make sense, I said it would be a pretzel of rationalisation), and where, finally, as a sort of offering to the Disappearing gods, I throw in the fact that immediately after the Nazi Scales had their say this morning, I strapped on my walking boots, deadline or no pigging deadline, and I went walking, which I had more or less conspired with myself not to do over the last seven days. Yes, I fling that into the ring of Disappearing equations, by way of saying 'Look, look, this is me, taking it seriously again, honest!' and of course, as much as fooling anyone else might be my primary motive, the trick is to fool myself that This Is A Taking-It-Seriously Gesture, and that things will be getting back on track any minute now.

Honest.

Ooh - ow. Bugger. I think I've seized up mid-pretzel. Talk amongst yourselves for a bit, I need to untangle my legs...

The Dickishness Cessation

Urk.

Missed last week's weigh-in day blog. It sort of stuttered and fell back on the To-Do List, to the point where I intended to write it Thursday, for my pal Ruth's birthday...annnd then that didn't happen either. Today though, there must be blogging, otherwise it's starting to look like I've fallen entirely out of the habit.

Well - last week was an entirely unreasonable disappointment. unreasonable because gaining was very likely the outcome of a week of retreating lurgi (it's been borne in upon me that some Americans have no idea what a lurgi is - it's a UK word meaning a flu-like bug or virus, but has overtones of lurking, swamp-like sinuses and, to quote both Friends and my friend Sarah, 'sexy phlegm'), which menat I still didn't feel like getting out and DOING anything, but, because life's just that kind of bastard, my appetite came roaring back.

So, it should have been entirely forecastable that I'd go up again last week, but somehow I managed not to forecast it. The Nazi Scales though were amused.

'Haha,' they said, as if they were actors in a bad melodrama, 'We liked you better when you were fully sick. Then we took two pounds off you, and you cheered. Now you're just lollygagging about, you may have your two pounds back - 17st 4 pounds for you!'

Bastards.

Entirely fair, utterly predictable, but nevertheless bastards.

Because I say so, that's why.

This week...

I'm not sure in which direction to vaguely stab when trying to deflect responsibility this week. There was fudge, but then it seems entirely likely there will be irresistible fudge going forward, as d's making the Fudge of the Gods for a local deli, which, rather gratifyingly, is making fudge-fans all over Facebook weak at the knees. Because, as I may have mentioned on one or two previous occasions, d has mystic sorcery skills. She's kind of the Scheherazade of cakes. The Mata Hari of sweets. The Ada Lovelace of meats. Food is a conduit of love in her hands, a spring of creativity. It's her poetry.

So that's not a direction in which you'll find me stabbing.

Basically, haven't gone out to walk since the long one just before the lurgi fell on me from a great height. And my general eating pattern has included far more in the way of sweet things, stodgy things and carby things than it should have were I properely dedicated to this Disappearing lark since more or less the same point - starting out with comfort food when I was ill, and then, as I've recovered, keeping the comfort food in place, despite not upping the corresponding exercise level.

So...yeah. That'll be it. Basically, I've been a dick.

You want the tell-tale heart of this dickness? I haven't tested my blood sugar since the lurgi hit. That's the equivalent of not opening the post when you fear the arrival of bills. It's denial activity, to maintain your coccoon of ignorance.

Tested again for the first time in a while yesterday - 9.8. Today, slightly better - 9.5. Both of these are technically within the range my Diabetic Nurse wants me to stay inside, but they're actually noticeably over what I should be - between 6-8.

What's more, I could lie to you and say now that I feel better, I'll crack on with more walking this week - but I won't. I absolutely won't, because the deadlines are piling up and need addressing in a big old hurry. Maaaaaybe, after tomorrow, when I intend to complete one project, I could steal a couple of hours a day to at least say I've done something to give my system a boost.

Maybe.

Still - with deadlines clanging and the behaviour-patterns of a dick, this week, the Nazi Scales have me at 17st 4.5 - up another half-pound, which I guess, given the dickishness, is less catastrophic than it might have been. I'm aware of the gentleness of continental drift though - let things go for too long and you find you're seven pounds up, and have them to lose all over again. So...yes. Dickishness needs to end now. Focus and all that malarkey needs to be the way of the week.

Woo! Bring on the fun...

The Spasmodic Crunches

Unnnnnnnnncleeeeeeeeean! Unnnnnnncleeeeeeean!

Bloke with a lurrrrrrgi! Unnnncleeeeeean!

Yes, you heard me - while of course it's the case that d has had a lurgi in perfect, get-on-with-it quietness and suffered appallingly while demanding dick-all in special privileges, I'm been going Total Sick Bloke for...well, actually since all the coughing and spangle-seeing of that long uphill walk I detailed last time. Sick as a dog. Useless. Sleeping hours of the day away, mostly because consciousness was such a pain in the chest. Spending additional hours in the bath because of the heat and the healing vapoury gloriousness of Olbas bubbles.

Have done precisely bog-all by way of exercise since that walk - first because of deadlines and then because of all this joyful lurgification.

Which means I have no logical way to explain to you how, getting on the Nazi Scales this morning (technically pre-bathroom, for those interested in the ins and outs of the thing, but it didn't seem especially worth waiting for), and saw:

17st 2.

Down...three and a quarter pounds.

All I can tell you is either this flu has a tapewormy element that has yet to be diagnosed, in which case I'm frankly happy to feed the fucker for a while before the nastiness of coaxing it out one way or another, or all the hacking coughs have acted like spasmodic stomach crunches, and I've been getting more of an enforced workout over the last seven weeks than I could possibly imagine, cos damn! Two pounds short of the next milestone, and into the Sixteens. That will be something to do a happy dance about - and happy dances will be altogether more possible than they have been, too. So yay. The lurgi of apparent weightloss has been an utter bastard, but the results are altogether rather more pleasing than the experience. Onward - to the border of Sixteeniness!

The Fluctuation Factor

My Nazi Scales are taking the piss today.

Post-bathroom weigh-in this morning - 17st 6.25 - same as last week. I'll be honest, I was happy enough to take that on  a week which has included d's sdalty peanut fudge, cos dayum!

Padded about a bit in a semi-regular morning daze, listening, of all things, to an audiobook reading of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (don't let that fool you, I'm not high-brow, I've moved on to a Doctor Who novelization now). Went back. Scratched myself where I itched. Stepped back on the Nazi Scales.

17st 4.0. Tried that a few times, got consistent results.

'Fuck off,' I muttered. 'There's no way I lost precisely dick-all in seven days, and then 2.25 pounds in half an hour's dicking about. You're just fucking with me now.'

I pulled the scales to a slightly different position on the tiled floor. Stepped on again.

'Fine, see if you like this then,' said the Nazi Scales. 'Can do you a 17st 5.25. That suitably reasonable for you, is it?'

'Thank you,' I muttered - re-doing the weigh-in seveal more times, to make sure I got consistent results.

So. Somewhere between where I was last week and two and a quarter pounds lighter is probably where I aactually am.

For no terribly good reason, I'm going to take the middle reading, and claim 17 stone 5.25 as today's 'actual' reading. Because hell, it has to be something, and it might as well be that - each of the three readings was taken at least three times, for the 'No, really, stop fucking with me' value, so it's as valid as anything else, doesn't push me into entirely unbelievable places, and still allows me to go completely into Smug Mode today at having fudge and carrying on.

So...yeah. Nazi Scales say 17st 5.25 today. IF I were to, y'know, get my shit together and have some properly good weeks of not eating fudge and walking my ass off, I could theoretically push on down into the 16s three weeks from now - which would be something to shove in the face of my diabetic nurse next time I see her. The letter's already arrived, but I'm pretending it hasn't, because my recent blood results have been less than stellar, tending to go from 9ish to 11ish and back again. #MustDoBetter, clearly, at least on that score.

Oh, and talking of walking - went and did it last night. First time in about two weeks, I think. Now, here's the thing. Our flat is in the centre of a very small seaside town. About five, maybe six streets, that's the heart of the town. My usual walking route is ennnntirely flat, along the main street, alont a side street, through a couple of tunnels (see previous entries where I fell and knackered my ankle), and then along a lovely coastal path with the sea on my right, usually from Saundersfoot, via a fancy restaurant called Coast, to the rather gloriously-named Wiseman's Bridge. This is my 'basic' walk - usually when I get cocky about it and want to do more, I divert just before Wiseman's and head into a forest, past an old iron works and on into the wide green yonder.

Last night, I decided to do something different.
I went up the fairly steep-ish hill  that leads the way out of the town centre to the other side of us. Saw an interesting uphill street attached to it. Walked up there. And up there. And up and up and up there. Coughed, spluttered, saw spangles, thought briefly 'This is it, this is how I die,' pressed on ever upward.

Eventually, oh, SO eventually, found a downhill road. Came down and down and down and realised I'd taken about an hour to go the 'eight minutes on the flat' journey to Coast.

That's a rubbish way to get to Coast, unless you happen to want to burn calories, flay leg-muscles and stop being able to breathe. So - result. I saw another uphill road. And followed it, up, and up, and up...annnnnnnd down again to Wiseman's. Basically, I leapfrogged my way to Wiseman's Bridge, with more pain, more gasping and more destruction of my will to live. But it actually felt rather good to do it, simply because I haven't done any proper walking for a while.

Came back the flat way though, obviously. I mean, I'm clearly a moron, but even I have limits.

Got in just as the 65mph gusts of the joyfest that is Storm Gareth were beginning to hit us.

So...haven't walked at all today. Haven't, in fact, been outside the door today, apart from a quick pop to the corner shop. Probably won't, now, until Saturday cos aaaaaargh - deadlines.

But before deadlines - The Great British Sewing Bee.

Shurrup, don't judge me, it's compelling...What the hell kind of stitch is that?

Smashing Through

Baaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha!

Oh, that's absurd. Glorious, but absurd.

Haven't had a chance to walk this week - deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, rawhiiiiiiide!
In addition to which, dinner last night was spaghetti bolognaise in glorious profusion. I'd forgotten it was Monday night, but it was actually so scrumptious I didn't care that much.

This morning's weigh-in? 17st 6.25 - down my hoped-for two pounds. Through the trampoline barrier of the half-stone point - 17st 7. Who knew the beard weighed that much?!

Here's the weird thing. In the abstract, this is a result that makes me all gimlet-eyed 80s-movie determined. Cue the Rocky montage, and all that. In the short term, it let me march to my favourite local cafe for the best bacon and egg sandwich I've had in fifteen years (It's a beard thing). This probably says more about the ineffective nature of abstract motivations, but I went, I ate, I felt my sense of personal wellbeing swell. Now on we go. The truth is that breakfast bacon butty or no breakfast bacon butty, I feel encouraged by this morning's result to do better and intend, at this point, to push on down.

Naturally of course, this being the way of things, next week I'll be massively heavier, full of excuses and roaring around the place, kicking imaginary cats and declaring that nothing's worth doing cos we're all dooooomed.

So, y'know, there's that to look forward to. Meanwhile, woohoo! *Struggles into cheerleading outfit, shakes pom-poms in a loathesome display of self-congratulation.*

The High Wire Step

Sometimes, you lose. Sometimes, you gain.

Sometimes, on weeks where you don't particularly eat sensibly, but DO start walking again toward the tail-end of the seven days, you take a high-wire step. Firmish, possibly wobbly, but when all is said and done, you're still a long way up in the air.

This week, I'm static at 17st 8.25. Which I'm happy enough to take, this week. A wobble-but-not-fall does not leave you smeared all over the sawdust with the lions taking an interest in your entrails. You're still oh-fuck metres up in the air (and in my case, you've still got weak ankles, so it doesn't bode well), but all you've done is progress in the time dimension. Another week older and buggerall's changed, as Tennessee Ernie Ford almost certainly never sang.

Yes, I'm wittering. I do that. A lot.

Bottom line - ate some inadvisable stuff this week, walked for the last two days of the weigh-in week, nothing changed.

Had my face-fuzz all of almost fifteen shaved off almost immediately after weighing-in. Fairly sure that would have lost me at least a quarter-pound, had I managed to have it done before the weigh-in. Feels very odd, but wanted to get rid of it in a gesture of 'Grr, let's get serious about stuff.'

Kind of look like a toddler now. Churchill as a toddler.

Also, hasn't especially worked as a focusing device. Had my first ice-cream of the tourist season later that day.
Yes, in February.

I'd say 'Don't judge me,' but in a blog about trying to lose weight, that's almost entirely what you're here for, so judge away, by all means. Am heading into a deadline-bottleneck, so the likelihood of much walking in the coming week seems slimmer than I am. Any loss next week will have to come from other sources.

Damn, already shaved off all my beard-hair.

Wonder how much toenails weigh...

The Surprise Benificence

Ha. Well, OK.

Wasn't expecting that.

Have done precisely buggerall to deserve that.

Down today to 17st 8.25.

There's no really plausible explanation for that, as I seem to be building a hibernation nest around myself. Sometimes, I guess, the universe just likes a tosser. Not often. Certainly not often enough to depend on. But occasionally, it throws you a bone and allows you to throw victorious V-signs at the Nazi Scales. Honestly, as weeks go, this has been another stupid one, with occasional bits of sense flung into the abyss of fried breakfasts and Valentine's Day gorgeousness and suchlike.

Blood's been haywire this week - the morning after Valentine's Day it was up to 16.0 - which is basically two people's ideal blood sugar, coursing around one system. #BadTony

But otherwise, if this blog isn't to deteriorate again into just a series of posts of what I should do, what I intend to do, and what I didn't do again because Reasons, there's not an enormous amount to report from this week. Stayed indoors a great deal, edited a great deal, ate a faaaairly great deal. So no - no real idea how I'm even down at all on last week.

Thanks, Universe!

I supppose the motivating point from all this is similar to what it was last week. If I WERE to get my shit together, knuckle down, eat more sensibly and maybe, just maybe, move my ass a little this week, I technically could break a barrier - could go beneath 17st 7, into the lower half of the 17s, which would feel like disproportionate success, and would also, not for nothing, deal with the blood issues.

Yeah - that's motivating as all get-out, and I knew that this morning after I got off the Nazi Scales. Which didn't, somehow, stop me having chips for lunch.

Yes, absolutely, sometimes I need beating upside the head.

Onward though - with a little wink from the universe - hopefully to a more sensible week and even better, less fluke-based and therefore more rational results next week.

The Investment Warning

I remember when the UK government was in a frenzy of selling off its national assets to individuals and companies, it advertised shares on the TV. One of the things in the vocal small-print at the end of those adverts was 'stocks and shares may go down as well as up.'

So it is with Disappearing - numbers may go up as well as down.
In my last post, I mentioned I was just a reaonable week's Disappearing away from returning to my lightest point on this run.

I also did mention that at that point, I hadn't HAD a reasonable week's Disappearing.

I went on to not have a reasonable week. Went out for fish and chips last night, followed up by cereal later, so certain was I that things were going to pot.

Pot this morning has me at 17st 11.75 - up a pound and a half.

Need to Do The Thing. Haven't Done The Thing.

The Thing Awaits.

Listened to the audiobook of The Martian by Andy Weir this week. That's a pretty good object lesson in Doing The Thing. Works on the principle that Not Doing The Thing means the planet on which you're standing gets to kill you.

That appears to be the case whether you're standing on Earth or Mars.

Right now, I'd be the version of Astronaut Mark Watney that dies on Sol 6. The one who doesn't even get up when he's left behind by his crew. #EpicThingDoingFail

I know what to do. Seriously, I do. Right now though, I'm a brain in a jar, steeping in nihilistic idiocy on almost every front, overthinking wildly. The irony of course being that I also know if I simply put a pin in that behaviour for a minute and Did The Thing - walked, for instance - my mood would naturally elevate, because hell, I'd be walking by the seaside, and that works for me. Part of me though wants to specifcially not do that. Pathetic, I know, but there it is. You know how it is - the notion that positive action is a force of creativity, keeping inevitable entropy at bay for just a while. Sometimes, the entropy is attractive.

lol wow, get a load of this fuckin' guy. From a pound and a half to inevitable entropy in a handful of paragraphs.

Laughing at myself now. Surely that has to be better than taking myself seriously?

Right. Fuck it. Weekly reset has me up. Let's Do The Motherfucking Thing.

The Exploding Wagon And The Winter Coat

Apologies all, been away a week and a bit. Not intentionally, just never got round to posting the blog as is expected on my Tuesday weigh-in days.

So let's get some straightforward stuff out of the way. Have been more or less off the Disappearing Wagon for those two weeks. haven't walked but once since I fell over in the nearby tunnels - is it a bit pathetic to still be in my forties and confess I sooooort of have a thing I have to now get over about walking through the tunnels which lead to my best, easiest and most sprawling walks? Mostly a constructed thing - I'm half deaf, and have what the specialist gloriously described as 'a severe insult to the organ of balance' - it's a bit of a party trick now: if I close my eyes and march on the spot, I will inadvertantly rotate a full 180 degrees, without being even remotely aware in the moment that I'm doing it. I even have a pal who didn't believe that till she'd seen it with her own eyes.

What that also brings with it is a tendency towards dizziness and falling over when I move rapidly from light environments to dark ones. Such as tunnels. Or, as we've discovered many a time, from lit rooms to dark corridors. I swear sometimes d's just there counting the seconds under her breath until I fall over or crash into things.

Anyhow, so there's that. Plus of course, I'm a natural born klutz with an intimate relationship with the ground, who's previously broken both ankles, a big toe and a femur, so there's a growing cache of experiences screaming at me when I go into situations of potential up-fuckery. But falling this time, even though I didn't break anything, seems to have left me with a rising tension in the chest when I approach the local tunnels. Have done it once since then, but found it massively easy to find excuses since. Clearly, it's a thing that needs beating. I just haven't been motivated to beat it yet.

That, added to a certain loosening of the self-restraint belt, meant that last week, when I got on the Nazi Scales, I'd gone up from 17st 7 and some to 17st 10.5 - roughly three pounds up.

Went ahead and had another, almost equally wild week, and this Tuesday, tipped the scales at 17st 9.25. So...up on two weeks ago, down on last week.

Clearly though, I need to get my shit together. So...yeah. This is my 'getting my shit together' face. Grrr...

I guess the one good thing to claw from these results is that I'm one good week away from getting back to the last, best, result I had.

Which would be fine if I'd had a good week. Haven't really - had Chinese New Year, and a banquet which was glorious beyond measure, topped off by a Fererro Rocher Sundae, which was a mistake on absolutely every level.

And so it goes. Haven't weighed since Tuesday - mostly on the basis of fear, if we're honest - but got a nice boost today. As Storm Erik, the most Viking of weather fronts, prepares to roll in and blow us all from pillar to post, it was time to dig out the winter coats when we left the flat this morning. It would be overstating things a lot to say I was dreading putting mine on, because last winter it was tight to the point of a sausage ready for sizzling, but certainly when there appeared to be a comfortable gap between where my belly ended and where the coat began this morning, I left the flat feeling a rather more cost glow than I did laast year. This, I guess, is the importance of perspective. Yeah, sure, I had a week where I put a few pounds back on, and a week where I lost a bare smidge of that again - and it's actually anyone's guess how things will go next Tuesday - but I'm still lighter than I've been in quite some time. Sometimes the longer timescale can give you a reminder than not everything lives or dies from one weigh-in to another.

Still and all, the 'getting my shit together' face is needed. Onward! Downward! Cheeearrrrrrge!

The Pleasing Perversity of Outliers

Huh.

There are ups and downs in this Disappearing business which are equally inexplicable. Sometimes you can be good as a saint and find yourself becalmed, or even increasing. Other times, you can misbehave and find yourself rewarded. Madness.

Today though, that madness is on my side. Despite dining on a small bowl of pasta in the most ridiculously kickass sauce, and then an unexpected half a pizza at nine o'clock last night, this morning's blood sugar came in at a pleasing 8.8, and this morning's weigh-in has me at:
17st 7 and three-quarters. Less than a pound to my next milestone. That'll do for me this morning.

I haven't exactly misbehaved....that much...this week, but for instance, I only walked the one day, cramming for an editing deadline for much of the rest of the week, and as mentioned, while I haven't exactly injected sugar syrup into my veins, my diet has been carb-rich (last night was the last of a three or four day pastafest), so to say the results surprise me would be something of an understatement. But I can do nothing, whether the results are good or bad, but straighten my spine and go forward with intentions to achieve my goal.

That's all this is of course, ultimately - the pitting of one's intentions against reality, seeing if one can turn intentions into actions, and through actions into a change in reality. I suppose that's the same principle as lies behind all human endeavour, from steam trains to the theory of magic. Thought becomes action, action changes the reality.

Any such system of action of course with throw out outliers, things that probably shouldn't happen but do. That's how today feels, like a pleasingly perverse outlier, because it doesn't really agree with the actions that have preceded it. But today I will take it, and move right the hell on, deploying theory, focusing thought, achieving actions (hopefully) and changing my own personal reality.

Oh, that reminds me - d popped into my office last night to say she hadn't weighed herself in quite some time, but that she's dropped beneath an important threshold too. Her method's entirely different from mine, and involves things like working for a living and the most perverse portion control, given her mad, mystical cooking skills. But hey - it's like that whole 'many roads to enlightenment' thing. Probably doesn't matter how you get to your goal, if you get there. So this week, we're a Disappearing Household, albeit in my case through the pleasing perversity of outliers.

Taking A Pounding

Odd week, this one. Was busy walking early in the week when I twisted an ankle and slammed into the ground. Haven't walked properly since then till today. So that was irritating. Also had a couple of big 'banquet'-style meals over the course of the week,  so wasn't exactly expecting to have lost seven pounds this week.

Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 9.75 - down a pound on last week. If I had any kind of energy right now, I'd witter on about how, at this rate, I'll have to cut my annual goal in half, from 104 pounds to 52 pounds, but I'm simply not going to do that because it would just be silly.

As I write this, Madam Secretary is on in the background - it's become a kind of West Wing for the Era of What-The-Fuck - and the doctrine of Suck-It-Upism. On the day of the so-called 'Meaningful Vote' on Brexit, Suck-It-Upism, the philosophy of taking what's real and dealing with it, seems like the mindset of the day, so am sucking it up, and looking at a one pound loss through the lens of it being a loss in spite of x, and y, and z - z being the other bullshit excuse I would have had to make up to justify putting on weight this week.

Screw it - a pound is a pound is a positive snapshot on weigh-in day, and back to walking today. On and on and on we go...one pound at a tiiiiiiiiiiime, sweet Mithras...

The Trampoline Factor

First week of the new year, and there has been, at least, a little movement.

Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 10.75.

In other words, for anyone following this nonsense, it's two weeks ago. Again. Or indeed three weeks ago for that matter, as there was a week of no movement. The upside of course is that the half a pound I put on last week in the distinctly muted madness of a Christmas and New year celebration has evaporated. The downside, for those of my own, rather more melancholic nature, is that 0.5 pounds is a pretty poor repayment of effort for a week which has at least seen me begin walking again.

Hey ho, let us dance the happy dance of weightloss, but let us dance it with a trademark Alan Rickman sneer, just for balance.

It feels almost like being on a trampoline, with weekly snapshots taken at whichever point on a repeated bounce-wave I happen to be at on a Tuesday morning - 17st 10.75, 17st 10.75, 17st 11.5, 17st 10.75. Of course on that imagery, what I aim to do by a week today is to plunge through the black rubber of the trampoline and touch the ground underneath - the ground which in this case reads 17st 8.75. In itself, that feels like a nothing result, but the key is that if I achieve it, the week following, I'll be under another milestone - 17st 7, or the halfway point of the 17 stone spectrum. It feels hard to escape the logic of course that says next week, the trampoline will twang me back up, because for the fourth week in a row I haven't been able to get beneath the 'barrier.' Must do though, because of course, it's actually not logical at all, it's an invention which runs the risk of getting way out of hand. Let's act like we believe in zen calm and all that, and acknowledge that barriers are only barriers if we believe they're barriers.

Be the weightloss, be the weightloss, be the weightloss.

Ach, bugger zen calm and chanting - more walking, less food seems to be the order of the week. Woohoo.

Oh, and rather annoyingly, the blood sugar results are spiking again this week - this morning, 11.0. Yesterday 9.5. Day before, 11.8 (though there's a a rational reason for that - d's birthday on the 5th meant there was steak, and a rich madeira sauce, and arancini starter, and even a slice of appallingly gorgeous chocolate cake...), so 11.8 the following morning was relatively reasonable. 5th January was 10.4 - an annoying smidgen outside the lines. 4th - 9.7, a smidgen the other way. 3rd - 11.6. 2nd - 9.3. 1st, after a New Year's Eve Indian banquet - 10.9.

Apart from the logical results after big feasts, I could invent reasons randomly for the elevated results this week - possibly more fruit juice in my system than water? But let's take a little stock, shall we? I've just - believe it or not, and despite seeming to realise it last week, I've JUST realised taht the day after the Indian banquet was when I last weighed in, and that might just possibly explain a thing or two about last week's result. And I've similarly just realised that this week has included d's birthday feast, including cake, which may well have slammed the brakes on any greater loss this week. It was worth it, to be fair, so that's where you find me - having stomped the bounce and preparing to go all stern-eyed and walky to achieve a loss from this low point next week. Game on. Cake off. Downwarrrrrrrd!

The Wagon Training

Hey there, Disappearinos.

Well, I went from Christmas to almost New Year still glued to the office, so the food-richest time of the year was compounded by ass-boil-growing levels of physical inactivity.

Which makes sense of yesterday's weigh-in. 17st 11.5. Up three-quarters of a pound. Not by any means where I wanted to be, but given both the factors at play, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, go 'Lalalala' and claim (in the entire absence of evidence) reasonable positivity. Up less than a pound between Christmas and New Year - yeah, I'll take that.

Yesterday, the morning after a hefty Indian banquet including rice, naan, bhajis and a cocount milk-based sauce, my blood sugar was a smidgen over the double-figure goal, coming in at 10.9.

This morning, 2nd January, nudged it back under the line - 9.3. And, more significantly, kicked off the walking habit of 2019. Not an enormously long walk - my Samsung Health app tells me it was 4.03 km, so basically just 'over there and back again.' But still - further than I've gone any time recently, and hopefully the start of getting the numbers going in the right direction again.

January is of course the traditional time for starting new things, new plans, and particularly new weight-loss or exercise or 'cleansing' routines. In my case though, I tend not to put too much pressure on January - it's like starting a diary: if you go at it hammer and tongs in January, chances are you'll burn out by February.

In my case, it's just a coincidence that I happen to suddenly be free to get back to walking now it's January. The goal remains the same in January as they were in December - 2 pounds per week. So by the 8th, I hope to be weighing in at 17st 9.5. By the 15th, 17st 7.5 (or, as a bonus, maybe 17st 7). By 15th Febuary, my hope is to be in the 16s, and so on. I haven't gone enormously outside my rules over Christmas - though there was one rather glorious Fish And Chipfest - but it was certainly Christmas and New Year, and now it isn't that any more, so it's back to the focus.

I think that's an odd thing this time round. Long ago, when I was doing this the first documented time, I had my rigid 'perspex boxes' - I couldn't go even slightly wrong, at all, ever, because if I did, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And indeed, it was a fish and chipfest that eventually broke me, and things DID come tumbling down in a mass of self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get to 48, you realise the sun goes down every night, and comes up every morning* and it's up to you what you make of it. If you wanna carry on as you've been doing, you don't necessarily have to treat the new day as another day of addictive behaviour. Yeah, you fell off the wagon - at least with food, as opposed to almost everything else that triggers pleasure centres, you're unlikely to have a chemical addiction-trigger to have to re-fight (Although, sugar...). If you want to, you can just get right back up on the damn wagon, and start another day 1. So this is me - having enjoyed my Christmas, and my New Year, saddlin' up my wagon again and riding it through 2019. Two pounds a week should see my almost 7.5 stone (104 pounds) lighter by the first week of January 2020 - and that of course isn't counting the Brexit Famine. Around the 10 stone mark, or 140 pounds.

There's Probably-Not-Dying-So-Soon in that there weight-loss.
Giddy-up!