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.
Tuesday 22 January 2019
Tuesday 15 January 2019
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...
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...
Tuesday 8 January 2019
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!
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!
Wednesday 2 January 2019
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!
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!
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