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!

Splitting The Difference

'You've been doing the whole "unofficial weigh-in" thing again, haven't you?'

'Yep.'

'Thought so. You always go a bit mad when you do that.'

d's assessment, of course, and of course, she's not wrong.

At one deeply unofficial point this week, I tipped the scales at just 17 stone, 10.75, and that without doing much that was particularly different. Since then there appears to have been some recession, whcih means I can report that today's weigh-in has me at 17 stone, 12.25.

In other words, two pounds lighter than this time last week. As I forecast, safely within the 17s, and in fact, precisely the two pounds per week that's said to be the safe amount to lose per week. Also, give or take a quarter pound, halfway between last week's result and the best unofficial result of this week.Splitting the difference of probabilities, I suppose.

It's a fundamental personality test, doing this sort of thing. Is the glass half empty or half full? Do we cheer at the two pound lost, or mourn the additional pound and a half of potential loss that has itself been...erm...lost?

Frankly, on any given day, it's six to five and pick 'em with me. Today though, you find me in a businesslike, getting-on-with-stuff mood, so I find myself able to solidly bank the two pound loss in my brain, having crossed my traditional Rubicon of Disappearing, and feeling like it's real now we're in the 17s. I feel almost like this is no big thing this time around, because of course I started in the 18s, not in the 20s, as previously, but it's still the lightest I've been in quite some while, so yay for that, and it feels like it has a treat in store, which is the notion that if I keep this up, seven weeks from now I'll be in the 16s, which will really feel like a momentous change, and a gut-friendly, heart-friendly, surviving-to-be-a-contemptible-old-crankypants-friendly shift in the dynamic of what I can do.

Seven weeks is the 15th January. That feels like a good date at which to aim.

Of course, between now and then, there's Christmas. I seem to have been Disappearing at Christmas for altogether too many years of my life, given that at times which are not Christmas, and wouldn't therefore turn me into Captain Anti-Social, Captain 'No, I can't, thanks...but you feel free,' I've gone on to be a total gorgemonster. In other words, I've put people through a lot at Christmas time for very little ultimate purpose. If I'm going to be that kind of git, it feels like it should be worth something in the long term, otherwise it's just gittery for gittery's sake.

I really should have thought that sentence through rather more, as I generally have no problem with gittery for gittery's sake, but still - onward, week by week, through Christmas to January 15th!

The Probably Shirt and The Unhumble Pound

'Waah!' I sqealed.

'What? What's wrong?' called d from the living room, precipitating a bit of an Ealing comedy in our little flat about what had made me squeal, whether I was alright, and how thrilled I was that she'd found one of my Hellboy T-shirts in a box (Yes, that's right, dammit, I'm old enough to own T-shirts from when the first Hellboy movie was released. People tell me they're now rebooting it. I'm choosing to take that as a mark of being classic and vintage, rather than simply old). But no!

I mean, yes, it's awesome that the Hellboy shirts have come to light from some box or other - and even more awesome that my 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life' T-shirt has survived and found its way back into the light...

Have I told you about the Probably Shirt before?
Long story short-ish: a few years ago, before messages on buses blotted their copybook forever (*Shakes fist at sky, yells 'BREEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXITTTTTTTT!!!!'*), there was a campaign on a bus, with the simple motto 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.' It was started by comedy writer Ariane Sherine (with whom I now get to occasionally interact, as I'm one of her legion of Facebook friends, though if I'm absolutely honest, I'd rather forgotten till just now that the campaign is prrrrobably why I first sent her a Friend Request back in the day), had support from the British Humanist Association, of which when last I checked I was still a member, and it gave me quite some fun, one way and another.

Loved the campaign, supported the campaign, bought the aforementioned T-shirt.

Wore the shirt regularly - got me accosted on High Street Kensington station once by a bloke who less-than-calmly informed me that 'Dawkins is shit and he's gonna burn in Hell,' to which my early-morning, pre-coffee response was 'You may be right, but why are you telling me? D'you think I'm gonna ring him up and say 'Oh, Professor? Some bloke in Kensington says you're shit?'
As I say - pre-coffee response, I wasn't at my wittiest.

Where the shirt reallllly came into its own was when, in spite of anything that might be considered to be 'common sense,' I wore it on a flight over to New York State, via Chicago. On American Airlines.
No-one batted an eye at Heathrow, and we boarded without issue. As usual on a transatlantic flight, I fell asleep, only to be woken by a flight attendant.

'Wha-? Eh? Are we nearly there yet?'
'Sir, I noticed your shirt there.'
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes. d, I think, pretended extra hard she was unconscious.
'Wha-? Oh. Oh yes?' I asked.
'Sir, I happen to know there actually is a god.'
'O...K. That's....nice for you?' I said, hoping the rising inflection would take the sting out of my disbelief for her. She pursed her lips - apparently the sting was still intact - and then moved on.

Well, that was odd, wasn't it, boys and girls? I thought, humphing over onto my other hip and trying to get some more shut-eye.

Some time passed. Possibly, some drool escaped down my chin, because fuck human dignity when you have to sleep in public. Then someone gently shook my shoulder.

'The pheasant's in the collander! The collander!' I assured half the plane. When my eyes worked again, they showed me that my friend the attendant was back.
'Hello, sir. Would you like to join me in the back?'
'Err...what?'
'I've got a buddhist gentleman, a muslim, a hindu and myself as a Christian having a discussion back there about why there definitely is a god, if you'd like to come join us.'
'Errr...yyyyeah,' I said. I could feel d Being Asleep with all her might. 'I think I'll skip it, if it's all the same to you,' I decided. 'Could I maybe get a Diet Coke instead?'

At security in Chicago O'Hare, some guys with guns told me I 'got balls, wearing that thing in this country.' They didn't seem to regard having those particular balls as a bad thing as such, they just wanted me to know, in case I'd been worried, that balls were in my possession, and apparently on display, as proven by  the wearing of the shirt on American soil.

And then, having cleared customs, and being just about ready to transfer to a flight to Buffalo, a lovely Miss Marple-style old lady excused herself, saying she'd noticed the shirt.
'Yes?' I asked, trying to maintain the illusion of Being A Nice Human Being.
'Yes. I just wanted you to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your right to wear that shirt absolutely,' she told me. I wanted to hug her, but I figured I might crush her if I did - she really was frail and tiny. But I thanked her for taking the time to reach out in sisterhood to someone who had a different position to her. I doffed my hat (Always have a hat, it makes doffing it much more straightforward, and if you try and doff your hair it just looks weird). Made me really rather wish I'd been as good as she was and joined that inter-faith meeting at the back of the plane. Ah well...

It was later on that trip, while at dinner with the folks of some friends that, recalling these events, I was asked perhaps the oddest question in my life so far, by one of the sisters of the family.

'So...' she said, intent and earnest. '...do you...y'know...have Christians over there in England?'

I couldn't for the life of me work out if she was serious for a moment.
Yes, she was.

Anyhow, when we got home, d politely asked me to retire the shirt from my regular wardrobe, and because it's a T-shirt and she's my wife, I did. To be honest, I think she was just sick of it being 'A Thing.' But now, on opening boxes in the new place (yes, still - we really have a lot of stuff!), the Probably Shirt has come to light again, and, much to my surprise, gone into the wash.

'How come?' I asked.
'I'm much less worried about you wearing it round here than in London,' she explained. 'I mean, it'll still get on lots of people's nerves, but at least they're less likely to be armed. And if they want to push you under a train here...it's harder work than it would have been on the Tube.'

She's not wrong. We live in Railway-Children-On-Sea now - you have to jump up and down and wave at the driver to get a train to stop. And of course if anyone wanted to push me under a train these days, they'd kinda have to give me a lift to the station first.

Annnnnyway - thrilled though I am to get the Hellboy and the Probably Shirt back in rotation, that wasn't why I'd squealed.

I'd squealed because it's weigh-in day, and I'd expected to go up, following a week of editing deadlines, grim weather, even grimmer determination and Eating All The Pies. But no - down a single, unhumble pound, to 19 stone 1 pound.

I've now been crawling downward by the most ridiculous amounts - a quarter-pound here, a half-pound there - since I started Disappearing again, and have yet to even get the water-loss bump that usually comes in the first two weeks. And while it seems I'm destined never to see an 18 in the Stones column again, this unexpected pound does mean the first half-stone has been shed, of the many that need to be dissolved. Hence the squeal that led to much T-shirt discussion.

Here's to walking more in my kickass Probably Shirt, eating less and cracking through the crust of 19 stone next week. Maybe.

Oh, PS - just did a Google search for an image of the Probably Shirt. It's now on Redbubble with designer pre-fading, listed as a 'Classic T-Shirt.'

See - told you! Classic. Not old...

The Disappointment Bubble

The temptation to carve up time into tiny chunks can be dangerous when Disappearing.
That means unofficial weigh-ins between proper weigh-ins can potentially throw you for a loop, and affect your motivation. That's happened to me this week - an unofficial weigh-in showed only slow progress, and a subsequent unofficial weigh-in actually showed no progress, and the temptation then, when you're putting the time in to increase your exercise quotient and very specifically not eating a whole host of things you want to eat, is to feel distinctly pouty and stone-kicky and, not to put too fine a point on it, tantrummy.

I actually expect no progress at all on tomorrow's officiall weigh-in, so any that does come will be a bonus (a psychologically useful thing, this last-minute moving of goalposts to maintain equilibrium in the face of what would otherwise be bad news). The truth, I suspect, is that my body has acclimatized quickly to the things I'm doing, and is sitting there going 'Yeah. What else ya got?'

The additional truth of course is that I've got quite a lot. This has been what I hope it's OK in this absurd Brexitworld we live in to call a Soft Disappearing, at least in terms of its beginnings. I have still yet to clear enough of the carnage of boxes from around my exercise bike to get back on it since this Disappearing began. There have been days this week when deadlines took precedence and I didn't walk. And even on the days when I did, the distance has been sub-10,000 steps (thought I was somewhat heartened to read a news story this week that said the 10,000 step target was pretty much arbitrary).So there are certainly things I can, and will, do to make the Disappearing bite rather harder in the week ahead. But right now, it would be foolish to deny I'm in a bit of a Disappointment Bubble, because almost every time I've tried, I've lost more than this in the first two weeks, and you get used to, and expectant of, that initial bump-down of water-weight to power-surge your ego and push you on.

That hasn't happened yet this time. Perhaps by giving the Disappearing a few more teeth, I can start to impress my system with the fact that this is happening.

The Hunger Games

Hello again - apologies, rather fell out of the blogosphere over the weekend.

Everything seems to feel different on the weekend, even though technically, working for myself, there's little to really mark one day out from another, or one block of two days out from any other.

And to be fair, there was little that was actually different about the weekend - walked every day, minimum carb, etc.

I suppose the only thing that really felt different was hunger.

So far, since Tuesday, I haven't really felt hunger per se. I've had automatic proddings to say 'Ooh, you could eat now,' or 'Ooh, you should eat now, but nothing that would really class as hunger until this weekend. And only then at night - eating a main meal relatively early in the evening has left me with urges to eat something later. Naturally - or at least naturally for me - those thoughts have turned to sweetness and carbohydrate. The idea of toast and jam, or a big bowl of cereal, played over my brain on each of the two nights of the weekend, round about 9.30-10pm.

This wasn't real hunger of course, just a sharper kind of whiny craving. Waah, I'm doing all this good stuff, reward me! It's absurd, and it's the pampered cry of the overfed, overindulged inner child who shoves every available thing down my throat, just to quell that odd sort of panic that rises at anything less than feeling entirely full.

It's funny, really - hunger seems to be a primal fear in the west. If you get anywhere close to it, anywher less than replete, there are triggers: eat more, eat heavy, eat sweet. Store up anything inside that keeps that absurd-in-this-situation fear at bay.

The thing with Disappearing is that the arrival of that kind of hunger-like craving, as opposed to want-like craving is a potential pitfall. It's like looking into the eyes of your toddler and telling them no. Turning your back on a whining puppy. That's how it feels to me - denying an innocent, who depends on me for their happiness, the very thing they require for that happiness.

Of course, the inner me is ludicrously overpampered, overindulged, to the extent that while it is quite happy to keep munching, keep taking in all the foods it likes and loves, the things that make it happy, the outer me is suffering, staggering under the weight of the wide-eyed inner toddler.

So - sternness has to be the order of the day if you want to Disappear. The inner you will whine. It will cry. It will argue like every righteous wronged child in the world that it's not FAIR.

At which point, you have to put it on the inner naughty step - drink water, go to bed if that's an option, do something else entirely if not. distraction, diversion, every trick you have at your disposal is needed to parent the little sod and not give in to its whining.

So far, so good - didn't cave this weekend. Things will of course get much, much harder than this.

Tomorrow, we weigh in. I genuinely have very little idea of how the first week has gone. I'm only really looking for the 2 pound loss that's supposed to be healthy, even though usually, you get a bump in the first two weeks as you lose water-weight before your system really kicks in and realises you're serious.

Now then - to the walking path!

The Trouble With Tesco Express

Disappearing is, for the most part, the quest to not go mad while you change your life and expectations utterly.

It's odd that when I began this blog, I lived in London, where anything was available for a price. then I moved to Merthyr, where we had a big, two-storey 24-hour Tesco just up the road from us.

We're not in Merthyr any more.

We're sure as shit not in London.

Make no mistake about it, while I loved London, and was bound to Merthyr by ties of contemptuous familiarity, as well as family and a scattering of good friends, it's a good thing that we're not in either of them any more. This is where we want to be, and, for instance, after walking along the coastline for two hours today, I spent a good half-hour simply looking out at the sea and the sky, and that's worth enormous sackfuls of dosh and lifetime to me. I love it here in Saundersfoot town, with its five streets and its harbour wall, its beach and its absolute invasion of dogs.

But, as has been a thread going through this week, in terms of buying for a Disappearing diet, it's interestingly challenging.

We have a Tesco Express and a Spar in the town centre, as far as picking up groceries is concerned.

And here's the thing about a Tesco Express when you're Disappearing.

There's virtually buggerall in it that you're allowed to see. Or rather, buggerall that you're allowed to eat. Lots of fun stuff - pies, pasties, M&M milkshakes, a doughnut aisle, a confectionery aisle, a frozen section full of pizzas and a magazine rack, and that's more or less your lot.

'I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do for dinner,' d texted as I was sitting there, looking out to sea. 'Maybe get some new potatoes, and go on - treat yourself to some of the GOOD tomatoes.' She meant the branded, Italian tinned tomatoes, all of 50p per tin. So I did - but then, I started roaming the aisles like a distrubed person, looking for what else I could possibly take home for dinner.

Cup-A-Soups and a packet of pens. That's what I brought home.

Not just any old packet of pens, mind you, a £7.50 packet of pens, for which I have neither a burning need in my life, nor the funds to go lavishly splashing about.

I think if I'd stayed in there two more minutes, I'd have ended up buying some Lottery instants and sucking off the silver, just out of sheer desperation.

Needless to say though, d did...ridiculous wonders with what was in her store cupboard.
I ended up with a dinner of gloriously succulent 'Firecracker Chicken' - chicken tenders in a lemon and pepper sauce that were like a joyful savoury lollipop of pure pleasure. There were sprouts, oh god yes there were - one does not go on an epic greenery quest and then neglect one's sprouts. And there was a dish of stewed tomatoes of such bite and flavour and complexity that the recipe has more ingredients in it than seems entirely feasible - but hot damn, people! I should perhaps have mentioned this before we started - I do have one enooooormous advantage over each and every one of you when it comes to Disappearing, and that is d. The palate she has, the instinctive and the learned knowledge of flavour profiles, (as well of course as the emotional support and the humour and the ability to nod at me when I've gone quite clearly round the bend) means she can make cardboard taste damn good if she needs to. Tonight, I dined like a king, and flicked repetitive V-signs at the aisles of our Tesco Express, lovely and useful as it is, for I have d, and right now, she's what's saving me from a chewy mouthful of expensive pens.

The Seaside Years

Err...hello?

Is this thing on?

This is The Disappearing Man, a blog about one fat bloke's efforts not to die quite as soon as he's currently scheduled to do, through the application of sheer bloody-minded stubborn-bastardy.

This blog's been in existence now for about seven or eight years. When it started, I was living in London, and was 20 stone 7.25 lbs, or 287.25 lbs for my American friends, or...oh hold on, talk among yourselves, I haven't quite got enough fingers for this bit...just over 130 kg, the web informs me.

That was heavy. My doctor had decided it was heavy enough to recommend me for bariatric surgery. And that was a genuine option for me. I faced a long dark tea-time of the stubborn bastard, and decided I couldn't personally go for the surgery until I'd tried my own implacable determination against the training I'd had in being a fat bastard and killing myself, mouthful by mouthful.

I did it for a little over a year, and lost six stone, or 84 lbs, or 38 kg. Along the way there was much fun, much ranting and sweating and hatred of the human race, and a progression from being the bloke who struggled to put on his own socks to a marathon-walking, spin-classing, gym-understanding bloke who confidently swore he'd never go back to the way he was before.

The thing is...my brain, as I'm coming to realise more and more as the years go by, works a little differently to many people's. Intellectually, I'm all about doubt and grey areas and live and let live - I'm among the hippiest of hippies in many ways. But in terms of my own existence, I seem to live a binary, inflexible life - one thing or the other.

The way I got to be over 20 stone was by allowing myself total, childlike freedom. If I wanted something, I had it, and devil take the consequences. I was at one and the same time entirely content with this approach and deeply self-loathing - I was Schodinger's Fat Fuck.

The way I Disappeared the first time was to radically and rapidly change the nature of my behaviour - to switch from total liberty to almost-total self-denial. I made a decision, and instantly, overnight, cut out fried foods, chocolate, desserts, fizzy drinks and overt sugar, while changing my approach to portion size, protein and even the dreaded salad vegetables (which I maintain to this day are more or less nature's garnish and should not be taken at all seriously as a food group). I began walking - first short distances, then longer, and longer. I invested in an exercise bike heavy enough to take my ass (not as easy a thing as you might think to find), and I began to pedal that ass viciously off, plugging in my iPod to keep me up to pace and avoid the running stream of obscenities in my brain. I started drinking water for the first time in my life, replacing all my seductive fizzies with clear boredomjuice.

And the way that worked was what I think of as my 'perspex boxes.' I have to live in a world where other people are able to eat and drink what they like, and not want to pound their skulls in - I'm married to a foodie with a baking fetish and mad skills, it simply can't be an option to ban all the good things in life from my world. That means I erected these 'perspex boxes' all around me. I was in the box, and all the tempting, delicious stuff was outside - visible but unreachable as far as my brain was concerned.

As I say, it's not for everyone, but it worked for me. During the course of that year I moved, with d, my wife, from London back to my childhood home,  the Welsh Valleys town of Merthyr Tydfil. And it was there that, one night, d asked me whether I could, after that successful year, experiment with re-introducing treat-foods into my diet. It began with a battered cod and chips.

And the boxes were broken. The digital, black-and-white world in which I live couldn't sustain just one treat, in the way an alcoholic's world can't really sustain just one drink.

Over the next handful of years, I tried time and time again to resurrect my boxes, and failed. And the weight came back as more and more I ate and drank precisely what I wanted. Precisely what I wanted, of course, wass mostly carb, and fried things, and sugar, and chocolate. Because Dopamine, right?

We don't live in Merthyr any more. In the last two months, we've finally achieved a long-held dream and moved to the Welsh coast, to the Anti-London that is Saundersfoot. The last year has been insanely stressful for us both, as we've been trying to sell our Merthyr flat, while both being made redundant.

This week, the flat finally sold. Money transferred. Debts were paid off.
The new chapter of our lives, this seaside chapter that hopefully sees us through to the end, began this week. And I'd made a pledge that after a year of extra-special stress-eating (something to which I've never knowingly been prone before - I always copped to eating for the sake of gluttony, or just because I wanted the tasty stuff), when the flat sold, and the stress lifted, I would get the hell back to my Disappearing.

The blog's part of the process, it seems - that sensation of reporting to someone on the ups, the downs, the issues of Fat Fuckery and Stubborn Gittishness, and which will win in a clash of those titans. It's like having an electronic Father Confessor, an audience, a bunch of eyes I have to meet if I go wrong. So here we are again, preparing to erect the perspex boxes. Preparing to bike, and walk, and ignore the fact that I now live in one of the many HOMES of battered cod and chips, with tea shops, cake shops and chip shops everywhere I look.

The rule is that I AIM to lose the medically-safe amount each week - 2lb. There'll be regular weekly weigh-ins on a Tuesday morning (slightly hampered at launch by the fact that a great deal of our stuff is still in Merthyr - including my scales), by which progress and setbacks will both be recorded. Suffice it to say that I firmly believe I'm now heavier than I was when I began my first Disappearance, but the official launch weight will be whatever the scales first records when it gets here. That means the goal will be to lose 104 lbs in the first year - 2lbs per week, on average, over 52 weeks.

That's goal 1: Lose nearly 7.5 stone in 52 weeks. I have no expectation of actually achieving that of course, but having the goal is useful as an aspirational stick with which to beat myself. If and when I DO achieve the 7.5 stone loss marker, I'll still have around 2.5 stone to go to be at my medically advised weight, being a shortarse at just 5ft 6. But one goal at a time, eh?

As is the way with most people about to embark on a diet, we've just more or less finished all the 'bad' food in the house. While writing this, I ate the last slice of d's homemade Thanksgiving apple pie, and a chunk of Christmas pudding. It's in me now, and it's done. This part of my life is done.

Perspex boxes - up.

Come along for the ride if you like. Welcome to The Disappearing Man: The Seaside Years.

No More Walks In The Water Park

Weigh-in day today.

Weigh-in days evolved to be Tuesdays because way back in the dim and distant past, when we moved from London to Merthyr, I often had to go back to the city for the day on a Monday, so Monday weigh-ins would inevitably be ‘pre-bathroom’ affairs, because with a sluggish metabolism, if I waited to get a ‘post-bathroom’ number, I’d have missed more than one train, and would have had several hard stares from my boss.

I wouldn’t have been able to see them of course, I’d have missed the train, but still – that’s why we shifted to Tuesday weigh-ins.

This morning, I had plans to de-camp to Cardiff, to my Starbucks, for a day of intense day-jobbery and an evening’s editing. So today’s weigh-in is also ‘pre-bathroom’ – and as such encourages me to do the mathematics of self-delusion, trying to estimate how much weight I eventually got rid of which isn’t included in the official figures. Yes, seriously, I give actual brain-space to such equations these days. Sad, sad, sad man.

But this morning’s weigh-in figure actually marks the dividing line between phases of Disappearing. 

The figure is 18 stone, 12.75.

So on the one hand, yay and all that – more than a stone (14 pounds) lost since we started again, and it was gratifying to see the 18. As I’ve mentioned before though, I tend not to feel like I’m really Disappearing till I’m under 18 stone and we’re pushing down through the 17s.

But in particular, what this means Is that I lost exactly 2 pounds this week. I’m not gonna lie - with the digestive irregularity and the breaking out of the longer walks, there’s a part of me that feels cheated by that. But here’s the dividing line I mentioned. The first two weeks of any weightloss regime are apparently when you lose all your stored water (as I mentioned last week, who knew I was so subcutaneously soggy?). That’s why you get such sudden, dramatic figures showing – six pounds per week and so on. Water’s eeeeasy once you start.

After which, by and large, the real bastardy begins, and your body fat folds its theoretical arms and mutters ‘Ohhh you think you’re a big shot now, do ya? Well we’re not fuckin’ movin’ pal, alright?’

This is when the real games begin. This is when it turns into High Noon between you and your body fat, the whistling tune playing across the dusty street of your bloody-minded stubborn bastardy. It’s you versus you. The future versus the past, and you’re the only one that gets to decide which version of you wins.

The thing is, Fat-You is, by nature of having had to be, to get you looking this way, a cunning, cunning bastard. It will try to trick you into celebration - ‘Wow, you lost a stone, how cool are you? Maybe just a little treat wouldn’t hurt, eh? Just to celebrate, then you can get back on with it…’ It will try to trick you into vanity – ‘Wow, you look so much better already. Maybe you’ve done enough for now, eh?’ And it will try to trick you with tantrum-cravings, which may or may not have been a big factor in your journey so far – ‘God, how much lonnnnnnger till we can have a chocolate bar? We’ve been soooooo good. Just a little one? Just something, cos we reeeeeeeallly need it…’

At which point, you pretty much have to have no mercy and punch it relentlessly in the face until it shuts the hell up. Do something. Do anything. Have water. Have coffee, with as little milk as possible. Have, gods help your desperate brain, salad. Have anything that won’t smash the Perspex boxes between you and your Danger-Foods, but will make you feel like you’ve had something, like you’re full. If you find your brain trying to convince you of any of this stuff, remember you’re a Womble. No, wait, got carried away there. Remember you’re a stubborn bastard, that’s what I meant. If you hear yourself thinking any of this stuff, use it as an alarm, a klaxon. It’s your Fat-Self trying to protect itself, trying to maintain its existence in the face of what it’s just begun to realise after two weeks is your serious intent to do this, and to replace your Fat-Self with your Disappeared-Self.

Remember this – your body doesn’t know it’s Christmas. It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It doesn’t precisely know you’ve lost x-amount of weight. There are, in actual fact, no celebrations in Disappearing, beyond a bit of a wave and a cheer and a Happy Dance. You can’t really step off, go wild and crazy for the night, and get back on. I know some of you actually can, absolutely, do this, and more power to you. I can’t do it. For me, Disappearing is like marriage or pregnancy – you don’t get a night off from it. You can’t fool around with a fondant and then expect your Disappearing-Self to take you back in the morning because it ‘meant nothing to me, honestly, less than nothing.’ I’m in this thing for the long haul. And really speaking, the long haul begins here.

So – two pounds this week. The medically advisable amount, and what we’re actually aiming to lose each week. Long haul week one – goal achieved. Next!

This rate means three weeks from now we do a mini-wave of celebration at having crossed the next border – at least in UK terms – as we go under 18st 7. One month after that, at this rate, we his the 17s. So – seven weeks of hard slog to lose the same amount as we’ve lost in the first two weeks? Man, that sounds no fun!

No. No it doesn’t, does it? But this is not actually fun in any way – it’s a programme for losing medically dangerous weight and turning my life around. Seven weeks? Seven weeks is nothing, if it’s just seven weeks of doing what I’ve been doing so far. The cunning bit is that it won’t be. Long before that, we’re likely to hit the first plateau – probably three weeks from now, if I’m any judge, as the body settles into Disappearing as ‘the new normal’ and stops burning fat to cope with the system shock. Still – that’s a gunfight to have when we get there. For now, yay, under the 19 stone marker, and losing the right amount of non-water weight in the first week of slogging.

Onwards and downwards!

The Disappearing Constitution

Well, hello again.

Most of you will, I'm sure, already know the deal here. Some of you, mad and glorious as you are, have read much more of this blog than I've ever been back to check out once it's gone, stream-of-consciously, out of my brains and through my fingers. Some of you, clearly, are gluttons for punishment. But in the interests of any newbies out there, this is a pretty simple proposition. It's an honest, warts, pains, madness-moments, failures and all weight loss blog.

I know, I know. Not another one.
But yes, frankly, another one. If you're reading this entry, you'll find you have access to a yearsworth of intensive Disappearing entries, and then five years of more sporadic entries as failure gains march after march on my progress.

Here's what you need to know. Here's the Disappearing Constitution, the history, the rules, such as they are, the likely things that will clog up your life and mine over the next year if you come along.

The History
Five or six years ago, beginning in the year I was due to turn 40, I lost a chunk of weight. I did it because I was 20 stone, 7.75 pounds. That's 287.74 pounds for the Americans, and over 130 kg for those of a metric bent. I was 5ft 6 inches tall, which translates to around 1.6 metres.

These are not healthy numbers.

These are numbers so unhealthy in fact, my doctor was heartily ready to recommend me for bariatric surgery. I was almost ready to sign the papers, when a voice inside me roared. A voice of ten generations of stubborn bastards. I have no problem with bariatric surgery (the so-called gastric bypass) or those who get it. Good on them if it's right for them, I say. But I was seized by a feverish certainty that it wasn't right for me. At least not then. Not before I'd given my stubborn bastardy a red hot go.

Over the course of the next year, I gave my stubborn bastardy a red hot go. And I lost six stone (84 pounds, or a metric shitload of kilos). That was a pretty successful year, all told. As a diabetic, I managed to dramatically reduce the amount of medication I was taking. I could do more, had more energy, better self-esteem, yadda yadda, you've seen this video a hundred times.

Then, one very simple evening, shortly after moving home to the South Wales valley town of Merthyr Tydfil from the Metropolitan grooviness of London, I stopped. I had fish and chips.

The course of the following five years has been a saw-tooth of slipbacks, determined re-starts, excuses, failures, further slipbacks, moderate successes, annnnnd more slipbacks.

The result of which is that a week ago, late in the year in which I turned 45, I saw 20 stone on my scales again.

That can't be allowed to be. It can't be allowed to continue, certainly. And so, despite currently having a number of ridiculous deadlines, I changed my eating habits again. Suddenly, instantly, with no warning, as a prelude to beginning Disappearing again.

The Constitution
You should know this. Plenty of mentally healthy people who 'just happen to be' overweight will tell you you should never cut everything out, as you're just ensuring you'll snap and fail.

If moderation works for you, likewise, do it. If you can square the circle of just 'having a little' of something that gives you pleasure, by all means, walk that path.

My brain works differently.
That's a phrase that has added significance if you know where I stole it from. I stole it from The West Wing, from the words of a character named Leo McGarry, who is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Here's the context, for those who don't know it:

I don't know how else to explain it to you, but as regards food, my world can be black, or it can be white. Grey doesn't exist for me, it's just black trying to con the world. So there are concepts to my Disappearing that in all likelihood, you won't find anywhere else.

I talk about 'Perspex boxes' or 'Perspex walls' quite a lot. That's how the world feels when I'm Disappearing - like all the things I've determined I can't have are behind Perspex walls. I can see them, smell them, remember them, crave them - but I won't allow myself to have them.

The Rules
When I go Disappearing, I cut out sugar, excess fat, too much carb, all alcohol, and all fizzy drinks. And when I go for it, I try and get at least one act of exercise into every day, some moderate, and as the process goes on, more intensive. I walk, and I have a recumbent exercise bike - which at the moment is particularly recumbent, as we've recently moved house again, and the power cord for the damned thing has yet to surface from any of the hundred-plus boxes.

Official weigh-ins take place on Tuesday morning, and are recorded here. Weigh-ins cannot be deemed official unless they were recorded on the Nazi Scales...

Ahem...the Nazi Scales are my own private bathroom scales. The name's a reference to a pet theory - every Nazi gets reincarnated as the bathroom scales of a fat fuck, which explains both their bitchy attitude, and the notion of some sort of punishment for their gittishness while alive - they get to be stepped on by us every day of their afterlives.

These blog entries, which when I'm doing it seriously tend to be every day affairs, are generally more conversational than they are lists of things eaten and exercise taken. That said, those details will be in there somewhere probably, because, believe it or not, people asked for them to be there. Something to do with investing in the process, I gather.

There will be swearing. There will be madness. There will be funny bits and dark bits, because, as I mentioned, this is not really me just 'needing to lose a bit of weight.' This is me taking back control of a part of my brain that appears bent on self-destruction. It's a battleground, with laughs along the way.

A week ago, as I say, I saw 20 stone on my Nazi Scales for the first time in five years. Since then, I've been edging towards Disappearing - alcohol's gone, desserts are gone, chocolate's gone, crisps are gone, fried food for the most part has gone. Carbs are reducing.  Ho ho ho. Merry Fuckin' Christmas.

I've not had a chance to do much by way of exercise, due to the deadline crunch in which I currently find myself, and which appears to be getting no better any time soon. I have a day-job, and an editing company which I run in the laughingly-titled 'spare hours' after the day-job ends. I also contribute to a few geeky sites, and, believe it or not, want to try and become a published writer as well. Time has often been the enemy of my Disappearing, because much of what I do for large chunks of my day involves me sitting on my ass, staring at screens and not moving around a great deal. The effort must be made, consciously, to add exercise into my day, but hasn't as yet been made.

Nevertheless, on Tueday 27th December, which by virtue of this first blog entry we're calling the re-launch day, my Nazi Scales (pre-bathroom-visit) had me at:

19 stone, 7 pounds, or 273 pounds. (There are 14 pounds in a stone, in case you're wondering).

On the one hand, that means I've lost seven pounds in a week. So, yay. On the other hand, I have the bad grace to be disappointed in that, because just before Christmas, I was unofficially weighing in at 19 stone 5. Still, Christmas, I suppose, albeit a Christmas without sweets and treats. A Disappearing Christmas.

So this is where we begin, this time around - one stone and a quarter-pound down from where the Disappearing Man originally began. I don't begin to feel like I'm 'really' Disappearing though until I'm under 18 stone, so I still have a stone and a half to go before this begins to feel like progress. And I'm fully aware that the first week's loss is mostly water, rather than any of the hard stuff I actually need to shift - it's a gift of encouragement from the body when you're as far overweight as I am.

Oh and in case you're wondering, my 'ideal weight' according to the NHS is around 10 stone 7 pounds. Nine stone from now, or 126 pounds. I only aim to lose the medically recommended two pounds per week, or 104 pounds a year, leaving me at 12 stone or 169 pounds by 27th December 2017. I won't actually do that - I didn't the first time, because 104 pounds is over seven stone, and I'm perfectly well aware there will be plateaus, setbacks, stalls, and weeks where the numbers go in the wrong direction. But nevertheless, this is where we begin, having thrown ourselves right into the deep end with a Disappearing Christmas.

Come along for the ride - there'll be funnier stuff than this along the way, honestly!

The Burned-Bank

Ow.

Ow.

Did I mention, ow?

The feet were fine last night, then I jumped in the shower, and the deadened areas came screaming back to life. If I've learned one thing over five years of succeeding and failing at this Disappearing lark, it's that if you push things too far too fast, you end up blistered or injured and falling back simply due to an inability to keep up the exercise.

Now this morning, I had an appointment at the hospital. Got a cab up, tipped a coffee over myself, had an audiology test (mostly involving squeezing the skull and pressing buttong), and got discharged. Then decided it was important to get steps into the day, and walked home.

The hospital's not that far, really, from the town centre. I appear to have had a brainstorm, going a different way to normal, ending up wandering around a houseing estate called Cefn Coed, and ultimately, walking 3 km. By this point in the day, I've done over 4 km, or two miles and a stretch. That's not very far. I've also had a takeaway tonight - Indian, chunks of meat in a relatively dry sauce, and a supposedly 'healthy' roti bread. Also, almost inadvertantly, a chapati. So, perhaps a little bread-heavy.

So - in an attempt to a) give myself an alternative for more inclement days, and b) focus the exercise in terms of time, because as I write this it's gone 8pm and I don't have two hours, I'm about to jump back on the bike and sweat my face off.

Suffice it to say, this morning, the Nazi Scales were happy with me. For two days of active Disappearing, the 'first-week water' was Disappearing reasonably quickly. What they'll think of me after a day with less walking and more bread is anyone's guess. But I'm facing forward and adding calories to the 'burned bank' - the collective of calories burned in activity - against which the day's food intake has to be set. So who knows? All I can do is push, and stay committed.

(Adopts fighting stance). Grrrrrr. To the burned-bank, Disappearing Man!

The Motivation Question

On days like today, I find myself free to ponder human beings and their motivations to action. Free because if I'm perfectly honest, nothing of spectacular Disappearing interest has happened today. Spent a day down in my Starbucks, having decaffeinated drinks made for me, editing my face off, and generally not moving more than is strictly necessary. Nor am I about to jump on the bike before d gets home, as there are other things that need doing before that happens.

So in an effort to still have something interesting to say (and I use the word "still" here while stretching it to the limits of its productive deployment), I ponder motivations.

When I first started all this, it was very simple - my life felt out of all control, and the doctor was offering me a surgical solution, but I knew myself a little better, and I knew that the surgical solution wouldn't be a solution for me, because it wouldn't stop me behaving the way I did. Almost nothing about my overeating was to do with the taste of food or any sense of hunger. It was more that being big was a shield, a sense of 'who I was,' a kind of camouflage, and a bizarre combination of self-soothing and self-destruction. My initial motivation was not to die, not to become a cliche or a dead weakling who never achieved his potential.

Along the way, I picked up other motivations - freedom, style, access to adventures that had been denied me due to my size, my weight, and the stress I was putting on my system.

Now?
Now it's more a sense of loss that motivates me. Having peaked in at the window of the world as it appeared to me without the weight, I almost pathetically mourn for that world, and I want it back, more than I want the other world of my shield back. It would be easier by far to let things drift and say I tried, but that being fat is my 'destiny,' part of who I am, and just embrace the slide towards knackered knees, increasing heart problems, out of control diabetes and eventually death. Hell, as a kid I never thought I'd especially see forty, so I'm ahead of the game. It would be easy to let go and embrace the life I used to have, rolling the dice with illness for another fifteen, twenty, even thirty years, who knows, and just enjoy myself. But I mourn the opportunities that Disappearing gave me.

The little victories over long-engrained habits. The capacity to do things on a whim, which previously would have needed to be planned in advance, and probably whinged about for the energy they required. The tiny thrill of, for instance, fitting in an airplane seat with a single safety belt, or not having to have 'the big blood pressure cuff' brought out for me on hospital visits. All those tiny things, that amounted to a different way of living, over a sustained period, for the first time in decades. I miss all that.

I guess I'm motivated to think about motivations tonight by the success of a pal of mine. Weight's not his problem, but damned if he wasn't a thirsty lad. Time came when he had to choose whether, in the words of The Shawshank Redemption, to 'get busy living or get busy dying,' which in his case was a choice between getting busy living, or getting busy drinking.
He's been sober for ten months now. Ten months full of those little victories - first time out in company without an alcoholic drink, first month sober, first half-year without any of the blackouts, the emotional disturbances, the chaos that the drinking brought him. Has it miraculously changed his life? I don't know and don't presume to speak for him. All I know is he's still here, and I'm thankful for that. What's more, he's an inspiration.

There's a danger, of course, in making people your inspiration - it can quickly become a pedestal, and negate their capacity to fuck up, to fall off, to go astray and get back on their better path again. But I don't mean to make a saint of anyone. I just mean to say that my pal makes me proud by virtue of his determination and his will power, and I want - as well as all those little victories that come with the journey - to be able to stand alongside him as a conqueror of our individual habits, our cravings, and the lifestyles that went with them, to prove, in essence, that my stubborn bastardy is more powerful than my urge to slowly self-destruct, just as he has proved for ten long months now, that his determination not to lose the game is stronger than the power of the drink.

Does this all mean anything at all? Maybe - it's turned out rather a poor tribute to my pal, I know, but I guess, if anything, it's a hymn to the power of stubborn bastardy. So here's to all the stubborn bastards, for making me want to be numbered in your throng.

The Reluctant Return

Well, hello again.

I've meant to write a copuple of entries since the last one, but have pretty much convinced myself that I've been too busy. Don't get me wrong, I've been madly busy, but the whole Disappearing schtick is supposed to be about finding balance in life, making time to include some exercise in my otherwise sedentary-jobbed life, and making positive changes to my lifestyle.

Let me say without prevarication, that's been a bit fucked up lately.
My last weigh-in - the one I missed reporting to you - showed me as 19st 1.25, so back into the 19s. That was disappointing, but given that I hadn't done any exercise, and had been eating rather unwisely (Translation: there had been chocolate, or desserts, or high-carb meals late at night, or some other dumbass thing), I wasn't as disappointed by it as I probably should have been. What's more, have I changed my habits back to full-on Disappearing mode in the week since that weigh-in? No, not at all.

So all in all, things have not been on track for a couple of weeks, and if I let the catch-all excuse of 'busyness' determine me towards a flamethrower policy of doing whatever the hell I want to do, then things won't improve over the next few weeks either, they'll just get progressively worse and harder to shift back into a positive gear. So on the principle of faking it till we make it, let's assume a Disappearing attitude, and see what happens next.

Faking it? Yes, the positivity of the thing has safely evaporated now, and indeed so has most of the progress, so it's a case of hauling my ass back on the bike and being Mr Sensible all over again. On the other hand, my system is no longer conditioned to exercise and healthier eating, so with any luck the rapid loss of the first few pounds of mostly-water should kick in again and give me a boost.

(Sigh). Here's hoping, anyway.

The Sliding Doors Sunday

I woke up this morning with two potential days stretching out ahead of me, Sliding Doors-style. In one, I sat around at home, possibly ordering in lunch, and eventually biking. In the other, I bogged off to Starbucks, focused on some work, then came home and eventually did some biking. I threw off the covers, intending to go for option 2. Then I sighed, thought about it, pulled the covers back over myself and determined instead to go for option 1. A little while later, when d woke up, we went for breakfast at McDonalds (plain porridge and an orange juice in my case – told you I’d be back on Disappearing form today). Then she went off to work, and I contemplated a long day at home.

Then I contemplated a long day not at home.

That was some pretty enticing contemplation. I jumped on a train and went to Starbucks. If nothing else, you see, it helped me break what could have been the beginning of a dangerous habit, and if we’ve learned anything at all by now, it’s that I am a creature of habit. Having had unhealthy food delivered to me a few times this week, it’s begun to seem like “What I do when I’m home for the day.” Bad habit to get into. Once in a while, sure. Habitually, nooooo.

So I did a Starbucks flip-flop, headed to Cardiff, got an agreeable amount of work done, and, through the course of the day, ate a total of two pots of porridge and one pot of nuts. Now, having come home, it’s time to implement the only element that was nailed into place whichever of the days I went through, and get on the bike, to reintroduce my system to the notion that it moves about a bit now and then. Time, in fact, to re-establish a good habit in my days, to drive myself if not exactly down (making actual weightloss progress seems a bit of a distant dream at this point in the week), then at least to arrest the damage of a couple of days of sloth and Very Hungry Caterpillar-style consumption. Here’s to hurting like a sonofabitch when I stagger off the bike tonight.