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.
Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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...
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...
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
The Imp Of Physical Carnage
Yes, yes, yes, started again. Yes, again, again, again.
By the time of this first Tuesday since the reboot, I've done a few days of not eating what I want, not drinking anything but plain water, coffee and the occasional fruit juice, deeply, thoroughly wanting to beat people to death with giant Toblerones (usually a Day 2 phenomenon, I'm over it now), walking hither and yon just to force my ass up and my legs to move, and so on.
Yeah, it kinda sucks, frankly - when it starts to feel good, believe me, I'll let you know, but right now, it just kinda sucks.It's the resistance you get when you first start sawing a plank of wood - you're cutting against the grain of long experience, habit and expectation (both physical, in that you crave sugar, and mental, in that you turn the denial of that craving into the world being unfair very specifically to you).
Perhaps most creepily, when d goes to work, there's still something impish in my mind that flares to life, saying 'Ooh, it's playtime! What kind of self-destructive shit can we cram down our throat and get away with today!'
Not that I was cramming self-destructive shit down my throat to an enormous degree before I started back on this Disappearing lark, but certainly, if I decided I wanted a chocolate bar, I'd have it and not think about it (Evil Tip - if you do it early enough in the day, it doesn't mess up your next morning's blood sugar that much). Now the imp of physical carnage screams in my ear about five seconds after the door closes, and there's no-one to shut it the hell up but me. And I have to tell you, swigging plain water in those moments absolutely sucks the big one, and also doesn't really work as an antidote to the imp.
But still, here you find me, restarted, having resisted a bunch of blandishments - it's an adjustment for everyone around me when I slam back into Disappearing mode on the snap of a finger, so people still offer me stuff, and I have to remember, and refuse them politely - and as yet, have managed to resist either beating people to death with the Toblerone, or indeed ramming it, Pyreneean, down my neack for a sweet, sweet nougat hit...
...
...
Sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah - so, first Tuesday. Weigh-in day. Well, we're starting off this time in a place more reasonable than most recent attempts - I've had attempts in this last year that have started at 19st 7, 18st 7 and so on. This time, we're starting out at 18st 2 - which is actually the lightest I've been in some time, though it's not light enough at the moment to let me like the bloke I see in mirrors and photos, who seems to me to be an overstuffed sack of spuds. 18st 2 is close enough to the 18 stone border (lol I've explained stones to the world several times - I'd suggest going back a few entries, it'll all be there) to give me something immediate to strive for. More to the point, I never feel like I'm properly Disappearing till I'm into the 17 stone realm. Now of course, this is purely based on prior experience, and by the time I was in the 17 stone realm the first time I did this, I'd already lost three stone, so it's a completely false reckoning, and really speaking, I shouldn't feel like I'm properly Disappearing this time till I'm in the 15s, but hey, habits, right? If getting into the 17 stone zone spurs me on at this moment to shut the imp of physical carnage up, I'm taking it. That's the thing, really - there are lies aplenty available to you. Use them. Use them allll. If they help you climb in the direction you want to go, it doesn't matter that you know they're basically bullshit. Call on any god you like, ascribe value to one particular threshold or another, it really doesn't matter - do it, get over that line, take strength from whatever belief is open to you, but get over that line, where the imp of physical carnage, the voice that says it's not fair that you have to do this, or you're going to fail, or it's your birthday, or you're on your holidays, doesn't sway you as often as it does at the start.
Defeat that little bugger any way you can, because only your mind gives a damn about rationalizations. Your body? Just cares about what you put in it, and what you do with it. It makes no excuses, and it makes no allowances, sadly.
So - onward. Hopefully, a week from now I'll either be on the 18 stone border or eeeeven just possibly a smidgen under it.
Oh, and for those who want to know such things:
Blood sugar:
20th November - 9.1
19th November - Skipped, accidentally, as had breakfast before remembering
18th November - 9.2
17th November - Skipped
16th November - 9.2
15th November - 9.0
14th November - 11.9 - my bad, only took half my diabetic meds the day before.
13th November - 9.7
12th November - 9.3
11th November - 10.5 - late supper
10th November - 10.3 - late supper
9th November - 9.5
8th November - 11.4 (acting like an ass, clearly)
7th November - 12.2 (acting like a super-ass, even more clearly)
So while there's still a way to go before I get back into the 6-8 range now deemed optimal, I'm seeming to establish a pattern of single-figures with occasional assery at the moment. Will be interesting to see how that goes as the imp of physical carnage is squished more and more beneath my thumbnail.
By the time of this first Tuesday since the reboot, I've done a few days of not eating what I want, not drinking anything but plain water, coffee and the occasional fruit juice, deeply, thoroughly wanting to beat people to death with giant Toblerones (usually a Day 2 phenomenon, I'm over it now), walking hither and yon just to force my ass up and my legs to move, and so on.
Yeah, it kinda sucks, frankly - when it starts to feel good, believe me, I'll let you know, but right now, it just kinda sucks.It's the resistance you get when you first start sawing a plank of wood - you're cutting against the grain of long experience, habit and expectation (both physical, in that you crave sugar, and mental, in that you turn the denial of that craving into the world being unfair very specifically to you).
Perhaps most creepily, when d goes to work, there's still something impish in my mind that flares to life, saying 'Ooh, it's playtime! What kind of self-destructive shit can we cram down our throat and get away with today!'
Not that I was cramming self-destructive shit down my throat to an enormous degree before I started back on this Disappearing lark, but certainly, if I decided I wanted a chocolate bar, I'd have it and not think about it (Evil Tip - if you do it early enough in the day, it doesn't mess up your next morning's blood sugar that much). Now the imp of physical carnage screams in my ear about five seconds after the door closes, and there's no-one to shut it the hell up but me. And I have to tell you, swigging plain water in those moments absolutely sucks the big one, and also doesn't really work as an antidote to the imp.
But still, here you find me, restarted, having resisted a bunch of blandishments - it's an adjustment for everyone around me when I slam back into Disappearing mode on the snap of a finger, so people still offer me stuff, and I have to remember, and refuse them politely - and as yet, have managed to resist either beating people to death with the Toblerone, or indeed ramming it, Pyreneean, down my neack for a sweet, sweet nougat hit...
...
...
Sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah - so, first Tuesday. Weigh-in day. Well, we're starting off this time in a place more reasonable than most recent attempts - I've had attempts in this last year that have started at 19st 7, 18st 7 and so on. This time, we're starting out at 18st 2 - which is actually the lightest I've been in some time, though it's not light enough at the moment to let me like the bloke I see in mirrors and photos, who seems to me to be an overstuffed sack of spuds. 18st 2 is close enough to the 18 stone border (lol I've explained stones to the world several times - I'd suggest going back a few entries, it'll all be there) to give me something immediate to strive for. More to the point, I never feel like I'm properly Disappearing till I'm into the 17 stone realm. Now of course, this is purely based on prior experience, and by the time I was in the 17 stone realm the first time I did this, I'd already lost three stone, so it's a completely false reckoning, and really speaking, I shouldn't feel like I'm properly Disappearing this time till I'm in the 15s, but hey, habits, right? If getting into the 17 stone zone spurs me on at this moment to shut the imp of physical carnage up, I'm taking it. That's the thing, really - there are lies aplenty available to you. Use them. Use them allll. If they help you climb in the direction you want to go, it doesn't matter that you know they're basically bullshit. Call on any god you like, ascribe value to one particular threshold or another, it really doesn't matter - do it, get over that line, take strength from whatever belief is open to you, but get over that line, where the imp of physical carnage, the voice that says it's not fair that you have to do this, or you're going to fail, or it's your birthday, or you're on your holidays, doesn't sway you as often as it does at the start.
Defeat that little bugger any way you can, because only your mind gives a damn about rationalizations. Your body? Just cares about what you put in it, and what you do with it. It makes no excuses, and it makes no allowances, sadly.
So - onward. Hopefully, a week from now I'll either be on the 18 stone border or eeeeven just possibly a smidgen under it.
Oh, and for those who want to know such things:
Blood sugar:
20th November - 9.1
19th November - Skipped, accidentally, as had breakfast before remembering
18th November - 9.2
17th November - Skipped
16th November - 9.2
15th November - 9.0
14th November - 11.9 - my bad, only took half my diabetic meds the day before.
13th November - 9.7
12th November - 9.3
11th November - 10.5 - late supper
10th November - 10.3 - late supper
9th November - 9.5
8th November - 11.4 (acting like an ass, clearly)
7th November - 12.2 (acting like a super-ass, even more clearly)
So while there's still a way to go before I get back into the 6-8 range now deemed optimal, I'm seeming to establish a pattern of single-figures with occasional assery at the moment. Will be interesting to see how that goes as the imp of physical carnage is squished more and more beneath my thumbnail.
Tuesday, 22 May 2018
The Bloody Truth
Hello again. Three weeks or so since I blogged last. Reasons for that are many and silly, but mostly bound up in a) weight gain, and b) arsery. Arsery which has seen me notsomuch fall off the wagon as leap off and burn the fucker to the ground.
Here's the thing though - that ends right now.
First thing's first, it's Tuesday. Ermmmm, last I recorded, I think I'd gone back up to 19 stone dead, or 266 pounds, which was irritating.
Following week I went up to 19 stone 1 pound.
Week after that, up again to 19 stone 2.25.
Clearly, there's drift going on, but given that I've done bog-all exercise and have been slugging and slothing my way through life for the past three weeks, it was going up alllllmost as slowly as it was previously coming off. But not quite, obviously.
Today, weighed in at 19 stone 2.25. Static from last week. Right now, I'll take that.
Now. Have been, as anyone who reads this will possibly remember, getting set up with the doctors in this area. Did the usual HBA1C blood test for long term blood sugars a few weeks ago. No sooner had I done it than they sent me a letter to say 'Balls. Need you to come and do that again.'
The image of course went through my mind of the diagnostic machinery going into overdrive, lights flashing, warning messages flashing, and then the whole kit and caboodle exploding in a puff of smoke when trying to process my blood. So I went and had it done again. Alllmost immediately the letter came back to say 'Yyyyeah, we can't afford to lose another machine. You need to get your ass in to see us, cos this shit ain't clever.'
Went today.
To explain the HBA1C, they like you to have a reading of under 50. I've previously managed under 50, but over the last few years, I've had a tendency, as the weight's crept back onto my bones, to hover in the low to mid-50s. Turns out last October, when we moved here, I had quite a bad result of 76.
Latest scoors on the doors? 117. One hundred. And then another 17. So, over twice what it should be.
#BadTony.
Badder Tony than the slow-ass drift of a pound a week here and there ever lets you know.
The nurse gave me a simple finger-pricking blood sugar test today. Again, in the UK, you're looking for numbers between about 6-8. Yyyyeah - 22.8. So - roughly three times what it should be.
'How are you not walking around with a huge dose of thrush?' she asked.
'Erm...should I be?'
'I'm surprised you're not, yeah,' she said, a touch too breezily for my liking.
'Oh, well, I won't panic when that happens then,' I muttered.
'I'm surprised your skin's not dreaful too,' she added.
'Oh it is, it's more or less turning to ash in the sun.'
'Aha!'
'We're happy about that, are we?'
'Visible symptoms,' she explained. 'Thing is, while your blood sugar's shot through the roof, your body's adapted to it quite well by the looks of things.'
'Thank you,' I said.
'But what we can't see is the untold damage it's doing to your systems inside,' she added.
'Oh.'
'First thing I'd be worried about is your heart.'
'Oh. I've already got an atrial fibrilation...thing going on,' I told her.
'I see that,' she agreed - I like to think she saw it in the notes on the screen in front of her, rather than being possessed of some weird and wonderful NHS juju that could let her spot fibrilation cases by eye.
'There are extra pills I can give you - we've got lots more stuff than we had even just five years ago,' she enthused. 'Weightloss injections and suchlike. The one I'd like to really get you on is for people with good kidneys. You have excellent kidneys.'
'I know,' I smarmed - back a decade or so ago, my mother, who at the time was more of a Tory, had shelled out to get me a BUPA head-to-toe check. They told me I had platinum-level kidneys. It's absurd, but it turns out my kidneys may be my best feature.
'The pill would let you use them to maximum efficience, so you'd pass the sugar out that way. Lose you about 300 calories a day. Also, your current pills aren't really touching the sides just now.'
I came clean that I'd been taking them with screaming irregularity pretty much since we got here - at first because there was a delay in registering and a month when I wouldn't have been able to get any prescriptions from them, and subsequently because I'd just gotten into bad pill-forgetting habits.
'Hmm,' she considered. 'Alright. Take your blood sugar measurements every morning. Some evenings too if you like, but essentially mornings. We'll see what you're like then. Oh and take the pills as prescribed, eh?'
'Will do,' I promised.
So, the stupid shit stops here and now. She gave me a testing machine to take away with me, so now I intend to bore you on a slightly more regular basis with measurements of blood sugar. Just because I can. More water, more walking, the bike is uncovered and just waiting for me. Less carb, less batter, less altogether stupid shit. The plan is to live here at the seaside. That means LIVING here at the seaside, and that in turn means doing what's necessary to stay alive as long as I can here at the seaside. So. Stupid macho posturing face on, and let's do this thing.
Here's the thing though - that ends right now.
First thing's first, it's Tuesday. Ermmmm, last I recorded, I think I'd gone back up to 19 stone dead, or 266 pounds, which was irritating.
Following week I went up to 19 stone 1 pound.
Week after that, up again to 19 stone 2.25.
Clearly, there's drift going on, but given that I've done bog-all exercise and have been slugging and slothing my way through life for the past three weeks, it was going up alllllmost as slowly as it was previously coming off. But not quite, obviously.
Today, weighed in at 19 stone 2.25. Static from last week. Right now, I'll take that.
Now. Have been, as anyone who reads this will possibly remember, getting set up with the doctors in this area. Did the usual HBA1C blood test for long term blood sugars a few weeks ago. No sooner had I done it than they sent me a letter to say 'Balls. Need you to come and do that again.'
The image of course went through my mind of the diagnostic machinery going into overdrive, lights flashing, warning messages flashing, and then the whole kit and caboodle exploding in a puff of smoke when trying to process my blood. So I went and had it done again. Alllmost immediately the letter came back to say 'Yyyyeah, we can't afford to lose another machine. You need to get your ass in to see us, cos this shit ain't clever.'
Went today.
To explain the HBA1C, they like you to have a reading of under 50. I've previously managed under 50, but over the last few years, I've had a tendency, as the weight's crept back onto my bones, to hover in the low to mid-50s. Turns out last October, when we moved here, I had quite a bad result of 76.
Latest scoors on the doors? 117. One hundred. And then another 17. So, over twice what it should be.
#BadTony.
Badder Tony than the slow-ass drift of a pound a week here and there ever lets you know.
The nurse gave me a simple finger-pricking blood sugar test today. Again, in the UK, you're looking for numbers between about 6-8. Yyyyeah - 22.8. So - roughly three times what it should be.
'How are you not walking around with a huge dose of thrush?' she asked.
'Erm...should I be?'
'I'm surprised you're not, yeah,' she said, a touch too breezily for my liking.
'Oh, well, I won't panic when that happens then,' I muttered.
'I'm surprised your skin's not dreaful too,' she added.
'Oh it is, it's more or less turning to ash in the sun.'
'Aha!'
'We're happy about that, are we?'
'Visible symptoms,' she explained. 'Thing is, while your blood sugar's shot through the roof, your body's adapted to it quite well by the looks of things.'
'Thank you,' I said.
'But what we can't see is the untold damage it's doing to your systems inside,' she added.
'Oh.'
'First thing I'd be worried about is your heart.'
'Oh. I've already got an atrial fibrilation...thing going on,' I told her.
'I see that,' she agreed - I like to think she saw it in the notes on the screen in front of her, rather than being possessed of some weird and wonderful NHS juju that could let her spot fibrilation cases by eye.
'There are extra pills I can give you - we've got lots more stuff than we had even just five years ago,' she enthused. 'Weightloss injections and suchlike. The one I'd like to really get you on is for people with good kidneys. You have excellent kidneys.'
'I know,' I smarmed - back a decade or so ago, my mother, who at the time was more of a Tory, had shelled out to get me a BUPA head-to-toe check. They told me I had platinum-level kidneys. It's absurd, but it turns out my kidneys may be my best feature.
'The pill would let you use them to maximum efficience, so you'd pass the sugar out that way. Lose you about 300 calories a day. Also, your current pills aren't really touching the sides just now.'
I came clean that I'd been taking them with screaming irregularity pretty much since we got here - at first because there was a delay in registering and a month when I wouldn't have been able to get any prescriptions from them, and subsequently because I'd just gotten into bad pill-forgetting habits.
'Hmm,' she considered. 'Alright. Take your blood sugar measurements every morning. Some evenings too if you like, but essentially mornings. We'll see what you're like then. Oh and take the pills as prescribed, eh?'
'Will do,' I promised.
So, the stupid shit stops here and now. She gave me a testing machine to take away with me, so now I intend to bore you on a slightly more regular basis with measurements of blood sugar. Just because I can. More water, more walking, the bike is uncovered and just waiting for me. Less carb, less batter, less altogether stupid shit. The plan is to live here at the seaside. That means LIVING here at the seaside, and that in turn means doing what's necessary to stay alive as long as I can here at the seaside. So. Stupid macho posturing face on, and let's do this thing.
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
The Daily Disparity
Apologies all, obviously meant to post this blog yesterday.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
Tuesday, 17 April 2018
The Apparent Inconsequence of Inaction
'Don't take this as a mark of what you can get away with!'
'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).
This week, after having flopped over the first real border line in the downward push, two things happened.
Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.
Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.
So those were some interesting kicks in the head.
But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.
Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.
The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.
Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'
This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'
She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.
So...what? I hear you ask.
Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.
I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.
But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.
There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.
There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.
But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.
18 stone 13.25.
That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.
I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...
'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).
This week, after having flopped over the first real border line in the downward push, two things happened.
Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.
Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.
So those were some interesting kicks in the head.
But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.
Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.
The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.
Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'
This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'
She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.
So...what? I hear you ask.
Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.
I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.
But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.
There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.
There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.
But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.
18 stone 13.25.
That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.
I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
The False Hope Factory
Never, ever, ever, weigh-in the day before an official weigh-in.
Never.
Ever.
I did that yesterday.
I'm here to tell you, it's a crock, and it's made me Captain Crankypants today, ready to kick stones and break ankles and butt heads with everything and everybody in the world.
Yesterday - unofficial, just-for-laughs yesterday, I weighed in and saw my first 18 this year. 18 stone, 13.5.
This, mind you, was after a recumbent Easter - I'd spend Easter Saturday in Cardiff, sitting in a Starbucks, growing carbuncles on my ass, drinking big milky coffees and one ill-advised but delicious mocha frappucino. I ate chips that day too. And Easter Sunday involved a Sunday lunch out with the family, followed by a 'Oh go on then, seeing as it's Easter' dessert. So I rather expected to have put on when I weighed-in yesterday.
Zoiks - there's my 18. A loss of three-quarters of a pound which took me under the 19 stone barrier. All was light and joy and potential, hoorah - all I had to do to celebrate today was to maintain. I had a simple cereal dessert, a relatively straightforward Scotch Egg, and a small bowl of rice and beef.
Woke up this morning, did all my usual things, took a quick uphill walk to the doctors to sign some paperwork, came back, weighed in.
19 stone 1.25!
Up a pound from last week, I could understand. Up a pound and three-quarters since yesterday can get to all kinds of holy ungovernable fuck.
I'm off to the corner to kick pebbles and feel sorry for myself in a wanton display of 'No No, I'm FINE!' Syndrome.
Grr.
Never.
Ever.
I did that yesterday.
I'm here to tell you, it's a crock, and it's made me Captain Crankypants today, ready to kick stones and break ankles and butt heads with everything and everybody in the world.
Yesterday - unofficial, just-for-laughs yesterday, I weighed in and saw my first 18 this year. 18 stone, 13.5.
This, mind you, was after a recumbent Easter - I'd spend Easter Saturday in Cardiff, sitting in a Starbucks, growing carbuncles on my ass, drinking big milky coffees and one ill-advised but delicious mocha frappucino. I ate chips that day too. And Easter Sunday involved a Sunday lunch out with the family, followed by a 'Oh go on then, seeing as it's Easter' dessert. So I rather expected to have put on when I weighed-in yesterday.
Zoiks - there's my 18. A loss of three-quarters of a pound which took me under the 19 stone barrier. All was light and joy and potential, hoorah - all I had to do to celebrate today was to maintain. I had a simple cereal dessert, a relatively straightforward Scotch Egg, and a small bowl of rice and beef.
Woke up this morning, did all my usual things, took a quick uphill walk to the doctors to sign some paperwork, came back, weighed in.
19 stone 1.25!
Up a pound from last week, I could understand. Up a pound and three-quarters since yesterday can get to all kinds of holy ungovernable fuck.
I'm off to the corner to kick pebbles and feel sorry for myself in a wanton display of 'No No, I'm FINE!' Syndrome.
Grr.
Monday, 19 March 2018
A Tale Of Two Tuesdays
Hello!
Sorry, had a bit of a mad couple of weeks. Up and out the door before I was wise two Tuesdays ago. Last week was fine, but I simply never got round to posting a blog because I was on an editing deadline for rather a smashing book. Last week's weigh-in was 19st 2.0.
Joy. Am apparenlty nevver destined to get beneath 19 stone again. Humph. Have now cleared most of the troublesome flotsam away from the exercise bike, so there's that. And the forms have gone in to sign up with a new doctor, so again, some sort of progress.
Of course we've also had the Beast From The East since I last posted (and no, I don't mean whoever poisoned the former spy in Salisbury). Snow on the beach and all such fun. Has had a tendency to make me want to stay indoors and eat everything, but as I say, last Tuesday, the weigh-in was encouraging, without in any way marking progress.
I have, of course, because this is me and I always feel this way, a notion that tomorrow's weigh-in will be a disaster - didn't go out very much at all last week, more down to the editing deadline than the snow, really, and have felt bloated and full for the last few days. I haven't been mainlining intravenous eclairs or anything, but still, the relative haystack into which I've frozen in terms of my activity can't really bode that well. So...we'll see what happens in the morning. Just been for my first walk to Wiseman's Bridge in a while though, so that's positive. As is the fact that two weeks ago, my new optician told me he was concerned that I had Macular Degeneration in my eyes. I duly went last week to be dilated and let him have a proper look around. Turns out - buggerall degeneration, must have been something else on the day he saw what he thought he saw. So that was immensely positive. On we go, through whatever tomorrow brings, to another relatively upbeat weak. Honest.
Sorry, had a bit of a mad couple of weeks. Up and out the door before I was wise two Tuesdays ago. Last week was fine, but I simply never got round to posting a blog because I was on an editing deadline for rather a smashing book. Last week's weigh-in was 19st 2.0.
Joy. Am apparenlty nevver destined to get beneath 19 stone again. Humph. Have now cleared most of the troublesome flotsam away from the exercise bike, so there's that. And the forms have gone in to sign up with a new doctor, so again, some sort of progress.
Of course we've also had the Beast From The East since I last posted (and no, I don't mean whoever poisoned the former spy in Salisbury). Snow on the beach and all such fun. Has had a tendency to make me want to stay indoors and eat everything, but as I say, last Tuesday, the weigh-in was encouraging, without in any way marking progress.
I have, of course, because this is me and I always feel this way, a notion that tomorrow's weigh-in will be a disaster - didn't go out very much at all last week, more down to the editing deadline than the snow, really, and have felt bloated and full for the last few days. I haven't been mainlining intravenous eclairs or anything, but still, the relative haystack into which I've frozen in terms of my activity can't really bode that well. So...we'll see what happens in the morning. Just been for my first walk to Wiseman's Bridge in a while though, so that's positive. As is the fact that two weeks ago, my new optician told me he was concerned that I had Macular Degeneration in my eyes. I duly went last week to be dilated and let him have a proper look around. Turns out - buggerall degeneration, must have been something else on the day he saw what he thought he saw. So that was immensely positive. On we go, through whatever tomorrow brings, to another relatively upbeat weak. Honest.
Tuesday, 30 January 2018
The Control Mechanism
Alrighty then - weigh-in day.
As of today, the weight we're dealing with is: 19st 6.25.
Down the regulation two pounds per week. Now, familiar as I am with the Disappearing process, I'd vaguely expected the initial water-weight loss to be rather more than that, because it usually is in the first two weeks - I've been known to lose 7 pounds in my first week. And indeed after just the first two days, an informal weigh-in had me lower than this, so there's every chance for a wobble and to go 'Fuck it! All that work and I've lost two pounds!'
Perfectly natural reaction, that, if you're Disappearing.
On the other hand, let's see what's really what.
Weight loss is always something of a fluctuating card-trick if you take snapshots of it, as these weigh-ins are. For instance, before going to bed last night, I weighed in at 19st 11, nearly five pounds heavier than this morning. Much peeing in the night is all there is to say about that.
The point of which is that you're always taking a snapshot of digestive transit, and if you're dealing with weightloss on a weekly basis, it actually becomes a factor. In the immortal words of comedian Peter Kay, 'I went to one of them weight loss classes, and they were cheering this woman cos she'd lost a pound. I said "A pound? What's a pound? I shit a pound!"'
Five pounds of liquid from night to morning. Get the picture?
So, there are things to say. Sure, the weightloss itself might be less than in previous attempts, but it's still two pounds in a week, meaning to reach the point of Peak Disappearing from my first time round, I now have to lost five stone (70 pounds). At two pounds a week, that's just 35 weeks. A smidgen under nine months - and the first time I did it, it took a year, cos I was 14 pounds heavier when I started. So - positivity there.
In addition, I've had a week of no chocolate, no oversugary foods, limited carbs etc. That's got to help me, because I'm diabetic, and running a system like mine on a high-sugar diet simply can't be good for it.
In addition again, I've spent two hours most days walking by the coast of one of my favourite bits of water in the world. Noooo bad there, apart from something of a deadline crunch which might just possibly have benefitted from those twelve or so hours of work.
In further addition, those walking hours have been filled with some cracking audio titles, which has allowed me to get up to speed with a few, tick a few off my To-Listen list, and very soon might even allow me to make progress on some actual audioBOOKing, with which I'm determined to do better in 2018 than I was in 2017.
And perhaps most importantly, in terms of a general take-away that might be useful to anyone else, I've begun to redress the balance of control in my life. Control's a weird thing - I tend to approach it in a digital fashion. All or nothing. Health, money, work, working environment. All the rest is still chaos-adjacent, but getting control over my eating and exercise regime makes me feel like I'm at least an active factor in the equation, rather than just a product to which things happen with or without my say-so. That means plans are being made, things being set in motion and suchlike, simply by virtue of having re-embarked on a Disappearing kick, and having not, as yet, fallen off.
So there's all of this, plus the relatively concrete fact (in a useful defiance of my own first point) that I'm two pounds lighter than I was this time last week. All of which marks progress, and gives me a spring in my step as I hurry out the door on today's walk. Onward to week 2, and hopefully another two pounds - at that rate, a month from now, I'll see an 18 in the 'Stones' column, which will be a marker of genuine significant loss.
To the walking boots!
As of today, the weight we're dealing with is: 19st 6.25.
Down the regulation two pounds per week. Now, familiar as I am with the Disappearing process, I'd vaguely expected the initial water-weight loss to be rather more than that, because it usually is in the first two weeks - I've been known to lose 7 pounds in my first week. And indeed after just the first two days, an informal weigh-in had me lower than this, so there's every chance for a wobble and to go 'Fuck it! All that work and I've lost two pounds!'
Perfectly natural reaction, that, if you're Disappearing.
On the other hand, let's see what's really what.
Weight loss is always something of a fluctuating card-trick if you take snapshots of it, as these weigh-ins are. For instance, before going to bed last night, I weighed in at 19st 11, nearly five pounds heavier than this morning. Much peeing in the night is all there is to say about that.
The point of which is that you're always taking a snapshot of digestive transit, and if you're dealing with weightloss on a weekly basis, it actually becomes a factor. In the immortal words of comedian Peter Kay, 'I went to one of them weight loss classes, and they were cheering this woman cos she'd lost a pound. I said "A pound? What's a pound? I shit a pound!"'
Five pounds of liquid from night to morning. Get the picture?
So, there are things to say. Sure, the weightloss itself might be less than in previous attempts, but it's still two pounds in a week, meaning to reach the point of Peak Disappearing from my first time round, I now have to lost five stone (70 pounds). At two pounds a week, that's just 35 weeks. A smidgen under nine months - and the first time I did it, it took a year, cos I was 14 pounds heavier when I started. So - positivity there.
In addition, I've had a week of no chocolate, no oversugary foods, limited carbs etc. That's got to help me, because I'm diabetic, and running a system like mine on a high-sugar diet simply can't be good for it.
In addition again, I've spent two hours most days walking by the coast of one of my favourite bits of water in the world. Noooo bad there, apart from something of a deadline crunch which might just possibly have benefitted from those twelve or so hours of work.
In further addition, those walking hours have been filled with some cracking audio titles, which has allowed me to get up to speed with a few, tick a few off my To-Listen list, and very soon might even allow me to make progress on some actual audioBOOKing, with which I'm determined to do better in 2018 than I was in 2017.
And perhaps most importantly, in terms of a general take-away that might be useful to anyone else, I've begun to redress the balance of control in my life. Control's a weird thing - I tend to approach it in a digital fashion. All or nothing. Health, money, work, working environment. All the rest is still chaos-adjacent, but getting control over my eating and exercise regime makes me feel like I'm at least an active factor in the equation, rather than just a product to which things happen with or without my say-so. That means plans are being made, things being set in motion and suchlike, simply by virtue of having re-embarked on a Disappearing kick, and having not, as yet, fallen off.
So there's all of this, plus the relatively concrete fact (in a useful defiance of my own first point) that I'm two pounds lighter than I was this time last week. All of which marks progress, and gives me a spring in my step as I hurry out the door on today's walk. Onward to week 2, and hopefully another two pounds - at that rate, a month from now, I'll see an 18 in the 'Stones' column, which will be a marker of genuine significant loss.
To the walking boots!
Monday, 22 January 2018
The Month-Long Christmas and the Toe of Destiny
Well, that didn't go according to plan, now did it, boys and girls?
Went to Merthyr to spend Christmas with my mother, and had hardly got through the door before I started cramming the Quality Street down my neck.
Have been eating like a self-destructive maniac, doing precisely buggerall in terms of exercise, being somewhat creatively interpretative with my medication and essentially evolving into Jabba the Hutt with a keyboard.
I have watched accomplioshed chef Tom Kerridge, himself a big lad, encouraging people to lose weight after his own battle with suicidal habits, during which he lost a whacking 12 stone - which would have been fine, had I not watched him with a ten-inch cheesy pizza halfway to my gob.
I've known this was coming for a while, and if you'd asked me three hours ago, I'd have told you that I've never needed to do this more, and never felt like doing it less.
Since then, I've rather had the toe of destiny shoved up my ass in a forceful and purposeful manner, so right now, I'm writing this while energised and powerful and ready to take on the world or burn it down.
This is of course not an energy that lasts for the accomplishment of marathons. I know this. This is neither my, nor I daresay your first ride on this Disappearing pony. But the toe of destiny is a good motivator to get one started on projects that mellow and develop a more productive rather than destructive rhythm over time. So this is where you find me. Tomorrow, Disappearing-shopping - fruit, veg, protein etc. There will be grabbing of sticks and hiking, at least to Wiseman's Bridge and back, while under the influence of music or drama pouring through my iPod and turning my thighs, I have no doubt, to mush. There will be, or at least should be, registration with a Saundersfoot-based GP, so that I can return to taking my meds without fear of running out before that process is completed. There will be, above all, ACTION.
In the name of the Toe of Destiny, there will be action!
Tomorrow.
Honest.
Went to Merthyr to spend Christmas with my mother, and had hardly got through the door before I started cramming the Quality Street down my neck.
Have been eating like a self-destructive maniac, doing precisely buggerall in terms of exercise, being somewhat creatively interpretative with my medication and essentially evolving into Jabba the Hutt with a keyboard.
I have watched accomplioshed chef Tom Kerridge, himself a big lad, encouraging people to lose weight after his own battle with suicidal habits, during which he lost a whacking 12 stone - which would have been fine, had I not watched him with a ten-inch cheesy pizza halfway to my gob.
I've known this was coming for a while, and if you'd asked me three hours ago, I'd have told you that I've never needed to do this more, and never felt like doing it less.
Since then, I've rather had the toe of destiny shoved up my ass in a forceful and purposeful manner, so right now, I'm writing this while energised and powerful and ready to take on the world or burn it down.
This is of course not an energy that lasts for the accomplishment of marathons. I know this. This is neither my, nor I daresay your first ride on this Disappearing pony. But the toe of destiny is a good motivator to get one started on projects that mellow and develop a more productive rather than destructive rhythm over time. So this is where you find me. Tomorrow, Disappearing-shopping - fruit, veg, protein etc. There will be grabbing of sticks and hiking, at least to Wiseman's Bridge and back, while under the influence of music or drama pouring through my iPod and turning my thighs, I have no doubt, to mush. There will be, or at least should be, registration with a Saundersfoot-based GP, so that I can return to taking my meds without fear of running out before that process is completed. There will be, above all, ACTION.
In the name of the Toe of Destiny, there will be action!
Tomorrow.
Honest.
Tuesday, 10 January 2017
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!
Thursday, 5 January 2017
The Birthday Flake
It was d’s birthday today. I’d planned to take her to
breakfast in Cardiff. I’d booked us an escape room – one of those Chrystal
Maze-style puzzle rooms – with our friends Kelly and Mark. I’d booked us a dim
sum lunch at a Chinese place that neither of us had ever been to before, but
about which d had heard good things. And I’d booked us a room in one of our
favourite Cardiff hotels. Y’know, cos of the whole mini-mini-break vibe of it
being a birthday.
Ohhhh the master plannery. Every guy probably thinks he’s
been really devious, but d fed my delusions of big bad evil genius by claiming
she had no idea about the escape room until Mark and Kelly suddenly joined us
in my usual Starbucks, just two minutes away from the room. Score one for ego.
The escape rooms were, as I say, just a couple of minutes
away from Starbucks, but they were, thanks to a broken-down lift, up three
flights of stairs.
‘Hi. Do you…have a booking?’ said the guy we met at the top
of the stairs.
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘1.30. name of Tony.’
‘Errrrm…are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Which room are you booked
into?’
‘The Heist,’ I told him. ‘Gonna get our Ocean’s Eleven on,
be all criminal mastermindy. Here,’ I said thrusting out my phone for him to
check the email they’d sent me confirming the booking.
‘Yyyyeah, that’s not us,’ he explained. ‘That’s totally the other
escape rooms that are nothing to do with us. They’re up by Cardiff
Castle.’
‘Fuck,’ I muttered. ‘Right…’
It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that I had my
laptop bag, d had her enormous shoulder bag, and we’d also just picked up a bag
of birthday presents from Mark and Kelly, including a bone china cakestand.
Also, the Januaryness, so we were in many, many layers, including scarves and
hats.
I mentioned the three flights, right?
Down we went, hiking up the damned road.
Now here I absolve myself slightly – the guy at the first
escape room had said the one we wanted was up by the castle, and by Burger
King. Mark said he’d Googled it the night before, and he knew where it was.
Sure enough, there it was – not exactly by the Castle or the Burger King, but
it was definitely the right place: it even had ‘The Heist’ written on the door
as one of the rooms you could play.
Fuck. More stairs. Three more flights. Seriously, escape
room people, would it kill you to have some ground floor games, for wheelchair
users more than fat fucks?
Anyway, we got up to the third floor again, and in the
reception there were some hipster dudes with Edwardian beards, who seemed bound
and determined to ignore us. But there were lockers for all our crap, so we
didn’t have to take them into the room with us. We dutifully hung up coats,
sweaters, hats, scarves, and jammed bags into lockers. Then we announced
ourselves to them as having a 1.30 appointment. ‘The Heist,’ I said. ‘Name of
Tony.’
‘We have nothing booked under that name,’ Edward VII flatly
informed me. I shoved my phone forward to him. ‘It’s on the door,’ I begged.
‘This must be the right place.’
‘Nah, that’s our newest place,’ he explained. ‘Up by the
Castle and Burger King.’
‘We are up by the Castle and Burger
King,’ I muttered. ‘Seriously, a year ago, there wasn’t one of these places,
now Cardiff has at least three escape room facilities on pretty much the same
street?’
We sighed. We pulled bags out of lockers, grabbed hats and
coat and scarves and sweaters off hooks, went down three flights and hiked up
the street. Again. In the meantime, escape room three had called me to find out
where the hell we were.
‘We’re minutes away,’ I told them. ‘Oh wait, here’s your
door. We’ll be up in a minute.’
Three more flights.
‘Fuck it, it’s my birthday,’ said Donna, grabbing the new
and working lift. In an effort to be a conscientious Disappearer, I took the
stairs. Bad move. Once we got to the third floor reception, it turned out the
actual room was up…another flight of stairs.’
I’d like to tell you we used up all our mental initiative
just finding
the place. Let’s just say, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, frankly, we’re
all doomed. We had more help from our guide than was really fair, and extra
time, and we still had quite some way to go to get out of room three of
three. Me personally, I’d never have got out of Room One. I had one moment of
success, but the rest was baffling to the point of what-the-hellishness.
Basically, I held a flashlight – again, come the zombie apocalypse, go ahead
and melt my fat ass down for candles.
Then there was lunch. Having schlepped through more of
Cardiff than we’d ever intended, we were…at least notionally…closer to where
Kelly and Mark had parked their car, than we were to the restaurant. We walked
to the car, down a subway which Kelly was sure was the way. Mark insisted it
wasn’t. He was right. We did later come to the subway Kelly’d thought
it was, in fairness, and on we went. Mark drove us to the restaurant. There was
nowhere to park, so we drove back to the train station, parked up and got a cab
back to the restaurant.
‘You don’t need a cab to get there,’ argued the cabbie.
‘Trust me,’ said d, ‘by this stage in the day, we do.’ We
did.
The restaurant had closed its main kitchen and was only
serving sim sum.
There followed something of a dumplingfest. Meat dumplings,
vegetable dumplings, rice rolls, an occasional char siu bun. I stopped earlier
than I normally would, because, y’know, Disappearing and all that. d got to try
a hot jelly for the first time, so that was… an experience. Then we walked back
from the restaurant back to the station (so as to not risk the wrath of another
cabbie!), then over to the mall to pick up some Krispy Kremes for Kelly, Mark
and d. And finally, to our hotel. While d exchanged bottles of fizzy water for
still and red wine for rose, I went out for one last walk – to grab a Starbucks
and pick up some more water.
Result? Nearly 11,000 steps. So much for a relaxing
birthday!
Disappearingwise? Sure, 11,000 steps is good enough for me,
and it’s not like I’ve overindulged especially – yes, there were dumplings, but
there was no breakfast, and the dumplings were all I ate today, so I’m happy
enough with it.
Back to work tomorrow, and a day into which I will have to
artificially force some exercise.
And while it’s not exactly been a relaxing or pampering day
by any stretch of the imagination, hopefully, it’s been an unusual, funny,
typically ‘Tony’ day for my girl.
I have a Plan for next year.
Already.
Be afraid. Be very afraid…
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