The Double Walking Jive

Right. Yesterday I decided, in the wake of more or less static news from the Nazi Scales, that Something New needed to be done. So - did something new.

By pure force of time-management and meetings, I actually didn't eat breakfast, but decided to nip out at lunchtime for a quick once round the route I've developed - only with the novelty factor of daylight to guide me. That seemed to work - I was able to push on into a couple of different nooks and crannies I hadn't previously investigated for fear of trippage in the dark.

Got home with some more Dracula listened to, which was pretty satisfying, then carried on with my day-job afternoon. Had a reasonably early dinner - pork, home-made stuffing, jacket potato, corn. Then looked over at d. We'd discussed things the night before.

'So...this is when I should actually go out and do the proper walk then?' I checked. 'After eating? So as to fire up the overnight metabolism?'

'Well...yes,' she agreed. 'But I'm not gonna make you go out in the cold...'

'Nono, that's fine,' I said, the masochism of this whole thing really rather appealing to me. 'It can be a double-walking day.' In my mind I saw the step-counter whirring like a clock in a film, showing the passing of time. 'Right. This is me. Going. Again.'

'Have fun, honey,' she said, waving me out the door.

So, fun was had - the route was known, and I didn't feel the need, the second time round, to push on into new and unfamiliar places in the dark. This was all bonus, all extra, so I did a version that cuts about a thousand steps or so out of the route. Got back around 9.30, no more Dracula under my belt, but a podcast and a half listened to (I have waaay too many of those to get through, so this could be useful). Came home and drank more still water than I have in weeks, deciding, through a semi-occasional torrent of invective when I tried to move, 'That felt good - am going to try and get up at 6.45, and get a morning walk in tomorrow, start tryign to do it morning and night, rather than lunchtime and night...'

6.45 came this morning. The Morning Mood from Peer Gynt played in our bedroom as delicate sunbeams danced through the window, lit upon my cheeks, and like fairies, tried to tease me into wakefulness.

I farted, rolled over and crushed them to death.

7.15 came, and I did the mental mathematics required to let me stay in bed. If I got up now, went for a pee, shuffled into my clothes and sodded off, I still wouldn't be back at my desk by 9. Bugger. Tomorrow, then.

Slept on till 8.45. Got up like one of the big slabs of Stonehenge, with much use of pulleys, ropes and log rollers. Not to be a total smartarse, but these are just some of the joys of working from home.

Lunchtime's not here yet, but - and whether this is just a mark of my own masochism, or a comment on the current challenges of the day-job, I'm not sure, but - can't actually wait for lunchtime, to slip the trainers on the feet (haven't yet required the proper walking boots on anything but one snowy day so far this year), and head on up the road. And sickly, I'm quite looking forward to doing it the second time, later on, too.

Oh and for those following the intimate workings of my innards...water. Yep. That seems to work...

Right - on with the day, and another double-walker, hopefully. Next up, probably some incoherent whinging about blisters!

The Orange Shoe Commitment

If you make it through Day One of a Disappearing without caving hopelessly and diving for the nearest chocolate stash (which I did - make it, I mean), there's a perverse longing to mark your own seriousness about the whole weightloss process.

You want to run out and buy exercise gear, or take out a gym membership and buy a headband or something equally lethal.

Me? I settled this time for a pair of really stupid but oddly empowering shoes.

They're rather a dynamic shade of orange.

The right shoes have been important throughout at least fictional history - Cinderella, Dorothy Gale, Vicky Page (Google is your friend) and more all needing a particular kind or colour of footwear to fulfill their destiny. I'm not saying I went out with the express purpose of buying a pair of orange shoes because without them somehow mystically, this new Disappearing would be doomed to failure. Far from it - the idea of buying orange shoes hadn't entered my head, even when I sat in the sports shop, knowing that my current 'all-purpose' trainers/walking shoes were never going to survive much longer anyway.
I'd picked out a black pair, with just a dash of orange lacing, to suggest 'I'm a serious person really, with a wild and crazy streak'. The assistant, who himself had some dazzling footwear, a kind of clash of orange, sky blue and pink which you just don't see enough in this world, brought me back the exact opposite of what I'd handed him - bright orange shoes, couple of dashes of the black.

I put them on, and something very childish happened to me.

Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor - Style God.

It's worth noting at this point that, as a Doctor Who fan for 37 years now, I'm one of the very small handful of people who think Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor is a style icon. I'm reliably informed that this means I have frankly horrible taste, and I've done very little caring about that in my life.
Something akin to a mid-life footwear crisis happened to me when I put on the orange shoes.
I love them! I thought. They're a total mistake, but I love them!
But on the other hand, I couldn't wear them, for instance, to London for my day job - they've tolerated some quirky dress moments from me over the years, mainly T-shirt related, but as I now mostly go in for meetings, they've come to expect at least a little less fashionable anarchy from me.

The battle between the sensible me and the demented me raged fiercely - till I realised both pairs were on sale at 50%, so the mid-life footwear crisis was easily solved.

Bought both pairs!

The ordinary black pair will be for work, or for being seen at 'things' where I'm not entirely myself, or not entirely comfortable. But the orange shoes - those are the inner, utterly tasteless me, the 'dance like nobody's watching' me. The Disappearing me.

You see, buying 'the gear' when you start a new weightloss adventure has the same effect as telling people you're about to do it - it seals you in. You've spent money on it, so if you give it up, you're cheating yourself. It's an involuntary urge to raise the stakes, to give yourself more to lose by giving in or failing.

Really? I invest that much meaning in a pair of day-glo shoes?
Sort of, yes. I love these shoes. I want to think of these as my Disappearing Shoes. I want to smile every time I look at them, like I did the first time I put them on. That's a big incentive not to fall off the wagon - to know that the whole way I see them will be ruined if I give in, if I consider myself to have self-sabotaged or failed.

That's why you buy new gear when you start a new weightloss regime - you're investing in a new you, a stronger you than all that's gone before. A you that will succeed.

That, my friends, is the orange shoe commitment.