And so this is Christmas, as the song would have it.
Another week, the same deadline, the same lack of exercise, and so, you'll not be surprised to learn, a slightly worse weigh-in: 17st 10.75.
Neatly though, the blood sugar results are getting better and more consistently stable in the 'under-10' range at which I've been told to aim in the first instance - 8.8 this morning, for instance, which considering this is the week of Christmas is something to be happy about.
This is the first Christmas in....almost a decade and a half, I think, where we haven't gone to Ma's for the season. As such, we've had to invent our own new Christmas for the first real time in our marriage. Stayed up till about 4am last night watching old movies and Christmas classics, woke between 9-11 this morning, had breakfast, did presents, found ourselves sleepy, and woke up again round the 4pm mark. Not, in all likelihood, any faff about taking bracing Christmas walks for us today, though we did toy with it as we unwrapped warm clothes and luxury socks. Today has been a total slob-out, and I love that. Tomorrow though, d's back to work and so am I, because clearly, not feeling able to take time off with a crushing deadline, and therefore not taking the time daily to incorporate some exercise into my life, is having a negative effect on my Disappearing, however reasonably I'm eating.
So - back to work, back to walking, back to properly Disappearing. And in the meantime, Merry Wossnamemas, one and all.
Tuesday, 25 December 2018
Tuesday, 18 December 2018
The Deadlined Decembrist
Brr.
Double brr and buggery.
Firstly, it's been freezing, and positively pissing down much of this week, which has a natural tendency to make me curl up into a ball, pull a duvet over my head and hang a sign round my neck saying 'Fuck You Till Spring.'
Secondly, I've been on a tight deadline all week, which is now at the stage in a Bond movie where the villain pushes the hero's face closer and close to a bandsaw and Connery (let's face it, it's always Connery in metaphors, whoever your own personal Bond may be) grimaces and tries to summon some Scottish grit so he can donkey kick the villain in the balls and break free. That's meant that, even had the weather been lovely, I wouldn't have had time to take its kindness personally and go walking. This has been a week where staying indoors and eating and drinking hot things has been Plan A for several, extremely rational, reasons.
Which is why this morning, I weigh in at 17st 10.25.
Static. Hey, it's the deal, right? You move, the weight moves. You stay still, at your very luckiest, the weight stays still.
So that means it won't be till at least the last week of January that I see a 16 on the face of the Nazi Scales. Joy.
What's less, but still concerning, is that I've had blood sugars in the 7s and 8s all week, except today, when clearly, my personification of the universe is out to kick me, and I baaaarely scraped acceptability with a 9.9.
The obvious result of course is that when things don't go your way for the first time in a Disappearance (and probably at several more such points on the way down), your immediate impulsive reaction (or mine, anyway - it may be an only-child thing for all I know), is to sulk and pout and whine and storm off to the store for the biggest bar of chocolate you can find. It's Christmas, you can find some really huge bars of chocolate right now. There's a bar of Galaxy in our local Tesco Express that's only about a head shorter than I am. I know. I just checked, in a fume. it's a popsitively toddler reaction of throwing your toys out of the pram - 'Well, if being good isn't going to bring me results, I might just as well be bad, so there!'
Ride this idiocy out, or you'll fall, right there and then.
Perversely - and get a lot of the titanium testicles on THIS guy - my house is currently full of home-made fudge. After Eight Fudge. Bounty-studded Fudge. Fudge made by the fair hand of my wife, who has on occasion this week offered me 'just a smidge, to test.' But no. I eschew the Fudge of love ('...and STILL you don't lose!' roars my toddler-brain) - were I to go on a rampage, frankly, you wouldn't hear about it till afterwards, when I was penitent and ready to confess, and I wouldn't got o town on d's homemade fudge. I'd go to Tesco and get an enormo-bag of M and Ms and eat them without tasting them, in secret, for the sheer visceral pleasure of self-defeat - did anyone miss the fact that in my case, this weight shit is frequently compulsive, and secret, and self-harming? Fairly sure I covered that, but might not have been for years...
But no. Bought myself a small bottle of apple juice (Because ooh, the pleasure) and a new box of breakfast cereal, came home, spat these words into the computer, and am going back to the bandaw in a moment). This week, I'm clearly not the Disappearing Man. This week, I'm the Staying-At-Home-In-The-Warm-And-Moving-Nowhere Man.
It happens. I know it happens. It's how you deal with it happening that's the key.
Onward, and downward, we go.
Bastard...
Double brr and buggery.
Firstly, it's been freezing, and positively pissing down much of this week, which has a natural tendency to make me curl up into a ball, pull a duvet over my head and hang a sign round my neck saying 'Fuck You Till Spring.'
Secondly, I've been on a tight deadline all week, which is now at the stage in a Bond movie where the villain pushes the hero's face closer and close to a bandsaw and Connery (let's face it, it's always Connery in metaphors, whoever your own personal Bond may be) grimaces and tries to summon some Scottish grit so he can donkey kick the villain in the balls and break free. That's meant that, even had the weather been lovely, I wouldn't have had time to take its kindness personally and go walking. This has been a week where staying indoors and eating and drinking hot things has been Plan A for several, extremely rational, reasons.
Which is why this morning, I weigh in at 17st 10.25.
Static. Hey, it's the deal, right? You move, the weight moves. You stay still, at your very luckiest, the weight stays still.
So that means it won't be till at least the last week of January that I see a 16 on the face of the Nazi Scales. Joy.
What's less, but still concerning, is that I've had blood sugars in the 7s and 8s all week, except today, when clearly, my personification of the universe is out to kick me, and I baaaarely scraped acceptability with a 9.9.
The obvious result of course is that when things don't go your way for the first time in a Disappearance (and probably at several more such points on the way down), your immediate impulsive reaction (or mine, anyway - it may be an only-child thing for all I know), is to sulk and pout and whine and storm off to the store for the biggest bar of chocolate you can find. It's Christmas, you can find some really huge bars of chocolate right now. There's a bar of Galaxy in our local Tesco Express that's only about a head shorter than I am. I know. I just checked, in a fume. it's a popsitively toddler reaction of throwing your toys out of the pram - 'Well, if being good isn't going to bring me results, I might just as well be bad, so there!'
Ride this idiocy out, or you'll fall, right there and then.
Perversely - and get a lot of the titanium testicles on THIS guy - my house is currently full of home-made fudge. After Eight Fudge. Bounty-studded Fudge. Fudge made by the fair hand of my wife, who has on occasion this week offered me 'just a smidge, to test.' But no. I eschew the Fudge of love ('...and STILL you don't lose!' roars my toddler-brain) - were I to go on a rampage, frankly, you wouldn't hear about it till afterwards, when I was penitent and ready to confess, and I wouldn't got o town on d's homemade fudge. I'd go to Tesco and get an enormo-bag of M and Ms and eat them without tasting them, in secret, for the sheer visceral pleasure of self-defeat - did anyone miss the fact that in my case, this weight shit is frequently compulsive, and secret, and self-harming? Fairly sure I covered that, but might not have been for years...
But no. Bought myself a small bottle of apple juice (Because ooh, the pleasure) and a new box of breakfast cereal, came home, spat these words into the computer, and am going back to the bandaw in a moment). This week, I'm clearly not the Disappearing Man. This week, I'm the Staying-At-Home-In-The-Warm-And-Moving-Nowhere Man.
It happens. I know it happens. It's how you deal with it happening that's the key.
Onward, and downward, we go.
Bastard...
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
The Impatience Of the Long-Distance Disappearer
*Kicks stone, disconsolately.*
Hey hey.
Headlines first. Weigh-in today - 17st 10.25. Down two pounds.
Blood sugar - 8.5, after a week of mostly being in the 7s.
So, all is good and groovy, right?
Well...yeah...kinda. If you just look at the numbers.
The thing of course is to do that.
The other thing, unfortunately, is human nature. Normally kicks in at about this point, so it's hardly a surprise. I know the medical advice is that it's 'safe' and 'recommended' to lose at most two pounds a week. But the impatience of the long-distance Disappearer kicks in, and you start to want a fast forward button on your life, or a Rocky-style training montage to speed the whole damn thing up.
Perfectly natural, I know. Quite apart from the fact that we Eighties Teens were absolutely surrounded by training montages or friendship montages or skill-attainment montages (seriously, montages were big in the Eighties. Hell, everything was big in the Eighties), once you've been on a changed lifestyle path for a few weeeks, all the entirely invented viciousness stored in your fat cells starts to release into your bloodstream, and things seem so toddleristically unfair! You start to whinge and chunter - if those around you are lucky, you only do this in your head - about how him next door or her two doors down eats more than you and never puts on a pound. There's every likelihood that this is when you start making the voodoo dolls, of course.
But more than that, you start looking up. You look up at the mountain, rather than at your moving feet, and the whole mountainous nature of the mountain takes your breath away, and the 'safe' weightloss recommendation starts to feel like an artificial hand brake applied to your efforts to climb Mount Fat-Fuck. If you can afford it, and don't have a heart condition, this is probably also when speed starts to feel like a viable diet option.
Objectively, I'm 3.25 pounds away from my next milestone at 17 stone 7 pounds. Subjectively, it's two...more...bloody...weeeeeeks before I get there. Two more weeks of eating and watching and walking and bleeding, and around and around and around we go, like a hamster on a pigging wheel.
Christmas Day, in fact, is when I should hit the next milestone. So that'll be jolly. Then another three, or more likely four weeks before I dip under the 17 stone mark. That feels like aeeeeons away right now, let alone looking at the bigger chunk of mountain still left to go.
Sigh. Buck up, Fyler, you're depressing everyone. Objectively, as I say, the news is all good and groovy. It's just that, in Disappearing as in life, to quote Douglas Adams, 'the last thing, the very last thing you actually need is a sense of perspective.'
And today feels like a very perspectivey day.
Hey hey.
Headlines first. Weigh-in today - 17st 10.25. Down two pounds.
Blood sugar - 8.5, after a week of mostly being in the 7s.
So, all is good and groovy, right?
Well...yeah...kinda. If you just look at the numbers.
The thing of course is to do that.
The other thing, unfortunately, is human nature. Normally kicks in at about this point, so it's hardly a surprise. I know the medical advice is that it's 'safe' and 'recommended' to lose at most two pounds a week. But the impatience of the long-distance Disappearer kicks in, and you start to want a fast forward button on your life, or a Rocky-style training montage to speed the whole damn thing up.
Perfectly natural, I know. Quite apart from the fact that we Eighties Teens were absolutely surrounded by training montages or friendship montages or skill-attainment montages (seriously, montages were big in the Eighties. Hell, everything was big in the Eighties), once you've been on a changed lifestyle path for a few weeeks, all the entirely invented viciousness stored in your fat cells starts to release into your bloodstream, and things seem so toddleristically unfair! You start to whinge and chunter - if those around you are lucky, you only do this in your head - about how him next door or her two doors down eats more than you and never puts on a pound. There's every likelihood that this is when you start making the voodoo dolls, of course.
But more than that, you start looking up. You look up at the mountain, rather than at your moving feet, and the whole mountainous nature of the mountain takes your breath away, and the 'safe' weightloss recommendation starts to feel like an artificial hand brake applied to your efforts to climb Mount Fat-Fuck. If you can afford it, and don't have a heart condition, this is probably also when speed starts to feel like a viable diet option.
Objectively, I'm 3.25 pounds away from my next milestone at 17 stone 7 pounds. Subjectively, it's two...more...bloody...weeeeeeks before I get there. Two more weeks of eating and watching and walking and bleeding, and around and around and around we go, like a hamster on a pigging wheel.
Christmas Day, in fact, is when I should hit the next milestone. So that'll be jolly. Then another three, or more likely four weeks before I dip under the 17 stone mark. That feels like aeeeeons away right now, let alone looking at the bigger chunk of mountain still left to go.
Sigh. Buck up, Fyler, you're depressing everyone. Objectively, as I say, the news is all good and groovy. It's just that, in Disappearing as in life, to quote Douglas Adams, 'the last thing, the very last thing you actually need is a sense of perspective.'
And today feels like a very perspectivey day.
Tuesday, 4 December 2018
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!
'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!
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
The Belt Of Potential And The Pizza Stupidity
Been an interesting week.
On the one hand, I decided, round about the middle of last week, to dress up. To eschew my usual slothery in clothing and get back into trousers with all the complexities of the 21st century - zips and a button and suchlike madness.
All very well, but the pair into which I got were what I euphemistically describe as my 'comfy trousers.' Which is to say, 'big trousers.'
To give you some idea how long it's been since I last swanned around in them, I put them on, went out of my front door, annnd immediately had to grab at them to pull them up. Step, step, step - GRAB. Rearrange, seemingly firmly in place. Step, step, step, SLIP- GRAB!
So, I finally had to acknowledge to d (who loves nothing better than to try and get me into belts, despite my fundamental loathing of such masochistic items) that I needed a belt to stop myself from becoming a local scandal. A belt was procured and I slid it round myself.
One of the reasons I hate belts is that I'm always scared of the humiliation when they turn out to be human-sized, and do not go around the girth of me.
This off-the-shelf belt was very nearly that sort of belt. But importantly, not quite. I could just manage to pull it tight and fasten it on the last possible notch. As such, it became not a humiliation, but a challenge. We've started on the last possible notch. It will be another marker of progress as I become able to fasten it on tighter and tighter notches, and I daresay around entirely different trousers. A marker of progress, then, that doesn't rely on the Nazi Scales for its veracity.
All was going well. On one unofficial weigh-in this week, I saw a 17 in the 'Stones' column.
However, late last week I was stricken with a lurgi which saw my head become a bowl of snot and my chest a cheese-grater slathered in mucus. That rather knocked my walking schedule on the head, and replaced it with a lie in bed, whimpering, coughing and sleeping schedule, which affected my calorific-exercise balance more than somewhat.
Nevertheless, things were still going well - I've had blood sugar results in the 7s and 7s this week, which has been positive.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, I decided I could risk having a carb-heavy early dinner (round about 4.30pm). Had myself a pizza.
Have yet to...erm...shall we say get rid of the remnants of that pizza, some 21 hours on.
Which is why this morning's weigh-in - one with which I sought to argue for some hours! - puts me at:
18st 0.25.
Technically of course, this is highly positive and worth a yippedee doo-dah - it's a loss of two pounds, which is the 'right' amount to lose, medically speaking, in the space of a week. It's really only the fact that I saw a 17 earlier in the week, and the inherent understanding that one productive half-hour in the bathroom would see me over the 18 stone border, that makes it irritating to still be officially trapped on this side.
But there we are. Week 1, 2 pounds. Keeping to the schedule, next week I'll be well and truly into the 17s, rather than just barely so.
Having slept through the night for the first time in half a week, I feel better and stronger and all that happy Six Million Dollar Man crap today, even though the lurgi is still there on my chest. So the likelihood is that tomorrow I get back to the walking again, and on we go, pushing on down, two pounds and perhaps fewer stupid pizza moments at a time.
On the one hand, I decided, round about the middle of last week, to dress up. To eschew my usual slothery in clothing and get back into trousers with all the complexities of the 21st century - zips and a button and suchlike madness.
All very well, but the pair into which I got were what I euphemistically describe as my 'comfy trousers.' Which is to say, 'big trousers.'
To give you some idea how long it's been since I last swanned around in them, I put them on, went out of my front door, annnd immediately had to grab at them to pull them up. Step, step, step - GRAB. Rearrange, seemingly firmly in place. Step, step, step, SLIP- GRAB!
So, I finally had to acknowledge to d (who loves nothing better than to try and get me into belts, despite my fundamental loathing of such masochistic items) that I needed a belt to stop myself from becoming a local scandal. A belt was procured and I slid it round myself.
One of the reasons I hate belts is that I'm always scared of the humiliation when they turn out to be human-sized, and do not go around the girth of me.
This off-the-shelf belt was very nearly that sort of belt. But importantly, not quite. I could just manage to pull it tight and fasten it on the last possible notch. As such, it became not a humiliation, but a challenge. We've started on the last possible notch. It will be another marker of progress as I become able to fasten it on tighter and tighter notches, and I daresay around entirely different trousers. A marker of progress, then, that doesn't rely on the Nazi Scales for its veracity.
All was going well. On one unofficial weigh-in this week, I saw a 17 in the 'Stones' column.
However, late last week I was stricken with a lurgi which saw my head become a bowl of snot and my chest a cheese-grater slathered in mucus. That rather knocked my walking schedule on the head, and replaced it with a lie in bed, whimpering, coughing and sleeping schedule, which affected my calorific-exercise balance more than somewhat.
Nevertheless, things were still going well - I've had blood sugar results in the 7s and 7s this week, which has been positive.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, I decided I could risk having a carb-heavy early dinner (round about 4.30pm). Had myself a pizza.
Have yet to...erm...shall we say get rid of the remnants of that pizza, some 21 hours on.
Which is why this morning's weigh-in - one with which I sought to argue for some hours! - puts me at:
18st 0.25.
Technically of course, this is highly positive and worth a yippedee doo-dah - it's a loss of two pounds, which is the 'right' amount to lose, medically speaking, in the space of a week. It's really only the fact that I saw a 17 earlier in the week, and the inherent understanding that one productive half-hour in the bathroom would see me over the 18 stone border, that makes it irritating to still be officially trapped on this side.
But there we are. Week 1, 2 pounds. Keeping to the schedule, next week I'll be well and truly into the 17s, rather than just barely so.
Having slept through the night for the first time in half a week, I feel better and stronger and all that happy Six Million Dollar Man crap today, even though the lurgi is still there on my chest. So the likelihood is that tomorrow I get back to the walking again, and on we go, pushing on down, two pounds and perhaps fewer stupid pizza moments at a time.
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, 25 September 2018
The Psychopath Dial
Yes, yes, yes, hello again.
I always feel a little diffident these days when I come back to this blog, as though I'm creeping back in with a blanket over my head. No interviews, please - The Calorific Criminal is back for another period of self-flagellation, till he gets too busy and/or leaps off the Disappearing Wagon again and then doesn't come back for aaaaaages.
Well....yeah, kinda. If a blog is anything worth writing, it's a reflection of the real world. Annnnd that's my real world. So - take me while you get me, folks; I seem unlikely at this stage to get anything book-length together, so right now, it's this or nothing.
So, where were we? Oh yes, Tuesday.
Tuesday is weigh-in day.
I don't know how to explain this, because at the moment I look rather like Santa Claus' less reputable, gutter-living brother, but weigh-in this morning was:
18st 8.
260 pounds, for those not staring down the barrel of a Brexit. Near-as damnit 118 kg, for the metriphiles.
Now in cold hard black and white those may not look like great numbers for a nearly-47 male of five feet six, or...oh gods, hold on...1.68 metres (if you're British or French) or 1.68 meters (if you're not).
Nevertheless, in recent times when I've felt the need to restart the blog, I've usually been at least a stone (14 pounds) heavier than that, strugglling to 'see an 18'. So if nothing else, we start this time out slightly ahead of the previous game.
I'm also under orders to test my blood sugars - which, thanks once again to a refusal to have any kind of internationally standard system, will mean buggerall to anyone, but let's just say I was told that between 6-8 is ideal, and anything in single figures will do in a pinch. After having quite a reasonable stint on single-figure results, recently I've been having a bunch that are jusssst the wrong side of that that. Today is 10.5, yesterday 10.6, the day before 10.3 etc. So clearly, something needs doing that hasn't been happening recently. To be fair though, my lifestyle's been pretty unhealthy again lately. So yyyyeah - tackling that seems to be A Thing To Do.
On the distinctly up side, most of the tourists have now fucked off from our little seaside town, which will mean it will be possible to go for more walks without feeling the surging, seething need to hit people with sticks. I mean, I might still feel the need as we hurtle toward a calamitous Brexit, but if they're harder to find, I probably won't click over on the psychopath dial to actively hunt them down.
So here we are again. for those who don't know the rules of the game, the aim is to lose two pounds per week, which is the medically advised weight loss. There'll be weeks when that doesn't happen, there'll be weeks when things go catastrophically in the other direction. But the intention is to push down, and down, and down, over the course of one year. Two pounds a week is 104 pounds a year, which would put me at 154 pounds, or 11 stone. Believe it or not, at that point, I'd still have 14 pounds or 1 more stone to lose to achieve me ideal weight, according to bastards who probably eat pizza every day and never get fat...
So...yyyyeah. Here we jolly well go again - though this time, in a town mostly comprising of fish and chip shops, cake shops, an old-fashioned sweet shop, cafes, gastropubs, restaurants and a fatally delicious kebab shop.
What could possibly go wrong?
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