The Great Manipulator

Had a fight with d last night. Grew up seemingly out of nowhere, and was one of our rare huffy moments. It was late, and we were going to bed. I said I was going to take some stool softeners because it was Monday. Those of you with memories stretching back a week will remember I was going to start doing that the night before a weigh-in, because the insidious whispering of weighing in "full" to speak, and then convincing myself I was doing better than I really was, was becoming a serious annoyance. d reacted to the news last night as though I were a brittle-boned pale and trembling pill-popping anorexic, claiming I was trying to "manipulate the results". Me...a journalist...manipulate information?? I don't know where she gets these ideas...

We ended up huffing onto our respective sides for about half an hour of "I'm-not-going-to-sleep-until-I-get-an-apology" sighing. In the end, we kind of found our way back together, played a very good game of chess (seriously, not a metaphor for anything, we played chess at about one in the morning. I thought I had it sewn up, but as it turned out, the only thing sewn up was the sack in which I found myself), and fell asleep more united.

This morning, just for the sheer narkiness of it, I weighed twice - pre and post, as it were. Pre-bathroom, the result was 18 stone 5.75 - up two and a half pounds on last week. Post-bathroom...
18 stone 4.75! Oh yeah, just call me the great manipulator...Machiavelli'd be dead proud, I'm sure.

So, as forecast, I've gone up - by my reckoning, by a pound and a half. This is hardly cause to rend one's garments and go wailing through the streets, but still, on top of everything this week, it seems to have dispirited me more than somewhat. Actually, it's not the pound and a half, it's more a throwaway comment I made to a Facebook friend this week that sort of skewed my self-perception. Andrew's a relatively new friend, and also, as it happens, the guy who edits my Devil's Guide entries. He posted a status this week that said he hadn't drunk alcohol for nine months.

While in no way seeking to equate the two, given that he likes a laugh, I said "Haven't had dessert for sixteen months. Or fun..."

Of course it's overblown, self-regarding and, above all its other crimes, inaccurate. I've had plenty of fun since giving up desserts and fizzy drinks. But something about the line just won't let me go. It's that sense of woe-is-me, so hard-done-by, don't-I-deserve-more-for-my-efforts self-pity that frankly makes me nauseated with myself, but behind it, I think there may be some little kernel of hard, nuggetty utterly unpleasant truth. I've said before that with the exception of the medical consequences, I was perfectly happy eating whatever I liked, when I liked, in quantities that I liked. Since I've stopped, I've been miserable for great swathes of the time, and insanely neurotic for the remainder. That, I think, is why I try and work hard for good news on a Tuesday morning - it reminds me why I'm putting myself and every poor sod around me through all this, because otherwise, between the foot pain, and the muscle spasms and the hunger and the still-fairly-noxious green embrace of salads and the dessert-sniffing, I'm not at all sure it's worth all the freakin' heartache.

Incidentally, while at the time I thought it was the most melodramatic twaddle, d's argument from last night,  when viewed in the cold light of day, is frighteningly plausible. You'll have gathered enough by now to know I'm a creature of habits, which if given their head can easily become addictions. In fact, I have a nasty sense that I really rather like being addicted to things - it convinces some lame-ass part of my brain that I'm exciting, that there's something rather dangerous and self-destructive about me, when most of the time, the truth is really rather unprepossessing. So the idea of simply switching addictions, becoming addicted to the process of slimming, or the feeling of being thin, and going to extremes to achieve that, and/or maintain it, is not at all far-fetched to me. She also noted my inability so far to take particular pleasure in any of the progress that I've made, but always to be looking to the next thing, driven on like a whipped thing by my own dissatisfaction. This too would probably easily fit into a switch of addictions if I chose to abandon my last shreds of perspective, although at this stage, I think it's fair to say I'm still in the training wheels stage, and there's still so very far to go, there's also a real danger in stopping to congratulate myself - the danger of saying that I've done enough, and slipping all the way back and then beyond.

That said, on a day when I have in fact slipped back a little, I didn't exactly redouble my efforts today. In fact, I haven't walked anywhere today, I've taken buses everywhere. Did I mention the dispiriting effect of the week?

Ach, here's to getting back on the bike tonight, and back to positive thinking and positive actions tomorrow.