Monday, 11 June 2012

Conversations With My Mara


Did pretty well for most of today – blood was 5.2 this morning, had a few Starbucks along the way, but nothing outrageous. Didn’t get to eat solid food till I got back to Paddington at 7 in the evening though, and, as I write this on a once-more delayed train back to Wales, I’m chatting to the Mara in my mind.

The Mara? Sanskrit idea, basically a tempter…like The Devil would be, if God had a sense of humour. I only know about the Mara because it was personified in a couple of top-class 80s Doctor Who episodes with some really dodgy inflatable snakes in (don’t ask). But the concept of the Mara is a reasoner, a needler, a tempter, sitting there in your mind, to argue you insane…

“You ate too late you know…it’ll all just sit there turning to flab now. All the work of the week will be undone…”
“Shurrup. I’ve had a good-ish week, and it’s only 7 – time of a normal dinner. It’s not like I’m having fish and chips or anything, just something relatively healthy…”
“Relatively healthy?! Bet there’s a day’sworth of calories in that one meal. Train station food, innit?
“Well, if it is, it’s the only solid food I’ve had today, so that should be OK, shouldn’t it?”
“Nah…S’posed to spread it out, aren’tcha? Eat a bit, use a bit, eat a bit, use a bit…not eat buggerall, eat buggerall, eat buggerall, Whomp, eat loads!”
“It’s not loads!”
“Your system’s gonna be craving everything it can get its hands on, innit? Then wallop, you give it a day’sworth of calories all in one lump – s’gonna hold on to those calories good and tight. Bet you it’s begun plastering them onto your flab-rolls already. Feeling fat now, aren’tcha?”
“Welllllll….yeah, maybe a little, but that’s just cos I’m full.”
“Yeah – full of flab, mate. You’ve blown it. Blown that whole week of pedalling and healthy-ish eating, cos you ate late, and you ate loads!”
“It’s not bloody loads!!”
 
...And so on. Am seriously thinking about punching myself in the face right about now to short-circuit the demented (and dementing!) dialogue. Or monologue. Or…whatever.
Anyhow. This is the day I’ve had. Busy, busy, busy, worry, worry, worry – mostly about my dad, by the way, it hasn’t all been this kind of infinitely recursive futile bullshit!

And then this, all the way home. Taking a pill tonight to shut my Mara right the Hell up, and then tomorrow is what it is. I’m still hoping it’ll be kind to me, in response to my first week properly back on the wagon. I’m not really believing I’ll have undone all my good work by eating ‘late’ in the evening. But we won’t know what’s what till tomorrow.

Incidentally, stopped off at a pharmacy in Paddington to try and get the long-standingly useless Xenical prescription filled. Nope. End of June, they say…while acknowledging that they were previously told the end of May. Sigh…on we go, in a life without orange grimness.

See – there’s a bright side to everything, really, I guess.

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