The Flabby Phoenix Necessity

Well, this sucks.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, daleks and cybermen, and welcome to a moment of almost complete defeat.

This is Tony, your once-Disappearing Man, having, over the course of about a year, managed to re-appear to a quite staggering degree.

Weigh-in this morning - yes, I know it's Saturday, but it's Restarting Day, so you get a weigh-in - was a thoroughly depressing 19st 2.75 lbs. That's 268.76 pounds, for the Americans, and nigh on 122 Kg for whoever else there is. I've managed to climb my way back to within 20 lbs of where I was when I was peeing blood, having hospitalising heart issues and genuinely considering a gastric band.

This time, I don't have time for flim-flammery - there is no gastric band in my future. It's down to me.
Just, of course, as the re-Appearance has been. If I look back over the last year, one thing is clear - you don't re-Appear to the level that I have if you have a normal relationship with food. There has been hiding, there have been secret binges, there has been a kind of dedication to putting on weight irrespective of pleasure (in some bizarre situations, I've pretty much force-fed myself), and clearly this has to stop.

So here we are, on St David's Day, re-starting. There's not the sense of ceremony there was the first time, if I'm honest - I don't think my brain has flipped its switch into Disappearing Mode to help me, particularly, though I don't feel the need to force-feed right now. The trick of course will be to not give into it when I do, but to establish good habits, rather than destructive ones, again.

Oh, two things - yes, I understand of course that the last year proves very clearly that all the Disappearing in the world hasn't "cured" me. There are issues in my history that make fatness comfortable, and something in me that dries me towards it, irrespective of my conscious desire to not be this way. Waah waaah, we all have issues, and I'm no different. The point of Disappearing was always to impose the conscious will over the subconscious desire for self-destruction, and remake myself in my own consciously-desired image. That's what starts again today.

And let me be very clear - some of you who know me closely understand that I'm trying to take a year off personal social media. It's one of a series of things I've called "The Year of Living Beeblebrox" - doing new things, or doing things properly, just to break moulds in my life. I'll be honest with you - that's not going terribly well, generally. But the break from personal social media has been fine. Been a relief, to be honest.

But something happened recently - I realised a thing. As you may or may not know, I have a day-job, and I have a business (called Jefferson Franklin). I have seldom taken any day job seriously, because I've always thought, to some extent, that that meant I'd be taking life too seriously.

But Jefferson...that I take seriously. More seriously than my day-job probably. More seriously than my writing, and certainly of late, more seriously than my Disappearing. Which is interesting, because Jefferson, of all the parts of my life, is currently the most successful.

Funny, that...

So perhaps this isn't the Year of Living Beeblebrox, after all. Perhaps this should really be the Year of Living Jefferson. The year of taking myself (just a little!) seriously, in work, and business, and writing, and Disappearing. Perhaps we should see what happens then.

So, while I will still generally be absent from personal social media this year, I AM going to go back to posting links every day to this blog on Facebook. All part of the work of the year. If you don't like it, sue me.

Just four stone separate me from where I was entirely comfortable. Five separate me from where I imagine I'd feel even better. So what's goal 1? Well, clearly, when I started out the Disappearing the first time, by the time I got to 19st 2.75, I'd lost my first stone, and my next goal was to "see an 18". I'll be honest with you, seeing an 18 holds no thrill for me this time round. I won't really feel like I'm making any progress till I at least see a 17 on the Nazi Scales. So this time, that's goal one. 17st 13.

And how to get there? Simply - no desserts, no cream, no sugar, no alcohol, limited fat, limited carb, more protein, more portion control, and more exercise. I'm re-organising my office at the minute (it's taken weeks so far), and the exercise bike is a little unreachable. But by Monday that will have changed, so there'll be biking in my future. Biking, discipline, self-control and progress.

Other news - big day to begin this re-Disappearance - we're off to Cardiff in a minute, as d has her "Life In The UK" test to take, preparatory to applying for Dual Citizenship. I of course...am going to Starbucks.

Here we go then. Let's make some progress, shall we? Welcome back, O Disappearing Chorus!