"Tart!" said Sian when I told her my plans for yesterday. "Nothing but a coffee tart, that's what you are..."
Now, far be it for me to point out that the idea of a coffee tart is Homer Simpson droolworthy. You know, crisp pastry, smooth coffee-flavoured frangipane, left to chill in the fridge till it's a lovely cool mouthful of coffee-unctuous wonder...
Sorry, where the hell was I?
Oh yeah - I was in Costa before work, meeting Rebecca. You have to go and meet Rebecca while she's about. It's part of the price of having an international jetsetting superstar journo as a pal - she's usually jetting off to fabulous places about twenty minutes after her "meeting for coffee" window closes. Poland next week, she tells me.
You'd know if you'd met Rebecca. She's one of those people you just simply don't forget. Possibly the bluest eyes ever seen in nature, hair the colour of hellfire and cliche, and the kind of open, engaging nature that makes her staggeringly good at talking to people of all ages - particularly the young. It's true to say that if you're a Real World friend of mine, and you've made it this far without me wandering off and finding someone more interesting to talk to, you can rest safe in the knowledge that you're pretty freakin' special. Rebecca knocked out the room the first time we met, simply by walking into it, and she's been walking into rooms ever since. Which is why it's always a pleasure to catch a coffee with her when she's in town. The last time we did this though, I was miserable, and probably brought her mood right down. I was feeling massively out of control, and heavy and undisciplined and generally blech. Yesterday - notsomuch. Back in control to some degree, heading in the right direction, all pretty groovy, so a good coffee was had by all at the Costa on our local retail park.
"You've brought your briefcase to breakfast," she noted.
"I have," I agreed. "It's part of a cunning plan I have to ask a favour. When we've coffee'd our fill, can you drop me at the train station. Starbucks calls!"
I'd just told her about my antics in London with the Starbucks and the tachycardia and the yadda yadda yadda, so I'm not sure whether I saw a thinning of her lips, but she agreed anyhow. So from Costa, I went to Starbucks, and stayed there from about 11 till 7.30 at night, when they threw me out on account of having homes to go to. Slackers!
"Tart!" said Sian when I told her my plans for yesterday. "Nothing but a coffee tart, that's what you are..."
"I prefer to think of myself as a decaff-addled bean-whore, if you don't mind," I told her, and she allowed the description.
So yesterday largely consisted of pretty-much-buggerall in the way of exercise, and lots of venti decaff skinny frapp lights, with an occasional iced cappucino thrown in for good measure, and as an experiment. Surprisingly, I discovered that artificial sweetener does dissolve in a cold drink - in Costa. In Starbucks, notsomuch. (Shrugs). Information probably of use to no-one, but there it is nonetheless.Also had a steak roll for lunch and a jacket potato for dinner before heading home. That was yesterday - two coffee houses, scads and scads of work accomplished, celebrity friend-chat enjoyed, coffee-based insults duly accepted and possibly trumped.
Today's been altogether odder and full of bitty things. Woke up to the alarm I'd asked d to set - at 6.15. The plan was I'd do my Trail walk before the day began. Ended up doing nothing of the kind, but organising the bejeesus out of the office and working for three hours before I was due to start. Popped out for a thoroughly useless ear appointment at 11, and took off an hour early, at 4, to go and do my six mile walk then instead (sue me - I gave three and took one). That felt really good today, and much of it buggered off behind me without me consciously feeling it. Ended up, according to the Gestapo Phone, burning 900 calories in my running hither, yon, and yon-next-door throughout the day - which is just as well, as today has comprised of:
Weetabix, three, with semi-skimmed milk.
Coffee, two mugs, large, with semi-skimmed milk.
Toast, three pieces, with butter, and cold tomatoes, one tin (at which point half the readers retch in disgust, I'm aware...)
I reckon 900 calories is at least fairly close to putting me calorie-neutral on the day up to this point. Dinner is going to be an omelette with steak and tomatoes, so it'll be a little hefty, but mainly protein, with some veg and some fat. Important to remember I'm only trying to lose 2lb per week now the initial first-week impetus has passed. If I can get to 18st 7, it should feel like a landmark, but honestly it won't. It'll feel like I'm only half a stone over the boundary of where I said I'd never go again, rahter than a whole stone over it - for some reason on my first Disappearing jag, 18st was a Rubicon; beneath it I felt like a serious Disappearing Man, striving towards a goal. Over it, I felt like a Fat Fuck, swimming desperately downstream to avoid the surgeon's knife. So the first real landmark will be in hopefully a month or so, when we se a 17 on the Nazi Scales.
Back to Starbucks tomorrow - lots of work still to do!
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