Tuesday, 5 August 2014

The Carpenters Capsules

Strange week. Been doing quite well for most of it, then the night before last, something stopped working, not in my brain but in my body. This is not a blog known for its delicacy, so I might have to have a run-up at it...hold on...

My bathroom visits became simply Sudoku time? Is that sufficiently vague, while still imparting all you need to know?

All day yesterday, I felt myself weighed down, anchored by an increasing balloon of gut. Smoothing a hand down the front of me (and you know I do that for a ready reckoner), there was a distinct and immoveable bulge.

Ma, as we walked up an interminable set of steps on one of our walks, sniffed.
"Oh, that's started, has it?"
Something had started...or rather stopped, that much I knew.
"You get that from me," she said, seeming less than impressed that some genetic defect should have shown up.
"What?" I said, panting - the stairs went on apparently to the feet of God - "What exactly do I get from you?"
"Spastic -" she said, which I thought was rather mean, frankly. The words Fuck you, you can walk on your own if that's how you feel bounced loosely round my brain.
"- Colon..." she gasped, stopping "to admire the view" of what was essentially a construction site.
"That...sounds like a...horrible...present," I managed to say.
"It is," she agreed, with a degree of feeling that made me wonder oh so briefly how many Sudokus a day she was getting through at the moment.
"I've got something for that," she said. "I'll give you some when we get home."

Thus it was, ladies, gentlemen, readers all, that I passed a truly depressing Rubicon, being handed a small baggy of pharmaceuticals - by my own mother, no less - that promised not to get me high, make me see God or dance all night and gasp at the morning, but merely ensure that my digestive system did what a digestive system is under normal circumstances wont to do.

The moment had a particular resonance, as d and I had, only the night before, watched a documentary on superlative singer but anorexic nightmare, Karen Carpenter, who had gobbled these particular pharmaceutical sweeties down like there was goig to be a shortage, and whose heart had apparently given out largely as a result.
I took mine yesterday at about 4 o'clock in Tesco's cafe.

Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing happened, all night. I ate another meal, wondering all the while what effect it would have on this week's weigh-in. Ma's sage advice, on solemnly hading over her drugs, had been "Under no circumstances go walking in the morning." But when I woke this morning, still, nothing was happening. I woke, I chatted to d, she got ready for her lift to work.

BANG!

Something happened. I don't think you need me to tell you what.
The relief was staggeringly palpable.
I use the word advisedly. I staggered onto the Nazi Scales for this week's weigh-in, feeling rather more confident than I had the night before. I did the smoothing hand thing again, and it was flatter.

The result of all this chemical chicanery? A weigh-in result of:
17st 12.5.

So that's it. We're under the 18 stone marker, finally. I think that calls for a recount, don't you?
At 2lb a week, from here, I should be 16st 10.5 by the day after my tenth wedding anniversary (29th September).  16st 2.5 on my 43rd birthday on 22nd October. 15st 12.5 by Bonfire Night on November 5th. 14st 12.5 by Christmas Eve. And 13st 12.5 by 10th February, 2015.

Under 15st by Christmas? That's a goal worth reaching for. Onwwwwwaaaaaaard!

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