The Reluctant Return

Well, hello again.

I've meant to write a copuple of entries since the last one, but have pretty much convinced myself that I've been too busy. Don't get me wrong, I've been madly busy, but the whole Disappearing schtick is supposed to be about finding balance in life, making time to include some exercise in my otherwise sedentary-jobbed life, and making positive changes to my lifestyle.

Let me say without prevarication, that's been a bit fucked up lately.
My last weigh-in - the one I missed reporting to you - showed me as 19st 1.25, so back into the 19s. That was disappointing, but given that I hadn't done any exercise, and had been eating rather unwisely (Translation: there had been chocolate, or desserts, or high-carb meals late at night, or some other dumbass thing), I wasn't as disappointed by it as I probably should have been. What's more, have I changed my habits back to full-on Disappearing mode in the week since that weigh-in? No, not at all.

So all in all, things have not been on track for a couple of weeks, and if I let the catch-all excuse of 'busyness' determine me towards a flamethrower policy of doing whatever the hell I want to do, then things won't improve over the next few weeks either, they'll just get progressively worse and harder to shift back into a positive gear. So on the principle of faking it till we make it, let's assume a Disappearing attitude, and see what happens next.

Faking it? Yes, the positivity of the thing has safely evaporated now, and indeed so has most of the progress, so it's a case of hauling my ass back on the bike and being Mr Sensible all over again. On the other hand, my system is no longer conditioned to exercise and healthier eating, so with any luck the rapid loss of the first few pounds of mostly-water should kick in again and give me a boost.

(Sigh). Here's hoping, anyway.

15th February - The Nazi Forgetfulness

No, still haven't put batteries in the Nazi Scales. Which is extra tricky because I'm either not that much heavier than last week, or significantly heavier than last week and damn close to where I started, depending on which faint, weak-ass signal of their forgetfulness we believe.

Weigh-in today put me as either:
19st 00 or
19st 1.25 or
19st 2.

Who the hell knows which if any of these are accurate? Must get round to buying batteries. Must do. Because, y'know, I so want to face the genuine music of my week of more or less exercise-freedom.

One thing I'll tell you - the propensity exists in me for a dangerous new routine. A Costa coffee shop has opened up just round the corner from me, and while I vow my unswerving loyalty to my particular Starbuckers, I also vow my increasing poverty, and it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to go round the corner for processed-sandwich lunch and coffee at Costa than it is to jump on a train and spend the day being all productive. In itself, that's probably not so bad, but it is rather facilitating my not-new but new-this-week habit (honestly, it must get exhausting listening to which particular pothole I've fallen down this week) of buying a bag of cashews and chomping my way through them as I plough through work towards a tight deadline.
Clearly, this needs to be stopped at some point soon, because whichever of the weigh-in numbers is actually accurate, it's not good. Also, I need to start biking more properly, and walking more properly again, to kick the living crap out of my metabolism and get it to remember its function.

Walking goooood. Cashews gorgeous little bastards, but basically a tiny individual sack of fat and calories.

When the Nazis get theire memory back, I promise I'll interrogate them in a more rigorous manner - three potential weigh-in figures is just ridiculous.

14th February - The Valentine Conundrum

Part of the point about Disappearing is shifting your mind from a state in which you're doing something you don't want to do to a state in which you're doing something you either do want to do it, or you just do it because it's what you do.

Holidays are legendarily tricky as far as that's concerned, because the messages you get from everywhere, from every societal norm there is, are all geared towards consumption. It's one of those scattergun scenarios where the social convention assumes that every other day of the year, you're a sensible person, despite for the most part a staggering absence of evidence of any such thing. Food that's technically unwise for Disappearers is also imbued in our culture with all kinds of messages of its own - Thanksgiving food equals plenty and togetherness. Christmas food equals...well, plenty, togetherness and screw it, we have January to cope with soon enough. Valentine's Day of course equates sweetness with love.

All of which is something of a lazy introduction to the idea that this year, d and I made each other our Valentine's gifts. Because d has mad wicked skills as a baker, she made me some cake. And it was glorious, thankyouverymuch, and I enjoyed every minute and every mouthful of it.

The point is not "Waaah, I had caaaaake!" Cake is good. We love cake. Especially cake as a representation of time and effort and skill and love. We are entirely pro-cake.

The point is that I've been that guy this week - the guy who's by no means a sensible person the rest of the time. Seem to have developed a fetish for roasted cashew nuts this week, and not just a passing handful of the beautiful salty bastards. Nono - a bagful. At a time. Most days of the week.
This means, effectively, I'm too stupid to eat love-cake this week.

What's undoubtedly more is that I've fallen into that state of deadline panic where I can take time to do all the fun things, like going to see Deadpool twice in one day (which, as a way of spending some time, by the way, I heartily recommend), but when it comes to getting on the bike, I've been all "Noooo, don't have time - have a deadline to meet!"
So - yeah, too stupid for love-cake. But let's not get maudlin about it. There will be consequences. They will be dire. And we pick ourselves the hell back up and Disappear again.

12th February - The Hazelnut Gift Temptation

"Here you go, Tony," said Naz, popping a promotional gift on my table.
At least, I assume it was a promotional gift. Harry later asked me if I'd had one, so I assume they were being given out as a Valentine's Day celebration at Starbucks - two Ferrero Rocher in a sleeve, the idea being there was "one for you, and one for them," them being your Valentine.

Now, given my freedom, I'll snarf a bucketload of these gorgeous little senseless beasts - hazelnut, chocolate, wafer shell, more chocolate, embedded with nutty bits and wankily individually wrapped in gold foil, leading in the UK to an infamous ad campaign where an ambassador sent a big trayful of the little buggers as a way of "spoiling" his guests at a reception.

As I say, me and Ferrero, we have an understanding. d and Ferrero - notsomuch. She has a Thing about hazelnuts in the same way Donald Trump has a thing about Muslims or thinking - an almost fundamental aversion. Hazelnuts in chocolate, she regards as almost as much of a gastronomic war crime as chocolate and orange, a kind of "Why would you do that to innocent ingredients?" loathing.

That meant I had a chocolate dilemma.
I know, I know, sounds like I'm being a drama queen, but think about it. They're specifically Valentine's chocolates. It's not like I can pass them on to someone else without getting a sideways glance and quite possibly getting maced in the face. I can hardly give them back, because who in their right minds spurns free chocolate unless they're saying to the giver "Fuck you and your chocolate gift." And the only thing sadder in the universe than returned chocolate is thrown away chocolate, its postential of sweet joy squandered without ever having the chance to shine, to bring a smile to any face, which all the hours of labour involved in its needlessly poncey creation have anticipated.

The Ferrero Rocher sat there for hours, occasionally catching my eye and giving the chocolate equivalent of a hopeful, fragile smile and big eyes. I ordered coffee after coffee, and their imaginary eyes went down again, saddened that I was ignoring them.
Eventually, I had to leave. There were things I had to do, places I had to be. The Ferrero Rocher caught my eye again, and there seemed to be no hope left in their big, wide imaginary eyes, only the glimpses of a saddened moistness.

"Oh, come here then," I said, and it was like all their Christamses had come at once. I unwrapped both Rocher and snaffled them there and then before leaving the coffee shop. I like to think it's how they would have wanted to go.

So - v bad, as Bridget Jones would say, but I literally had no other option in the world. One's heartlessness extends only so far, you know.

11th February - The Sweetcorn Transit Experiment

"Here you go, honey," said d, handing me a lovely bowlful of Mexican goodness, with a whole heck of a lot of sweetcorn in the middle.
I smiled, then looked across at her. "This is about what I told you, isn't it?"
She grinned. "Mayyyybe."

You see, there's probably such a thing as oversharing. Anyone who's read many of the entries in the original Disappearing Man probably understands that I don't know where the line is. Y'know, that line where ordinary conversation ends and oversharing begins.

On the day of my weigh-in, I'd met up with d after her shift, and mentioned that, while I'd weighed heavier than I'd hoped to, mid-morning, I'd entirely exploded and wondered what I would have weighed if I could have pressed the Nazi Scales into service right then and there. That much you all know.

What you don't know is what I then said to her.
"Thing is, as I was about to flush, I was utterly perplexed."
She looked at me with a "Why are you telling me this and do I even want to know?" expression on her face.
"I was trying to remember the last time I ate bloomin' sweetcorn," I explained, not at the time registering her expression. "Don't think it was in the Mexican rice, was it?"
It wasn't, she agreed.
"Christ - then it must be from the pizza I had two days ago!"
She looked perplexed, then a dawning look of dread passed over her face. "Jesus, man! I know your blood pressure's chilled out as it comes, but that's taking sloth to a whole new level. I'll get you some 'special yoghurt,' shall I?"

And that had been that - although of course, secretly it hadn't. Secretly, in the background of my day to day life, I'd been calculating how much weight I could legitimately take off the weigh-in figure for two days of accumulated food which I was walking around carrying the weight of without it tehnically being a part of me.

Don't judge me, it's a sickness, alright?!

"Mayyyybe," said d now. "I figured we could actually track the time of your intestinal transit."
"Y'know, most people would find that a bit weird."
"Give it up," she chuckled, "I know you've been thinking about it."

Curses! Rumbled again.

Mercy and the Nazi Scales

Got on the Nazi Scales first thing this morning before my eyes were properly open or my brain properly booted up.

"Lo," they said.

"Lo?" I asked. "What, are we going all gospel now? Is there a child born to us in the east or something? What the hell are you talking about, Lo?"
I got off, the scales wheezed, getting their breath and eventually their cryptic message disappeared. I kick the them again to get them working.
"Lo," they said again.
"Oh." I said. My Inner Editor itched, and I scratched it. "You mean Low," I told them. "Would one more letter have killed you?"
The Nazi Scales, it seems, in some sort of plea for mercy, have exhausted their battery. I suppose, technically speaking, that's what happens when you weigh a ridiculous number of times a day. Fine. At some point, I need to gut the little bastards and find out what kind of batteries they take to make them all bright and shiny and happy again.

But not today. Today has been a time of day-jobbery and moderate panic that an edit that should be relatively simple appears not to be diminishing, no matter how much of it I do. Right now though, I don't even have time to worry about that - somehow it comes to be later than eight at night, and I have to pick up d from work at 9.45, so I have to stop everything, jump on the bike and pedal.

Pedal, fat boy, pedal! The Nazis can wait for another day to get some mercy shown to them.

9th February - The Mushroom Failure and The Dessert Success

As predicted, the weigh-in was a setback. To be absolutely honest, it was more of a setback than I'd expected - I weighed in at 18st 13 lb. Three whole pounds of backslide. Though that said, that was before I went to Starbucks for the day, and round about mid-morning, the coffee did what coffee is famous for, and much of me exploded - and naturally, all I could think was "Damn, if only I'd waited to weigh till after that..."

But that's not what happened, so the official figure stands. To say there's room for improvement would be assinine and anodyne at the exact same moment, but that's what weeks are for - to make the improvements we want to see in our lives, whether they be personal, political, creative or Disappearing. You have another week, get to it and carpe the fuck out of that diem.

This evening was reasonably good - yes, technically we went ot an Italian for dinner again (I have no idea what it is about Tuesdays in Cardiff with d, but Italian seems to be our go-to at the moment), but I eschewed the joy of pasta for a chicken saltimbocca (chicken breast, run over by something heavy, wrapped in thin ham, and paired with a white wine sauce and (as it happened), some less than spectacular saute potatoes. Had a starter too, because they were insanely cheap - breaded garlic mushrooms. They were ordered and eaten before the whole "nothing fried" thing even crossed my mind. Don't know what to tell you - I appear to have a weakness for fungi.

That said, we did stroll our eyeballs around the dessert menu. And I was going to be good.
"Oh look - they have a sundae," said d.
"Ohhhh fuck," I murmured.
For those who don't know me well enough to know this, I have notsomuch a weakness for sundaes as a major freaking personality disorder where they're concerned. Sundaes are the can-can dancers of the dessert world, all frills and hidden delights, kicking up their creamy skirts and daring you to dive on in.

This one in particular promised richness, darkness, bittersweetness in its chocolate salted caramel heart.
I sighed.
"Nnnnope," I almost mourned.
"Good answer," said d, and off we went to the movies to watch Shakespeare on stage. The Winter's Tale. I'd forgotten everything about it, despite having read it many years ago. Then we watched it. Now I understand why I'd forgotten everything about it. It went on for about three lifetimes, and by the time Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh were taking their curtain calls, we had roughly fifteen minutes to get to the last train home. There's power walking, and then there's "I'm gonna be stranded, freezing my ass off on the streets of Cardiff" walking. We did that second kind of walking, and made it to the train with five minutes to spare, but very little left in the way of lung capacity or will to live.
So this is me, embarking on another week of Disappearing after a disappointing but understandable result. The Disappointing Man, perhaps? Ach, maybe, but philosophy is a great consolation on days like this. Sometimes, you just have to say "Shit happens - after you've weighed in," and get the hell back on with what works.

The Elevator Plunge

Never underestimate the power of liquids.

Had a mostly Starbucks day yesterday, and weighed in the night, before getting on the bike, only to find myself - let's just say, worse than before I started all this.

Much biking later - well, I say much biking, by which I mean a meagre 400 calories of biking later - I got back on the scales and found myself 2.5 pounds lighter. A hearty pee lost me another pound and a half. And so it went. By this morning, I'd lost a whopping great six pounds in a kind of middle-of-the-night where-the-hell-did-that-go elevator plunge. I'm still heavier than I was last Tuesday, but given the week I've had, that's pretty understandable - and tonight, there's a baked rice in my future, along with more biking. I guess the lesson of this is that weigh-ins, useful as they are as stakes in the ground by which we mark the direction of a trend, are like taking a Polaroid of ourselves as we are that minute - a heavy meal or a massive quantity of liquid probably won't make us feel like we've put on weight, but the scales will record it because it's all part of the system we're capturing a snapshot of at that moment.

What happens tomorrow? Who knows? Heaviness in all probability - I have to be on, at the latest, the 8.38 train to Cardiff in the morning, which means I probably will still have tonight's rice meal in my system as part of the result I record as my third official weigh-in. The important thing is to let these things be what they are, rather than to go massively off the rails of "It's not working, I'm crap, fuck it, bring me chocolate!" Bad results come sometimes from bad behaviours or routine slippage. Sometimes, later in the process, they come from doing absolutely everything you can and your body clamming up and saying "Na-uh, fuck you, I'm not playing any more." The point is they come. The trick is to not let them become the only thing that comes. Good results come too, if you stay on the path, or, if you've fallen off, if you get back on the path.

That's probably the weirdest thing about the whole weightloss game. If you have a system that works, and you stick to it, success is actually mathematically likely over time. It's the million things that can sway you from your course that bring you failure.

So - tomorrow will be what it will be. I'm back on the bike tonight (though off it again tomorrow - long story short, the theatre show we were going to see last week is actually happening tomorrow instead). But the continuation of the Disappearing is not put in jeopardy by a bad result. We go forward from here.

Well, we go to the bike from here, technically, but you know what I mean...

The Sliding Doors Sunday

I woke up this morning with two potential days stretching out ahead of me, Sliding Doors-style. In one, I sat around at home, possibly ordering in lunch, and eventually biking. In the other, I bogged off to Starbucks, focused on some work, then came home and eventually did some biking. I threw off the covers, intending to go for option 2. Then I sighed, thought about it, pulled the covers back over myself and determined instead to go for option 1. A little while later, when d woke up, we went for breakfast at McDonalds (plain porridge and an orange juice in my case – told you I’d be back on Disappearing form today). Then she went off to work, and I contemplated a long day at home.

Then I contemplated a long day not at home.

That was some pretty enticing contemplation. I jumped on a train and went to Starbucks. If nothing else, you see, it helped me break what could have been the beginning of a dangerous habit, and if we’ve learned anything at all by now, it’s that I am a creature of habit. Having had unhealthy food delivered to me a few times this week, it’s begun to seem like “What I do when I’m home for the day.” Bad habit to get into. Once in a while, sure. Habitually, nooooo.

So I did a Starbucks flip-flop, headed to Cardiff, got an agreeable amount of work done, and, through the course of the day, ate a total of two pots of porridge and one pot of nuts. Now, having come home, it’s time to implement the only element that was nailed into place whichever of the days I went through, and get on the bike, to reintroduce my system to the notion that it moves about a bit now and then. Time, in fact, to re-establish a good habit in my days, to drive myself if not exactly down (making actual weightloss progress seems a bit of a distant dream at this point in the week), then at least to arrest the damage of a couple of days of sloth and Very Hungry Caterpillar-style consumption. Here’s to hurting like a sonofabitch when I stagger off the bike tonight.

6th February - The Caterpillar Paradigm

I rarely take a day off from anything – the day-job, the editing, the geek writing, the Disappearing. When I do, though, I take them right the hell off and in another county.

Today, I took a look out the window at the stormy, pissing-down weather and thought a handful of single-syllable words: “Sod that for a lark,” more or less covers it.

d had a day off too, and while we thought about doing any number of things – new coffee shop, breakfast out, movies – in the end, we decided on the warmer, cuddlier option of sitting, snuggling on the couch for hours long enough to get ass-carbuncles, watching recorded TV, Netflixing and chilling. 

Lunch was a small pizza and chicken strips. Dinner was curry and rice. Biking was contemplated, annnnd then frankly not done. This makes actually the second or third night in a row where I’ve done precisely nothing in terms of exercise, and overall, a day containing both pizza and rice is massively unwise. Essentially, today, I emulated The Very Hungry Caterpillar – sitting extremely still in a duvet-cocoon, occasionally pouring food into my face.

Of course the trouble with the Caterpillar Paradigm is that rather than turning into a butterfly, one turns rather more into a slug if one follows it too often or too assiduously. Tomorrow needs to be significantly different. Am I likely to have made progress in my Disappearing come Tuesday? Not on the basis of today, or any recent days. Am I likely to in fact have slipped back some? Yes, absolutely.

It's incredibly easy, contemplating this, to say “Fuck it!” and simply eat what we like. I’m not going to do that. Tomorrow needs to be a return to Disappearing form, before a couple of days of busy ass-sitting turns into a slippery slope to Reappearing.

The Big Stick

Anyone got a big stick I could borrow?

The plan for last night was to get some dinner inside me, get on the bike and go collect d from work.

In the event I got some dinner inside me....and went to collect d from work. The flaw there, really, is that while my mind is as 21st century and progressive as you like, my body appears to still be a cack-handed 1970s unreconstructed dickhead, who stopped off in student digs along the way to blow up a few cookers.

Yes, really. At least two cookers exploded while I was using them. With a blithe self-regard that I like to think is charming, I succeed in not taking that personally, or indeed seeing it as any kind of message from the cookers of the world to stay the fuck away from them at all costs.

That means that while in the reality of the world, my none-too-ambitious dinner - chicken, brussell sprouts, rice - should have taken a maximum of 25 minutes to cook, and at most the same again to eat, leaving me plenty of time to jump on the bike and pedal, in reality, our kitchen looked like something out of a Buster Keaton movie during the more than forty minutes it took me to persuade the food to become...well, food, really. The kicker of which is that while I cooked two pieces of chicken, I ended up throwing one away, being both full and calorifically conscious.

So that's at least two nights, possibly longer, when I've done no biking. This could eeeeeeasily become a pattern - I have plenty of work to do that whispers seductively to me that sitting on my ass and getting it done is far more important than 'wasting' an hour on the bike, plus showering time, plus yadda yadda yadda.

Which is why I need a big stick. Made of, y'know, willpower and beatings.

Sigh. Tonight, goddammit, there will be biking.

Biking.

Right...

The Myth of Captain Healthy

While I'm thinking of it, the other reason not to weigh every goddamn day or chance you get is that, in case you missed this, scales are Nazi bastards, and they'll try and upset you and make you reach for your "Fuck it all, I'm leaving home!" treat of choice.

Last night, d and I were in Cardiff, and, as you do, and as is one of the great pleasures of liking any one or number of human beings more than the general mirthless, remorseless crowd of fuckwits, dickheads and douchebags that make up the human race, we had a meal together, sharing time, exchanging days and breaking bread. Breaking literal bread in my case, as we ended up in an Italian place that we've always walked by to get somewhere else, every time saying "Y'know, we really should try that place some day. Anyway..."

So last night, we said "Y'know, we really should try that place some day. Anyway...", walked on, discovered that the place we were heading for was about as attractive as a bullfrog on a blind date, and doubled back to finally cross the Italian off our List of Places To Eat At Before We Die.

It was...good. Not great, but good. Not fine dining, certainly, but fine if you found yourself in a particular part of Cardiff and seized with a sudden dangerously low blood-carb content. I had a brushcetta starter piled with tomatoes and raw onions - yeah, technically it was date night, but what you have to understnad is it was eleven year married date night. d had meatballs that were OK, but with which, should the need have arisen, you could at least have taken out the eyes of your first few attackers, come the zombie apocalypse. She added a side of garlic spinach, because, as I say, this was an eleven year married date night, dammit. For main, she went lasagne, and I went penne amatriciana - pasta, following bread, I know, sue me.

She went chocolate cake for dessert. I went smiling and a decaff latte.

All was good and groovy, except that in the aftermath of the meal, d wasn't well. Something had disagreed with her, and it wanted out any which way it could. I'm not sure a swaying bus ride home in the freezing cold especially helped either, but it was that or stand around for half an hour as her spine turned to one of Elsa's ice sculptures from Frozen. So we swayed.

Me - all I can tell you is that something must really have agreed with me, because 24 hours later, I still contain absolutely all of a bruschetta starter piled with tomatoes and raw onions, and a plateful of penne amatriciana.

Which is a real bastard if you're weighing every day, because then you wake up the morning after an official weigh-in, and weigh, and want to kill yourself when you see two weeks of pedalling run away yelling  "Fuck you, Disappearing Boy!" and throwing you V's and one-fingered salutes, giggling as it goes. I'm not getting on the scales tonight because something seems to be knitting itself a raft or a trap door in my colon and to have determined it wants a never-ending lock-in.

All I can do is continue as normal, get some dinner, get some biking done, try to get some sleep and move the hell along.

On the upside, I had my annual diabetic review today, after which you can kiss my ass and call me Captain Healthy. They bled me last week, and apparently, all is groovy. I have an HBA1C level of 54.

Impressed? Yeah, I didn't have a clue. "All good," said the nurse. Having just checked online, I can tell you the HBA1C is a measure of glycated haemoglobin - different from blood sugar in some...erm...crucial way, apparently. Now, the online stats say you should aim for an HBA1C of 48 or below, unless you've been advised otherwise - which to my nowledge, I haven't. So either my diabetic nurse knows more about my condition than she's ever bothered to let on, and I fall into the "below 59 is fine" category (which does appear to exist), or it was after 5PM when she saw me and she just couldn't give a shit any more. Pretty much like me in my current predicament.

Annnnnyhow. All good is what she told me, so all good is what I'm going with for now. The more I lose, the more the system is likely to come under better regulation, and the more optimal my HBA1C will be.

So, with d set to finish work just two hours from now, I need to get my clogged ass up and get some dinner and biking done. Catch you later, Disappearers all!

2nd February - The Mile-Pebble

It would be wrong on every conceivable level to call today a milestone.

Weighed about a total of eight times this morning. First time I got on the Nazi Scales, they showed 18st 10. The next four times, they showed 18st 11. Then an 18st 10. Then an 18st 9.75. Then an 18st 10.

On balance, I’m calling it 18st 10 and sticking with it. That means that in the course of two weeks, I’ve lost my first half-stone, or seven pounds. It feels moderately pathetic to realise I’m seven pounds lighter than I was, and yet I’m still 18st 10. What that is is essentially an echo of my history, when I got down another four stone (68 pounds), and vowed never to get up this high again. But still, here we are, and here is seven pounds lighter than where we were two weeks ago.

I’d like to feel good about that, but oddly don’t. Three pounds from now, I’ll feel better, and another seven pounds from there, I’ll feel better still, but this first half-stone doesn’t feel big enough or good enough to be considered a milestone.

A mile-pebble, maybe. OK, fine, let’s do the ‘first seven pounds of mostly water’ mile-pebble dance. And then get back to trying to tighten the discipline a little – none of this Daredevil half-hour biking lark. Full hours are what’s needed. Tomorrow, I have my annual diabetic review – so that’ll be fun. Fairly sure I was significantly lighter than I am now when I had my last one, so potential riot acting will be read. But let’s not get bogged down in that, shall we? Moving on down is the key. If I could conceivably, two weeks from now, be 18st 3, that’d be almost happy-making, because it would feel like some kind of progress, in terms of my clothes. And it’d be close enough to make me believe the next proper milestone was achievable. The thing is though, the first two weeks of water loss are always the easiest. This is the point at which belts need to be tightened, resolve redoubled, and fat begins actually to be burned if the effort’s put in.

So let’s put it in.