The Catchup Confusion and the GBL List

What ho, chaps and chapesses, as Bertie Wooster would probably say, were he a) not fictional and b) here today. And indeed, what ho to all my non-binary Mx's too, because why the devil not, eh?

Apologies - missed quite a few days of entries, including, least forgiveably, a weigh-in day. Irritatingly, the Nazi Scales on weigh-in day were, sahll we say, fairly non-binary themselves, inasmuch as whenever I stepped on them, they refused to settle on the same figure twice. I woke up and they told me I was 18st 3.5. Hung aorund a bit, went for a fairly considered pee, and they put me UP to 18st 4.75. A few hours later, having still neither consumed anything nor notably expelled any more, they had me down as 18st 3.

So, really, who knows? I'm going to go with the first number they thought of, and say that irritatingly, I was still 18st 3.5 on Tuesday.

Since then, they've been doing some fairly similar things, varying by up to two pounds depending on, for instance, which foot goes on them first. We may be due a battery change, but certainly the news is not what I'd call conspicuously good. It's been one of those 'chained to the desk' weeks, though I have been pretty good in terms of going, like an automaton, for my 10,000 step walk every night, come rain, wind, sleet, snow and frankly just having a laugh. Still haven't plugged either the exercise bike or the treadmill in, which can't possibly go on much longer. What needs to happen is another big push, another system shock - a couple of days of double-walking, maybe, just to wake up a system that's now expecting 10,000 steps a day. Hmm. Will try and restructure a couple of days this week.

Pal of mine had a talk with a bariatric specialist today, and aparently had the whole 'Welll, you could be dead in ten years' talk. Believe me when I tell you, that'll put some rocket fuel in your Disappearing ass. It was being almost begged to have the procedure because otherwise I could be dead in ten that made me first decide to try to Disappear. That was something mad like six years ago now. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Four years away from notional deadline, where the hell am I? I'm trying to do it again the non-surgical way, and I'm only really a couple of stones lighter than Zoiksy McLifeThreatening was, six years ago. Still, whichever way you go, this fight for health and social normalcy is a bastard, so at the risk of dissolving into crappy quotes, you've either got to get busy living or get busy dying.

Of course, being able to feel like you're living helps. I'm struck by the urge to whinge and moan about how actually little I've accomplished, and whenever that urge comes on me, my Inner Working Class Bastard slaps me silly. I have an urge to whinge about how I'm not a published novelist yet, which would feel like getting busy living, and my Inner Working Class Bastard gets up in my face to say 'Best fucking write then, hadn't ya?' - I have a novel that I think needs a tweak to its ending and maybe one more go-through, but instead of doing any of that and sending it out, I'm editing like a mad bastard. I have two separate people who've given me writing gigs on Who audio plays, and instead of doing either of them, I'm...editing like a bastard. Have a feeling soon there will be a chart in my life - a GBL chart, which, rather than seeing all these things I want to do as part of my ordinary To-Do List, and so, sort of turning them into chores to be done, will turn them into temporal rewards: edited like a mad bastard for a whole project? Right - send off the novel to five agents. No really, fuck you, this is what this time is to be used for. Ring the bell when it's done and go back to edit another project.

In terms of Disappearing, it's the well-known idea of effort and reward. Get under 18stone - take a day to write for yourself. Get to 17st 7, take the day to rearrange the bejesus out of your website. And so on.

Yes - I like this plan. A GBL List, to get more stuff actually DONE, in more areas of life, and feel more alive. Feeling more alive=a bigger incentive to put the work in to do more Disappearing, and so on.

Now excuse me, have to just go and edit like a bastard before taking my 10,000 step walk in the frozen pissing rain.

The Border Vista

Surprising news. Happy news. News that, to be fair, my body worked pretty damned hard for.

Today's weigh-in sees me at 18st 2.75. That's a loss of 3.25 pounds on last week, and overall, since we restarted, 25.25 pounds lost in what is now about eight weeks. That leaves us, number-fans, on an aggregate loss of 3.1 pounds per week. Just a smidgen ahead of what's medically advised. Happy to be a smidgen ahead, just for pure swankiness.

18st 2.75 is interesting, because I feel like I can see the border from here - the border between 17 and 18 stone, and I've always said I don't feel like I'm really Disappearing till I get into the 17s. Still feel that way, though I'll be honest with you, losing 2 stone (28 pounds) at the age of 45 has felt harder than the first time I did it at not-quite-40. But I'm not about to kid myself I've been working at it anything like as hard this time round either - the mechansims are still the same, but the process hasn't been anything like as white-hot and sweaty and 'Grrr, lemme at it!' I've approached this time round so far with a kind of older man's sense of inevitability, and a trust in the equations of energy that I've never had before - X+Y=D, where X= less food, Y=more exercise, and D=Disappearing.

Of course, it's possible that today's result owes as much to last night's debilitating stomach-cramps as it does to my somewhat dogged appraoch to food and exercise lately - but on the other hand, I was 18st 3.75 waking up yesterday, so I'm going to be a little smug and say most of the work was already done ahead of last night's distinctly hurried walk around my route.

Speaking of which, as d would say, 'it's gone suitably dark now, you can go walking!'

This is me, getting my walk on. Fewer than three pounds before we start to take this thing seriously again!

The Slackass Variant

So - yesterday, woke up at 18st 6.

This morning, woke up a chunk heavier than that, having not been back in a bathroom since the night before last, and having had what were technically four meals during the course of yesterday. Was I worried about that?

Nah. It'll sort itself out over ther course of the week.

Today has been mostly desk-bound, but went to do a different walk this evening, because I had to pick up my medication prescription in the town centre. Ended up walking a fairly paltry 7,500 steps. That feels like a slackass day, given my recent history, but honestly, my brain feels like...

Y'know the opening of Wall-E, where he gathers up all the trash and turns it into compacted cubes? That's what my brain feels like - day-job, company, Disappearing, everything else, crunching my damn brain into cubes, day by day.

Fuck it, if this has to be a slackass day, that's what it has to be. I honestly don't particularly feel like I'm coping right now with the plate-spinning - if this one has to slow its spin down to keep some other things on track, so be it.

The Secret Weapon Retention

Yesterday, I went walking at night, as has become my habit after the end of the day-job. Found a slaughtered vaccuum cleaner sprawled on the road, just waiting for a very bored Valleys detective to draw a white chalk outline round it. And then bam!

Got affected by the dreadful stomach cramps again. Absolutely thought at no fewer than four points I was going to be overwhelmed by them.

Jusssst got home and...unff. Of course, the obsessive Disappearing instinct says "Well, if you're going to have crippling stomach cramps, having them on a Monday night is the best time in the week to have them." Honestly, I'm not sure it was worth it.

This morning though, I weighed in at 18st 6. Down 1.75 pounds, pre-bathroom (but of course post-last night, so that's fair enough).

Been rather a heavy food day today - cereal breakfast, French onion soup and grilled cheese lunch, spaghetti and home-made meatballs for dinner, and, which is excess beyond the dreams of Croesus, oatmeal for supper.

In between which, I sat on the couch and moaned.

"I really don't want to do this tonight."

"So don't," said d. "Do two tomorrow to make up for it."

"Mmmph," I said, thinking of the palaver of getting up before work to do one iteration, and then a second one later on.

I know, I know, I was Captain Big-Balls, thinking of doing 20,000 steps per day - and I will get back to that, because I'm pretty determined to do the 500 Mile Challenge. But the reality is, right now, work is a big priority, and I can do one iteration (roughly 10,000 steps) a day as part of my carved-out schedule, but two is probably pushing it unless I re-arrange the priorities of my day. Also, not to be over-cynical, last week, pushing one iteration to two shocked my systen into giving me a five pound loss. If I can keep losing at a slower rate, while dropping back to one iteration, it allows me to keep the second iteration in my back pocket the next time the system needs a goose.

So, grumbling and worrying about a recurrence of the cramps, I headed out the door. Did my 10,000 steps, thankfully without incident.

Tomorrow, who knows? Let's see what comes. But this has been a semi-successful (if slightly behind my 2 pound weekly expectation) weigh-in - still going in the right direction, at least.

Cometh The Rainmaker

Tonight was weird.

Just weird.

Came home from a haircut and it started to rain, just as I was considering going walking.

'You total and utter bastards!' I fake-yelled to the sky, to the raindrops that had started falling on my head.

'Well, isn't it good that you still have work to do?' asked d, breezily.

I scowled at the sky. Pursed my lips. 'Yes, dear,' I agreed, and, without really lowering my eyes from the rain clouds (and with the screamingly logical result that I nearly fell in through the door), I followed her in.

Did work. Because...well, what else is there to do?
Time passed, and then more time was going to pass and I couldn't put the damn thing off any more - we'd had dinner, and I'm still in the game of trying a) to walk after eating my evening meal, and b) not eating after that until breakfast time.

Got my ass out the door - the rain had stopped. Result.

I got past the gas station that acts as my first landmark. And then the rain decided I was clearly serious about this thing, and decided to fall on me. More or less all at once. I normally wouldn't do this, but I actually hid in a bus shelter, trying to outsmart the rain.

Now, I swear this is true. I was drenched. Just drenched. But looking out from my hiding place, nothing was falling. Seriously, there was water on the streets, but none of it was falling, hitting the streets. I stepped out - wallop. More rain, more me - just call me Spongebob. I stood there, getting soaked, still staring at the floor, where no rain was hitting the floor. Clearly, at this point, I was the biggest thing on the planet that wasn't actually the planet. I was the Earth's umbrella, saving all the vulnerable ground from getting wet.
'Fuck it then,' I said, out loud, striding on into a maelstrom the like of which made The Tempest look like a toddler's pee-stream. The street? Still nothing. Allll me.

There was nothing to do but keep walking. By the time I got to the back stretch of the walk, which goes through a lot of relatively deserted streets, there was only one thing to do. I turned the dial of my iPod to 80s soundtracks, and started singing and dancing to some of the best from those days. I Footloosed, I Back To The Futured, I Lost Boyed. I sang, and danced, and spun, and spread my warms to the wind and the rain and I did the whole Singin' In The Rain thing, treating the rain like a personal shower. I recommend it - it's deeply therapeutic, especially in these hideous days. Turning the whole experience of being pissed on from on high into something through which you can sing, and dance, and not care about the rain. I recommend it.

Of course, eventually, on the way round my route, it stopped raining again. And then, as I was close to home, it started again, and I didn't have the right distracting music, and the rain was relentless, and cold to the bone, and dispiriting. The point is obvious of course - ultimately the rain gets in. But while the rain is getting in, if, for just a little while, you can sing and dance and laugh too, you'll feel better. Stronger. Better and more prepared for the times when it gets in. OK, it won't keep you dry, but remembering that you can sing and dance and laugh as well as feeling the chill of the rain reminds you that the rain is not the be-all and end-all. That its power is ephemeral. That it can only get you down while you let it.

And then you come home, and get warm, and keep safe from the rain in which you can't dance. And a new day comes.