Been an interesting week.
On the one hand, I decided, round about the middle of last week, to dress up. To eschew my usual slothery in clothing and get back into trousers with all the complexities of the 21st century - zips and a button and suchlike madness.
All very well, but the pair into which I got were what I euphemistically describe as my 'comfy trousers.' Which is to say, 'big trousers.'
To give you some idea how long it's been since I last swanned around in them, I put them on, went out of my front door, annnd immediately had to grab at them to pull them up. Step, step, step - GRAB. Rearrange, seemingly firmly in place. Step, step, step, SLIP- GRAB!
So, I finally had to acknowledge to d (who loves nothing better than to try and get me into belts, despite my fundamental loathing of such masochistic items) that I needed a belt to stop myself from becoming a local scandal. A belt was procured and I slid it round myself.
One of the reasons I hate belts is that I'm always scared of the humiliation when they turn out to be human-sized, and do not go around the girth of me.
This off-the-shelf belt was very nearly that sort of belt. But importantly, not quite. I could just manage to pull it tight and fasten it on the last possible notch. As such, it became not a humiliation, but a challenge. We've started on the last possible notch. It will be another marker of progress as I become able to fasten it on tighter and tighter notches, and I daresay around entirely different trousers. A marker of progress, then, that doesn't rely on the Nazi Scales for its veracity.
All was going well. On one unofficial weigh-in this week, I saw a 17 in the 'Stones' column.
However, late last week I was stricken with a lurgi which saw my head become a bowl of snot and my chest a cheese-grater slathered in mucus. That rather knocked my walking schedule on the head, and replaced it with a lie in bed, whimpering, coughing and sleeping schedule, which affected my calorific-exercise balance more than somewhat.
Nevertheless, things were still going well - I've had blood sugar results in the 7s and 7s this week, which has been positive.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, I decided I could risk having a carb-heavy early dinner (round about 4.30pm). Had myself a pizza.
Have yet to...erm...shall we say get rid of the remnants of that pizza, some 21 hours on.
Which is why this morning's weigh-in - one with which I sought to argue for some hours! - puts me at:
18st 0.25.
Technically of course, this is highly positive and worth a yippedee doo-dah - it's a loss of two pounds, which is the 'right' amount to lose, medically speaking, in the space of a week. It's really only the fact that I saw a 17 earlier in the week, and the inherent understanding that one productive half-hour in the bathroom would see me over the 18 stone border, that makes it irritating to still be officially trapped on this side.
But there we are. Week 1, 2 pounds. Keeping to the schedule, next week I'll be well and truly into the 17s, rather than just barely so.
Having slept through the night for the first time in half a week, I feel better and stronger and all that happy Six Million Dollar Man crap today, even though the lurgi is still there on my chest. So the likelihood is that tomorrow I get back to the walking again, and on we go, pushing on down, two pounds and perhaps fewer stupid pizza moments at a time.
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
The Imp Of Physical Carnage
Yes, yes, yes, started again. Yes, again, again, again.
By the time of this first Tuesday since the reboot, I've done a few days of not eating what I want, not drinking anything but plain water, coffee and the occasional fruit juice, deeply, thoroughly wanting to beat people to death with giant Toblerones (usually a Day 2 phenomenon, I'm over it now), walking hither and yon just to force my ass up and my legs to move, and so on.
Yeah, it kinda sucks, frankly - when it starts to feel good, believe me, I'll let you know, but right now, it just kinda sucks.It's the resistance you get when you first start sawing a plank of wood - you're cutting against the grain of long experience, habit and expectation (both physical, in that you crave sugar, and mental, in that you turn the denial of that craving into the world being unfair very specifically to you).
Perhaps most creepily, when d goes to work, there's still something impish in my mind that flares to life, saying 'Ooh, it's playtime! What kind of self-destructive shit can we cram down our throat and get away with today!'
Not that I was cramming self-destructive shit down my throat to an enormous degree before I started back on this Disappearing lark, but certainly, if I decided I wanted a chocolate bar, I'd have it and not think about it (Evil Tip - if you do it early enough in the day, it doesn't mess up your next morning's blood sugar that much). Now the imp of physical carnage screams in my ear about five seconds after the door closes, and there's no-one to shut it the hell up but me. And I have to tell you, swigging plain water in those moments absolutely sucks the big one, and also doesn't really work as an antidote to the imp.
But still, here you find me, restarted, having resisted a bunch of blandishments - it's an adjustment for everyone around me when I slam back into Disappearing mode on the snap of a finger, so people still offer me stuff, and I have to remember, and refuse them politely - and as yet, have managed to resist either beating people to death with the Toblerone, or indeed ramming it, Pyreneean, down my neack for a sweet, sweet nougat hit...
...
...
Sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah - so, first Tuesday. Weigh-in day. Well, we're starting off this time in a place more reasonable than most recent attempts - I've had attempts in this last year that have started at 19st 7, 18st 7 and so on. This time, we're starting out at 18st 2 - which is actually the lightest I've been in some time, though it's not light enough at the moment to let me like the bloke I see in mirrors and photos, who seems to me to be an overstuffed sack of spuds. 18st 2 is close enough to the 18 stone border (lol I've explained stones to the world several times - I'd suggest going back a few entries, it'll all be there) to give me something immediate to strive for. More to the point, I never feel like I'm properly Disappearing till I'm into the 17 stone realm. Now of course, this is purely based on prior experience, and by the time I was in the 17 stone realm the first time I did this, I'd already lost three stone, so it's a completely false reckoning, and really speaking, I shouldn't feel like I'm properly Disappearing this time till I'm in the 15s, but hey, habits, right? If getting into the 17 stone zone spurs me on at this moment to shut the imp of physical carnage up, I'm taking it. That's the thing, really - there are lies aplenty available to you. Use them. Use them allll. If they help you climb in the direction you want to go, it doesn't matter that you know they're basically bullshit. Call on any god you like, ascribe value to one particular threshold or another, it really doesn't matter - do it, get over that line, take strength from whatever belief is open to you, but get over that line, where the imp of physical carnage, the voice that says it's not fair that you have to do this, or you're going to fail, or it's your birthday, or you're on your holidays, doesn't sway you as often as it does at the start.
Defeat that little bugger any way you can, because only your mind gives a damn about rationalizations. Your body? Just cares about what you put in it, and what you do with it. It makes no excuses, and it makes no allowances, sadly.
So - onward. Hopefully, a week from now I'll either be on the 18 stone border or eeeeven just possibly a smidgen under it.
Oh, and for those who want to know such things:
Blood sugar:
20th November - 9.1
19th November - Skipped, accidentally, as had breakfast before remembering
18th November - 9.2
17th November - Skipped
16th November - 9.2
15th November - 9.0
14th November - 11.9 - my bad, only took half my diabetic meds the day before.
13th November - 9.7
12th November - 9.3
11th November - 10.5 - late supper
10th November - 10.3 - late supper
9th November - 9.5
8th November - 11.4 (acting like an ass, clearly)
7th November - 12.2 (acting like a super-ass, even more clearly)
So while there's still a way to go before I get back into the 6-8 range now deemed optimal, I'm seeming to establish a pattern of single-figures with occasional assery at the moment. Will be interesting to see how that goes as the imp of physical carnage is squished more and more beneath my thumbnail.
By the time of this first Tuesday since the reboot, I've done a few days of not eating what I want, not drinking anything but plain water, coffee and the occasional fruit juice, deeply, thoroughly wanting to beat people to death with giant Toblerones (usually a Day 2 phenomenon, I'm over it now), walking hither and yon just to force my ass up and my legs to move, and so on.
Yeah, it kinda sucks, frankly - when it starts to feel good, believe me, I'll let you know, but right now, it just kinda sucks.It's the resistance you get when you first start sawing a plank of wood - you're cutting against the grain of long experience, habit and expectation (both physical, in that you crave sugar, and mental, in that you turn the denial of that craving into the world being unfair very specifically to you).
Perhaps most creepily, when d goes to work, there's still something impish in my mind that flares to life, saying 'Ooh, it's playtime! What kind of self-destructive shit can we cram down our throat and get away with today!'
Not that I was cramming self-destructive shit down my throat to an enormous degree before I started back on this Disappearing lark, but certainly, if I decided I wanted a chocolate bar, I'd have it and not think about it (Evil Tip - if you do it early enough in the day, it doesn't mess up your next morning's blood sugar that much). Now the imp of physical carnage screams in my ear about five seconds after the door closes, and there's no-one to shut it the hell up but me. And I have to tell you, swigging plain water in those moments absolutely sucks the big one, and also doesn't really work as an antidote to the imp.
But still, here you find me, restarted, having resisted a bunch of blandishments - it's an adjustment for everyone around me when I slam back into Disappearing mode on the snap of a finger, so people still offer me stuff, and I have to remember, and refuse them politely - and as yet, have managed to resist either beating people to death with the Toblerone, or indeed ramming it, Pyreneean, down my neack for a sweet, sweet nougat hit...
...
...
Sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah - so, first Tuesday. Weigh-in day. Well, we're starting off this time in a place more reasonable than most recent attempts - I've had attempts in this last year that have started at 19st 7, 18st 7 and so on. This time, we're starting out at 18st 2 - which is actually the lightest I've been in some time, though it's not light enough at the moment to let me like the bloke I see in mirrors and photos, who seems to me to be an overstuffed sack of spuds. 18st 2 is close enough to the 18 stone border (lol I've explained stones to the world several times - I'd suggest going back a few entries, it'll all be there) to give me something immediate to strive for. More to the point, I never feel like I'm properly Disappearing till I'm into the 17 stone realm. Now of course, this is purely based on prior experience, and by the time I was in the 17 stone realm the first time I did this, I'd already lost three stone, so it's a completely false reckoning, and really speaking, I shouldn't feel like I'm properly Disappearing this time till I'm in the 15s, but hey, habits, right? If getting into the 17 stone zone spurs me on at this moment to shut the imp of physical carnage up, I'm taking it. That's the thing, really - there are lies aplenty available to you. Use them. Use them allll. If they help you climb in the direction you want to go, it doesn't matter that you know they're basically bullshit. Call on any god you like, ascribe value to one particular threshold or another, it really doesn't matter - do it, get over that line, take strength from whatever belief is open to you, but get over that line, where the imp of physical carnage, the voice that says it's not fair that you have to do this, or you're going to fail, or it's your birthday, or you're on your holidays, doesn't sway you as often as it does at the start.
Defeat that little bugger any way you can, because only your mind gives a damn about rationalizations. Your body? Just cares about what you put in it, and what you do with it. It makes no excuses, and it makes no allowances, sadly.
So - onward. Hopefully, a week from now I'll either be on the 18 stone border or eeeeven just possibly a smidgen under it.
Oh, and for those who want to know such things:
Blood sugar:
20th November - 9.1
19th November - Skipped, accidentally, as had breakfast before remembering
18th November - 9.2
17th November - Skipped
16th November - 9.2
15th November - 9.0
14th November - 11.9 - my bad, only took half my diabetic meds the day before.
13th November - 9.7
12th November - 9.3
11th November - 10.5 - late supper
10th November - 10.3 - late supper
9th November - 9.5
8th November - 11.4 (acting like an ass, clearly)
7th November - 12.2 (acting like a super-ass, even more clearly)
So while there's still a way to go before I get back into the 6-8 range now deemed optimal, I'm seeming to establish a pattern of single-figures with occasional assery at the moment. Will be interesting to see how that goes as the imp of physical carnage is squished more and more beneath my thumbnail.
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