Welcome to the Last-But-One Chance Saloon

And so we're back here.

Five years or so since I wrote an entry in this interminable blog of attempted weightloss and life-change, I'm prodding it with sticks again, to get at least one more rise out of it.

The chances are there are plenty of people I know now who weren't around for the first flourishings of this thing, so here's the upshot.

A ridiculous number of years ago now, when we lived in Stratford, East London, a doctor told me I was so life-imperillingly overweight, he'd recommend me for bariatric surgery.

While appreciating the offer, I took rather against such a path. "I'm too damn stubborn to do that," was essentially the drift.

I bought an exercise bike, started walking regularly, and completely changed my dietary habits, becoming as this blog claims, "The Disappearing Man." Lost something like six stone (84 pounds, or 38 Kg). Practically reversed my diabetes, radically reduced my medication, promised never to let it slide.

And then it slid.

That was much more than a decade ago now.

I'm not the man I was back then.

Which of us is, post-Brexit, post-Trump 1.0, post chaos and carnage and all that good stuff?

But I'm starting again.

And the weird thing is, I've been trying to get motivated to start again for a while, and failing.

Since I last wrote in this blog, I've had what people call a "brush with death," being hospitalized with Covid for two weeks and being, I was later told, "24 hours away from cascading organ failure."

I rather thought that would put an end to my dichotomy. The dichotomy of claiming I wanted to live, but eating like I was trying to kill myself. Swore and oath to that effect, and everything.

Turned out to be bollocks. 

My doctor, here, living by the sea, on reading my wiiiiildly out of control blood sugars, offered me appetite suppressants. I laughed - I couldn't help it.

"Are you under the impression I eat like this because I'm hungry?" I asked, incredulous.

"Oh," she said. "OH!" she realized.

Since then I've been on a therapeutic journey. Group therapy on "managing diabetes," which was fine as far as the other participants were concerned, but which leaned very heavily on the trappings of the "wellness" industry.

Which may be fine for some people - but do absolutely nothing if, at the churning core of your being, you're fighting against half a brain that fundamentally does not want to be well.

I was diagnosed with a binge eating disorder, and with anxiety, though weirdly, more recently I appear to be scoring higher for depression than anxiety. Thost guys do love to slug it out up there.

I don't as yet have a diagnosis of ADHD. What I do have is an increased proclivity to ask the world of social media "Is this a thing?" - and an increased and regular response rate of "Oh yeah - classic ADHD thing, that."

The more you know, I guess.

I've also been doing one-to-one therapy. That, unlike the group therapy, I find really helpful - often wishing I could have it more often, or collapsing over the line to my next appointment in gratitude. 

That started as a response to the binge eating diagnosis, and has broadened out from there, because - and here's the good news - the binge eating trigger response has significantly weakened. Control, self-awareness, and conversations both in therapy and with important people in my world, have helped me get a perspective on that. I'm still going to therapy, because while I realize it's a privilege, I wish it weren't. I'd recommend it to anyone, and wish everyone could have it as they need it. 

If Covid taught us anything, it's that honest conversations are important, and at the risk of unfortunate (though possibly not inaccurate) comparisons, dedicated time with a professional who's literally paid to serve your underlying needs is staggeringly freeing. No one in your life should necessarily need to be your confessor, your guide into your own reactions, and all the other things a therapist can be. I joke that nobody else gets paid enough to listen to me witter on about myself. The professional therapist establishes that relationship, and it's been enormously helpful. I'm much less prone to binge eating now - but I don't see the therapy stopping any time soon. It's become that valuable.

So why am I back, trying to re-establish the Disappearing Man?

For a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I have a heart condition, and it's been a touch on the uppity side lately. I went for an echocardiogram, and apparently have yet to dramatically damage the cardiac muscle. 

The corollary of which is that the condition's been acting up more because I'm way too heavy again and my diabetic blood saugar is appallingly high. So while I appear to have dodged a cardiac bullet, medical authorities are once again coming to me with serious faces and the idea that  "You really need to knock this shit off, man."

That's slightly shifted my perspective, but hadn't, in and of itself, given me the impetus I needed to start again. It has somewhat confounded my therapist that I haven't particularly been able to equate "living longer" with an imptus to action. I've always worked on the principle that pleasure and longevity are separate things, each with their own due weight.

More than that though, my wife, d, has become a motivating factor. 

She's diabetic too, though she freely admits she's been ignoring that for around five years. She takes no medication despite being prescribed some, and, like me, never tests her blood sugar.

It's entirely fair to say we've been enabling one another in our lifestyle for years. 

It's slightly complicated by the fact that cooking, providing nourishment and flavor, and particularly baking, is her chief "love language," as well as her biggest source of fun and relaxation.

Except now there's a Thing.

Long story short, I've had diabetes in my family since I was a child. My maternal grandmother was the first of us to be diagnosed, but my bio-dad, after a lifetime of heavy drinking, also succumbed. He in particular is relevant, because he had an issue with diabetic neuropathy in his feet. That led to gangrene, which led to amputation, and while he was recovering from that, his heart gave out and he died.

So in a sense, we've been melodramatically watching my feet for decades, waiting for something to go wrong.

Now, something's gone wrong - but not with my feet, but d's. She has a diabetic ulcer, and this week, we got her tested - and the bloodflow to her feet is significantly less ideal than could be wished. She's seeing someone in vascluar podiatry on Monday - they rang and told her she was an "Extreme Urgent" case, which does wonders for one's sense of speed, but little that's positive to one's sense of immortality.

The one thing they impressed on her above all is that whatever treatment they can give her, the one thing that will be necessary is good diabetic blood sugar control.

Neither of us have tested in yeeeeears.

But where I'm a wheedler and a gambler and a finder-out of loopholes to maintain enjoyable behaviors over anything that smacks of responsibility, d's more fundamentally sensible. So we're about to embark on what for her probably doesn't need to be a Disappearing campaign, but certainly a life-changing shift of approach.

Me, I'm calling it Disappearing, because damn it, it works in my head.

There are complications - I'm waiting to hear back from the heart doctor whether my echocardiogram result means I can start exercising more vigorously than "the occasional walk around the village" he prescribed when I saw him face to face.

My exercise bike is actually in a box room...covered in boxes. So there's work to do before I can unearth it, even if I get the all-clear to do so.

d's got issues, too - in recent years, she's broken the same ankle twice, so walking any real distance gives her pain. She also works standing up eight hours a day, after which one is hardly inclined to do exercise without immediate reward. So quite what the Disappearing process looks like this time around, I'm not sure. Come, by all means, find out with me.

Let's do starting stats before we get the hell on with our lives.
Weighed this morning, post-bathroom (Yes, dammit, it makes a difference).
Am 5 feet 6 inches tall, or 1.67 meters.

As of this morning, I weight 16 stone, 8.75 pounds. That's 232.75 pounds, or a fuck-ton of kilos.
You're going to make me work it out aren't you? Hang on...105.6 kilos.

So while I'm around 36 pounds heavier than the lowest I reached on my first, most successful Disappearing stint, that's a fairly important chunk of poundage.

What's more, I jsut depressed the ever-living shit out of myself by looking at the NHS BMI calculator. Yes, I'm aware of all the reasons not to go by BMI, but it's at least a ready reckoner right now. I am of course obese at this weight - no one would argue with that, least of all me.

Ideal weight according to the NHS? Between 8 stone 3 pounds (a stone is 14 pouns feel free to do your own calculations) and 11 stone.

That means just to touch the outer limits of "normal" for my height, weight and ethnicity, I'd have to lose 5 stone 8.75 pounds. Practically 79 pounds. If we go by the lower limit, I'm a smidgen over two "Ideal Tony's."

I absolutely cannot imagine my life at 11 stone. Don't think I've been that weight since I was about 17 (following a previous successful Disappearing attempt).

But the medically-recommended maximum weigh loss is 2 pounds per week. That works out at just under 40 weeks, if the loss were aggregated smoothly over time, which of course, absolutely everybody knows is won't be.

As I say, the Disappearing this time round is different. The exercise limitation is a factor. The frank fact of my age is a factor. But the fundamental challenge remains the same - change or die.

d's having to confront a similar medical issue is making me enthusiastic to try and do it again, so as to support her in her journey - which as I say, is different to my own. But if we can be The Disappearing Couple, our lifestyles will change in ways that might (because of course there's never a cast-iron guarantee) keep us around and working just that little bit longer.

So let's do this thing. Official weigh-ins will be on a Tuesday morning (more our of tradition than anything, but also in case I have to schlepp to meetings and/or events on a Monday). Blood testing results will come as and when we either find or get new testers.

Yippee, Skippy, we're disappearing again.

The desk drawerful of chocolate will mostly have to stay where it is until it rots...