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.

The Psychopath Dial

Yes, yes, yes, hello again.

I always feel a little diffident these days when I come back to this blog, as though I'm creeping back in with a blanket over my head. No interviews, please - The Calorific Criminal is back for another period of self-flagellation, till he gets too busy and/or leaps off the Disappearing Wagon again and then doesn't come back for aaaaaages.

Well....yeah, kinda. If a blog is anything worth writing, it's a reflection of the real world. Annnnd that's my real world. So - take me while you get me, folks; I seem unlikely at this stage to get anything book-length together, so right now, it's this or nothing.

So, where were we? Oh yes, Tuesday.
Tuesday is weigh-in day.

I don't know how to explain this, because at the moment I look rather like Santa Claus' less reputable, gutter-living brother, but weigh-in this morning was:
18st 8.

260 pounds, for those not staring down the barrel of a Brexit. Near-as damnit 118 kg, for the metriphiles.

Now in cold hard black and white those may not look like great numbers for a nearly-47 male of five feet six, or...oh gods, hold on...1.68 metres (if you're British or French) or 1.68 meters (if you're not).
Nevertheless, in recent times when I've felt the need to restart the blog, I've usually been at least a stone (14 pounds) heavier than that, strugglling to 'see an 18'. So if nothing else, we start this time out slightly ahead of the previous game.

I'm also under orders to test my blood sugars - which, thanks once again to a refusal to have any kind of internationally standard system, will mean buggerall to anyone, but let's just say I was told that between 6-8 is ideal, and anything in single figures will do in a pinch. After having quite a reasonable stint on single-figure results, recently I've been having a bunch that are jusssst the wrong side of that that. Today is 10.5, yesterday 10.6, the day before 10.3 etc. So clearly, something needs doing that hasn't been happening recently. To be fair though, my lifestyle's been pretty unhealthy again lately. So yyyyeah - tackling that seems to be A Thing To Do.

On the distinctly up side, most of the tourists have now fucked off from our little seaside town, which will mean it will be possible to go for more walks without feeling the surging, seething need to hit people with sticks. I mean, I might still feel the need as we hurtle toward a calamitous Brexit, but if they're harder to find, I probably won't click over on the psychopath dial to actively hunt them down.

So here we are again. for those who don't know the rules of the game, the aim is to lose two pounds per week, which is the medically advised weight loss. There'll be weeks when that doesn't happen, there'll be weeks when things go catastrophically in the other direction. But the intention is to push down, and down, and down, over the course of one year. Two pounds a week is 104 pounds a year, which would put me at 154 pounds, or 11 stone. Believe it or not, at that point, I'd still have 14 pounds or 1 more stone to lose to achieve me ideal weight, according to bastards who probably eat pizza every day and never get fat...

So...yyyyeah. Here we jolly well go again - though this time, in a town mostly comprising of fish and chip shops, cake shops, an old-fashioned sweet shop, cafes, gastropubs, restaurants and a fatally delicious kebab shop.

What could possibly go wrong?

Wrong-Footing The Toe of Destiny

Well, that was a surprise.

As usual, O followers of the Dissappearing Witterer, the whole shebang begins with a taking-stock. That means a weigh-in, so we have a mark at which to aim.

When I began again before Christmas, I was over 20 stone, and close to 20 stone 7.25 - the weight I was when I began the original Disappearing, some seven years ago.
As foreshadowed yesterday, have recently been eating like I don't know where my next meal is coming from, and doing precisely buggerall by way of exercise.

Which rather takes the piss, as today's relaunch weigh-in weight is: 19st 8.25

This makes no sense whatever, but is enough to give me a spring in my step as I set out yet, yet, yet a-freakin'gain.

There's a danger, when you start out with good news (and yes, absurd as it may sound, starting out at just over 236 pounds is good news), that you immediate relax your resolve, thinking 'Ach, things are nowhere near as bad as I thought they were, where's me pizza?'

This wrong-footing of the Toe of Destiny which was previously booting you up the ass is the way to get precisely nothing done, and continue happy and comfortable and full of carbohydrate - at least in the short term.

At which point, you should feel entirely at liberty to punch yourself in the head and use whatever is available to you to motivate yourself.

'Oi, y'know that noise you make when you get out of a chair?'

'Yeah...'

'ACK, wrong answer, put the pizza down, get your shoes on and get walking.'

Yes, absolutely, I'm suggesting you bamboozle yourself. If it helps, yourself is trying to bamboozle you all the time - 'One more slice, where's the harm?' 'No-one ever dropped dead of eating this particular cupcake.' 'It looks a bit overcast out there...'

Fat is commmmfortable. Part of your brain - or at least part of mine - wants to stay that way, because it's like slobbing around in your PJs all day, it feels freakin' gooooood. But sometimes, you've got to go out. Taking an occasional day in your PJS - fab. Spending your whole LIFE in your PJs? Really not so good.

So lie, cheat, bamboozle the bejesus out of your brain if you have to. But when you get good news, treat it like a door-to-door double glazing salesman. Be wary. Nod, understand, but don't necessarily let it coax you into anything that doesn't fit in with your pre-existing plans.

Let not the Toe of Destiny go awry, for it is thine ass for which it is intended.

Now - time to register with a doctor...

The Disappearing Constitution

Well, hello again.

Most of you will, I'm sure, already know the deal here. Some of you, mad and glorious as you are, have read much more of this blog than I've ever been back to check out once it's gone, stream-of-consciously, out of my brains and through my fingers. Some of you, clearly, are gluttons for punishment. But in the interests of any newbies out there, this is a pretty simple proposition. It's an honest, warts, pains, madness-moments, failures and all weight loss blog.

I know, I know. Not another one.
But yes, frankly, another one. If you're reading this entry, you'll find you have access to a yearsworth of intensive Disappearing entries, and then five years of more sporadic entries as failure gains march after march on my progress.

Here's what you need to know. Here's the Disappearing Constitution, the history, the rules, such as they are, the likely things that will clog up your life and mine over the next year if you come along.

The History
Five or six years ago, beginning in the year I was due to turn 40, I lost a chunk of weight. I did it because I was 20 stone, 7.75 pounds. That's 287.74 pounds for the Americans, and over 130 kg for those of a metric bent. I was 5ft 6 inches tall, which translates to around 1.6 metres.

These are not healthy numbers.

These are numbers so unhealthy in fact, my doctor was heartily ready to recommend me for bariatric surgery. I was almost ready to sign the papers, when a voice inside me roared. A voice of ten generations of stubborn bastards. I have no problem with bariatric surgery (the so-called gastric bypass) or those who get it. Good on them if it's right for them, I say. But I was seized by a feverish certainty that it wasn't right for me. At least not then. Not before I'd given my stubborn bastardy a red hot go.

Over the course of the next year, I gave my stubborn bastardy a red hot go. And I lost six stone (84 pounds, or a metric shitload of kilos). That was a pretty successful year, all told. As a diabetic, I managed to dramatically reduce the amount of medication I was taking. I could do more, had more energy, better self-esteem, yadda yadda, you've seen this video a hundred times.

Then, one very simple evening, shortly after moving home to the South Wales valley town of Merthyr Tydfil from the Metropolitan grooviness of London, I stopped. I had fish and chips.

The course of the following five years has been a saw-tooth of slipbacks, determined re-starts, excuses, failures, further slipbacks, moderate successes, annnnnd more slipbacks.

The result of which is that a week ago, late in the year in which I turned 45, I saw 20 stone on my scales again.

That can't be allowed to be. It can't be allowed to continue, certainly. And so, despite currently having a number of ridiculous deadlines, I changed my eating habits again. Suddenly, instantly, with no warning, as a prelude to beginning Disappearing again.

The Constitution
You should know this. Plenty of mentally healthy people who 'just happen to be' overweight will tell you you should never cut everything out, as you're just ensuring you'll snap and fail.

If moderation works for you, likewise, do it. If you can square the circle of just 'having a little' of something that gives you pleasure, by all means, walk that path.

My brain works differently.
That's a phrase that has added significance if you know where I stole it from. I stole it from The West Wing, from the words of a character named Leo McGarry, who is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Here's the context, for those who don't know it:

I don't know how else to explain it to you, but as regards food, my world can be black, or it can be white. Grey doesn't exist for me, it's just black trying to con the world. So there are concepts to my Disappearing that in all likelihood, you won't find anywhere else.

I talk about 'Perspex boxes' or 'Perspex walls' quite a lot. That's how the world feels when I'm Disappearing - like all the things I've determined I can't have are behind Perspex walls. I can see them, smell them, remember them, crave them - but I won't allow myself to have them.

The Rules
When I go Disappearing, I cut out sugar, excess fat, too much carb, all alcohol, and all fizzy drinks. And when I go for it, I try and get at least one act of exercise into every day, some moderate, and as the process goes on, more intensive. I walk, and I have a recumbent exercise bike - which at the moment is particularly recumbent, as we've recently moved house again, and the power cord for the damned thing has yet to surface from any of the hundred-plus boxes.

Official weigh-ins take place on Tuesday morning, and are recorded here. Weigh-ins cannot be deemed official unless they were recorded on the Nazi Scales...

Ahem...the Nazi Scales are my own private bathroom scales. The name's a reference to a pet theory - every Nazi gets reincarnated as the bathroom scales of a fat fuck, which explains both their bitchy attitude, and the notion of some sort of punishment for their gittishness while alive - they get to be stepped on by us every day of their afterlives.

These blog entries, which when I'm doing it seriously tend to be every day affairs, are generally more conversational than they are lists of things eaten and exercise taken. That said, those details will be in there somewhere probably, because, believe it or not, people asked for them to be there. Something to do with investing in the process, I gather.

There will be swearing. There will be madness. There will be funny bits and dark bits, because, as I mentioned, this is not really me just 'needing to lose a bit of weight.' This is me taking back control of a part of my brain that appears bent on self-destruction. It's a battleground, with laughs along the way.

A week ago, as I say, I saw 20 stone on my Nazi Scales for the first time in five years. Since then, I've been edging towards Disappearing - alcohol's gone, desserts are gone, chocolate's gone, crisps are gone, fried food for the most part has gone. Carbs are reducing.  Ho ho ho. Merry Fuckin' Christmas.

I've not had a chance to do much by way of exercise, due to the deadline crunch in which I currently find myself, and which appears to be getting no better any time soon. I have a day-job, and an editing company which I run in the laughingly-titled 'spare hours' after the day-job ends. I also contribute to a few geeky sites, and, believe it or not, want to try and become a published writer as well. Time has often been the enemy of my Disappearing, because much of what I do for large chunks of my day involves me sitting on my ass, staring at screens and not moving around a great deal. The effort must be made, consciously, to add exercise into my day, but hasn't as yet been made.

Nevertheless, on Tueday 27th December, which by virtue of this first blog entry we're calling the re-launch day, my Nazi Scales (pre-bathroom-visit) had me at:

19 stone, 7 pounds, or 273 pounds. (There are 14 pounds in a stone, in case you're wondering).

On the one hand, that means I've lost seven pounds in a week. So, yay. On the other hand, I have the bad grace to be disappointed in that, because just before Christmas, I was unofficially weighing in at 19 stone 5. Still, Christmas, I suppose, albeit a Christmas without sweets and treats. A Disappearing Christmas.

So this is where we begin, this time around - one stone and a quarter-pound down from where the Disappearing Man originally began. I don't begin to feel like I'm 'really' Disappearing though until I'm under 18 stone, so I still have a stone and a half to go before this begins to feel like progress. And I'm fully aware that the first week's loss is mostly water, rather than any of the hard stuff I actually need to shift - it's a gift of encouragement from the body when you're as far overweight as I am.

Oh and in case you're wondering, my 'ideal weight' according to the NHS is around 10 stone 7 pounds. Nine stone from now, or 126 pounds. I only aim to lose the medically recommended two pounds per week, or 104 pounds a year, leaving me at 12 stone or 169 pounds by 27th December 2017. I won't actually do that - I didn't the first time, because 104 pounds is over seven stone, and I'm perfectly well aware there will be plateaus, setbacks, stalls, and weeks where the numbers go in the wrong direction. But nevertheless, this is where we begin, having thrown ourselves right into the deep end with a Disappearing Christmas.

Come along for the ride - there'll be funnier stuff than this along the way, honestly!

The Failure Flirtation and the Tight-Pants 'Fuck You'

Day one then.

For the so-many'th time, here we are on day one.

Happened in any case to be a weigh-in day.

19st 7.25.

In one way, this is a good and symbolic number. It's exactly one stone (fourteen pounds, American friends) lighter than I was when I originally started the Disappearing Man experiment, five years ago.

In many more important ways of course, this is a hideous, what-the-hell number. It's five stone (70 lbs) heavier than I was four years ago today. So - yay!

Today was pretty damn testing all the way along the line, really. Set an alarm for 6.50, so as to get a walk in early, before the day-job kicked in with it's Monday morning meeting on a Tuesday (Cos that's how we roll. I don't know). Woke up naturally at 6.45 and tuned off the alarm, so it wouldn't wake d up. Then instantly fell back to sleep and woke up at about 8.15 - too late to get the walk I had in mind done in time for the meeting.

Curses, I thought. I'll have to walk after work.

Now, some joyful details for you. As mentioned in yesterday's reiteration of the rules, the weigh-in is to be 'post-bathroom.' Because yes, desperation will take any damn form it can, and right now a successful bathroom visit can equate to a whole week's Disappearing, dammit.

Except some of you remember the sweetcorn experiment. If I'd waited for a post-bathroom figure tonight, I wouldn't have eaten till afer 9.30 tonight. So the 19st 7.25 figure comes to you pre-bathroom.

Didn't have breakfast till about 4pm today, thanks to the constant waiting for the successfully post-bathroom figure. Grabbed a thoroughly nastly and barely warmed hame and cheese baguette and a large decaff skinny latte from Costa, without sweetener. Then tried to begin my walk.

Felt horrible. Had slipped on - which is to say struggled into - a pair of freshly washed jeans, which appeared intent on strangulating anything soft enough to get at. My top was comfy half a stone ago. Now, notsomuch, and rather unattractively shows a bit of belly which I don't want to show. I walked a little way in the still-blazing heat and my back was having none of it. So I thought 'Screw this,' and scurried back home to do some more work. Came back out at 8pm, with a cool evening breeze and prepared in sweatpants, damnit! Happily walked 3.6 miles before picking d up from work. Could have gone further, but was judging the time.

So, managed to salvage some kind of exercise victory from a day determined to punch me in the face at almost every turn. And so, we begin. Again.

Starting Over Again...Again...Again

Yesterday, I began Disappearing again with the now-traditional 5AM wake-up, panicked blog, assessing everything I'd done wrong, laying down the rules and so on. I mentioned that weigh-ins were on Tuesday (an odd practice I got into because my occasional ubercommutes to and from London in a day tend to either be on Mondays or Wednesdays, but rarely if ever Tuesdays. If you're going to ask me why that's relevant, I'm firstly going to go ahead and assume you've never felt the need for a tremendous, King Kong-style evacuation first thing in the morning, and then I'm going to call bullshit.). I said I was expecting to be over 19st 7, and I wasn't just skipping along like Mary Sue and plucking a number out of the air when I said that. Before a recent three-day trip to London with d, I was 19st 3. That's the number my Fitbit has stored in it as my starting weight because I got it at Christmas and I figured I'd be that heavy by the end of the whole festive yin-yang. (Oh fuck yeah, I have a Fitbit; I'll try any piece of yuppie shit out there, I have no pride). But on a faintly desperate unofficial weigh-in when I got home from London, I was over 19st 5. Weirdly, that wasn't enough to make me stop and consider my lifestyle. Two days ago, I ate two pizzas and a bunch of leftover Christmas chocolate. So 19st 7 was a realistic estimate.

But yesterday, I started this Disappearing business again. I seem to be breaking myself into it relatively gently, which rather flies in the face of the whole 'absolutist' schtick of yesterday's blog, but as days go, it was much better. Over the space of 18 hours, I ate one bowl of butternut squash soup and a hunk of bread, drank two venti decaff skinny Americano mistos with sugar-free caramel (I'd still quite like an explanation of sugar-free caramel, incidentally - how is that a thing? What do you burn to make sugar-free caramel? Hopes and dreams?), one bottle of John Lewis smoothie. Then for dinner, I had steak, vegetables and ridiculous but tasty M&S meat-filled parcel things that probably have a proper name somewhere in this universe, followed by some fruit and yoghurt. I'm in two minds about the fruit and yoghurt thing, it smacks of dessert to me, but for now at least, while the massive likelihood is that I can still lose weight while having it, I'm bowing to the wisdom of my wife and the fact that it's freakin' tasty.

I also got back on the exercise bike for the first time in weeks, and for the first time in about a year, I pedalled that thing for a solid hour. Not madly, not intending to break a land speed record or my constitution, just solidly, without giving up, for an hour. Like I used to when I started this process originally, some five years ago. So - that made me feel all serious about the thing, and gave me thighs that refused to move again, ever.

Today's been a work from home day. I know, technically, every day's a work from home day in my case, but what I mean is, it's been a day when d's working a 12-hour shift when I didn't jump on a train and go to Starbucks. Nope - my ass has been housebound for most of the day. Doing...y'know, worky stuff.

Intake so far - one small bowl Fruit & Fibre cereal, semi-skimmed milk. Two Lavazza coffees, water, one tin of tomato and chilli soup, two dinner rolls. Bought myself some fruit for healthy snacking, and the only thing keeping my ass and my protesting thighs from the exercise bike for another hour of pedalling fun and joy is that I haven't finished this blog yet. Soon as I do, that's me, donning the shorts of power and boring my own ass off for a whole hour, dammit. Burned somewhere in the region of 450 calories last night, which is always the problem with biking - depressingly small return for the energy invested - but, oh yeah, this was the point of the blog:
Today's weigh-in: 19st 3.

Never actually thought I'd be pleased to see that figure, but after London, and pizza and chocolate and what-have-you, was happy enough to bite its hand off when the Nazi Scales flashed that at me this morning. So, clearly, it was 450 calories of seriousness and giddy-up. Which is why I'm going right the hell back to it, right now. We've begun with a figure that's both massively high, and simultaneously lower than expected. But more importantly, we've begun. Again.

The Devalued Currency and the Need For Absolutism.

So here we are. All over again.
I write this at 5.13 in the morning, a dispatch from a life once more beyond all notion of control.

I recently went to London for a three-day work session, and I came back from that at least weighing 19st 5. Since when I've had a couple of days of insane immobility and consumption, which means I am afraid if I were to get on the scales right now, I would be over 19st 7. Less than a single stone (14 lb) lighter than when I began all this, five years ago.

I feel like a devalued currency, this Disappearing Man. Took me a year of absolutism to lose six stone (84 lb). Has taken me the next four years to put five of them back on. And such insane years they've been.

It seems that for me, at least for now, there's no alternative but absolutism. Absolute commitment to not killing myself by putting things in my body that do me harm. Absolute commitment to reducing the pressure on my systems - my heart, my bones, my joints, my organs. Something has to give, and if it's not me, it'll be them - there's no mysticism about this, the human being's a closed system: causes have effects, actions have consequences. The only variable is the mind which can decide what causes happen.

Seems like forever since I've been inside what I call my perspex boxes - my mental barriers between the temptations of unwise consumption and the actions of it. But clearly there is, for me, nothing that acts as an effective deterrent but this absolutism of mind. One day at a time, kumbayah and all that happy shit.

This will be hard. As I say, I'm very much out of practice. But this, it seems, is what must be done. Conveniently of course, tomorrow is Tuesday. Always did love a Tuesday.

The hardest thing to really get into my brain though won't be the absolutism of self-denial - no sugar, no desserts, no alcohol, low fat, low carb and all that stuff that makes one so interesting at parties. It will be the starting again from zero. I've had a tendency, up till now, to start off madly, pushing myself to overdo and suffering stupid consequences as a result. Relatively recently, I bounded off on a walking jag, doing four miles a day for two days - then having to abruptly stop as my feel were blistered.

When I began this thing, it began as I recall with biking. Committed, dedicated hour or half hour biking sessions, to music rather than to speech. The walking, when it came, came in smaller doses - I didn't start off doing miles. I started off doing half-miles at a time - across Hyde Park to Lancaster Gate tube station. And when I started, even that hurt. I have to stop thinking I should be able to do the things I could do even at 17 stone. I simply have to do what I can do right now, and let the rest come back to me as the rewards of progress.

So - for those who haven't heard me do this a hundred times or so over the last five years, here are the rules. Weigh-ins on Tuesday. Safe loss is 2lb per week. One year (to begin with - it's been pointed out to me that this blog has now been active, if not actively updated - for five years). 52 weeks at 2lb per week is 104lbs. That would be a loss of over 7 stone. I'm not mad enough to think I can achieve that - as I say, the first (and only successful) time I did this, I managed six. There will be continued ranting. There will undoubtedly be bitch-slapping. Come along all over again.

The Celebratory Train Wreck

I finished Draft Three of my novel this week. Weighed in on Tuesday at 18st 0.75, which wasn’t too bad, but I’m going to be absolutely honest with you here – since then, I’ve had a few days of notsomuch going off the rails as ripping up the rails and juggling the damn things. I find myself on Sunday, having been out for a celebratory lunch with d, feeling absolutely horrid and huge, bloated to the point where you could squeeze me like a giant, overripe zit. This clearly needs to stop, and I also need to stop taking celebrations as excuses to drive my bodily car into a rock face at 125 miles per freakin’ hour. Enough. As luck would have it, tomorrow’s a Monday, the day for starting ill-thought-out endeavours like weeks and suchlike other mistakes. Tomorrow then, we knuckle down and reinstall some discipline into the daily routine.

The Day One Enthusiasm

So here we go again.
This is where we begin another year of Disappearing. The first time, the majority of the positive journey took just a year. The majority of the backsliding took three.

The original was inspired by health concerns. The odd thing is, this time round, it really isn't - no-one's offering me gastric surgery anymore, and I know now I wouldn't take it if they did. Works for lots of people, and good on them for having that courage, commitment and stamina. I need to do this my way.

Nor am I particularly freaked out any more by my heart condition - it gave me episodes at 20 stone, and it gave me episodes at 15 stone. I'm now fairly convinced it's just 'a thing' I need to accommodate, a battle-scar from the bloody business of just being alive - like the metal in my ankle and the gwretched pigging deafness in my right ear (though I'd be lying if I said I'd entirely come to terms with that yet).

Oddly, when I started originally, I was on a lot of diabetic medication, and through the course of the first Disappearing year, I reduced and then cut out an entire pill (from four each day). But equally strangely, when my blood was tested just last Sunday when I had my latest heart escapade, it was pretty much textbook - 7.7. While I'm sure my body wouldn't mind at all if I lost a shitload of weight, I'd be lying if I said I was doing it this time to live longer.

I just need to do it for me.

I need to do lots of things for me, quite frankly. Me, me, me - this year, I've decided, is all about me. I finished draft 1 of a book last year, but draft 2 has been stuck in a queue ever since while I've been busy doing edits for other people. Have put myself under quite a bit of deadine pressure that way, which I'm sure my body wouldn't mind not being under either. I didn't run an editing company four years ago when I did this first, and this year, I'm pretty much going to own as little of one as possible again - I'm farming out more work to my editors, who are all massively capable. I can't exactly go entirely back-seat, but the heart thing has made me question whether I need to be breaking every bone in my back running a company. Clearly not, though I may just possibly need one more editor. We'll see. But this year is going to be about making some necessary changes in my life. Draft 2, edited, and out the door. Book 2, between October-December 31st. But mainly, Disappearing again.

The thing about making a big song and dance when you start something like this is that it quickly wears out its welcome. It's like fanfaring every time someone's supposed to come into the room, if they persistently don't arrive. The more false starts you have, the less inclined you are to blow your horn when you begin, because you're more aware of people going 'Oh aye, that'll be right. I'll be over here if you actually do something.'

I weighed in yesterday at 19st 3 lbs. That means that while the first year of the Disappearing Man saw me lose just about 6 stone from my initial starting weight of 20st 7.5 lbs, over the course of the last four years, I've only actually lost 1st 4lbs (18 lbs to my American friends). That entirely sucks. I feel sluggish, I've begun avoiding my reflection again, and have even begun investing in a stupid waste of time - giving a toss what people think of me. I've never done that in 43 years, I'm fucked if I start doing it now, so that needs to stop, which means I need to dislocate my own sense of nosediving self-esteem.

So here we go. Usual rules apply - no fizzy, no fried, low sugar, low carb, more exercise, more metabolic stimulation. Clearly need to rethink my Starbucks choices and probably visit-frequency too, cos even in terms of skinny, that much milk is probably not ideal.

Let's do some math for a quick refresher. The medically advised safe amount to lose per week is 2 lbs. There are 52 weeks in a year. That makes 104 safe pounds of loss advisable in a year, of the (dashes away to calculator) 231 lbs of me there currently is. In British, that means near as dammit, 7.5 stone, which would take me to 11st 10 lbs. Just around a stone or 14 lbs away from the medically advised ideal weight for someone of my height, 5ft 6 inches (curse you, short parents, why couldn't just one of you have fucked a supermodel?!).

Will this happen? Shouldn't think so - barely scraped a loss of 6 stone the first time round, and now I'm four years older and the flab is harder, fortysomething flab that sort of looks up at you and sniggers every time you play energetic music at it. But something will. If I can lose 6 stone in a year again, I'll be happy. To be honest, if I can come away with a net loss of 5 stone 4 lbs, I'll be chuffed as fuck. So the hard goal is 104 lbs. Soft goal, 74 lbs. Annnnywhere in between the two, happy happy Tony, dancing about the place.

So now you're all sitting there going 'Yeah, OK, but what have you actually done? Y'know, today?'
Well, as with the original Disappearing, I'm starting slow, so as to neither surprise the bejesus out of of the heart and make it panic, nor waste the enthusiasm of starting this again on a quick effort that gets nowhere and then is disappointed.

Walked five revolutions of a local lake this morning - equivalent to 6000 steps, 3 miles or 300 calories. Breakfasted on McDonalds plain porridge - couple of hundred calories. So far, had a bottle of water for lunch, though there's a meat and veg stew with my name on it for lunch proper. Tonight's dinner - pasta, but with portion control. And I'm aiming to do a little exercise biking later today too, to up the calories-burned count.

Yeah, I know, big whoop - it's Day One all over again, whaddaya want from me?
What will be happening is more frequent blog entries here again, because if I just rant at the wall, I'll look like a crazy person, and there are other Disappearers out there who quite enjoyed the ride the first time round. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll begin adding the tedium of blood test numbers daily - because I know you won't sleep at night if you don't have those.

I've restarted the Disappearing Man so often over the last three years it's not even funny to Ricky Gervais. But in the words of Bill Hicks, 'excuse me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this shit one more time.' Anyone still up for the ride?