And so this is Christmas, as the song would have it.
Another week, the same deadline, the same lack of exercise, and so, you'll not be surprised to learn, a slightly worse weigh-in: 17st 10.75.
Neatly though, the blood sugar results are getting better and more consistently stable in the 'under-10' range at which I've been told to aim in the first instance - 8.8 this morning, for instance, which considering this is the week of Christmas is something to be happy about.
This is the first Christmas in....almost a decade and a half, I think, where we haven't gone to Ma's for the season. As such, we've had to invent our own new Christmas for the first real time in our marriage. Stayed up till about 4am last night watching old movies and Christmas classics, woke between 9-11 this morning, had breakfast, did presents, found ourselves sleepy, and woke up again round the 4pm mark. Not, in all likelihood, any faff about taking bracing Christmas walks for us today, though we did toy with it as we unwrapped warm clothes and luxury socks. Today has been a total slob-out, and I love that. Tomorrow though, d's back to work and so am I, because clearly, not feeling able to take time off with a crushing deadline, and therefore not taking the time daily to incorporate some exercise into my life, is having a negative effect on my Disappearing, however reasonably I'm eating.
So - back to work, back to walking, back to properly Disappearing. And in the meantime, Merry Wossnamemas, one and all.
Showing posts with label Exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exercise. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 December 2018
Tuesday, 22 May 2018
The Bloody Truth
Hello again. Three weeks or so since I blogged last. Reasons for that are many and silly, but mostly bound up in a) weight gain, and b) arsery. Arsery which has seen me notsomuch fall off the wagon as leap off and burn the fucker to the ground.
Here's the thing though - that ends right now.
First thing's first, it's Tuesday. Ermmmm, last I recorded, I think I'd gone back up to 19 stone dead, or 266 pounds, which was irritating.
Following week I went up to 19 stone 1 pound.
Week after that, up again to 19 stone 2.25.
Clearly, there's drift going on, but given that I've done bog-all exercise and have been slugging and slothing my way through life for the past three weeks, it was going up alllllmost as slowly as it was previously coming off. But not quite, obviously.
Today, weighed in at 19 stone 2.25. Static from last week. Right now, I'll take that.
Now. Have been, as anyone who reads this will possibly remember, getting set up with the doctors in this area. Did the usual HBA1C blood test for long term blood sugars a few weeks ago. No sooner had I done it than they sent me a letter to say 'Balls. Need you to come and do that again.'
The image of course went through my mind of the diagnostic machinery going into overdrive, lights flashing, warning messages flashing, and then the whole kit and caboodle exploding in a puff of smoke when trying to process my blood. So I went and had it done again. Alllmost immediately the letter came back to say 'Yyyyeah, we can't afford to lose another machine. You need to get your ass in to see us, cos this shit ain't clever.'
Went today.
To explain the HBA1C, they like you to have a reading of under 50. I've previously managed under 50, but over the last few years, I've had a tendency, as the weight's crept back onto my bones, to hover in the low to mid-50s. Turns out last October, when we moved here, I had quite a bad result of 76.
Latest scoors on the doors? 117. One hundred. And then another 17. So, over twice what it should be.
#BadTony.
Badder Tony than the slow-ass drift of a pound a week here and there ever lets you know.
The nurse gave me a simple finger-pricking blood sugar test today. Again, in the UK, you're looking for numbers between about 6-8. Yyyyeah - 22.8. So - roughly three times what it should be.
'How are you not walking around with a huge dose of thrush?' she asked.
'Erm...should I be?'
'I'm surprised you're not, yeah,' she said, a touch too breezily for my liking.
'Oh, well, I won't panic when that happens then,' I muttered.
'I'm surprised your skin's not dreaful too,' she added.
'Oh it is, it's more or less turning to ash in the sun.'
'Aha!'
'We're happy about that, are we?'
'Visible symptoms,' she explained. 'Thing is, while your blood sugar's shot through the roof, your body's adapted to it quite well by the looks of things.'
'Thank you,' I said.
'But what we can't see is the untold damage it's doing to your systems inside,' she added.
'Oh.'
'First thing I'd be worried about is your heart.'
'Oh. I've already got an atrial fibrilation...thing going on,' I told her.
'I see that,' she agreed - I like to think she saw it in the notes on the screen in front of her, rather than being possessed of some weird and wonderful NHS juju that could let her spot fibrilation cases by eye.
'There are extra pills I can give you - we've got lots more stuff than we had even just five years ago,' she enthused. 'Weightloss injections and suchlike. The one I'd like to really get you on is for people with good kidneys. You have excellent kidneys.'
'I know,' I smarmed - back a decade or so ago, my mother, who at the time was more of a Tory, had shelled out to get me a BUPA head-to-toe check. They told me I had platinum-level kidneys. It's absurd, but it turns out my kidneys may be my best feature.
'The pill would let you use them to maximum efficience, so you'd pass the sugar out that way. Lose you about 300 calories a day. Also, your current pills aren't really touching the sides just now.'
I came clean that I'd been taking them with screaming irregularity pretty much since we got here - at first because there was a delay in registering and a month when I wouldn't have been able to get any prescriptions from them, and subsequently because I'd just gotten into bad pill-forgetting habits.
'Hmm,' she considered. 'Alright. Take your blood sugar measurements every morning. Some evenings too if you like, but essentially mornings. We'll see what you're like then. Oh and take the pills as prescribed, eh?'
'Will do,' I promised.
So, the stupid shit stops here and now. She gave me a testing machine to take away with me, so now I intend to bore you on a slightly more regular basis with measurements of blood sugar. Just because I can. More water, more walking, the bike is uncovered and just waiting for me. Less carb, less batter, less altogether stupid shit. The plan is to live here at the seaside. That means LIVING here at the seaside, and that in turn means doing what's necessary to stay alive as long as I can here at the seaside. So. Stupid macho posturing face on, and let's do this thing.
Here's the thing though - that ends right now.
First thing's first, it's Tuesday. Ermmmm, last I recorded, I think I'd gone back up to 19 stone dead, or 266 pounds, which was irritating.
Following week I went up to 19 stone 1 pound.
Week after that, up again to 19 stone 2.25.
Clearly, there's drift going on, but given that I've done bog-all exercise and have been slugging and slothing my way through life for the past three weeks, it was going up alllllmost as slowly as it was previously coming off. But not quite, obviously.
Today, weighed in at 19 stone 2.25. Static from last week. Right now, I'll take that.
Now. Have been, as anyone who reads this will possibly remember, getting set up with the doctors in this area. Did the usual HBA1C blood test for long term blood sugars a few weeks ago. No sooner had I done it than they sent me a letter to say 'Balls. Need you to come and do that again.'
The image of course went through my mind of the diagnostic machinery going into overdrive, lights flashing, warning messages flashing, and then the whole kit and caboodle exploding in a puff of smoke when trying to process my blood. So I went and had it done again. Alllmost immediately the letter came back to say 'Yyyyeah, we can't afford to lose another machine. You need to get your ass in to see us, cos this shit ain't clever.'
Went today.
To explain the HBA1C, they like you to have a reading of under 50. I've previously managed under 50, but over the last few years, I've had a tendency, as the weight's crept back onto my bones, to hover in the low to mid-50s. Turns out last October, when we moved here, I had quite a bad result of 76.
Latest scoors on the doors? 117. One hundred. And then another 17. So, over twice what it should be.
#BadTony.
Badder Tony than the slow-ass drift of a pound a week here and there ever lets you know.
The nurse gave me a simple finger-pricking blood sugar test today. Again, in the UK, you're looking for numbers between about 6-8. Yyyyeah - 22.8. So - roughly three times what it should be.
'How are you not walking around with a huge dose of thrush?' she asked.
'Erm...should I be?'
'I'm surprised you're not, yeah,' she said, a touch too breezily for my liking.
'Oh, well, I won't panic when that happens then,' I muttered.
'I'm surprised your skin's not dreaful too,' she added.
'Oh it is, it's more or less turning to ash in the sun.'
'Aha!'
'We're happy about that, are we?'
'Visible symptoms,' she explained. 'Thing is, while your blood sugar's shot through the roof, your body's adapted to it quite well by the looks of things.'
'Thank you,' I said.
'But what we can't see is the untold damage it's doing to your systems inside,' she added.
'Oh.'
'First thing I'd be worried about is your heart.'
'Oh. I've already got an atrial fibrilation...thing going on,' I told her.
'I see that,' she agreed - I like to think she saw it in the notes on the screen in front of her, rather than being possessed of some weird and wonderful NHS juju that could let her spot fibrilation cases by eye.
'There are extra pills I can give you - we've got lots more stuff than we had even just five years ago,' she enthused. 'Weightloss injections and suchlike. The one I'd like to really get you on is for people with good kidneys. You have excellent kidneys.'
'I know,' I smarmed - back a decade or so ago, my mother, who at the time was more of a Tory, had shelled out to get me a BUPA head-to-toe check. They told me I had platinum-level kidneys. It's absurd, but it turns out my kidneys may be my best feature.
'The pill would let you use them to maximum efficience, so you'd pass the sugar out that way. Lose you about 300 calories a day. Also, your current pills aren't really touching the sides just now.'
I came clean that I'd been taking them with screaming irregularity pretty much since we got here - at first because there was a delay in registering and a month when I wouldn't have been able to get any prescriptions from them, and subsequently because I'd just gotten into bad pill-forgetting habits.
'Hmm,' she considered. 'Alright. Take your blood sugar measurements every morning. Some evenings too if you like, but essentially mornings. We'll see what you're like then. Oh and take the pills as prescribed, eh?'
'Will do,' I promised.
So, the stupid shit stops here and now. She gave me a testing machine to take away with me, so now I intend to bore you on a slightly more regular basis with measurements of blood sugar. Just because I can. More water, more walking, the bike is uncovered and just waiting for me. Less carb, less batter, less altogether stupid shit. The plan is to live here at the seaside. That means LIVING here at the seaside, and that in turn means doing what's necessary to stay alive as long as I can here at the seaside. So. Stupid macho posturing face on, and let's do this thing.
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
The Daily Disparity
Apologies all, obviously meant to post this blog yesterday.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
The False Hope Factory
Never, ever, ever, weigh-in the day before an official weigh-in.
Never.
Ever.
I did that yesterday.
I'm here to tell you, it's a crock, and it's made me Captain Crankypants today, ready to kick stones and break ankles and butt heads with everything and everybody in the world.
Yesterday - unofficial, just-for-laughs yesterday, I weighed in and saw my first 18 this year. 18 stone, 13.5.
This, mind you, was after a recumbent Easter - I'd spend Easter Saturday in Cardiff, sitting in a Starbucks, growing carbuncles on my ass, drinking big milky coffees and one ill-advised but delicious mocha frappucino. I ate chips that day too. And Easter Sunday involved a Sunday lunch out with the family, followed by a 'Oh go on then, seeing as it's Easter' dessert. So I rather expected to have put on when I weighed-in yesterday.
Zoiks - there's my 18. A loss of three-quarters of a pound which took me under the 19 stone barrier. All was light and joy and potential, hoorah - all I had to do to celebrate today was to maintain. I had a simple cereal dessert, a relatively straightforward Scotch Egg, and a small bowl of rice and beef.
Woke up this morning, did all my usual things, took a quick uphill walk to the doctors to sign some paperwork, came back, weighed in.
19 stone 1.25!
Up a pound from last week, I could understand. Up a pound and three-quarters since yesterday can get to all kinds of holy ungovernable fuck.
I'm off to the corner to kick pebbles and feel sorry for myself in a wanton display of 'No No, I'm FINE!' Syndrome.
Grr.
Never.
Ever.
I did that yesterday.
I'm here to tell you, it's a crock, and it's made me Captain Crankypants today, ready to kick stones and break ankles and butt heads with everything and everybody in the world.
Yesterday - unofficial, just-for-laughs yesterday, I weighed in and saw my first 18 this year. 18 stone, 13.5.
This, mind you, was after a recumbent Easter - I'd spend Easter Saturday in Cardiff, sitting in a Starbucks, growing carbuncles on my ass, drinking big milky coffees and one ill-advised but delicious mocha frappucino. I ate chips that day too. And Easter Sunday involved a Sunday lunch out with the family, followed by a 'Oh go on then, seeing as it's Easter' dessert. So I rather expected to have put on when I weighed-in yesterday.
Zoiks - there's my 18. A loss of three-quarters of a pound which took me under the 19 stone barrier. All was light and joy and potential, hoorah - all I had to do to celebrate today was to maintain. I had a simple cereal dessert, a relatively straightforward Scotch Egg, and a small bowl of rice and beef.
Woke up this morning, did all my usual things, took a quick uphill walk to the doctors to sign some paperwork, came back, weighed in.
19 stone 1.25!
Up a pound from last week, I could understand. Up a pound and three-quarters since yesterday can get to all kinds of holy ungovernable fuck.
I'm off to the corner to kick pebbles and feel sorry for myself in a wanton display of 'No No, I'm FINE!' Syndrome.
Grr.
Monday, 5 February 2018
The Disappointment Bubble
The temptation to carve up time into tiny chunks can be dangerous when Disappearing.
That means unofficial weigh-ins between proper weigh-ins can potentially throw you for a loop, and affect your motivation. That's happened to me this week - an unofficial weigh-in showed only slow progress, and a subsequent unofficial weigh-in actually showed no progress, and the temptation then, when you're putting the time in to increase your exercise quotient and very specifically not eating a whole host of things you want to eat, is to feel distinctly pouty and stone-kicky and, not to put too fine a point on it, tantrummy.
I actually expect no progress at all on tomorrow's officiall weigh-in, so any that does come will be a bonus (a psychologically useful thing, this last-minute moving of goalposts to maintain equilibrium in the face of what would otherwise be bad news). The truth, I suspect, is that my body has acclimatized quickly to the things I'm doing, and is sitting there going 'Yeah. What else ya got?'
The additional truth of course is that I've got quite a lot. This has been what I hope it's OK in this absurd Brexitworld we live in to call a Soft Disappearing, at least in terms of its beginnings. I have still yet to clear enough of the carnage of boxes from around my exercise bike to get back on it since this Disappearing began. There have been days this week when deadlines took precedence and I didn't walk. And even on the days when I did, the distance has been sub-10,000 steps (thought I was somewhat heartened to read a news story this week that said the 10,000 step target was pretty much arbitrary).So there are certainly things I can, and will, do to make the Disappearing bite rather harder in the week ahead. But right now, it would be foolish to deny I'm in a bit of a Disappointment Bubble, because almost every time I've tried, I've lost more than this in the first two weeks, and you get used to, and expectant of, that initial bump-down of water-weight to power-surge your ego and push you on.
That hasn't happened yet this time. Perhaps by giving the Disappearing a few more teeth, I can start to impress my system with the fact that this is happening.
That means unofficial weigh-ins between proper weigh-ins can potentially throw you for a loop, and affect your motivation. That's happened to me this week - an unofficial weigh-in showed only slow progress, and a subsequent unofficial weigh-in actually showed no progress, and the temptation then, when you're putting the time in to increase your exercise quotient and very specifically not eating a whole host of things you want to eat, is to feel distinctly pouty and stone-kicky and, not to put too fine a point on it, tantrummy.
I actually expect no progress at all on tomorrow's officiall weigh-in, so any that does come will be a bonus (a psychologically useful thing, this last-minute moving of goalposts to maintain equilibrium in the face of what would otherwise be bad news). The truth, I suspect, is that my body has acclimatized quickly to the things I'm doing, and is sitting there going 'Yeah. What else ya got?'
The additional truth of course is that I've got quite a lot. This has been what I hope it's OK in this absurd Brexitworld we live in to call a Soft Disappearing, at least in terms of its beginnings. I have still yet to clear enough of the carnage of boxes from around my exercise bike to get back on it since this Disappearing began. There have been days this week when deadlines took precedence and I didn't walk. And even on the days when I did, the distance has been sub-10,000 steps (thought I was somewhat heartened to read a news story this week that said the 10,000 step target was pretty much arbitrary).So there are certainly things I can, and will, do to make the Disappearing bite rather harder in the week ahead. But right now, it would be foolish to deny I'm in a bit of a Disappointment Bubble, because almost every time I've tried, I've lost more than this in the first two weeks, and you get used to, and expectant of, that initial bump-down of water-weight to power-surge your ego and push you on.
That hasn't happened yet this time. Perhaps by giving the Disappearing a few more teeth, I can start to impress my system with the fact that this is happening.
Sunday, 8 January 2017
First World Problems and the Numb Zone
Exercise is fundamentally an odd thing when we do it not for any purpose but itself.
I mean, in years and centuries gone by, the condition of Mankind was that it worked hard to survive, to get sufficient bread and meat and water in its bellies to keep both hope and strength alive from one day to the next. For vast swathes of Mankind today, that's actually still the way of life - children pickking over rubbish dumps, men and women both in fields, women frankly doing a damn site more besides because their work is undervalued and not seen to have a designated end in any day. Labourers with hands and backs doing jobs that demand fuel and run their bodies at a high metabolic rate.
Then there are people like me.
Indisputable first-worlders, with, to coin a phrase, 'world enough and time' to have grown both fat and lazy (though it's important to understand the two are not in any way necessarily synonymous), plying skills that only have any value whatsoever in an information economy, and plying them from behind desks, at which we sit in some degree of comfort. For us, exercise is not a part of the natural rhythm of our lives, and so we do the oddest things in pursuit of it, in our little quests to burn off the calories we take in, in a kind of weird, false hat-tip to our fellow men and women who still burn energy day in, day out as part of the business of keeping their lives together. We go to gyms, and lie about it, pretending to enjoy ourselves. We walk pets in an effort to keep them and ourselves more healthy.
Or in my case, we go for long walks.
This is what I mean by exercise being an odd thing to do just for its own sake. If you have a purpose to your moving about, and you're a man, then when the purpose is satisfied, more than likely, you stop. If you're a woman of course, the thing no-one ever expressly tells you is that the purpose is never bloddy satisfied, but I digress. If you're just walking for the sake of walking, you actually need an equally false marker or moment to get you to stop doing it.
Case in point. I went walking relatively early today, so as to make the most of the dwindling daylight. I went up the road to my familiar gas station (the Norton Gas Station, for anyone who knows it), and the first roundabout leading to Dowlais. By which point, I'd gone a disappointing 2400 steps. I did the maths, and realised if I turned around then and went home, it would be fewer than 5000. But here's the thing. At that point, the exercise was still new to my system today, and was beginning to hurt me. But I shrugged at the numbers, and pushed on up the hill (yes, another hill. Seriously, the town's just made of hills) to a second roundabout, at a kind of second, 'No really, are you sure you want to go here?' gateway to Dowlais (Dowlais seems to be entirely unconvinced people should really want to go there). By the time I got there, the pain of the newness had worn off, but the numbers were starting to look a bit more interesing - somthing over 3000 steps done, meaning 6000 if I just turned round. I seriously considered it. Then I turned left, seeing a bus stop up another divergent hill. 'I'll just go to that, and that can be my past-the-second-roundabout marker,' I thought.
Reached it. Didn't count the steps. Pushed on. I'd entered the Numb Zone.
The Numb Zone is that point where your limbs have become used to the action you're taking, and so the usual markers that tell you 'you should stop now' have been quitened, because you've clicked in to the activity, and gotten 'in' to the doing of it. I walked through Dowlais, past a couple of familiar landmarks, and out into less familiar territory as the January sun thought 'Fuck this for a game of soldiers' and went to hide. I reached the point where I was on an unfamiliar road, by an unfamiliar church or chapel, and had the conscious thought that 'Either this goes round in a circle of the town, down through the Gurnos...orrrr it doesn't, and ends up somewhere in Pontsticill, which is not where I want to be, in the dark, on a Sunday night.'
All hail Google Maps, the Geographic Fuckwit's Friend. Turned out I'd missed the Gurnos turning, and was indeed heading out towards Pontsticill, land of reservoirs, evil bastard hills of distinction, sheep, road with no pavement and not a whole fuck of a lot else.
I turned round, went back to the turning I'd missed, walked along the road to the Gurnos, through an industrial estate, round the back of my old school, down past a house I used to live in, up and over another hill, Sycamore Road, where my grandmother used to live, and where, as she used to say, 'seven winds get together for a discussion on where to blow.' And from there, a simple drop down through the rest of the Gurnos back to house, coming mercifully to it from the top, rather than having to deal with the two evil bastard hills on which I technically now live, and about which I've recently bitched.
All in all, that'll get you over 12,000 steps. And the really weird thing is that as I sit here now, safely home and back behind my desk, I don't feel like I've done much at all, don't feel anything like as dead as shorter distances have recently made me. I'm not fool enough to think I'm yet getting accustomed to the whole wretched business of walking for the sake of it. it's the power of the Numb Zone - when you push past the initial pain of unexpected movement, and you just keep doing a thing. Were the streets better lit and were there not Sherlock to be home for and soup to be had, I could well have carried on for thousands more steps tonight, until the Numb Zone ran out and the next zone of 'No, really, if you keep this shit up, I'm gonna hurt you' kicked in.
So all hail the Numb Zone, and me finding a satisfying new route that gives me my daily step count. Takes a fuck of a long time which may not be practical on a day-job day, but still - at least now I know that it's there.
I mean, in years and centuries gone by, the condition of Mankind was that it worked hard to survive, to get sufficient bread and meat and water in its bellies to keep both hope and strength alive from one day to the next. For vast swathes of Mankind today, that's actually still the way of life - children pickking over rubbish dumps, men and women both in fields, women frankly doing a damn site more besides because their work is undervalued and not seen to have a designated end in any day. Labourers with hands and backs doing jobs that demand fuel and run their bodies at a high metabolic rate.
Then there are people like me.
Indisputable first-worlders, with, to coin a phrase, 'world enough and time' to have grown both fat and lazy (though it's important to understand the two are not in any way necessarily synonymous), plying skills that only have any value whatsoever in an information economy, and plying them from behind desks, at which we sit in some degree of comfort. For us, exercise is not a part of the natural rhythm of our lives, and so we do the oddest things in pursuit of it, in our little quests to burn off the calories we take in, in a kind of weird, false hat-tip to our fellow men and women who still burn energy day in, day out as part of the business of keeping their lives together. We go to gyms, and lie about it, pretending to enjoy ourselves. We walk pets in an effort to keep them and ourselves more healthy.
Or in my case, we go for long walks.
This is what I mean by exercise being an odd thing to do just for its own sake. If you have a purpose to your moving about, and you're a man, then when the purpose is satisfied, more than likely, you stop. If you're a woman of course, the thing no-one ever expressly tells you is that the purpose is never bloddy satisfied, but I digress. If you're just walking for the sake of walking, you actually need an equally false marker or moment to get you to stop doing it.
Case in point. I went walking relatively early today, so as to make the most of the dwindling daylight. I went up the road to my familiar gas station (the Norton Gas Station, for anyone who knows it), and the first roundabout leading to Dowlais. By which point, I'd gone a disappointing 2400 steps. I did the maths, and realised if I turned around then and went home, it would be fewer than 5000. But here's the thing. At that point, the exercise was still new to my system today, and was beginning to hurt me. But I shrugged at the numbers, and pushed on up the hill (yes, another hill. Seriously, the town's just made of hills) to a second roundabout, at a kind of second, 'No really, are you sure you want to go here?' gateway to Dowlais (Dowlais seems to be entirely unconvinced people should really want to go there). By the time I got there, the pain of the newness had worn off, but the numbers were starting to look a bit more interesing - somthing over 3000 steps done, meaning 6000 if I just turned round. I seriously considered it. Then I turned left, seeing a bus stop up another divergent hill. 'I'll just go to that, and that can be my past-the-second-roundabout marker,' I thought.
Reached it. Didn't count the steps. Pushed on. I'd entered the Numb Zone.
The Numb Zone is that point where your limbs have become used to the action you're taking, and so the usual markers that tell you 'you should stop now' have been quitened, because you've clicked in to the activity, and gotten 'in' to the doing of it. I walked through Dowlais, past a couple of familiar landmarks, and out into less familiar territory as the January sun thought 'Fuck this for a game of soldiers' and went to hide. I reached the point where I was on an unfamiliar road, by an unfamiliar church or chapel, and had the conscious thought that 'Either this goes round in a circle of the town, down through the Gurnos...orrrr it doesn't, and ends up somewhere in Pontsticill, which is not where I want to be, in the dark, on a Sunday night.'
All hail Google Maps, the Geographic Fuckwit's Friend. Turned out I'd missed the Gurnos turning, and was indeed heading out towards Pontsticill, land of reservoirs, evil bastard hills of distinction, sheep, road with no pavement and not a whole fuck of a lot else.
I turned round, went back to the turning I'd missed, walked along the road to the Gurnos, through an industrial estate, round the back of my old school, down past a house I used to live in, up and over another hill, Sycamore Road, where my grandmother used to live, and where, as she used to say, 'seven winds get together for a discussion on where to blow.' And from there, a simple drop down through the rest of the Gurnos back to house, coming mercifully to it from the top, rather than having to deal with the two evil bastard hills on which I technically now live, and about which I've recently bitched.
All in all, that'll get you over 12,000 steps. And the really weird thing is that as I sit here now, safely home and back behind my desk, I don't feel like I've done much at all, don't feel anything like as dead as shorter distances have recently made me. I'm not fool enough to think I'm yet getting accustomed to the whole wretched business of walking for the sake of it. it's the power of the Numb Zone - when you push past the initial pain of unexpected movement, and you just keep doing a thing. Were the streets better lit and were there not Sherlock to be home for and soup to be had, I could well have carried on for thousands more steps tonight, until the Numb Zone ran out and the next zone of 'No, really, if you keep this shit up, I'm gonna hurt you' kicked in.
So all hail the Numb Zone, and me finding a satisfying new route that gives me my daily step count. Takes a fuck of a long time which may not be practical on a day-job day, but still - at least now I know that it's there.
Wednesday, 4 January 2017
The Uphill Struggle
Sigh.
Since the post-pizza moment yesterday, no more bathroom trips for Yours, Disappearingly. Consequently, the meals are piling up in my system. Sometimes, I even depress myself - weighed last night before going to bed. Grumped my way back into the bedroom.
'Y'OK honey?' said d.
'Fine,' I grumbled. 'But I've got three meals in me...'
She laughed, bless her.
Two more meals since then. Feeling huge and full and bloated.
Had a hard day's day-jobbery and editing, which meant by 5pm, I'd travelled all of 137 steps in the day.
Decided I wanted to do something more, something bigger and more challenging. So tonight I headed off up something called Penyard Hill, and along a ridge that allows you to look down on the town centre. I've always looked down on the town, so Penyard makes a certain intrinsic sense to me, and it's the first of Merthyr's many hills on which I lived as a child. I walked down from the ridge, ending up at the town's Tesco store. Walked around that for a while, for no terribly good reason. Then decided to walk up the high street home.
For thos who don't know, Merthyr is a town built of all the hills left over after Indianna was rolled out with the geolocial equivalent of a steamroller. Even the downhills go up in Merthyr, it's a geographical absurdity. The high street leads upward and flows into a second, steeper incline called Pontmorlais, and at the top of Pontmorlais, our house now clings to the side of an enormo-hump, like a giant geological zit, which involves trekking up two fundamental bastard hills - we live at the almost very top of the second of them.
Which is why we take a lot of cabs since moving out of our flat in the town centre.
By the time I got to the two utter bastards, I was realising how long it's been since I've done anything like that. By the time I'd clawed my way to the top of the first bastard, I was gasping, thinking 'Fuck it, I'll just live here, by this lamppost.' In fact, I actually texted d from that lamppost, at the bottom of our street, to say as much.
By the time I got in through the door I was a sweat-drenched, breathless pug of a human being.
Which of course is one of many, many reasons to do this damned thing in the first place. Still - reasonably good eye-opener, that. One has a tendency to think that nothing has changed in one's fitness level until the real world smacks one in the face with a two-by-four. Or an evil bastard hill.
Onward! Upward! Downward through the stone-counter, dammit!
Since the post-pizza moment yesterday, no more bathroom trips for Yours, Disappearingly. Consequently, the meals are piling up in my system. Sometimes, I even depress myself - weighed last night before going to bed. Grumped my way back into the bedroom.
'Y'OK honey?' said d.
'Fine,' I grumbled. 'But I've got three meals in me...'
She laughed, bless her.
Two more meals since then. Feeling huge and full and bloated.
Had a hard day's day-jobbery and editing, which meant by 5pm, I'd travelled all of 137 steps in the day.
Decided I wanted to do something more, something bigger and more challenging. So tonight I headed off up something called Penyard Hill, and along a ridge that allows you to look down on the town centre. I've always looked down on the town, so Penyard makes a certain intrinsic sense to me, and it's the first of Merthyr's many hills on which I lived as a child. I walked down from the ridge, ending up at the town's Tesco store. Walked around that for a while, for no terribly good reason. Then decided to walk up the high street home.
For thos who don't know, Merthyr is a town built of all the hills left over after Indianna was rolled out with the geolocial equivalent of a steamroller. Even the downhills go up in Merthyr, it's a geographical absurdity. The high street leads upward and flows into a second, steeper incline called Pontmorlais, and at the top of Pontmorlais, our house now clings to the side of an enormo-hump, like a giant geological zit, which involves trekking up two fundamental bastard hills - we live at the almost very top of the second of them.
Which is why we take a lot of cabs since moving out of our flat in the town centre.
By the time I got to the two utter bastards, I was realising how long it's been since I've done anything like that. By the time I'd clawed my way to the top of the first bastard, I was gasping, thinking 'Fuck it, I'll just live here, by this lamppost.' In fact, I actually texted d from that lamppost, at the bottom of our street, to say as much.
By the time I got in through the door I was a sweat-drenched, breathless pug of a human being.
Which of course is one of many, many reasons to do this damned thing in the first place. Still - reasonably good eye-opener, that. One has a tendency to think that nothing has changed in one's fitness level until the real world smacks one in the face with a two-by-four. Or an evil bastard hill.
Onward! Upward! Downward through the stone-counter, dammit!
Wednesday, 20 April 2016
The Forgotten Prohibition
'Your face looks slimmer today,' said d.
It will surprise no-one who's acquainted with my ego that I brightened at her words. I won't say I actually preened, but there was a definite flutter of optimistic self-delusion in my brain.
'Well, I was a pound down this morning as it happens,' I told her. 'Maybe it fell straight off my chin.'
She grinned at me, the way people grin at a pet rat who's just done an extraordinarily cute trick for the zillionth time.
'D'you wanna go out for breakfast?' she asked, and I agreed - there's a local cafe where they have extraordinarily good bread for toast from the bakery next door, and where, after we've been living here four years, nine times out of ten, they can get d's order right.
Be under no illusions - this is no kind of veiled criticism. Watching my girl order food is an astonishing way to spend your time. I frequently call her 'Sally' when we're out eating together, and this is why. Sally Albright and my girl - Sisters from another mother. Clearly, they're by no means unique in knowing what they want and how they want it - if they were, it would have been merely vanity putting it in a movie. And I absolutely don't say this to get her to stop - it's astonishing and wonderful and I want her to have what she wants. What's more, being in some respects so British it mkaes my bones squeak, I've been known on many an occasion to cash in on her ability to precisely describe what she wants, and how, and even for the most part where, so that I too can now occasionally actually get what I want in restaurants and cafes, rather than doing that thing where I eat whatever's put in front of me, even if it was intended for the lady with the impetigo in the corner, and meekly nodding when asked that obligatory, awful question, 'Is everything all right for you?'
I think it's a simple cultural thing - the land of freedom and choice vs the land of social inhibition, taking what you're given and lumping it. Twelve years on, watching my girl order food is still a wonder and a pleasure, and long may it continue.
This morning, as it happens, our cafe was off its game - there was a soggy toast issue - but I didn't say any of this to highlight soggy toast. I said it because we've been there quite regularly, and d's example has boosted my confidence. So now, I don't have to use a menu. I'm confident in my delivery. In a loud, clear voice, I ask for 'the lunchbox small, no back pudding, extra sausage instead and a mug o' decaff.'
It came, it was fab, d and I arranged a toast exchange like spies in the Cold War, and all was good. She had stuff to do in town, I had stuff to do back in the office so we went our separate ways.
It was only as I rounded the final bend before the flat that something hit me in the face like a ball peen hammer.
The Forgotten Prohibition!
I'd not only forgotten a prohibition that wa a central part of the original Disappearing act, without remembering it was there I'd pretty much stomped up to it, flicked it a merry set of V's, waggled my groin at it, turned around, farted in its face and swaggered off content in the knowledge of a prohibition told most royally where to go.
No Fried Foods.
In the list I made a night or two ago of all the rules of Disappearing, I'd somehow neglected to add one of the most fundamental - no fried foods.
The thing is, fried foods are sneaky little bastards. If you're not constantly vigilant, they can sneak up on you, looking like part of the culinary furniture and then - wallop! - before you know it, they're down your gullet, being digested and spreading their lovely comforting fried fabulousness to all the cells of your body. And sure enough, I'd scoffed bacon and sausage for breakfast. Fried sausage and bacon. I nokw you can do them other ways. our cafe doesn't. So witout even remembering it was there, I'd broken a Disappearing rule. Good start, no?
I thought about flagellating myself senselessly for about six hours, but to be honest, I had a magazine to put out so I didn't really have the time. It is what it is, and was what it was, and by all the listening gods, I'm gonna miss those sausage and bacon. But there it is - now I know the prohibition's there, it would be an act of dishonesty to break it again.
Arse.
Anything else of interest to tell you today? Well, Victoria Wood died, and I feel like that's punched me in the face, but that's a topic for a different blog, tomorrow.
And I went walking again tonight, and took longer about it. Managed 9.12 km in just over two hours. Which sounds massively more impressive than 'five and a bit miles,' but equates to the same thing as far as my screaming feet are concerned. Walked the length of two villages, essentially, from Merthyr through Pentrebach to the centre of Troedyrhiw (non-Welsh folk, don't worry about trying to pronounce the names, Welsh is a thorougly perverse language), and back.
One thing I learned on the way is that my whole 'sluggish transit, sweetcorn experiment' thing might in fact be just a symptom of what I like to think of as Slug Life. I was about a quarter of the way nto the return journey (with, say, two miles left to go), when my system announced a pressing, urgent need to find a bathroom.
So, that will explain why my 'per kilometre' speed actually went up on the return trip, despite being the uphill portion of the walk. Motivation is clearly of great importance when it comes to getting the miles covered.
There have to be easier ways.
Oh - damn. Something just struck me. I'll have to go back to using a menu at the cafe now that fried food's quite literally off my table.
Bugger.
It will surprise no-one who's acquainted with my ego that I brightened at her words. I won't say I actually preened, but there was a definite flutter of optimistic self-delusion in my brain.
'Well, I was a pound down this morning as it happens,' I told her. 'Maybe it fell straight off my chin.'
She grinned at me, the way people grin at a pet rat who's just done an extraordinarily cute trick for the zillionth time.
'D'you wanna go out for breakfast?' she asked, and I agreed - there's a local cafe where they have extraordinarily good bread for toast from the bakery next door, and where, after we've been living here four years, nine times out of ten, they can get d's order right.
Be under no illusions - this is no kind of veiled criticism. Watching my girl order food is an astonishing way to spend your time. I frequently call her 'Sally' when we're out eating together, and this is why. Sally Albright and my girl - Sisters from another mother. Clearly, they're by no means unique in knowing what they want and how they want it - if they were, it would have been merely vanity putting it in a movie. And I absolutely don't say this to get her to stop - it's astonishing and wonderful and I want her to have what she wants. What's more, being in some respects so British it mkaes my bones squeak, I've been known on many an occasion to cash in on her ability to precisely describe what she wants, and how, and even for the most part where, so that I too can now occasionally actually get what I want in restaurants and cafes, rather than doing that thing where I eat whatever's put in front of me, even if it was intended for the lady with the impetigo in the corner, and meekly nodding when asked that obligatory, awful question, 'Is everything all right for you?'
I think it's a simple cultural thing - the land of freedom and choice vs the land of social inhibition, taking what you're given and lumping it. Twelve years on, watching my girl order food is still a wonder and a pleasure, and long may it continue.
This morning, as it happens, our cafe was off its game - there was a soggy toast issue - but I didn't say any of this to highlight soggy toast. I said it because we've been there quite regularly, and d's example has boosted my confidence. So now, I don't have to use a menu. I'm confident in my delivery. In a loud, clear voice, I ask for 'the lunchbox small, no back pudding, extra sausage instead and a mug o' decaff.'
It came, it was fab, d and I arranged a toast exchange like spies in the Cold War, and all was good. She had stuff to do in town, I had stuff to do back in the office so we went our separate ways.
It was only as I rounded the final bend before the flat that something hit me in the face like a ball peen hammer.
The Forgotten Prohibition!
I'd not only forgotten a prohibition that wa a central part of the original Disappearing act, without remembering it was there I'd pretty much stomped up to it, flicked it a merry set of V's, waggled my groin at it, turned around, farted in its face and swaggered off content in the knowledge of a prohibition told most royally where to go.
No Fried Foods.
In the list I made a night or two ago of all the rules of Disappearing, I'd somehow neglected to add one of the most fundamental - no fried foods.
The thing is, fried foods are sneaky little bastards. If you're not constantly vigilant, they can sneak up on you, looking like part of the culinary furniture and then - wallop! - before you know it, they're down your gullet, being digested and spreading their lovely comforting fried fabulousness to all the cells of your body. And sure enough, I'd scoffed bacon and sausage for breakfast. Fried sausage and bacon. I nokw you can do them other ways. our cafe doesn't. So witout even remembering it was there, I'd broken a Disappearing rule. Good start, no?
I thought about flagellating myself senselessly for about six hours, but to be honest, I had a magazine to put out so I didn't really have the time. It is what it is, and was what it was, and by all the listening gods, I'm gonna miss those sausage and bacon. But there it is - now I know the prohibition's there, it would be an act of dishonesty to break it again.
Arse.
Anything else of interest to tell you today? Well, Victoria Wood died, and I feel like that's punched me in the face, but that's a topic for a different blog, tomorrow.
And I went walking again tonight, and took longer about it. Managed 9.12 km in just over two hours. Which sounds massively more impressive than 'five and a bit miles,' but equates to the same thing as far as my screaming feet are concerned. Walked the length of two villages, essentially, from Merthyr through Pentrebach to the centre of Troedyrhiw (non-Welsh folk, don't worry about trying to pronounce the names, Welsh is a thorougly perverse language), and back.
One thing I learned on the way is that my whole 'sluggish transit, sweetcorn experiment' thing might in fact be just a symptom of what I like to think of as Slug Life. I was about a quarter of the way nto the return journey (with, say, two miles left to go), when my system announced a pressing, urgent need to find a bathroom.
So, that will explain why my 'per kilometre' speed actually went up on the return trip, despite being the uphill portion of the walk. Motivation is clearly of great importance when it comes to getting the miles covered.
There have to be easier ways.
Oh - damn. Something just struck me. I'll have to go back to using a menu at the cafe now that fried food's quite literally off my table.
Bugger.
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
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.
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.
Saturday, 2 April 2016
The Perception Flicker
Unff. Couple of days blogless. Couple of days exerciseless too. Couple of days including big pizzas, greasy spoon lunches, fairly large cereal breakfasts.
And fear, of course. Fear of rocketing numbers, the exhaustion of having to go a fuck of a long way back to healthy. Fear of having more time behind me than ahead. Fear of books not written, things not done, and a life cut horribly short by my own hand - putting food in my mouth that's the equivalent of pouring acid in my eyes, slashing holes in my liver, cutting off my own feet, and ultimately shooting myself in the head. Diabetic fear, in other words.
Finally got back off my ass again tonight, walked five miles, nearly 12,000 steps. Done now. Feel every one of the 12,000. Tonight though, a form of fear to which I'm not normally prone. Went walking down the Trail, but to get there from our flat, you have to go past a couple of areas where people congregate - a skate park, a cinema, a handful of cheap restaurants and a leisure centre. Tonight, in the evening sunshine, the pathway to the Trail was thronged with people, and - I froze.
I have the distinction of both having a brother and yet being raised as an only child. As an only child, I've always had a 'fuck you' attitude to peer pressure. I walk where I want, I do what I want, and if the world doesn't like it, it can go right to hell.
But tonight, I froze. Suddenly very much aware of my body and the numbers of people through whom I had to walk.
That was a new and unwelcome sense of fear. Naturally of course, I shook myself down, turned up some Guns N Roses in my ears and marched on through the buggers, because of course I refuse to be bullied by my own imagination. But still - that was odd. Walked on my way, but it was just a little moment of weirdness in the day. Occurred to me with my involvement in the Women's Equality Party that to some extent, you can make a comparison between that tiny twinge and the much more pervasive, permanent sensation of what it's like to be a woman in the world - that potential fear of eyes, of judgement in which the world is actively schooled. I'm not about to make too big a thing of that, because I know plenty of women who don't feel that way, any more than I ever have done. Still - a weird moment of self-consciousness in an otherwise self-congratulatory day.
And fear, of course. Fear of rocketing numbers, the exhaustion of having to go a fuck of a long way back to healthy. Fear of having more time behind me than ahead. Fear of books not written, things not done, and a life cut horribly short by my own hand - putting food in my mouth that's the equivalent of pouring acid in my eyes, slashing holes in my liver, cutting off my own feet, and ultimately shooting myself in the head. Diabetic fear, in other words.
Finally got back off my ass again tonight, walked five miles, nearly 12,000 steps. Done now. Feel every one of the 12,000. Tonight though, a form of fear to which I'm not normally prone. Went walking down the Trail, but to get there from our flat, you have to go past a couple of areas where people congregate - a skate park, a cinema, a handful of cheap restaurants and a leisure centre. Tonight, in the evening sunshine, the pathway to the Trail was thronged with people, and - I froze.
I have the distinction of both having a brother and yet being raised as an only child. As an only child, I've always had a 'fuck you' attitude to peer pressure. I walk where I want, I do what I want, and if the world doesn't like it, it can go right to hell.
But tonight, I froze. Suddenly very much aware of my body and the numbers of people through whom I had to walk.
That was a new and unwelcome sense of fear. Naturally of course, I shook myself down, turned up some Guns N Roses in my ears and marched on through the buggers, because of course I refuse to be bullied by my own imagination. But still - that was odd. Walked on my way, but it was just a little moment of weirdness in the day. Occurred to me with my involvement in the Women's Equality Party that to some extent, you can make a comparison between that tiny twinge and the much more pervasive, permanent sensation of what it's like to be a woman in the world - that potential fear of eyes, of judgement in which the world is actively schooled. I'm not about to make too big a thing of that, because I know plenty of women who don't feel that way, any more than I ever have done. Still - a weird moment of self-consciousness in an otherwise self-congratulatory day.
Wednesday, 30 March 2016
The Papa John Puff Pastry Penitence Principle
Evil has come to our town.
Crusty, chewy, succulent evil.
Merthyr now has its own Papa John's. This spells all kinds of doom for all kinds of Disappearing efforts, and today, when d got out of work, we went to give it the blessing of our patronage.
Given that the weather today has been all kinds of apocalyptic - I was out of the door ten seconds when the sky started throwing little pellets of fuckyou (or hailstones, as the rest of the world rather boringly insists on calling them) at me - I had figured that today might be one of those wondrous, joyful things we like to fondly imagine are necessary - a rest day from the routine of exercise.
But as we sat in our flat, moaning rather indecently given we were on separate couches, and chewing our Papa John joyfulness, the sun did a rather unfriendly thing and beamed through our window, as if to say 'Ohhhh no - you're not pinning this shit on me, pilgrim, I'm here if you want me.'
So, I grabbed my trainers (I have yet to convince my body we're taking it seriously enough again to stap on the walking boots - not least because every time I do that, I get pigging blisters!), and trudged out of the door.
Wales, as I've mentioned before, is not flat. In fact, if you were looking for absolute antonyms of Welshness, 'flat' would probably win hands down. I wanted something slightly different from my Trail walk, which saves most of its uphill stretches for the return journey, so instead I looked towards Thomastown. Thomastown, for those who've been with the blog a while, or who know the topography of Merthyr, is up what I'm pleased to call a Hail Mary Mother of Fuck of a Hill. Since I've been living in Merthyr this time round, I've tackled that hill many a time.
I've never been this heavy when I've done it. In fact, it's fair at this point to recall that I've not really been this heavy while living in Merthyr...erm...ever, I don't think. So instead of the straight up (and I do mean straight up) kill-me-now of a hill, I tackled the thing with a puff pastry principle - walking along one way, making a little upturn, and walking back the other - acheiving the rise in altidue in a series of at least theoretically more manageable inclines (it's possible I've been married for a foodie too long for this reference to make automatic sense to non-foodies, because this naturally feels like puff pastry to me - it's all about the layers). By the time I got to Thomastown Park, I was still practically begging for death from any wandering deity or demon. A detour over to my mother's place to check on her, as she's been suffering from the bastard son of a thousand lurgis recently, and I managed to rack up something a little over three miles. With a whole hell of a lot more up involved than my Trail route ever feels like. So, technically a light day, exercise-wise, and a heavy food day, with the discovery of Papa John's. But still, the joy about doing a truly painful walk is that you feel ridiculously virtuous at the end of it, whatever the numbers actually say. I'm not sure what this inherent masochism in the human spirit is all about, but you do feel like you've 'earned' your dinner if you happen to feel bloody awful after some exertion, whatever the reality might be.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sink, Bertie Wooster-like, beneath the water of a hot, reviving bath. one rather feels one has 'earned' that too, having walked a painful walk. The dangerous thing of course is that the same logic whispers into your brain that you've earned a big slab of chocolate as well...
Argh - to the bath!
Crusty, chewy, succulent evil.
Merthyr now has its own Papa John's. This spells all kinds of doom for all kinds of Disappearing efforts, and today, when d got out of work, we went to give it the blessing of our patronage.
Given that the weather today has been all kinds of apocalyptic - I was out of the door ten seconds when the sky started throwing little pellets of fuckyou (or hailstones, as the rest of the world rather boringly insists on calling them) at me - I had figured that today might be one of those wondrous, joyful things we like to fondly imagine are necessary - a rest day from the routine of exercise.
But as we sat in our flat, moaning rather indecently given we were on separate couches, and chewing our Papa John joyfulness, the sun did a rather unfriendly thing and beamed through our window, as if to say 'Ohhhh no - you're not pinning this shit on me, pilgrim, I'm here if you want me.'
So, I grabbed my trainers (I have yet to convince my body we're taking it seriously enough again to stap on the walking boots - not least because every time I do that, I get pigging blisters!), and trudged out of the door.
Wales, as I've mentioned before, is not flat. In fact, if you were looking for absolute antonyms of Welshness, 'flat' would probably win hands down. I wanted something slightly different from my Trail walk, which saves most of its uphill stretches for the return journey, so instead I looked towards Thomastown. Thomastown, for those who've been with the blog a while, or who know the topography of Merthyr, is up what I'm pleased to call a Hail Mary Mother of Fuck of a Hill. Since I've been living in Merthyr this time round, I've tackled that hill many a time.
I've never been this heavy when I've done it. In fact, it's fair at this point to recall that I've not really been this heavy while living in Merthyr...erm...ever, I don't think. So instead of the straight up (and I do mean straight up) kill-me-now of a hill, I tackled the thing with a puff pastry principle - walking along one way, making a little upturn, and walking back the other - acheiving the rise in altidue in a series of at least theoretically more manageable inclines (it's possible I've been married for a foodie too long for this reference to make automatic sense to non-foodies, because this naturally feels like puff pastry to me - it's all about the layers). By the time I got to Thomastown Park, I was still practically begging for death from any wandering deity or demon. A detour over to my mother's place to check on her, as she's been suffering from the bastard son of a thousand lurgis recently, and I managed to rack up something a little over three miles. With a whole hell of a lot more up involved than my Trail route ever feels like. So, technically a light day, exercise-wise, and a heavy food day, with the discovery of Papa John's. But still, the joy about doing a truly painful walk is that you feel ridiculously virtuous at the end of it, whatever the numbers actually say. I'm not sure what this inherent masochism in the human spirit is all about, but you do feel like you've 'earned' your dinner if you happen to feel bloody awful after some exertion, whatever the reality might be.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sink, Bertie Wooster-like, beneath the water of a hot, reviving bath. one rather feels one has 'earned' that too, having walked a painful walk. The dangerous thing of course is that the same logic whispers into your brain that you've earned a big slab of chocolate as well...
Argh - to the bath!
Friday, 4 March 2016
The Curry Divergence
"How does curry and rice sound?"
"Sounds very much like I love you forever."
You see, this is the problem with writing something down. The minute you do, it's set in stone, and you're not, and life has a way of throwing gorgeous tasty curved balls your way.
After I wrote last night's parable, d posed the question to me, and curry and rice was indubitably had. Delivery schedules being what they are though, biking was equally indubitably not done.
So - yay, part of me did a little jig of joy and determined to be nicer to small dogs and maiden aunts, because after all, the world was a lovely place.
The thing is, I could sort of get away with it yesterday. Was rather an active day, given that both my day job and my company involve me, as mentioned, in an awful lot of Sitting Down. By the time d's offer came, my phone was saying "Well done, you, you've hit your active minutes target," and even the Fitbit, which is a rather more gruelling taskmaster, was nodding brusquely and saying "Not bad. Could be better, but not bad."
Today? Notsomuch. The phone is kind of looking up at me with puppydog eyes, asking "Dude, what happened?" The Fitbit has been taken off, to give my wrist an airing and stop the electronic personal trainer from curling up in disgust. Much high-quality Sitting has been done today, with the result that I can cross a number of annoying things off my To Do List, leaving almost entirely fun things for the next week or so. On the other hand, my body's sitting here crying, going all "You don't love me any more!"
Quite where it gets the idea I ever loved it from, I'm not entirely sure. But so it is that this is a shortish entry - I need to bog right off, right now, and jump on the bike for a sliver of sweaty unpleasantness, before showering and dining and doing, tonight, no further work whatsoever.
Life, as far as I can see, is a mixture of getting kicked in the nuts and then, mysteriously, not. Take a curry diversion when one pops up into your life, it's like a bonus level of pleasure, and you deserve it.
Because the exercise bike will always be waiting for your ass to pay it homage.
"Sounds very much like I love you forever."
You see, this is the problem with writing something down. The minute you do, it's set in stone, and you're not, and life has a way of throwing gorgeous tasty curved balls your way.
After I wrote last night's parable, d posed the question to me, and curry and rice was indubitably had. Delivery schedules being what they are though, biking was equally indubitably not done.
So - yay, part of me did a little jig of joy and determined to be nicer to small dogs and maiden aunts, because after all, the world was a lovely place.
The thing is, I could sort of get away with it yesterday. Was rather an active day, given that both my day job and my company involve me, as mentioned, in an awful lot of Sitting Down. By the time d's offer came, my phone was saying "Well done, you, you've hit your active minutes target," and even the Fitbit, which is a rather more gruelling taskmaster, was nodding brusquely and saying "Not bad. Could be better, but not bad."
Today? Notsomuch. The phone is kind of looking up at me with puppydog eyes, asking "Dude, what happened?" The Fitbit has been taken off, to give my wrist an airing and stop the electronic personal trainer from curling up in disgust. Much high-quality Sitting has been done today, with the result that I can cross a number of annoying things off my To Do List, leaving almost entirely fun things for the next week or so. On the other hand, my body's sitting here crying, going all "You don't love me any more!"
Quite where it gets the idea I ever loved it from, I'm not entirely sure. But so it is that this is a shortish entry - I need to bog right off, right now, and jump on the bike for a sliver of sweaty unpleasantness, before showering and dining and doing, tonight, no further work whatsoever.
Life, as far as I can see, is a mixture of getting kicked in the nuts and then, mysteriously, not. Take a curry diversion when one pops up into your life, it's like a bonus level of pleasure, and you deserve it.
Because the exercise bike will always be waiting for your ass to pay it homage.
Thursday, 3 March 2016
The Tale of the Disappearing Man, Aspiration and Reality
Once upon a time, there lived a Disappearing Man, and he was strange.
The strange thing about him was he was never sure, from one morning to the next, from one moment to the next, where exactly it was that he lived.
Most mornings, he thought he woke up in a town called Aspiration.
Aspiration was a lovely place to wake up in - it had soft beds, comfy pillows, a friendly bear or two, and even a Mrs Disappearing, whose restless legs were like a friendly alarm clock to get him out of bed.
The Disappearing Man liked living in Aspiration. He had fun, and people paid him to do things that came naturally, like Sitting Down. He was extremely good at Sitting Down, so people paid him nicely to do it, and other people would stop as they rushed by on their way somewhere, just to admire his impressive Sitting Down technique. It was a happy place, with surprisingly few douchebags, because, when he wasn't Sitting Down, the Disappearing Man enjoyed nothing better than clipping a few douchebags round the ear and asking them kindly but firmly not to be douchebags any more, and so they weren't.
The best thing about Aspiration - aside from Mrs Disappearing, and the pillows, was that no matter what the Disappearing Man ate, he never seemed to put on weight. He ate, and he Sat Down, and still he Disappeared. And all was well in Aspiration.
Occasionally though, and without warning, the Disappearing Man would find he wasn't in Aspiration any more, but Reality.
Reality was very much like Aspiration, so at first he hardly noticed the difference. True, there were more douchebags there, but he reasoned that he'd get around to clipping them round the ear as soon as he was done with this important bit of Sitting Down he had to be getting on with.
But Reality, it turned out, was a very long way away from Aspiration, adn they did things differently there. And when the Disappearing Man did his Sitting Down, no-one stopped to admire his technique. They ran about in shorts and told him to 'feel the burn' or else he would most surely turn into a big block of lard with tiny squat arms and legs, so that the only thing he could do was Sit Down.
The Disappearing Man scoffed, and Sat, and ate a little more. And a little more after that.
And when he went home to his house in what he thought was Aspiration, but was actually Reality, Mrs Disappearing looked at him sideways, which it turned out was not a good way to look at him at all.
"I say, my dear, you'll be getting your arse on that there exercise bicycle then, will you?" she asked. And the Disappearing Man said that if it was all the same to her, he had quite a bit of important Sitting Down to do, and if there was a bit of cake going spare, that would be just the thing to tide him over till suppertime.
"Arse, bicycle, now. Dear," she said, explaining that while she herself cared naught if he were as big as a house, that he would take it much unkindly when the children came to throw things at him and call him a Big Fat Bastard, as children in Reality were wont to do.
"Oh," said the Disappearing Man sadly as he climbed the stairs to his fate. "I thought this was Aspiration."
"No dear," Mrs Disappearing corrected him. "You're awake now."
The strange thing about him was he was never sure, from one morning to the next, from one moment to the next, where exactly it was that he lived.
Most mornings, he thought he woke up in a town called Aspiration.
Aspiration was a lovely place to wake up in - it had soft beds, comfy pillows, a friendly bear or two, and even a Mrs Disappearing, whose restless legs were like a friendly alarm clock to get him out of bed.
The Disappearing Man liked living in Aspiration. He had fun, and people paid him to do things that came naturally, like Sitting Down. He was extremely good at Sitting Down, so people paid him nicely to do it, and other people would stop as they rushed by on their way somewhere, just to admire his impressive Sitting Down technique. It was a happy place, with surprisingly few douchebags, because, when he wasn't Sitting Down, the Disappearing Man enjoyed nothing better than clipping a few douchebags round the ear and asking them kindly but firmly not to be douchebags any more, and so they weren't.
The best thing about Aspiration - aside from Mrs Disappearing, and the pillows, was that no matter what the Disappearing Man ate, he never seemed to put on weight. He ate, and he Sat Down, and still he Disappeared. And all was well in Aspiration.
Occasionally though, and without warning, the Disappearing Man would find he wasn't in Aspiration any more, but Reality.
Reality was very much like Aspiration, so at first he hardly noticed the difference. True, there were more douchebags there, but he reasoned that he'd get around to clipping them round the ear as soon as he was done with this important bit of Sitting Down he had to be getting on with.
But Reality, it turned out, was a very long way away from Aspiration, adn they did things differently there. And when the Disappearing Man did his Sitting Down, no-one stopped to admire his technique. They ran about in shorts and told him to 'feel the burn' or else he would most surely turn into a big block of lard with tiny squat arms and legs, so that the only thing he could do was Sit Down.
The Disappearing Man scoffed, and Sat, and ate a little more. And a little more after that.
And when he went home to his house in what he thought was Aspiration, but was actually Reality, Mrs Disappearing looked at him sideways, which it turned out was not a good way to look at him at all.
"I say, my dear, you'll be getting your arse on that there exercise bicycle then, will you?" she asked. And the Disappearing Man said that if it was all the same to her, he had quite a bit of important Sitting Down to do, and if there was a bit of cake going spare, that would be just the thing to tide him over till suppertime.
"Arse, bicycle, now. Dear," she said, explaining that while she herself cared naught if he were as big as a house, that he would take it much unkindly when the children came to throw things at him and call him a Big Fat Bastard, as children in Reality were wont to do.
"Oh," said the Disappearing Man sadly as he climbed the stairs to his fate. "I thought this was Aspiration."
"No dear," Mrs Disappearing corrected him. "You're awake now."
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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.
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.
Monday, 8 February 2016
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...
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...
Sunday, 7 February 2016
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.
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