Last week I wrote this blog three days after my weigh-in, and, in that kind of maudlin, silent signalling of self-inflicted martrydom that I vaguely believe I learned from my bio-dad (He had a knack with a muscial choice, did my bio-dad, throwing down the late Elvis tracks like Suspicious Minds and My Boy, and singing his heart out to affect the mood of the room, while claiming he'd just fancied the sound of them), but which I can justly claim to have refind into a rather more fully sickening brow-clutching 'Woe is me! No, really, I'm fine' double standard, I reported that, in the wake of having dropped two pounds in a day and then maintained that level for a week, I would probably celebrate by injecting chocolate into my eyeballs or somesuch.
The point of which of course is that I wrote it on Friday, not Tuesday. So by Friday, I already knew what the intervening three days had looked like - sedentary, and while not exactly crammed from end to end with intra-venous chocolate, certainly not by any stretch as seriously dedicated to healthy eating as I should have been. So I prepped you for disaster by that throwaway line of what would 'probably' happen.
This, by the way, is the kind of hamster-wheel that circles all. The. Time in my brain. Reality, perception, work, non-work, how to justify and find the appropriate answers, the appropriate pose. Now, imagine that kind of acidic over-analysis applying to every single thing. Every single choice, every single action, where to stand, how to be, what to say and not-say-now, what to do and why not to do it till it's almost too late, and how, above all, to wage war. war on myself, war between the selves that want to succeed and want to fail, want to do what they set out to do and want to coolly revel in the epicness of failure. The war between the urge to triumph and the urge to self-destroy, and round, and round, and round, and round it goes, never stopping, never pausing, never ever shutting up - just in case you were wondering why I wear headphones 80% of the time, it's to block out this ungovernable nonsense in my brain.
I tried explaining this to a doctor once - he gave me more diet pills.
And yes, of course, incidentally, I know that this particular entry sounds like I just did an 8-ball of coke and have nowhere to go. Partially, that's because that's what it sounds like inside my head all the time, partially, it's because it's vaguely cathartic to get this out of my fingertips for a moment, and partially of course it's because some level of hamster-wheeling said 'Let them know - THAT'll be fun!'
All of which is by way of explaining that last week's entry was written with insider knowledge that I'd probably go up this week.
Then there was a Walk.
A walk I agreed to when there seemed fewer clouds in the sky and less work to do and fewer encroaching deadlines, and a walk which, when I woke up an hour before it was due to start, I gave a hearty 'Oh fuck!' about because by then I really didn't want to do it, because it was a 'led' walk, with Other Human Beings, which if you've been here a while you'll know I applaud in the abstract but detest in the reality. Nevertheless, the hamster-wheel turned, and the idea of having to explain I'd booked a place on the walk and then had been too put off by the proximity of humans to actually go through with it gave me a result of at the very least looking like I was having some kind of real problem with the outside world and its humans, and so, to disprove the appearance of that, irrespective of the reality of that, I should get my arse out the door and go.
So I went.
The walk itself was fine. The having to be sociable sucked - I'm not entirely sure why. They were nice people, good people, each with their own interesting backstory, but something deep in my heart resented the fact that I was obliged to be sociable with them, to ask them questions to which I could give not the most shrivelled of figs for the answers, to try and make them smile and laugh and, frankly, fail - tough crowd, your average ramblers, it appears - and JEEESUS, I swear I'm not on coke right know, but if you're reading this with spaces between the words it's only because my fingers are more courteous than my brain and they're cutting you a break. Anyyyyhow, did the walk. Longish walk, over 10,000 steps, many of them uphill, came home, collapsed, whinged in muscle-ache for the next day and a half, did nothing.
Weighed in this morning.
17 stone 4.
Might not sound like much to you, this half-pound of progress, but really, honestly, I will take it and kiss it and stroke it, and I shall call it George, because the onnnnly goddamn thing that can have got me there is yomping through the local nature with a bunch of people I'd much rather have shut out behind the safety of some earbuds. So - yay to them.
I know, right - this didn't go quite where you were thinking it would go, probably, because of all the high-octane fatalism at the front end, you probably expected a result of grandiose failure - hell, I kind of did. Again, thank the fingertips, they're far more often where the actual processing power of my brain is located - the majority of my ACTUAL brain is locked into spirals of hamster-wheeling about every decision from 'Tea or coffee?' to 'What do we need to do with the day?' to actually get anything constructive done, which is why a) the processing power's in the fingertips, and b) that's a good thing.
I think perhaps the thing is that this blog's been written not on cocaine, nor even on the grandly self-castigating melodrama of 'Oh woe is me, I've put on weight!' I have just checked my bank balance though, which rather spurred the self-revolving lemming in my brain to a series of monotonous 'Oh fuck''s, and it's probably that that started me off in such an insane spirit in this blog. Even as I write this, I can feel the panic levels falling, dropping, the boiling hot fear of crashing myself into the ever-loving ground eeeeeasing, even though nothing whatsoever has actually changed in that reality since I started writing the blog. Don't get me wrong, the hamster-wheel absolutely does revolve in the way I've detailed, all the time, without end (though crucially, gazing at the sea sometimes helps), but I can feel myself coming down from the abject, world-punching panic and fear of peering down the gunbarrel of financial oblivion, as the hamster-wheel revolves. Send the emails one needs to send. Get the money in the door. Pay the bills one has to pay, Revolve, revolve, revolve...
If this is now just sounding like splurge on a page, there's one important piece of connective tissue. Saw the weigh-in this morning, was all kinds of 'Cool - I'll take that this week. Saw the bank account, went 'Bang!' and started revolving at coke-speed. First thing I did? Went to Tesco, grabbed a sleeve of chocolate biscuits.
That's not even comfort eating, that's panic-eating. I didn't even particularly want them, I'm not, today, especially motivated by the sweetness and the chocolatey fantasticness of things. But get this - in response to a moment of stone cold panic, I spent money I do not have, on food that's practically guaranteed to elevate my blood sugars and is likely to be stored, in the absence of exercise, as fat. I paid...to self-harm.
I had four, as the basis of a bowl of cereal. Breakfast of self-defeating windbags, right there.
Now of course, I've come clean about them to you here, which means I'm not going to eat any more of them. But ultimately, the point is that the way my wind works is a constant wheel of questions, choices, judgements and random moments of panic.
And the immediate, unthinking response to a moment of panic was to grab the chocolate biscuits.
Did I mention that I ttried to explain this to a doctor once? Yyyyeah - diet pills.
While I know that the fundamental equation of weightloss is straightforward - take in less of the 'bad' stuff, do more of the good stuff that burns up the bad stuff, hoorah, all is well in the land of Oz - it is possibly worth acknowledging that what you're dealing with in many people's cases is not the calm, sunny-weathered mental landscape that can simply follow this equation to Positivityville. More often, you're throwing the equation (and the pills) into a cyclotron full of forks and expecting it to survive and make sense, even when the cyclotron panics.
My cyclotron panicked this morning. Fortunately, of course, it panicked after the weigh-in. Here's to not panic-eating evvvvvverything in the district before we do this again.
Showing posts with label Failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Failure. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
The Dickishness Cessation
Urk.
Missed last week's weigh-in day blog. It sort of stuttered and fell back on the To-Do List, to the point where I intended to write it Thursday, for my pal Ruth's birthday...annnd then that didn't happen either. Today though, there must be blogging, otherwise it's starting to look like I've fallen entirely out of the habit.
Well - last week was an entirely unreasonable disappointment. unreasonable because gaining was very likely the outcome of a week of retreating lurgi (it's been borne in upon me that some Americans have no idea what a lurgi is - it's a UK word meaning a flu-like bug or virus, but has overtones of lurking, swamp-like sinuses and, to quote both Friends and my friend Sarah, 'sexy phlegm'), which menat I still didn't feel like getting out and DOING anything, but, because life's just that kind of bastard, my appetite came roaring back.
So, it should have been entirely forecastable that I'd go up again last week, but somehow I managed not to forecast it. The Nazi Scales though were amused.
'Haha,' they said, as if they were actors in a bad melodrama, 'We liked you better when you were fully sick. Then we took two pounds off you, and you cheered. Now you're just lollygagging about, you may have your two pounds back - 17st 4 pounds for you!'
Bastards.
Entirely fair, utterly predictable, but nevertheless bastards.
Because I say so, that's why.
This week...
I'm not sure in which direction to vaguely stab when trying to deflect responsibility this week. There was fudge, but then it seems entirely likely there will be irresistible fudge going forward, as d's making the Fudge of the Gods for a local deli, which, rather gratifyingly, is making fudge-fans all over Facebook weak at the knees. Because, as I may have mentioned on one or two previous occasions, d has mystic sorcery skills. She's kind of the Scheherazade of cakes. The Mata Hari of sweets. The Ada Lovelace of meats. Food is a conduit of love in her hands, a spring of creativity. It's her poetry.
So that's not a direction in which you'll find me stabbing.
Basically, haven't gone out to walk since the long one just before the lurgi fell on me from a great height. And my general eating pattern has included far more in the way of sweet things, stodgy things and carby things than it should have were I properely dedicated to this Disappearing lark since more or less the same point - starting out with comfort food when I was ill, and then, as I've recovered, keeping the comfort food in place, despite not upping the corresponding exercise level.
So...yeah. That'll be it. Basically, I've been a dick.
You want the tell-tale heart of this dickness? I haven't tested my blood sugar since the lurgi hit. That's the equivalent of not opening the post when you fear the arrival of bills. It's denial activity, to maintain your coccoon of ignorance.
Tested again for the first time in a while yesterday - 9.8. Today, slightly better - 9.5. Both of these are technically within the range my Diabetic Nurse wants me to stay inside, but they're actually noticeably over what I should be - between 6-8.
What's more, I could lie to you and say now that I feel better, I'll crack on with more walking this week - but I won't. I absolutely won't, because the deadlines are piling up and need addressing in a big old hurry. Maaaaaybe, after tomorrow, when I intend to complete one project, I could steal a couple of hours a day to at least say I've done something to give my system a boost.
Maybe.
Still - with deadlines clanging and the behaviour-patterns of a dick, this week, the Nazi Scales have me at 17st 4.5 - up another half-pound, which I guess, given the dickishness, is less catastrophic than it might have been. I'm aware of the gentleness of continental drift though - let things go for too long and you find you're seven pounds up, and have them to lose all over again. So...yes. Dickishness needs to end now. Focus and all that malarkey needs to be the way of the week.
Woo! Bring on the fun...
Missed last week's weigh-in day blog. It sort of stuttered and fell back on the To-Do List, to the point where I intended to write it Thursday, for my pal Ruth's birthday...annnd then that didn't happen either. Today though, there must be blogging, otherwise it's starting to look like I've fallen entirely out of the habit.
Well - last week was an entirely unreasonable disappointment. unreasonable because gaining was very likely the outcome of a week of retreating lurgi (it's been borne in upon me that some Americans have no idea what a lurgi is - it's a UK word meaning a flu-like bug or virus, but has overtones of lurking, swamp-like sinuses and, to quote both Friends and my friend Sarah, 'sexy phlegm'), which menat I still didn't feel like getting out and DOING anything, but, because life's just that kind of bastard, my appetite came roaring back.
So, it should have been entirely forecastable that I'd go up again last week, but somehow I managed not to forecast it. The Nazi Scales though were amused.
'Haha,' they said, as if they were actors in a bad melodrama, 'We liked you better when you were fully sick. Then we took two pounds off you, and you cheered. Now you're just lollygagging about, you may have your two pounds back - 17st 4 pounds for you!'
Bastards.
Entirely fair, utterly predictable, but nevertheless bastards.
Because I say so, that's why.
This week...
I'm not sure in which direction to vaguely stab when trying to deflect responsibility this week. There was fudge, but then it seems entirely likely there will be irresistible fudge going forward, as d's making the Fudge of the Gods for a local deli, which, rather gratifyingly, is making fudge-fans all over Facebook weak at the knees. Because, as I may have mentioned on one or two previous occasions, d has mystic sorcery skills. She's kind of the Scheherazade of cakes. The Mata Hari of sweets. The Ada Lovelace of meats. Food is a conduit of love in her hands, a spring of creativity. It's her poetry.
So that's not a direction in which you'll find me stabbing.
Basically, haven't gone out to walk since the long one just before the lurgi fell on me from a great height. And my general eating pattern has included far more in the way of sweet things, stodgy things and carby things than it should have were I properely dedicated to this Disappearing lark since more or less the same point - starting out with comfort food when I was ill, and then, as I've recovered, keeping the comfort food in place, despite not upping the corresponding exercise level.
So...yeah. That'll be it. Basically, I've been a dick.
You want the tell-tale heart of this dickness? I haven't tested my blood sugar since the lurgi hit. That's the equivalent of not opening the post when you fear the arrival of bills. It's denial activity, to maintain your coccoon of ignorance.
Tested again for the first time in a while yesterday - 9.8. Today, slightly better - 9.5. Both of these are technically within the range my Diabetic Nurse wants me to stay inside, but they're actually noticeably over what I should be - between 6-8.
What's more, I could lie to you and say now that I feel better, I'll crack on with more walking this week - but I won't. I absolutely won't, because the deadlines are piling up and need addressing in a big old hurry. Maaaaaybe, after tomorrow, when I intend to complete one project, I could steal a couple of hours a day to at least say I've done something to give my system a boost.
Maybe.
Still - with deadlines clanging and the behaviour-patterns of a dick, this week, the Nazi Scales have me at 17st 4.5 - up another half-pound, which I guess, given the dickishness, is less catastrophic than it might have been. I'm aware of the gentleness of continental drift though - let things go for too long and you find you're seven pounds up, and have them to lose all over again. So...yes. Dickishness needs to end now. Focus and all that malarkey needs to be the way of the week.
Woo! Bring on the fun...
Tuesday, 12 February 2019
The Investment Warning
I remember when the UK government was in a frenzy of selling off its national assets to individuals and companies, it advertised shares on the TV. One of the things in the vocal small-print at the end of those adverts was 'stocks and shares may go down as well as up.'
So it is with Disappearing - numbers may go up as well as down.
In my last post, I mentioned I was just a reaonable week's Disappearing away from returning to my lightest point on this run.
I also did mention that at that point, I hadn't HAD a reasonable week's Disappearing.
I went on to not have a reasonable week. Went out for fish and chips last night, followed up by cereal later, so certain was I that things were going to pot.
Pot this morning has me at 17st 11.75 - up a pound and a half.
Need to Do The Thing. Haven't Done The Thing.
The Thing Awaits.
Listened to the audiobook of The Martian by Andy Weir this week. That's a pretty good object lesson in Doing The Thing. Works on the principle that Not Doing The Thing means the planet on which you're standing gets to kill you.
That appears to be the case whether you're standing on Earth or Mars.
Right now, I'd be the version of Astronaut Mark Watney that dies on Sol 6. The one who doesn't even get up when he's left behind by his crew. #EpicThingDoingFail
I know what to do. Seriously, I do. Right now though, I'm a brain in a jar, steeping in nihilistic idiocy on almost every front, overthinking wildly. The irony of course being that I also know if I simply put a pin in that behaviour for a minute and Did The Thing - walked, for instance - my mood would naturally elevate, because hell, I'd be walking by the seaside, and that works for me. Part of me though wants to specifcially not do that. Pathetic, I know, but there it is. You know how it is - the notion that positive action is a force of creativity, keeping inevitable entropy at bay for just a while. Sometimes, the entropy is attractive.
lol wow, get a load of this fuckin' guy. From a pound and a half to inevitable entropy in a handful of paragraphs.
Laughing at myself now. Surely that has to be better than taking myself seriously?
Right. Fuck it. Weekly reset has me up. Let's Do The Motherfucking Thing.
So it is with Disappearing - numbers may go up as well as down.
In my last post, I mentioned I was just a reaonable week's Disappearing away from returning to my lightest point on this run.
I also did mention that at that point, I hadn't HAD a reasonable week's Disappearing.
I went on to not have a reasonable week. Went out for fish and chips last night, followed up by cereal later, so certain was I that things were going to pot.
Pot this morning has me at 17st 11.75 - up a pound and a half.
Need to Do The Thing. Haven't Done The Thing.
The Thing Awaits.
Listened to the audiobook of The Martian by Andy Weir this week. That's a pretty good object lesson in Doing The Thing. Works on the principle that Not Doing The Thing means the planet on which you're standing gets to kill you.
That appears to be the case whether you're standing on Earth or Mars.
Right now, I'd be the version of Astronaut Mark Watney that dies on Sol 6. The one who doesn't even get up when he's left behind by his crew. #EpicThingDoingFail
I know what to do. Seriously, I do. Right now though, I'm a brain in a jar, steeping in nihilistic idiocy on almost every front, overthinking wildly. The irony of course being that I also know if I simply put a pin in that behaviour for a minute and Did The Thing - walked, for instance - my mood would naturally elevate, because hell, I'd be walking by the seaside, and that works for me. Part of me though wants to specifcially not do that. Pathetic, I know, but there it is. You know how it is - the notion that positive action is a force of creativity, keeping inevitable entropy at bay for just a while. Sometimes, the entropy is attractive.
lol wow, get a load of this fuckin' guy. From a pound and a half to inevitable entropy in a handful of paragraphs.
Laughing at myself now. Surely that has to be better than taking myself seriously?
Right. Fuck it. Weekly reset has me up. Let's Do The Motherfucking Thing.
Tuesday, 18 December 2018
The Deadlined Decembrist
Brr.
Double brr and buggery.
Firstly, it's been freezing, and positively pissing down much of this week, which has a natural tendency to make me curl up into a ball, pull a duvet over my head and hang a sign round my neck saying 'Fuck You Till Spring.'
Secondly, I've been on a tight deadline all week, which is now at the stage in a Bond movie where the villain pushes the hero's face closer and close to a bandsaw and Connery (let's face it, it's always Connery in metaphors, whoever your own personal Bond may be) grimaces and tries to summon some Scottish grit so he can donkey kick the villain in the balls and break free. That's meant that, even had the weather been lovely, I wouldn't have had time to take its kindness personally and go walking. This has been a week where staying indoors and eating and drinking hot things has been Plan A for several, extremely rational, reasons.
Which is why this morning, I weigh in at 17st 10.25.
Static. Hey, it's the deal, right? You move, the weight moves. You stay still, at your very luckiest, the weight stays still.
So that means it won't be till at least the last week of January that I see a 16 on the face of the Nazi Scales. Joy.
What's less, but still concerning, is that I've had blood sugars in the 7s and 8s all week, except today, when clearly, my personification of the universe is out to kick me, and I baaaarely scraped acceptability with a 9.9.
The obvious result of course is that when things don't go your way for the first time in a Disappearance (and probably at several more such points on the way down), your immediate impulsive reaction (or mine, anyway - it may be an only-child thing for all I know), is to sulk and pout and whine and storm off to the store for the biggest bar of chocolate you can find. It's Christmas, you can find some really huge bars of chocolate right now. There's a bar of Galaxy in our local Tesco Express that's only about a head shorter than I am. I know. I just checked, in a fume. it's a popsitively toddler reaction of throwing your toys out of the pram - 'Well, if being good isn't going to bring me results, I might just as well be bad, so there!'
Ride this idiocy out, or you'll fall, right there and then.
Perversely - and get a lot of the titanium testicles on THIS guy - my house is currently full of home-made fudge. After Eight Fudge. Bounty-studded Fudge. Fudge made by the fair hand of my wife, who has on occasion this week offered me 'just a smidge, to test.' But no. I eschew the Fudge of love ('...and STILL you don't lose!' roars my toddler-brain) - were I to go on a rampage, frankly, you wouldn't hear about it till afterwards, when I was penitent and ready to confess, and I wouldn't got o town on d's homemade fudge. I'd go to Tesco and get an enormo-bag of M and Ms and eat them without tasting them, in secret, for the sheer visceral pleasure of self-defeat - did anyone miss the fact that in my case, this weight shit is frequently compulsive, and secret, and self-harming? Fairly sure I covered that, but might not have been for years...
But no. Bought myself a small bottle of apple juice (Because ooh, the pleasure) and a new box of breakfast cereal, came home, spat these words into the computer, and am going back to the bandaw in a moment). This week, I'm clearly not the Disappearing Man. This week, I'm the Staying-At-Home-In-The-Warm-And-Moving-Nowhere Man.
It happens. I know it happens. It's how you deal with it happening that's the key.
Onward, and downward, we go.
Bastard...
Double brr and buggery.
Firstly, it's been freezing, and positively pissing down much of this week, which has a natural tendency to make me curl up into a ball, pull a duvet over my head and hang a sign round my neck saying 'Fuck You Till Spring.'
Secondly, I've been on a tight deadline all week, which is now at the stage in a Bond movie where the villain pushes the hero's face closer and close to a bandsaw and Connery (let's face it, it's always Connery in metaphors, whoever your own personal Bond may be) grimaces and tries to summon some Scottish grit so he can donkey kick the villain in the balls and break free. That's meant that, even had the weather been lovely, I wouldn't have had time to take its kindness personally and go walking. This has been a week where staying indoors and eating and drinking hot things has been Plan A for several, extremely rational, reasons.
Which is why this morning, I weigh in at 17st 10.25.
Static. Hey, it's the deal, right? You move, the weight moves. You stay still, at your very luckiest, the weight stays still.
So that means it won't be till at least the last week of January that I see a 16 on the face of the Nazi Scales. Joy.
What's less, but still concerning, is that I've had blood sugars in the 7s and 8s all week, except today, when clearly, my personification of the universe is out to kick me, and I baaaarely scraped acceptability with a 9.9.
The obvious result of course is that when things don't go your way for the first time in a Disappearance (and probably at several more such points on the way down), your immediate impulsive reaction (or mine, anyway - it may be an only-child thing for all I know), is to sulk and pout and whine and storm off to the store for the biggest bar of chocolate you can find. It's Christmas, you can find some really huge bars of chocolate right now. There's a bar of Galaxy in our local Tesco Express that's only about a head shorter than I am. I know. I just checked, in a fume. it's a popsitively toddler reaction of throwing your toys out of the pram - 'Well, if being good isn't going to bring me results, I might just as well be bad, so there!'
Ride this idiocy out, or you'll fall, right there and then.
Perversely - and get a lot of the titanium testicles on THIS guy - my house is currently full of home-made fudge. After Eight Fudge. Bounty-studded Fudge. Fudge made by the fair hand of my wife, who has on occasion this week offered me 'just a smidge, to test.' But no. I eschew the Fudge of love ('...and STILL you don't lose!' roars my toddler-brain) - were I to go on a rampage, frankly, you wouldn't hear about it till afterwards, when I was penitent and ready to confess, and I wouldn't got o town on d's homemade fudge. I'd go to Tesco and get an enormo-bag of M and Ms and eat them without tasting them, in secret, for the sheer visceral pleasure of self-defeat - did anyone miss the fact that in my case, this weight shit is frequently compulsive, and secret, and self-harming? Fairly sure I covered that, but might not have been for years...
But no. Bought myself a small bottle of apple juice (Because ooh, the pleasure) and a new box of breakfast cereal, came home, spat these words into the computer, and am going back to the bandaw in a moment). This week, I'm clearly not the Disappearing Man. This week, I'm the Staying-At-Home-In-The-Warm-And-Moving-Nowhere Man.
It happens. I know it happens. It's how you deal with it happening that's the key.
Onward, and downward, we go.
Bastard...
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, 17 April 2018
The Apparent Inconsequence of Inaction
'Don't take this as a mark of what you can get away with!'
'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).
This week, after having flopped over the first real border line in the downward push, two things happened.
Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.
Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.
So those were some interesting kicks in the head.
But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.
Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.
The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.
Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'
This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'
She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.
So...what? I hear you ask.
Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.
I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.
But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.
There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.
There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.
But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.
18 stone 13.25.
That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.
I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...
'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).
This week, after having flopped over the first real border line in the downward push, two things happened.
Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.
Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.
So those were some interesting kicks in the head.
But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.
Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.
The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.
Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'
This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'
She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.
So...what? I hear you ask.
Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.
I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.
But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.
There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.
There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.
But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.
18 stone 13.25.
That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.
I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...
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, 22 January 2018
The Month-Long Christmas and the Toe of Destiny
Well, that didn't go according to plan, now did it, boys and girls?
Went to Merthyr to spend Christmas with my mother, and had hardly got through the door before I started cramming the Quality Street down my neck.
Have been eating like a self-destructive maniac, doing precisely buggerall in terms of exercise, being somewhat creatively interpretative with my medication and essentially evolving into Jabba the Hutt with a keyboard.
I have watched accomplioshed chef Tom Kerridge, himself a big lad, encouraging people to lose weight after his own battle with suicidal habits, during which he lost a whacking 12 stone - which would have been fine, had I not watched him with a ten-inch cheesy pizza halfway to my gob.
I've known this was coming for a while, and if you'd asked me three hours ago, I'd have told you that I've never needed to do this more, and never felt like doing it less.
Since then, I've rather had the toe of destiny shoved up my ass in a forceful and purposeful manner, so right now, I'm writing this while energised and powerful and ready to take on the world or burn it down.
This is of course not an energy that lasts for the accomplishment of marathons. I know this. This is neither my, nor I daresay your first ride on this Disappearing pony. But the toe of destiny is a good motivator to get one started on projects that mellow and develop a more productive rather than destructive rhythm over time. So this is where you find me. Tomorrow, Disappearing-shopping - fruit, veg, protein etc. There will be grabbing of sticks and hiking, at least to Wiseman's Bridge and back, while under the influence of music or drama pouring through my iPod and turning my thighs, I have no doubt, to mush. There will be, or at least should be, registration with a Saundersfoot-based GP, so that I can return to taking my meds without fear of running out before that process is completed. There will be, above all, ACTION.
In the name of the Toe of Destiny, there will be action!
Tomorrow.
Honest.
Went to Merthyr to spend Christmas with my mother, and had hardly got through the door before I started cramming the Quality Street down my neck.
Have been eating like a self-destructive maniac, doing precisely buggerall in terms of exercise, being somewhat creatively interpretative with my medication and essentially evolving into Jabba the Hutt with a keyboard.
I have watched accomplioshed chef Tom Kerridge, himself a big lad, encouraging people to lose weight after his own battle with suicidal habits, during which he lost a whacking 12 stone - which would have been fine, had I not watched him with a ten-inch cheesy pizza halfway to my gob.
I've known this was coming for a while, and if you'd asked me three hours ago, I'd have told you that I've never needed to do this more, and never felt like doing it less.
Since then, I've rather had the toe of destiny shoved up my ass in a forceful and purposeful manner, so right now, I'm writing this while energised and powerful and ready to take on the world or burn it down.
This is of course not an energy that lasts for the accomplishment of marathons. I know this. This is neither my, nor I daresay your first ride on this Disappearing pony. But the toe of destiny is a good motivator to get one started on projects that mellow and develop a more productive rather than destructive rhythm over time. So this is where you find me. Tomorrow, Disappearing-shopping - fruit, veg, protein etc. There will be grabbing of sticks and hiking, at least to Wiseman's Bridge and back, while under the influence of music or drama pouring through my iPod and turning my thighs, I have no doubt, to mush. There will be, or at least should be, registration with a Saundersfoot-based GP, so that I can return to taking my meds without fear of running out before that process is completed. There will be, above all, ACTION.
In the name of the Toe of Destiny, there will be action!
Tomorrow.
Honest.
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.
Tuesday, 5 April 2016
The Benefits of Delusion
Wellllll, that sucks.
That sucks big time. The weigh-in this morning was a positive scandal. 19st 8, thank you very freakin' much. Up more than five pounds, in the week when I started walking again. Wwwwwwhat the ever-living hell?
Now, as most of you know, I'm one of those tedious atheists that keep banging on about it, and one of those annoying arch-rationalists that have, when all is said and done, no time or patience for all the fluffy pseudo-scientific feelgood fuckery with which humankind insists on filling up its brains, and for which it claims some kind of validity irrespective of hard evidence.
That said, I neither feel like I weigh 19st 8, nor feel like I look like I do.
'So what the hell are you worried about?' croaked d, who's suffering from the Boomerang Flu at the moment. 'Go by what you feel for now, not what the scales say. Hate those fucking scales,' she added, before erupting into a giant snotty cough and looking up at me with eyes that said 'If you make me say one more word with this throat right now, I'm going to wait till I'm well and then I'm going to prod you relentlessly with a spork.'
I guess the thing is that I'm worried because I'm an advocate of facts, and the facts are right there on the scales. I can witter on about heavy rice meals last night, and slow transits and all kinds of nonsense till I'm blue in the face if I have to, but weigh-ins depend on facts, and those are them. 19st 8 is what I currently weigh, as of this morning.
That said, her approach has a good deal of psychological merit to it in terms of going the hell forward, because I'm here to tell you, having walked over twenty miles this week just for the freakin' sake of it, having gone up five pounds would be what fluffier people than me would call 'soul destroying.' Certainly, if you let it, it can freeze you into inactivity and a 'fuck it, then' mentality of burning your good intentions to the ground.
But if you don't let it - if you make use of the benefits of delusion to say 'I don't feel that heavy, and it's not like my clothes are straining,' then you can get up in the morning and still damn well do something. I worked yesterday when I should probably have been walking, and there's every chance, as I write this at 5.28 in the afternoon, that I'll do the same again today, though if not walking, I should at least be able to find the time to bike tonight.
So this is me - Factual McHeavyFuck - making use of the benefits of delusion to say 'more must be done' in the next seven days.
Still sucks big time though.
That sucks big time. The weigh-in this morning was a positive scandal. 19st 8, thank you very freakin' much. Up more than five pounds, in the week when I started walking again. Wwwwwwhat the ever-living hell?
Now, as most of you know, I'm one of those tedious atheists that keep banging on about it, and one of those annoying arch-rationalists that have, when all is said and done, no time or patience for all the fluffy pseudo-scientific feelgood fuckery with which humankind insists on filling up its brains, and for which it claims some kind of validity irrespective of hard evidence.
That said, I neither feel like I weigh 19st 8, nor feel like I look like I do.
'So what the hell are you worried about?' croaked d, who's suffering from the Boomerang Flu at the moment. 'Go by what you feel for now, not what the scales say. Hate those fucking scales,' she added, before erupting into a giant snotty cough and looking up at me with eyes that said 'If you make me say one more word with this throat right now, I'm going to wait till I'm well and then I'm going to prod you relentlessly with a spork.'
I guess the thing is that I'm worried because I'm an advocate of facts, and the facts are right there on the scales. I can witter on about heavy rice meals last night, and slow transits and all kinds of nonsense till I'm blue in the face if I have to, but weigh-ins depend on facts, and those are them. 19st 8 is what I currently weigh, as of this morning.
That said, her approach has a good deal of psychological merit to it in terms of going the hell forward, because I'm here to tell you, having walked over twenty miles this week just for the freakin' sake of it, having gone up five pounds would be what fluffier people than me would call 'soul destroying.' Certainly, if you let it, it can freeze you into inactivity and a 'fuck it, then' mentality of burning your good intentions to the ground.
But if you don't let it - if you make use of the benefits of delusion to say 'I don't feel that heavy, and it's not like my clothes are straining,' then you can get up in the morning and still damn well do something. I worked yesterday when I should probably have been walking, and there's every chance, as I write this at 5.28 in the afternoon, that I'll do the same again today, though if not walking, I should at least be able to find the time to bike tonight.
So this is me - Factual McHeavyFuck - making use of the benefits of delusion to say 'more must be done' in the next seven days.
Still sucks big time though.
Monday, 28 March 2016
The Birthday Reawakening
Well hello all over again.
Yes, I've been away from the blog. Yes, I'm back now. Yes, the being away denotes notsomuch a falling off the wagon as a slowing up, stepping off and lighting the fucker on fire. And yes, it's time to break out the fire extinguisher, see what can be salvaged, preserve some roasted horsemeat for the journey and start all over again. Faiiiiirly convinced that tomorrow I'll actually be heavier than I was when re-starting the Disappearing. But, on the other hand, there has been, today, a degree of consciousness-raising (S'kinda like barn-raising, except you have to keep pulling your shirt down to avoid exposing your gigunda-belly). And there has also been some proper walking - as in painful, not-stopping, 'Holy CRAP I'm out of practice at this shit!' walking - so I can at least face the morning with a modicum of 'Yes, but I'm back on board now' rationalisation.
Decided to get back onto the blog discipline too, notsomuch because of the cathartic effect of confession - 'Forgive me, readers, I have sinned. It's been two weeks since my last confession' - but more because I have a pal who reads the blog pretty compulsively (I have the weird sensation she may conceivably have read all of it, which I'm not even sure I have once it was written. So this one's for Ruth, as a kind of birthday reawakening, and a promise to do better both in terms of the Disappearing and the blogging.
Happy Birthday, pal o'mine - the Disappearing Man is back. Again.
Yes, I've been away from the blog. Yes, I'm back now. Yes, the being away denotes notsomuch a falling off the wagon as a slowing up, stepping off and lighting the fucker on fire. And yes, it's time to break out the fire extinguisher, see what can be salvaged, preserve some roasted horsemeat for the journey and start all over again. Faiiiiirly convinced that tomorrow I'll actually be heavier than I was when re-starting the Disappearing. But, on the other hand, there has been, today, a degree of consciousness-raising (S'kinda like barn-raising, except you have to keep pulling your shirt down to avoid exposing your gigunda-belly). And there has also been some proper walking - as in painful, not-stopping, 'Holy CRAP I'm out of practice at this shit!' walking - so I can at least face the morning with a modicum of 'Yes, but I'm back on board now' rationalisation.
Decided to get back onto the blog discipline too, notsomuch because of the cathartic effect of confession - 'Forgive me, readers, I have sinned. It's been two weeks since my last confession' - but more because I have a pal who reads the blog pretty compulsively (I have the weird sensation she may conceivably have read all of it, which I'm not even sure I have once it was written. So this one's for Ruth, as a kind of birthday reawakening, and a promise to do better both in terms of the Disappearing and the blogging.
Happy Birthday, pal o'mine - the Disappearing Man is back. Again.
Monday, 29 February 2016
The Reluctant Return
Well, hello again.
I've meant to write a copuple of entries since the last one, but have pretty much convinced myself that I've been too busy. Don't get me wrong, I've been madly busy, but the whole Disappearing schtick is supposed to be about finding balance in life, making time to include some exercise in my otherwise sedentary-jobbed life, and making positive changes to my lifestyle.
Let me say without prevarication, that's been a bit fucked up lately.
My last weigh-in - the one I missed reporting to you - showed me as 19st 1.25, so back into the 19s. That was disappointing, but given that I hadn't done any exercise, and had been eating rather unwisely (Translation: there had been chocolate, or desserts, or high-carb meals late at night, or some other dumbass thing), I wasn't as disappointed by it as I probably should have been. What's more, have I changed my habits back to full-on Disappearing mode in the week since that weigh-in? No, not at all.
So all in all, things have not been on track for a couple of weeks, and if I let the catch-all excuse of 'busyness' determine me towards a flamethrower policy of doing whatever the hell I want to do, then things won't improve over the next few weeks either, they'll just get progressively worse and harder to shift back into a positive gear. So on the principle of faking it till we make it, let's assume a Disappearing attitude, and see what happens next.
Faking it? Yes, the positivity of the thing has safely evaporated now, and indeed so has most of the progress, so it's a case of hauling my ass back on the bike and being Mr Sensible all over again. On the other hand, my system is no longer conditioned to exercise and healthier eating, so with any luck the rapid loss of the first few pounds of mostly-water should kick in again and give me a boost.
(Sigh). Here's hoping, anyway.
I've meant to write a copuple of entries since the last one, but have pretty much convinced myself that I've been too busy. Don't get me wrong, I've been madly busy, but the whole Disappearing schtick is supposed to be about finding balance in life, making time to include some exercise in my otherwise sedentary-jobbed life, and making positive changes to my lifestyle.
Let me say without prevarication, that's been a bit fucked up lately.
My last weigh-in - the one I missed reporting to you - showed me as 19st 1.25, so back into the 19s. That was disappointing, but given that I hadn't done any exercise, and had been eating rather unwisely (Translation: there had been chocolate, or desserts, or high-carb meals late at night, or some other dumbass thing), I wasn't as disappointed by it as I probably should have been. What's more, have I changed my habits back to full-on Disappearing mode in the week since that weigh-in? No, not at all.
So all in all, things have not been on track for a couple of weeks, and if I let the catch-all excuse of 'busyness' determine me towards a flamethrower policy of doing whatever the hell I want to do, then things won't improve over the next few weeks either, they'll just get progressively worse and harder to shift back into a positive gear. So on the principle of faking it till we make it, let's assume a Disappearing attitude, and see what happens next.
Faking it? Yes, the positivity of the thing has safely evaporated now, and indeed so has most of the progress, so it's a case of hauling my ass back on the bike and being Mr Sensible all over again. On the other hand, my system is no longer conditioned to exercise and healthier eating, so with any luck the rapid loss of the first few pounds of mostly-water should kick in again and give me a boost.
(Sigh). Here's hoping, anyway.
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.
Saturday, 13 February 2016
12th February - The Hazelnut Gift Temptation
"Here you go, Tony," said Naz, popping a promotional gift on my table.
At least, I assume it was a promotional gift. Harry later asked me if I'd had one, so I assume they were being given out as a Valentine's Day celebration at Starbucks - two Ferrero Rocher in a sleeve, the idea being there was "one for you, and one for them," them being your Valentine.
Now, given my freedom, I'll snarf a bucketload of these gorgeous little senseless beasts - hazelnut, chocolate, wafer shell, more chocolate, embedded with nutty bits and wankily individually wrapped in gold foil, leading in the UK to an infamous ad campaign where an ambassador sent a big trayful of the little buggers as a way of "spoiling" his guests at a reception.
As I say, me and Ferrero, we have an understanding. d and Ferrero - notsomuch. She has a Thing about hazelnuts in the same way Donald Trump has a thing about Muslims or thinking - an almost fundamental aversion. Hazelnuts in chocolate, she regards as almost as much of a gastronomic war crime as chocolate and orange, a kind of "Why would you do that to innocent ingredients?" loathing.
That meant I had a chocolate dilemma.
I know, I know, sounds like I'm being a drama queen, but think about it. They're specifically Valentine's chocolates. It's not like I can pass them on to someone else without getting a sideways glance and quite possibly getting maced in the face. I can hardly give them back, because who in their right minds spurns free chocolate unless they're saying to the giver "Fuck you and your chocolate gift." And the only thing sadder in the universe than returned chocolate is thrown away chocolate, its postential of sweet joy squandered without ever having the chance to shine, to bring a smile to any face, which all the hours of labour involved in its needlessly poncey creation have anticipated.
The Ferrero Rocher sat there for hours, occasionally catching my eye and giving the chocolate equivalent of a hopeful, fragile smile and big eyes. I ordered coffee after coffee, and their imaginary eyes went down again, saddened that I was ignoring them.
Eventually, I had to leave. There were things I had to do, places I had to be. The Ferrero Rocher caught my eye again, and there seemed to be no hope left in their big, wide imaginary eyes, only the glimpses of a saddened moistness.
"Oh, come here then," I said, and it was like all their Christamses had come at once. I unwrapped both Rocher and snaffled them there and then before leaving the coffee shop. I like to think it's how they would have wanted to go.
So - v bad, as Bridget Jones would say, but I literally had no other option in the world. One's heartlessness extends only so far, you know.
At least, I assume it was a promotional gift. Harry later asked me if I'd had one, so I assume they were being given out as a Valentine's Day celebration at Starbucks - two Ferrero Rocher in a sleeve, the idea being there was "one for you, and one for them," them being your Valentine.
Now, given my freedom, I'll snarf a bucketload of these gorgeous little senseless beasts - hazelnut, chocolate, wafer shell, more chocolate, embedded with nutty bits and wankily individually wrapped in gold foil, leading in the UK to an infamous ad campaign where an ambassador sent a big trayful of the little buggers as a way of "spoiling" his guests at a reception.
As I say, me and Ferrero, we have an understanding. d and Ferrero - notsomuch. She has a Thing about hazelnuts in the same way Donald Trump has a thing about Muslims or thinking - an almost fundamental aversion. Hazelnuts in chocolate, she regards as almost as much of a gastronomic war crime as chocolate and orange, a kind of "Why would you do that to innocent ingredients?" loathing.
That meant I had a chocolate dilemma.
I know, I know, sounds like I'm being a drama queen, but think about it. They're specifically Valentine's chocolates. It's not like I can pass them on to someone else without getting a sideways glance and quite possibly getting maced in the face. I can hardly give them back, because who in their right minds spurns free chocolate unless they're saying to the giver "Fuck you and your chocolate gift." And the only thing sadder in the universe than returned chocolate is thrown away chocolate, its postential of sweet joy squandered without ever having the chance to shine, to bring a smile to any face, which all the hours of labour involved in its needlessly poncey creation have anticipated.
The Ferrero Rocher sat there for hours, occasionally catching my eye and giving the chocolate equivalent of a hopeful, fragile smile and big eyes. I ordered coffee after coffee, and their imaginary eyes went down again, saddened that I was ignoring them.
Eventually, I had to leave. There were things I had to do, places I had to be. The Ferrero Rocher caught my eye again, and there seemed to be no hope left in their big, wide imaginary eyes, only the glimpses of a saddened moistness.
"Oh, come here then," I said, and it was like all their Christamses had come at once. I unwrapped both Rocher and snaffled them there and then before leaving the coffee shop. I like to think it's how they would have wanted to go.
So - v bad, as Bridget Jones would say, but I literally had no other option in the world. One's heartlessness extends only so far, you know.
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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