The Temporal Irrelevance

So last week, I had to report a rise in weight to 17 stone 6.5, despite not really feeling like it was a valid reading.

The day after the weigh-in, with a more...shall we say regular approach to the business of digestion, I did an unofficial weigh-in and tipped the scales at 17 stone 4.5.

After a certain amount of jumping up and down, yelling 'Ha! Bloody told you so!' and flicking somewhat vehement Vs at the Nazi Scales, I went about my business, and, thinking that, with a two pound lead on the week, I should really do my best to capitalise on it. Went walking for three consecutive days (only slightly embuggeranced on the way by the fact that d started making mini pineapple upside-down cakes). The rest of the week I didn't walk, due to deadlines, but I did act rather more like a human being determined to live - smaller portions, relatively sensible lunch choices, protein and vegetation-rich dinners etc.

Which means it is with a certain pride that I can tell you I weighed in this week at:
17 stone 4.5.

The whole week might as well not have existed after Wednesday. Buggerall moved, buggerall changed, I might as well have locked myself in a deep freeze and gone cryogenic from Wednesday to Tuesday - the result would have been the same.

So, on the one hand, and I mean this sincerely - BUM.

On the other of course, I have at least technically moved two pounds in the right pigging direction. So yay - let tiny banners be waved, let tiny trumpets be blown, let tiny vuvuzuelas be confiscated immediately, because they inarguably should be, irrespective of the celebration.

And on we go. At this point, I just want to be done. More immediately, I'm booooooored of writing a 17 at the front of my weight. I want the creamy goodness of a 16, because it feels at this point like there's still so far to go, and right now I'm merely dicking about, back and forth in the shallow end of the 17s. 

Will that mean I work extra hard to push on down this week?
You know me - what do you think? Probably means I'll mainline chocolate biscuits into my eyeballs or somesuch dumbass thing.

But let's see. At least for now, I'm heading in the right bloody direction again.

The Quest For Sprouts

'So...whaddaya want to do today?'

'Well, I'm volunteering at the community centre at 2.30. Other than that...' There was a tiny sigh from d. 'We should go shopping.'

'Must we?'

'I can't keep giving you stewed tomatoes every night.'

'You really can. I love 'em.' (I'd eaten two bowlfuls last night, because, y'know, gluttony).

'I know you do. But you'll have rampant acid if I keep feeding you those.'

'Ach...'

All of this was in bed this morning, before either of us had dared peek a toe out from under the duvet.

The wind and driving rain battered against the windows.

'How about sprouts?' I bartered. 'There's always sprouts.'

'There isn't,' murmured d. 'I looked in Tesco yesterday, not a sprout to be had. That's why we'll have to go shopping.'

'Ah, but I tried the Spar,' I said, referring to a chain corner store which also now functions as the local post office. 'They have frozen button sprouts there.'

The wind howled, as if on cue.

'So...we don't have to get dressed and go out there? Not yet, anyway?'

'Nope,' I said. 'I'll go walking later. And as Spar is my witness, we'll never go sproutless again.'

'Awesome,' said d, snuggling under the duvet for another couple of minutes.

So - hoorah for flavour diversity while Disappearing - went walking (it had mellowed significantly by then, though for some reason not unconnected with walking across beaches and streams, I still put me wellies on. The beach clearly counts as a short cut, cos I only managed 7719 steps todday), got sprouts, brought sprouts home, laid them gently in the freezer. We were all out of velvet cushions, sadly, but it was that sort of a moment.

I admit it's not much of a heroic quest, but be honest, if I told you about the dragon waiting to buy postal orders and feast upon the virgins of the village, or the dwarvish slate miners protesting against the new speed restrictions on the road at Wiseman's Bridge, or the Hellmouth under the Lounge coffee bar...well, you'd only think I was making it up, wouldn't you?

The Catchup Confusion and the GBL List

What ho, chaps and chapesses, as Bertie Wooster would probably say, were he a) not fictional and b) here today. And indeed, what ho to all my non-binary Mx's too, because why the devil not, eh?

Apologies - missed quite a few days of entries, including, least forgiveably, a weigh-in day. Irritatingly, the Nazi Scales on weigh-in day were, sahll we say, fairly non-binary themselves, inasmuch as whenever I stepped on them, they refused to settle on the same figure twice. I woke up and they told me I was 18st 3.5. Hung aorund a bit, went for a fairly considered pee, and they put me UP to 18st 4.75. A few hours later, having still neither consumed anything nor notably expelled any more, they had me down as 18st 3.

So, really, who knows? I'm going to go with the first number they thought of, and say that irritatingly, I was still 18st 3.5 on Tuesday.

Since then, they've been doing some fairly similar things, varying by up to two pounds depending on, for instance, which foot goes on them first. We may be due a battery change, but certainly the news is not what I'd call conspicuously good. It's been one of those 'chained to the desk' weeks, though I have been pretty good in terms of going, like an automaton, for my 10,000 step walk every night, come rain, wind, sleet, snow and frankly just having a laugh. Still haven't plugged either the exercise bike or the treadmill in, which can't possibly go on much longer. What needs to happen is another big push, another system shock - a couple of days of double-walking, maybe, just to wake up a system that's now expecting 10,000 steps a day. Hmm. Will try and restructure a couple of days this week.

Pal of mine had a talk with a bariatric specialist today, and aparently had the whole 'Welll, you could be dead in ten years' talk. Believe me when I tell you, that'll put some rocket fuel in your Disappearing ass. It was being almost begged to have the procedure because otherwise I could be dead in ten that made me first decide to try to Disappear. That was something mad like six years ago now. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Four years away from notional deadline, where the hell am I? I'm trying to do it again the non-surgical way, and I'm only really a couple of stones lighter than Zoiksy McLifeThreatening was, six years ago. Still, whichever way you go, this fight for health and social normalcy is a bastard, so at the risk of dissolving into crappy quotes, you've either got to get busy living or get busy dying.

Of course, being able to feel like you're living helps. I'm struck by the urge to whinge and moan about how actually little I've accomplished, and whenever that urge comes on me, my Inner Working Class Bastard slaps me silly. I have an urge to whinge about how I'm not a published novelist yet, which would feel like getting busy living, and my Inner Working Class Bastard gets up in my face to say 'Best fucking write then, hadn't ya?' - I have a novel that I think needs a tweak to its ending and maybe one more go-through, but instead of doing any of that and sending it out, I'm editing like a mad bastard. I have two separate people who've given me writing gigs on Who audio plays, and instead of doing either of them, I'm...editing like a bastard. Have a feeling soon there will be a chart in my life - a GBL chart, which, rather than seeing all these things I want to do as part of my ordinary To-Do List, and so, sort of turning them into chores to be done, will turn them into temporal rewards: edited like a mad bastard for a whole project? Right - send off the novel to five agents. No really, fuck you, this is what this time is to be used for. Ring the bell when it's done and go back to edit another project.

In terms of Disappearing, it's the well-known idea of effort and reward. Get under 18stone - take a day to write for yourself. Get to 17st 7, take the day to rearrange the bejesus out of your website. And so on.

Yes - I like this plan. A GBL List, to get more stuff actually DONE, in more areas of life, and feel more alive. Feeling more alive=a bigger incentive to put the work in to do more Disappearing, and so on.

Now excuse me, have to just go and edit like a bastard before taking my 10,000 step walk in the frozen pissing rain.

No More Walks In The Water Park

Weigh-in day today.

Weigh-in days evolved to be Tuesdays because way back in the dim and distant past, when we moved from London to Merthyr, I often had to go back to the city for the day on a Monday, so Monday weigh-ins would inevitably be ‘pre-bathroom’ affairs, because with a sluggish metabolism, if I waited to get a ‘post-bathroom’ number, I’d have missed more than one train, and would have had several hard stares from my boss.

I wouldn’t have been able to see them of course, I’d have missed the train, but still – that’s why we shifted to Tuesday weigh-ins.

This morning, I had plans to de-camp to Cardiff, to my Starbucks, for a day of intense day-jobbery and an evening’s editing. So today’s weigh-in is also ‘pre-bathroom’ – and as such encourages me to do the mathematics of self-delusion, trying to estimate how much weight I eventually got rid of which isn’t included in the official figures. Yes, seriously, I give actual brain-space to such equations these days. Sad, sad, sad man.

But this morning’s weigh-in figure actually marks the dividing line between phases of Disappearing. 

The figure is 18 stone, 12.75.

So on the one hand, yay and all that – more than a stone (14 pounds) lost since we started again, and it was gratifying to see the 18. As I’ve mentioned before though, I tend not to feel like I’m really Disappearing till I’m under 18 stone and we’re pushing down through the 17s.

But in particular, what this means Is that I lost exactly 2 pounds this week. I’m not gonna lie - with the digestive irregularity and the breaking out of the longer walks, there’s a part of me that feels cheated by that. But here’s the dividing line I mentioned. The first two weeks of any weightloss regime are apparently when you lose all your stored water (as I mentioned last week, who knew I was so subcutaneously soggy?). That’s why you get such sudden, dramatic figures showing – six pounds per week and so on. Water’s eeeeasy once you start.

After which, by and large, the real bastardy begins, and your body fat folds its theoretical arms and mutters ‘Ohhh you think you’re a big shot now, do ya? Well we’re not fuckin’ movin’ pal, alright?’

This is when the real games begin. This is when it turns into High Noon between you and your body fat, the whistling tune playing across the dusty street of your bloody-minded stubborn bastardy. It’s you versus you. The future versus the past, and you’re the only one that gets to decide which version of you wins.

The thing is, Fat-You is, by nature of having had to be, to get you looking this way, a cunning, cunning bastard. It will try to trick you into celebration - ‘Wow, you lost a stone, how cool are you? Maybe just a little treat wouldn’t hurt, eh? Just to celebrate, then you can get back on with it…’ It will try to trick you into vanity – ‘Wow, you look so much better already. Maybe you’ve done enough for now, eh?’ And it will try to trick you with tantrum-cravings, which may or may not have been a big factor in your journey so far – ‘God, how much lonnnnnnger till we can have a chocolate bar? We’ve been soooooo good. Just a little one? Just something, cos we reeeeeeeallly need it…’

At which point, you pretty much have to have no mercy and punch it relentlessly in the face until it shuts the hell up. Do something. Do anything. Have water. Have coffee, with as little milk as possible. Have, gods help your desperate brain, salad. Have anything that won’t smash the Perspex boxes between you and your Danger-Foods, but will make you feel like you’ve had something, like you’re full. If you find your brain trying to convince you of any of this stuff, remember you’re a Womble. No, wait, got carried away there. Remember you’re a stubborn bastard, that’s what I meant. If you hear yourself thinking any of this stuff, use it as an alarm, a klaxon. It’s your Fat-Self trying to protect itself, trying to maintain its existence in the face of what it’s just begun to realise after two weeks is your serious intent to do this, and to replace your Fat-Self with your Disappeared-Self.

Remember this – your body doesn’t know it’s Christmas. It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It doesn’t precisely know you’ve lost x-amount of weight. There are, in actual fact, no celebrations in Disappearing, beyond a bit of a wave and a cheer and a Happy Dance. You can’t really step off, go wild and crazy for the night, and get back on. I know some of you actually can, absolutely, do this, and more power to you. I can’t do it. For me, Disappearing is like marriage or pregnancy – you don’t get a night off from it. You can’t fool around with a fondant and then expect your Disappearing-Self to take you back in the morning because it ‘meant nothing to me, honestly, less than nothing.’ I’m in this thing for the long haul. And really speaking, the long haul begins here.

So – two pounds this week. The medically advisable amount, and what we’re actually aiming to lose each week. Long haul week one – goal achieved. Next!

This rate means three weeks from now we do a mini-wave of celebration at having crossed the next border – at least in UK terms – as we go under 18st 7. One month after that, at this rate, we his the 17s. So – seven weeks of hard slog to lose the same amount as we’ve lost in the first two weeks? Man, that sounds no fun!

No. No it doesn’t, does it? But this is not actually fun in any way – it’s a programme for losing medically dangerous weight and turning my life around. Seven weeks? Seven weeks is nothing, if it’s just seven weeks of doing what I’ve been doing so far. The cunning bit is that it won’t be. Long before that, we’re likely to hit the first plateau – probably three weeks from now, if I’m any judge, as the body settles into Disappearing as ‘the new normal’ and stops burning fat to cope with the system shock. Still – that’s a gunfight to have when we get there. For now, yay, under the 19 stone marker, and losing the right amount of non-water weight in the first week of slogging.

Onwards and downwards!

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."

Starting Over Again...Again...Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Next Stone

OK, so things are not going as well as I’d have liked. Two weeks of relative disciplinary looseness mean that this morning I weighed in at 18st 2.75. V Bad, as Bridget Jones would say.

On the other hand, there’s a slightly grasping-at straws symmetry here that I intend to grasp while the grasping’s good. I started at 19st 3. Got down over a stone, faffed about a bit, and have bobbed back up to just over a stone of loss. Dedicated non-faffery for a few weeks should now push me down another stone, as my system, which will have grown slack again, tightens up and cottons on to the idea of that non-faffery being a fact of its life. I got back on the bike last night for the first time in some time, and intend to get back on it again tonight. Then to walk tomorrow morning before work…annnnd so we go back to a pattern of non-faffery in an attempt to conquer the next stone. 18st 2.7t may be v bad, but it feels like a good jumping off point to be v good for another fourteen pounds of fun. If I can push on down and conquer the 17 barrier, to bob back up to 17st 3, it will bring more dividends with it, and this might be a way of beating the plateau effect of the overall downward push. Could be nonsense of course, but might not be. Let’s find out.

The Breakfast Hangover

Rassen frassen reakfast rindulgence rangover.

Since my Breakfast Indulgence two days ago, I seem to have slipped back in terms of progress.

Also, it's hot. Also, work. Nehh - wanna take my ball away and go home. One thing I don't want to do is walk anywhere. Another thing I don't want to do is get on that goddamned bike.

Sigh. Ignore me, just having a miseryfest. Feeling hot and flabby in the sunshine, and poor and deprived a week before payday, and covered up with deadlines to the point I don't even particularly want to do a thing.
'Nobody loves me, everybody hates me,
Think I'll go and eat worms' just about sums up today.

Meh.

The Boredom Sparks

The Boredom Sparks are everywhere. They must be squished.

Yesterday's entry may have been taken in slightly the wrong context, I think. Some people seemed to think that choosing a place with fewer temptations for the discerning Disappearer would lessen the likelihood of my weakening and eating things I shouldn't eat. d was also slightly worried that people who didn't get us might view her as some sort of Salome, doing the dance of the seven shakes to tempt me from the path of Disappearing Righteousness or somesuch.

I can see how people might have thought either thing, but both ideas actually miss the point.

For me, the worst possible thing about Disappearing would be getting the sense that people were altering their behaviours in ways that made them less happy simply so as not to introduce me to temptation. I'm sure people do this anyway, but I certainly don't want them to. I don't in any way want to bring people's enjoyment down simply by not being able to partake of the same enjoyment as them, or with them. How much of a downer would that make you feel?

So I've always said to anyone I'm with that they should have whatever they like while I'm with them - most of all d. And because she understands the reasoning, and she trusts me, I think she does just that.

Likewise with the choice of place - certainly if there was nothing I could eat there, I'd volunteer a different spot, but otherwise, as far as I personally am concerned, I'm not about to simply avoid places where 'temptation' is - that's not any kind of test of will, merely a test of geographical knowledge. The test of whether you're a 'recovering' alcoholic is not whether you avoid bars like the plague. The test that proves you're recovering is going with your mates into a bar, watching them get drunk, and having a good time without having a drink yourself.

The idea of there being a similarity between alcoholism and whatever it is that fuels Disappearers like me to eat in a way that harms our health has been criticised in plenty of places - notably by recovering alcoholics, but the urge is the same. The need is the same. The cycle of behaviour seems the same, only alcohol has a tendency to be more rapidly incapacitating.

So I need to go places where there's plenty of 'temptation' and not give into it, in order to really be sure that I can cope with days like today.

I'll pause here so you can roll your eyes and say 'For God's sake, what's today's drama?'

Today's drama is no drama at all. Today I've been at home, all day, on my own. I work from home, and I'm not going to lie to you - it's bloody great. But in terms of Disappearing, or indeed in terms of Getting Shit Done, it all depends on discipline. I'm here, on my own, all day, with my white walls, and my computers and my lists of stuff to do, near the centre of a town with cafes, supermarkets, take-out joints - you name it, I've got it on my doorstep. And all it takes is that one little boredom spark to say 'Oooh, could just go for some ice cream right about now.' Or 'Mmm, fish and chips - just a few hundred paces away...'

Many - ohhhh, so many - is the time I've obeyed the boredom spark and gone off to buy, say, a a fish fry lunch, or something equally stupid for me. The point of Disappearing though is discipline. You're never going to stop those boredom sparks flaring, showing you a short-term future where you're doing something pleasurable, and you're not bored - where your senses are aroused and your hands and your mouth and your mind are busy. They're probably part of an evolutionary system to avoid stagnation or something. But what you can do is build the discipline to say 'Yeah, could do that. Or, y'know...could not. Yeah, let's not,' and move on to the next thought. Without the willpower, which you either have naturally by virtue of being a Stubborn Bastard or can build by continually overcoming moments of temptaion, those boredom sparks can quickly become flames that burn your intentions to ashes.

So that's why I need to still go and enjoy places where all the temptations in the Disappearing world are laid out for me, and that's why I need peope to still eat their normal way around me - as my friend Lori said yesterday, I need to real excuse to do stupid things when left to my own devices. In fact, I will actively seek out stupid things to do if left to my own ungoverned devices. The government of those urges is solely down to me, because the effect of those urges is likewise an impact only on me. If I can't control myself in those places  of joyful, wonderous temptation, and I need those people closest to me to tiptoe around and pretend they don't want what they want so that I won't crumble, I stand absolutely no chance when left on my own, when the boredom sparks flicker in my head.