Smashing Through

Baaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha!

Oh, that's absurd. Glorious, but absurd.

Haven't had a chance to walk this week - deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, rawhiiiiiiide!
In addition to which, dinner last night was spaghetti bolognaise in glorious profusion. I'd forgotten it was Monday night, but it was actually so scrumptious I didn't care that much.

This morning's weigh-in? 17st 6.25 - down my hoped-for two pounds. Through the trampoline barrier of the half-stone point - 17st 7. Who knew the beard weighed that much?!

Here's the weird thing. In the abstract, this is a result that makes me all gimlet-eyed 80s-movie determined. Cue the Rocky montage, and all that. In the short term, it let me march to my favourite local cafe for the best bacon and egg sandwich I've had in fifteen years (It's a beard thing). This probably says more about the ineffective nature of abstract motivations, but I went, I ate, I felt my sense of personal wellbeing swell. Now on we go. The truth is that breakfast bacon butty or no breakfast bacon butty, I feel encouraged by this morning's result to do better and intend, at this point, to push on down.

Naturally of course, this being the way of things, next week I'll be massively heavier, full of excuses and roaring around the place, kicking imaginary cats and declaring that nothing's worth doing cos we're all dooooomed.

So, y'know, there's that to look forward to. Meanwhile, woohoo! *Struggles into cheerleading outfit, shakes pom-poms in a loathesome display of self-congratulation.*

The Pleasing Perversity of Outliers

Huh.

There are ups and downs in this Disappearing business which are equally inexplicable. Sometimes you can be good as a saint and find yourself becalmed, or even increasing. Other times, you can misbehave and find yourself rewarded. Madness.

Today though, that madness is on my side. Despite dining on a small bowl of pasta in the most ridiculously kickass sauce, and then an unexpected half a pizza at nine o'clock last night, this morning's blood sugar came in at a pleasing 8.8, and this morning's weigh-in has me at:
17st 7 and three-quarters. Less than a pound to my next milestone. That'll do for me this morning.

I haven't exactly misbehaved....that much...this week, but for instance, I only walked the one day, cramming for an editing deadline for much of the rest of the week, and as mentioned, while I haven't exactly injected sugar syrup into my veins, my diet has been carb-rich (last night was the last of a three or four day pastafest), so to say the results surprise me would be something of an understatement. But I can do nothing, whether the results are good or bad, but straighten my spine and go forward with intentions to achieve my goal.

That's all this is of course, ultimately - the pitting of one's intentions against reality, seeing if one can turn intentions into actions, and through actions into a change in reality. I suppose that's the same principle as lies behind all human endeavour, from steam trains to the theory of magic. Thought becomes action, action changes the reality.

Any such system of action of course with throw out outliers, things that probably shouldn't happen but do. That's how today feels, like a pleasingly perverse outlier, because it doesn't really agree with the actions that have preceded it. But today I will take it, and move right the hell on, deploying theory, focusing thought, achieving actions (hopefully) and changing my own personal reality.

Oh, that reminds me - d popped into my office last night to say she hadn't weighed herself in quite some time, but that she's dropped beneath an important threshold too. Her method's entirely different from mine, and involves things like working for a living and the most perverse portion control, given her mad, mystical cooking skills. But hey - it's like that whole 'many roads to enlightenment' thing. Probably doesn't matter how you get to your goal, if you get there. So this week, we're a Disappearing Household, albeit in my case through the pleasing perversity of outliers.

The Double Decade Memory

Lovely day - no weighing, French bacon butty for breakfast, much decaffitude (note to self - never go and sit in a bookshop cafe on payday), and an Italian meal for dinner.

I know! Pasta!

Bottom line, I don't feel guilty about any of it. I'm not yet at the stage of weeping and wailing and flagellating myself raw for every calorie consumed. I daresay that insufferable joyfest will come, but it isn't here yet - it's waaaaay too early in a long-ass process to be doing that.

Besides, technically, I haven't overdone it today. Two meals, including a pasta portion, a soup and a piece of carbohydrate stuffed with bacon. By all means, don't call it a perfect day, but neither is it a particularly bad one. Neither bacon nor pasta's on my verboten list, it's all about portion control and the overall picture of the day.

I'm particularly not minded to worry about it having been reminded this evening that it's twenty years this week since I got the living crap kicked out of me on the streets of Merthyr on New Year's Eve, and spent the first week of the year in hospital, having my ankle bolted back together. There was talk of simply amputating my foot that New Year's Eve. So that's twenty years of having two feet I've had which were in no way guaranteed to me that night. That puts stuff into perspective. Am I going to worry about pasta tonight? Notsomuch.

I'm going to sit here, waggling my two feet and grinning, while planning to put both of them to work this weekend, pushing down the weight attached to me. Pushing down the burden that every day alive puts on those ankles, on these knees, and on this heart. That for me is a good day, and a good plan.