Odd week, this one. Was busy walking early in the week when I twisted an ankle and slammed into the ground. Haven't walked properly since then till today. So that was irritating. Also had a couple of big 'banquet'-style meals over the course of the week, so wasn't exactly expecting to have lost seven pounds this week.
Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 9.75 - down a pound on last week. If I had any kind of energy right now, I'd witter on about how, at this rate, I'll have to cut my annual goal in half, from 104 pounds to 52 pounds, but I'm simply not going to do that because it would just be silly.
As I write this, Madam Secretary is on in the background - it's become a kind of West Wing for the Era of What-The-Fuck - and the doctrine of Suck-It-Upism. On the day of the so-called 'Meaningful Vote' on Brexit, Suck-It-Upism, the philosophy of taking what's real and dealing with it, seems like the mindset of the day, so am sucking it up, and looking at a one pound loss through the lens of it being a loss in spite of x, and y, and z - z being the other bullshit excuse I would have had to make up to justify putting on weight this week.
Screw it - a pound is a pound is a positive snapshot on weigh-in day, and back to walking today. On and on and on we go...one pound at a tiiiiiiiiiiime, sweet Mithras...
Showing posts with label perception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perception. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 January 2019
Tuesday, 30 January 2018
The Control Mechanism
Alrighty then - weigh-in day.
As of today, the weight we're dealing with is: 19st 6.25.
Down the regulation two pounds per week. Now, familiar as I am with the Disappearing process, I'd vaguely expected the initial water-weight loss to be rather more than that, because it usually is in the first two weeks - I've been known to lose 7 pounds in my first week. And indeed after just the first two days, an informal weigh-in had me lower than this, so there's every chance for a wobble and to go 'Fuck it! All that work and I've lost two pounds!'
Perfectly natural reaction, that, if you're Disappearing.
On the other hand, let's see what's really what.
Weight loss is always something of a fluctuating card-trick if you take snapshots of it, as these weigh-ins are. For instance, before going to bed last night, I weighed in at 19st 11, nearly five pounds heavier than this morning. Much peeing in the night is all there is to say about that.
The point of which is that you're always taking a snapshot of digestive transit, and if you're dealing with weightloss on a weekly basis, it actually becomes a factor. In the immortal words of comedian Peter Kay, 'I went to one of them weight loss classes, and they were cheering this woman cos she'd lost a pound. I said "A pound? What's a pound? I shit a pound!"'
Five pounds of liquid from night to morning. Get the picture?
So, there are things to say. Sure, the weightloss itself might be less than in previous attempts, but it's still two pounds in a week, meaning to reach the point of Peak Disappearing from my first time round, I now have to lost five stone (70 pounds). At two pounds a week, that's just 35 weeks. A smidgen under nine months - and the first time I did it, it took a year, cos I was 14 pounds heavier when I started. So - positivity there.
In addition, I've had a week of no chocolate, no oversugary foods, limited carbs etc. That's got to help me, because I'm diabetic, and running a system like mine on a high-sugar diet simply can't be good for it.
In addition again, I've spent two hours most days walking by the coast of one of my favourite bits of water in the world. Noooo bad there, apart from something of a deadline crunch which might just possibly have benefitted from those twelve or so hours of work.
In further addition, those walking hours have been filled with some cracking audio titles, which has allowed me to get up to speed with a few, tick a few off my To-Listen list, and very soon might even allow me to make progress on some actual audioBOOKing, with which I'm determined to do better in 2018 than I was in 2017.
And perhaps most importantly, in terms of a general take-away that might be useful to anyone else, I've begun to redress the balance of control in my life. Control's a weird thing - I tend to approach it in a digital fashion. All or nothing. Health, money, work, working environment. All the rest is still chaos-adjacent, but getting control over my eating and exercise regime makes me feel like I'm at least an active factor in the equation, rather than just a product to which things happen with or without my say-so. That means plans are being made, things being set in motion and suchlike, simply by virtue of having re-embarked on a Disappearing kick, and having not, as yet, fallen off.
So there's all of this, plus the relatively concrete fact (in a useful defiance of my own first point) that I'm two pounds lighter than I was this time last week. All of which marks progress, and gives me a spring in my step as I hurry out the door on today's walk. Onward to week 2, and hopefully another two pounds - at that rate, a month from now, I'll see an 18 in the 'Stones' column, which will be a marker of genuine significant loss.
To the walking boots!
As of today, the weight we're dealing with is: 19st 6.25.
Down the regulation two pounds per week. Now, familiar as I am with the Disappearing process, I'd vaguely expected the initial water-weight loss to be rather more than that, because it usually is in the first two weeks - I've been known to lose 7 pounds in my first week. And indeed after just the first two days, an informal weigh-in had me lower than this, so there's every chance for a wobble and to go 'Fuck it! All that work and I've lost two pounds!'
Perfectly natural reaction, that, if you're Disappearing.
On the other hand, let's see what's really what.
Weight loss is always something of a fluctuating card-trick if you take snapshots of it, as these weigh-ins are. For instance, before going to bed last night, I weighed in at 19st 11, nearly five pounds heavier than this morning. Much peeing in the night is all there is to say about that.
The point of which is that you're always taking a snapshot of digestive transit, and if you're dealing with weightloss on a weekly basis, it actually becomes a factor. In the immortal words of comedian Peter Kay, 'I went to one of them weight loss classes, and they were cheering this woman cos she'd lost a pound. I said "A pound? What's a pound? I shit a pound!"'
Five pounds of liquid from night to morning. Get the picture?
So, there are things to say. Sure, the weightloss itself might be less than in previous attempts, but it's still two pounds in a week, meaning to reach the point of Peak Disappearing from my first time round, I now have to lost five stone (70 pounds). At two pounds a week, that's just 35 weeks. A smidgen under nine months - and the first time I did it, it took a year, cos I was 14 pounds heavier when I started. So - positivity there.
In addition, I've had a week of no chocolate, no oversugary foods, limited carbs etc. That's got to help me, because I'm diabetic, and running a system like mine on a high-sugar diet simply can't be good for it.
In addition again, I've spent two hours most days walking by the coast of one of my favourite bits of water in the world. Noooo bad there, apart from something of a deadline crunch which might just possibly have benefitted from those twelve or so hours of work.
In further addition, those walking hours have been filled with some cracking audio titles, which has allowed me to get up to speed with a few, tick a few off my To-Listen list, and very soon might even allow me to make progress on some actual audioBOOKing, with which I'm determined to do better in 2018 than I was in 2017.
And perhaps most importantly, in terms of a general take-away that might be useful to anyone else, I've begun to redress the balance of control in my life. Control's a weird thing - I tend to approach it in a digital fashion. All or nothing. Health, money, work, working environment. All the rest is still chaos-adjacent, but getting control over my eating and exercise regime makes me feel like I'm at least an active factor in the equation, rather than just a product to which things happen with or without my say-so. That means plans are being made, things being set in motion and suchlike, simply by virtue of having re-embarked on a Disappearing kick, and having not, as yet, fallen off.
So there's all of this, plus the relatively concrete fact (in a useful defiance of my own first point) that I'm two pounds lighter than I was this time last week. All of which marks progress, and gives me a spring in my step as I hurry out the door on today's walk. Onward to week 2, and hopefully another two pounds - at that rate, a month from now, I'll see an 18 in the 'Stones' column, which will be a marker of genuine significant loss.
To the walking boots!
Friday, 26 January 2018
The Trouble With Tesco Express
Disappearing is, for the most part, the quest to not go mad while you change your life and expectations utterly.
It's odd that when I began this blog, I lived in London, where anything was available for a price. then I moved to Merthyr, where we had a big, two-storey 24-hour Tesco just up the road from us.
We're not in Merthyr any more.
We're sure as shit not in London.
Make no mistake about it, while I loved London, and was bound to Merthyr by ties of contemptuous familiarity, as well as family and a scattering of good friends, it's a good thing that we're not in either of them any more. This is where we want to be, and, for instance, after walking along the coastline for two hours today, I spent a good half-hour simply looking out at the sea and the sky, and that's worth enormous sackfuls of dosh and lifetime to me. I love it here in Saundersfoot town, with its five streets and its harbour wall, its beach and its absolute invasion of dogs.
But, as has been a thread going through this week, in terms of buying for a Disappearing diet, it's interestingly challenging.
We have a Tesco Express and a Spar in the town centre, as far as picking up groceries is concerned.
And here's the thing about a Tesco Express when you're Disappearing.
There's virtually buggerall in it that you're allowed to see. Or rather, buggerall that you're allowed to eat. Lots of fun stuff - pies, pasties, M&M milkshakes, a doughnut aisle, a confectionery aisle, a frozen section full of pizzas and a magazine rack, and that's more or less your lot.
'I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do for dinner,' d texted as I was sitting there, looking out to sea. 'Maybe get some new potatoes, and go on - treat yourself to some of the GOOD tomatoes.' She meant the branded, Italian tinned tomatoes, all of 50p per tin. So I did - but then, I started roaming the aisles like a distrubed person, looking for what else I could possibly take home for dinner.
Cup-A-Soups and a packet of pens. That's what I brought home.
Not just any old packet of pens, mind you, a £7.50 packet of pens, for which I have neither a burning need in my life, nor the funds to go lavishly splashing about.
I think if I'd stayed in there two more minutes, I'd have ended up buying some Lottery instants and sucking off the silver, just out of sheer desperation.
Needless to say though, d did...ridiculous wonders with what was in her store cupboard.
I ended up with a dinner of gloriously succulent 'Firecracker Chicken' - chicken tenders in a lemon and pepper sauce that were like a joyful savoury lollipop of pure pleasure. There were sprouts, oh god yes there were - one does not go on an epic greenery quest and then neglect one's sprouts. And there was a dish of stewed tomatoes of such bite and flavour and complexity that the recipe has more ingredients in it than seems entirely feasible - but hot damn, people! I should perhaps have mentioned this before we started - I do have one enooooormous advantage over each and every one of you when it comes to Disappearing, and that is d. The palate she has, the instinctive and the learned knowledge of flavour profiles, (as well of course as the emotional support and the humour and the ability to nod at me when I've gone quite clearly round the bend) means she can make cardboard taste damn good if she needs to. Tonight, I dined like a king, and flicked repetitive V-signs at the aisles of our Tesco Express, lovely and useful as it is, for I have d, and right now, she's what's saving me from a chewy mouthful of expensive pens.
It's odd that when I began this blog, I lived in London, where anything was available for a price. then I moved to Merthyr, where we had a big, two-storey 24-hour Tesco just up the road from us.
We're not in Merthyr any more.
We're sure as shit not in London.
Make no mistake about it, while I loved London, and was bound to Merthyr by ties of contemptuous familiarity, as well as family and a scattering of good friends, it's a good thing that we're not in either of them any more. This is where we want to be, and, for instance, after walking along the coastline for two hours today, I spent a good half-hour simply looking out at the sea and the sky, and that's worth enormous sackfuls of dosh and lifetime to me. I love it here in Saundersfoot town, with its five streets and its harbour wall, its beach and its absolute invasion of dogs.
But, as has been a thread going through this week, in terms of buying for a Disappearing diet, it's interestingly challenging.
We have a Tesco Express and a Spar in the town centre, as far as picking up groceries is concerned.
And here's the thing about a Tesco Express when you're Disappearing.
There's virtually buggerall in it that you're allowed to see. Or rather, buggerall that you're allowed to eat. Lots of fun stuff - pies, pasties, M&M milkshakes, a doughnut aisle, a confectionery aisle, a frozen section full of pizzas and a magazine rack, and that's more or less your lot.
'I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do for dinner,' d texted as I was sitting there, looking out to sea. 'Maybe get some new potatoes, and go on - treat yourself to some of the GOOD tomatoes.' She meant the branded, Italian tinned tomatoes, all of 50p per tin. So I did - but then, I started roaming the aisles like a distrubed person, looking for what else I could possibly take home for dinner.
Cup-A-Soups and a packet of pens. That's what I brought home.
Not just any old packet of pens, mind you, a £7.50 packet of pens, for which I have neither a burning need in my life, nor the funds to go lavishly splashing about.
I think if I'd stayed in there two more minutes, I'd have ended up buying some Lottery instants and sucking off the silver, just out of sheer desperation.
Needless to say though, d did...ridiculous wonders with what was in her store cupboard.
I ended up with a dinner of gloriously succulent 'Firecracker Chicken' - chicken tenders in a lemon and pepper sauce that were like a joyful savoury lollipop of pure pleasure. There were sprouts, oh god yes there were - one does not go on an epic greenery quest and then neglect one's sprouts. And there was a dish of stewed tomatoes of such bite and flavour and complexity that the recipe has more ingredients in it than seems entirely feasible - but hot damn, people! I should perhaps have mentioned this before we started - I do have one enooooormous advantage over each and every one of you when it comes to Disappearing, and that is d. The palate she has, the instinctive and the learned knowledge of flavour profiles, (as well of course as the emotional support and the humour and the ability to nod at me when I've gone quite clearly round the bend) means she can make cardboard taste damn good if she needs to. Tonight, I dined like a king, and flicked repetitive V-signs at the aisles of our Tesco Express, lovely and useful as it is, for I have d, and right now, she's what's saving me from a chewy mouthful of expensive pens.
Thursday, 25 January 2018
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?
'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?
Wednesday, 8 February 2017
The Slackass Variant
So - yesterday, woke up at 18st 6.
This morning, woke up a chunk heavier than that, having not been back in a bathroom since the night before last, and having had what were technically four meals during the course of yesterday. Was I worried about that?
Nah. It'll sort itself out over ther course of the week.
Today has been mostly desk-bound, but went to do a different walk this evening, because I had to pick up my medication prescription in the town centre. Ended up walking a fairly paltry 7,500 steps. That feels like a slackass day, given my recent history, but honestly, my brain feels like...
Y'know the opening of Wall-E, where he gathers up all the trash and turns it into compacted cubes? That's what my brain feels like - day-job, company, Disappearing, everything else, crunching my damn brain into cubes, day by day.
Fuck it, if this has to be a slackass day, that's what it has to be. I honestly don't particularly feel like I'm coping right now with the plate-spinning - if this one has to slow its spin down to keep some other things on track, so be it.
This morning, woke up a chunk heavier than that, having not been back in a bathroom since the night before last, and having had what were technically four meals during the course of yesterday. Was I worried about that?
Nah. It'll sort itself out over ther course of the week.
Today has been mostly desk-bound, but went to do a different walk this evening, because I had to pick up my medication prescription in the town centre. Ended up walking a fairly paltry 7,500 steps. That feels like a slackass day, given my recent history, but honestly, my brain feels like...
Y'know the opening of Wall-E, where he gathers up all the trash and turns it into compacted cubes? That's what my brain feels like - day-job, company, Disappearing, everything else, crunching my damn brain into cubes, day by day.
Fuck it, if this has to be a slackass day, that's what it has to be. I honestly don't particularly feel like I'm coping right now with the plate-spinning - if this one has to slow its spin down to keep some other things on track, so be it.
Tuesday, 24 January 2017
The Upside Of Alt-Facts
We now live in a surreal world. The world of Trump and Cronies (previously known as the US Government, but surely no-one can call them that with a straight face and a steady stomach), has just brought us the delightful phrase 'alternative facts.'
Like 'plausible deniability,' this is a thing that has never previously been quantified, but from the moment you hear it, you know it's going to become a 'Thing,' and that while in some shadowy Twilight Zone way it may have existed previously, having been given a name, it's going to more definitely become a fact of actual day-to-day life and your experience of it.
It's probably worth remembering that 'alternative facts' have been a thing much longer than people realise. Nixon said he wasn't a crook, which is about as alternative a fact as you can get. Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with that woman, which is a frankly ungrateful thing to say about someone whose dress you've ruined, and also an alternative fact. The most recent iteration only really lodges in the brain because the circumstances in which it's been deployed are so pathetic - the alternative facts being deployed so early into the Orange Emperor's reign are basically 'my crowd wasn't smaller than your crowd, so nehh!'
Which is very presidential behaviour.
See? Anyone can do the 'alternative fact' thing.
In which connection, I should like to announce that far from being entirely static after a week of walking my ass off, I have lost three pounds, and now weigh 18 stone 10 pounds. I should very much like to do that, in fact, and so, in the Empire of the Disappearing Man, this alternative fact is now...fact.
In the Empire of Agreed and Verifiable Reality, as policed by the likes of the Nazi Scales, this alternative fact remains very much more alternative than I would like, and my morning weigh-in today had me entirely immobile at 18st 13 pounds.
So you see, as much as we might decry them in our political landscape, there's most definitely an upside to alternative facts. I'm alternatively happy, and factually less so. in the Empire of Verifiable Reality, something needs to change about my routine - there needs to be less intake and more expenditure, in all probability, or at the very least, as d suggested, there needs to be a shift in timescales. Currently, I'm waiting till my day-job is done at 5pm, walking for something in the region of two hours, and by the time I'm sitting down to eat, it's more like 8pm, after which I do precisely nothing in terms of exercise for the rest of the night. Perhaps a shift to earlier eating, followed by exercise, would have a more energetic, less sedentary effect on my system. At any rate, I'm more than willing to try that, because the thing about alternative facts is that once you know they're alternative facts - or even, really, once you suspect they're alternative facts - they have a limited and diminishing satisfaction index. One cannot be entirely satisfied if one knows one is lying to oneself - at least, not without a larger and more all-encompassing personality disoreder than I have, which I suppose is one of many complicated reasons why I'll never be leader of the free world. Ho hum - back to Disappearing we go then.
Like 'plausible deniability,' this is a thing that has never previously been quantified, but from the moment you hear it, you know it's going to become a 'Thing,' and that while in some shadowy Twilight Zone way it may have existed previously, having been given a name, it's going to more definitely become a fact of actual day-to-day life and your experience of it.
It's probably worth remembering that 'alternative facts' have been a thing much longer than people realise. Nixon said he wasn't a crook, which is about as alternative a fact as you can get. Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with that woman, which is a frankly ungrateful thing to say about someone whose dress you've ruined, and also an alternative fact. The most recent iteration only really lodges in the brain because the circumstances in which it's been deployed are so pathetic - the alternative facts being deployed so early into the Orange Emperor's reign are basically 'my crowd wasn't smaller than your crowd, so nehh!'
Which is very presidential behaviour.
See? Anyone can do the 'alternative fact' thing.
In which connection, I should like to announce that far from being entirely static after a week of walking my ass off, I have lost three pounds, and now weigh 18 stone 10 pounds. I should very much like to do that, in fact, and so, in the Empire of the Disappearing Man, this alternative fact is now...fact.
In the Empire of Agreed and Verifiable Reality, as policed by the likes of the Nazi Scales, this alternative fact remains very much more alternative than I would like, and my morning weigh-in today had me entirely immobile at 18st 13 pounds.
So you see, as much as we might decry them in our political landscape, there's most definitely an upside to alternative facts. I'm alternatively happy, and factually less so. in the Empire of Verifiable Reality, something needs to change about my routine - there needs to be less intake and more expenditure, in all probability, or at the very least, as d suggested, there needs to be a shift in timescales. Currently, I'm waiting till my day-job is done at 5pm, walking for something in the region of two hours, and by the time I'm sitting down to eat, it's more like 8pm, after which I do precisely nothing in terms of exercise for the rest of the night. Perhaps a shift to earlier eating, followed by exercise, would have a more energetic, less sedentary effect on my system. At any rate, I'm more than willing to try that, because the thing about alternative facts is that once you know they're alternative facts - or even, really, once you suspect they're alternative facts - they have a limited and diminishing satisfaction index. One cannot be entirely satisfied if one knows one is lying to oneself - at least, not without a larger and more all-encompassing personality disoreder than I have, which I suppose is one of many complicated reasons why I'll never be leader of the free world. Ho hum - back to Disappearing we go then.
Wednesday, 11 January 2017
The Obsessive Compulsive Potential
I think - I could be wrong, but I think - it's pretty clear that Disappearing, the way I do it, has the potential to tip over into a fairly comprehensive personality disorder. The black-and-whiteness, the Perspex boxes, the compulsive unofficial weighing, the anxiety if I miss a day's exercise, the frantic rationalisations about what I've eaten, and whether figures are pre-or-post-'bathroom.' Clearly, it's effective, but as an actual mindset with which to go through life, it requires quite some pulling up later on in the process if one is not to crash and burn on the ground of one's life.
I mention this because at the moment I'm editing a novel, detailing the life, the rituals, the inner chiding voice of a man with some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. It's a good book, but when, as happened twice last night, you read an action, and immediately understand in every disc of your spine what must follow it, it's a) a sign of good characterisation, and b) jusssst a little bit worrying.
Perversely, I just read a section of it about the man freaking right out when someone makes him tea in 'the wrong mug' - he has a mug that's his, a mug that's safe, and other mugs, should he drink out of them, will lead him to damnation, to unspecified evil consequences.
d popped her head around the office door as I was reading that, with a steaming mug.
Now - let's be clear. I don't have a special mug, and I don't believe in damnation. And, perhaps inspired by all the talk of mugs of tea, I'd just been about to get off my ass and go and make one when she came in, bearing the steaming mug.
In the book, our protagonist, unable to drink from another mug for fear of damnation, unable NOT to drink from it for fear of embarrassment and discovery of his condition, goes the classic 'Oh, look at that!' route, then 'accidentally' spills the contents from the wrong mug and goes to make himself a refill in the right mug.
I knew what was in my mug before I even looked. It was - (cue dramatic music) - hot chocolate!
Now, let's be real here. We're not talking Belgian, cocoa-rich goodness, we're talking powdery, sugar-lite, 40-calories-per-sachet malarkey, though made with d's trademark care.
But in my brain, the battle began.
'That's chocolate. You're not allowed chocolate.'
'Do me a frigging favour. That's never seen a cocoa nib in its life.'
'It's still chocolate.'
'In what possible way is it chocolate? I'm not BEING this person.'
'You ARE this person. And it's Gateway Chococate.'
'It bloody isn't.'
'Bloody is. You can't drink it. Bad things will happen. Weight gain will happen. You'll have broken your Perspex boxes. Next thing you know, you'll be face down in the muffins at the gas station, weighing 23 stone.'
'Fuck. Right. Off. I'm drinking it.'
'Allllright, but on your own waistline be it.'
'It's forty calories per cup, for fuck's sake. my usual Starbucks drink has sugar-free caramel in it that costs more than that, and I haven't gone on a caramel binge yet.'
'But this is choooooocolate.'
'Oh, seriously, shut up.' And with that, I took a sip, and another, sadly not for the sake of the pleasure of it, but to put the question beyond doubt. I'm not about to turn a loving, caring, perfectly beautiful gesture into the beginning of some unravelling downward spiral.
Of course, technically, come five o'clock, I AM about to go and walk 12,000 steps. But...y'know...I would have been doing that anyway.
Yes, I would. Oh you can shurrup too...
I mention this because at the moment I'm editing a novel, detailing the life, the rituals, the inner chiding voice of a man with some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. It's a good book, but when, as happened twice last night, you read an action, and immediately understand in every disc of your spine what must follow it, it's a) a sign of good characterisation, and b) jusssst a little bit worrying.
Perversely, I just read a section of it about the man freaking right out when someone makes him tea in 'the wrong mug' - he has a mug that's his, a mug that's safe, and other mugs, should he drink out of them, will lead him to damnation, to unspecified evil consequences.
d popped her head around the office door as I was reading that, with a steaming mug.
Now - let's be clear. I don't have a special mug, and I don't believe in damnation. And, perhaps inspired by all the talk of mugs of tea, I'd just been about to get off my ass and go and make one when she came in, bearing the steaming mug.
In the book, our protagonist, unable to drink from another mug for fear of damnation, unable NOT to drink from it for fear of embarrassment and discovery of his condition, goes the classic 'Oh, look at that!' route, then 'accidentally' spills the contents from the wrong mug and goes to make himself a refill in the right mug.
I knew what was in my mug before I even looked. It was - (cue dramatic music) - hot chocolate!
Now, let's be real here. We're not talking Belgian, cocoa-rich goodness, we're talking powdery, sugar-lite, 40-calories-per-sachet malarkey, though made with d's trademark care.
But in my brain, the battle began.
'That's chocolate. You're not allowed chocolate.'
'Do me a frigging favour. That's never seen a cocoa nib in its life.'
'It's still chocolate.'
'In what possible way is it chocolate? I'm not BEING this person.'
'You ARE this person. And it's Gateway Chococate.'
'It bloody isn't.'
'Bloody is. You can't drink it. Bad things will happen. Weight gain will happen. You'll have broken your Perspex boxes. Next thing you know, you'll be face down in the muffins at the gas station, weighing 23 stone.'
'Fuck. Right. Off. I'm drinking it.'
'Allllright, but on your own waistline be it.'
'It's forty calories per cup, for fuck's sake. my usual Starbucks drink has sugar-free caramel in it that costs more than that, and I haven't gone on a caramel binge yet.'
'But this is choooooocolate.'
'Oh, seriously, shut up.' And with that, I took a sip, and another, sadly not for the sake of the pleasure of it, but to put the question beyond doubt. I'm not about to turn a loving, caring, perfectly beautiful gesture into the beginning of some unravelling downward spiral.
Of course, technically, come five o'clock, I AM about to go and walk 12,000 steps. But...y'know...I would have been doing that anyway.
Yes, I would. Oh you can shurrup too...
Saturday, 2 April 2016
The Perception Flicker
Unff. Couple of days blogless. Couple of days exerciseless too. Couple of days including big pizzas, greasy spoon lunches, fairly large cereal breakfasts.
And fear, of course. Fear of rocketing numbers, the exhaustion of having to go a fuck of a long way back to healthy. Fear of having more time behind me than ahead. Fear of books not written, things not done, and a life cut horribly short by my own hand - putting food in my mouth that's the equivalent of pouring acid in my eyes, slashing holes in my liver, cutting off my own feet, and ultimately shooting myself in the head. Diabetic fear, in other words.
Finally got back off my ass again tonight, walked five miles, nearly 12,000 steps. Done now. Feel every one of the 12,000. Tonight though, a form of fear to which I'm not normally prone. Went walking down the Trail, but to get there from our flat, you have to go past a couple of areas where people congregate - a skate park, a cinema, a handful of cheap restaurants and a leisure centre. Tonight, in the evening sunshine, the pathway to the Trail was thronged with people, and - I froze.
I have the distinction of both having a brother and yet being raised as an only child. As an only child, I've always had a 'fuck you' attitude to peer pressure. I walk where I want, I do what I want, and if the world doesn't like it, it can go right to hell.
But tonight, I froze. Suddenly very much aware of my body and the numbers of people through whom I had to walk.
That was a new and unwelcome sense of fear. Naturally of course, I shook myself down, turned up some Guns N Roses in my ears and marched on through the buggers, because of course I refuse to be bullied by my own imagination. But still - that was odd. Walked on my way, but it was just a little moment of weirdness in the day. Occurred to me with my involvement in the Women's Equality Party that to some extent, you can make a comparison between that tiny twinge and the much more pervasive, permanent sensation of what it's like to be a woman in the world - that potential fear of eyes, of judgement in which the world is actively schooled. I'm not about to make too big a thing of that, because I know plenty of women who don't feel that way, any more than I ever have done. Still - a weird moment of self-consciousness in an otherwise self-congratulatory day.
And fear, of course. Fear of rocketing numbers, the exhaustion of having to go a fuck of a long way back to healthy. Fear of having more time behind me than ahead. Fear of books not written, things not done, and a life cut horribly short by my own hand - putting food in my mouth that's the equivalent of pouring acid in my eyes, slashing holes in my liver, cutting off my own feet, and ultimately shooting myself in the head. Diabetic fear, in other words.
Finally got back off my ass again tonight, walked five miles, nearly 12,000 steps. Done now. Feel every one of the 12,000. Tonight though, a form of fear to which I'm not normally prone. Went walking down the Trail, but to get there from our flat, you have to go past a couple of areas where people congregate - a skate park, a cinema, a handful of cheap restaurants and a leisure centre. Tonight, in the evening sunshine, the pathway to the Trail was thronged with people, and - I froze.
I have the distinction of both having a brother and yet being raised as an only child. As an only child, I've always had a 'fuck you' attitude to peer pressure. I walk where I want, I do what I want, and if the world doesn't like it, it can go right to hell.
But tonight, I froze. Suddenly very much aware of my body and the numbers of people through whom I had to walk.
That was a new and unwelcome sense of fear. Naturally of course, I shook myself down, turned up some Guns N Roses in my ears and marched on through the buggers, because of course I refuse to be bullied by my own imagination. But still - that was odd. Walked on my way, but it was just a little moment of weirdness in the day. Occurred to me with my involvement in the Women's Equality Party that to some extent, you can make a comparison between that tiny twinge and the much more pervasive, permanent sensation of what it's like to be a woman in the world - that potential fear of eyes, of judgement in which the world is actively schooled. I'm not about to make too big a thing of that, because I know plenty of women who don't feel that way, any more than I ever have done. Still - a weird moment of self-consciousness in an otherwise self-congratulatory day.
Wednesday, 30 March 2016
The Papa John Puff Pastry Penitence Principle
Evil has come to our town.
Crusty, chewy, succulent evil.
Merthyr now has its own Papa John's. This spells all kinds of doom for all kinds of Disappearing efforts, and today, when d got out of work, we went to give it the blessing of our patronage.
Given that the weather today has been all kinds of apocalyptic - I was out of the door ten seconds when the sky started throwing little pellets of fuckyou (or hailstones, as the rest of the world rather boringly insists on calling them) at me - I had figured that today might be one of those wondrous, joyful things we like to fondly imagine are necessary - a rest day from the routine of exercise.
But as we sat in our flat, moaning rather indecently given we were on separate couches, and chewing our Papa John joyfulness, the sun did a rather unfriendly thing and beamed through our window, as if to say 'Ohhhh no - you're not pinning this shit on me, pilgrim, I'm here if you want me.'
So, I grabbed my trainers (I have yet to convince my body we're taking it seriously enough again to stap on the walking boots - not least because every time I do that, I get pigging blisters!), and trudged out of the door.
Wales, as I've mentioned before, is not flat. In fact, if you were looking for absolute antonyms of Welshness, 'flat' would probably win hands down. I wanted something slightly different from my Trail walk, which saves most of its uphill stretches for the return journey, so instead I looked towards Thomastown. Thomastown, for those who've been with the blog a while, or who know the topography of Merthyr, is up what I'm pleased to call a Hail Mary Mother of Fuck of a Hill. Since I've been living in Merthyr this time round, I've tackled that hill many a time.
I've never been this heavy when I've done it. In fact, it's fair at this point to recall that I've not really been this heavy while living in Merthyr...erm...ever, I don't think. So instead of the straight up (and I do mean straight up) kill-me-now of a hill, I tackled the thing with a puff pastry principle - walking along one way, making a little upturn, and walking back the other - acheiving the rise in altidue in a series of at least theoretically more manageable inclines (it's possible I've been married for a foodie too long for this reference to make automatic sense to non-foodies, because this naturally feels like puff pastry to me - it's all about the layers). By the time I got to Thomastown Park, I was still practically begging for death from any wandering deity or demon. A detour over to my mother's place to check on her, as she's been suffering from the bastard son of a thousand lurgis recently, and I managed to rack up something a little over three miles. With a whole hell of a lot more up involved than my Trail route ever feels like. So, technically a light day, exercise-wise, and a heavy food day, with the discovery of Papa John's. But still, the joy about doing a truly painful walk is that you feel ridiculously virtuous at the end of it, whatever the numbers actually say. I'm not sure what this inherent masochism in the human spirit is all about, but you do feel like you've 'earned' your dinner if you happen to feel bloody awful after some exertion, whatever the reality might be.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sink, Bertie Wooster-like, beneath the water of a hot, reviving bath. one rather feels one has 'earned' that too, having walked a painful walk. The dangerous thing of course is that the same logic whispers into your brain that you've earned a big slab of chocolate as well...
Argh - to the bath!
Crusty, chewy, succulent evil.
Merthyr now has its own Papa John's. This spells all kinds of doom for all kinds of Disappearing efforts, and today, when d got out of work, we went to give it the blessing of our patronage.
Given that the weather today has been all kinds of apocalyptic - I was out of the door ten seconds when the sky started throwing little pellets of fuckyou (or hailstones, as the rest of the world rather boringly insists on calling them) at me - I had figured that today might be one of those wondrous, joyful things we like to fondly imagine are necessary - a rest day from the routine of exercise.
But as we sat in our flat, moaning rather indecently given we were on separate couches, and chewing our Papa John joyfulness, the sun did a rather unfriendly thing and beamed through our window, as if to say 'Ohhhh no - you're not pinning this shit on me, pilgrim, I'm here if you want me.'
So, I grabbed my trainers (I have yet to convince my body we're taking it seriously enough again to stap on the walking boots - not least because every time I do that, I get pigging blisters!), and trudged out of the door.
Wales, as I've mentioned before, is not flat. In fact, if you were looking for absolute antonyms of Welshness, 'flat' would probably win hands down. I wanted something slightly different from my Trail walk, which saves most of its uphill stretches for the return journey, so instead I looked towards Thomastown. Thomastown, for those who've been with the blog a while, or who know the topography of Merthyr, is up what I'm pleased to call a Hail Mary Mother of Fuck of a Hill. Since I've been living in Merthyr this time round, I've tackled that hill many a time.
I've never been this heavy when I've done it. In fact, it's fair at this point to recall that I've not really been this heavy while living in Merthyr...erm...ever, I don't think. So instead of the straight up (and I do mean straight up) kill-me-now of a hill, I tackled the thing with a puff pastry principle - walking along one way, making a little upturn, and walking back the other - acheiving the rise in altidue in a series of at least theoretically more manageable inclines (it's possible I've been married for a foodie too long for this reference to make automatic sense to non-foodies, because this naturally feels like puff pastry to me - it's all about the layers). By the time I got to Thomastown Park, I was still practically begging for death from any wandering deity or demon. A detour over to my mother's place to check on her, as she's been suffering from the bastard son of a thousand lurgis recently, and I managed to rack up something a little over three miles. With a whole hell of a lot more up involved than my Trail route ever feels like. So, technically a light day, exercise-wise, and a heavy food day, with the discovery of Papa John's. But still, the joy about doing a truly painful walk is that you feel ridiculously virtuous at the end of it, whatever the numbers actually say. I'm not sure what this inherent masochism in the human spirit is all about, but you do feel like you've 'earned' your dinner if you happen to feel bloody awful after some exertion, whatever the reality might be.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sink, Bertie Wooster-like, beneath the water of a hot, reviving bath. one rather feels one has 'earned' that too, having walked a painful walk. The dangerous thing of course is that the same logic whispers into your brain that you've earned a big slab of chocolate as well...
Argh - to the bath!
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
8th March - The Almost Twang
Seriously, I’ve had it with the Nazi Scales this week –
after being kind, and then giving me a whacking great shock of additional
weight to contend with and potentially worry about, today they were almost kind
again. Weighed in this morning at 19st 0.25.
That’ll do. It’s obviously not good as such, but perversely after the rollercoaster of the weak,
it is still good enough, being a loss of a whacking great three-quarters of a
pound. So having been catapulted way up almost into the mid-19s, I find myself
today twanging back to almost seeing an 18. As I say, not good as such, but good enough, given this weird and twangable week.
Can I say that I’m heartily sick of being a border dweller,
because the twanging can be exhausting. The 19s are not a good place for me to
be, and to be fair, neither are the 18s – I never feel really like I’m on a
proper downward journey till I see my first 17 on the scales. But twanging back
and forth over a stone-marker does absolutely no bloody good for one’s sense of
where one is or what one is damn well doing. I am declaring this (in a
pretentious manner, as if I have control over the situation), a twang-free
zone. Get that? One direction and one direction only this week. Downward toward
18st 7. I’m not having it any other way.
Monday, 7 March 2016
The Payday Factor
I honestly don’t know what’s happened this week – from 18st
13 on Wednesday to significantly heavier than when I began this round of
Disappearing, to who knows what will happen tomorrow – haven’t weighed in a
couple of days, partly out of fear, partly out of confusion, but mostly because
I’ve been too busy. Went walking today for the first time in a long while
though – not far, admittedly, but found myself yesterday walking up a tiny hill
to catch a train and puffing and wheezing like the train’s great great great
grandfather. This is clearly not a good state of affairs, so this morning,
there was walking.
This morning, there was also, agreeably, payday, and so
after a mercifully short Monday meeting for the day job, decamped to Cardiff
for lunch and Starbuckery. So breakfast was pasta and bruschetta (always good
to double down on carbs the day before a weigh-in, I’ve found), but the rest of
the day has been largely liquid. Will that have any impact on the
weigh-in? Frankly, have no idea – Nazi Scales are clearly kicking back against
the idea of weighing my ass indefinitely. The weird thing is, I don’t know
whether it’s the Scales being assholes, or my eyes and clothes, but I don’t feel as heavy as the Scales are weighing
me, which is a possibly valid subjective judgment, and I know I haven’t done
anything particularly stupid to earn
the weight the Scales are showing.
There are ways of thinking about that –
possibly, I’m just on an optimistic upswing and seeing things better than they
actually are. But frankly, it’d be a waste of time and energy to feel bad about
feeling good, so let’s just say fuck it for now, feel as good as we can, read
the Scales in the morning and go forward as well as we can. Maybe this is just
the Payday Factor, glazing everything with a sheen of positivity and everything’s-cool.
We’ll see how I feel by the end of tomorrow, when the Bill-Paying Poverty
Factor kicks in.
Sunday, 24 May 2015
The Big Brother Grin
 |
| Honestly, the resemblance is uncanny. |
A couple of nights ago, I collected d from work, and she told me that their automated card-reading system to sign in and out of shifts had been playing up, and hadn't read her card. She'd tried again. Nothing. A third time. Nothing. My wife decided the machine needed a dose of American in its life and gave it the finger.
Apparently, a colleague had seen the CCTV footage of her doing that, and laughed their ass off. We confidently expect her to appear on a TV clip-show any day now.
As for me, I'm drowning in deadlines and simply doing what I can do in the middle. Went to Starbucks today and Harry (yes, that Harry, he works there, despite having a life) grinned at me.
'Hey man,' he said. 'Dan and I were just in the office.'
'Yyyyyes?' I asked, wondering where this might be going.
'We both independently said you looked smaller on the CCTV than you used to do, so something's working.'
I'll be honest with you - I had a bit of an Ally McBeal moment right there and then, or a Bridget Jones moment if you prefer. In my mind, what happened was that I did a bit of a Kevin Bacon-flavoured Footloosey series of hot kick-ass dance moves up and down the store, including jumping up on the counter, doing a full forward somersault, leaping and swinging on a light fixture, landing at my usual table, flipping it upside down and doing a bit of an Irish jig thing on its support strut before jumping off and sauntering back to my place in line, nodding and taking cheers from the crowd.
'Cool, man,' I said in the boring set of dimensions we somewhat laughably call Real Life.
Still, went back to my seat with a big grin. Big Brother might be watching you. Apparently, this week, he quite likes what he sees.
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