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!

The Dangers of Hardass Love

Yesterday, I had an email from a friend.

As far as I know, this friend hadn't, at the time, clocked that I'd started Disappearing again. I've checked with her before using this, because I know what some of my friends are like, and they won't be happy about it.

Took me a little while to get right with it myself, because it seemed to come out of a clear blue sky - but I know it was meant well, and in a kind of hardass, personal trainer, no-bullshit, get better spirit, that this pal's particularly used to because we first encountered each other when I edited her manuscript (not to brag, but... Ah, hell, no, let's really not brag), so she's used to getting that from me about her work in a professional capacity, and we've become strong, good friends during that process, so it's part of the way we're allowed to talk to each other.

And while that's true, and we're cool, it stands as an example of the kind of thing people believe they can come out of a blue sky and tell you when you're fat...as if it's actually their business to point things out to you, so I figured I'd share it with you.


Here's the mail, before we go any further:

Title: You Mad Bastard!

 

Tony! What the hell! I've just seen your picture on Facebook and I'm so upset. What are you doing? People like me need you - and there you are looking like you might drop down dead TODAY.

Get back on that bloody diet man!

Do not eat a fucking thing unless you have not eaten for three hours!

Do not eat anything with sugar in for the next 24 hours.

If you feel like shit, then let me tell you, you look like it too! Here is a poke with a shitty stick! You're strong willed. You CAN do this. Move your arse, now!

I'm going to demand a report on the past 24 hours food and drink at 9.45 tomorrow, so fucking-well act like a man and get on with the bloody sensible eating and excercise plan, you big idiot!

XXX

So - there you go.
Now, since then, this pal has been so upset at what I look like in recent Facebook photos that she's been unable to sleep, because, in her own words, there's nothing she can do to save me but throw words at me, and she's also in fact been upset that 'people around you have let you get this way.' So, as I say, this wasn't badly meant, but it's an interesting example of a more general social trend: the idea that fat people need people to point out what they look like in order to 'motivate' them into doing the 'right' thing.

We really don't. I mean...really, really.

The thing is, as it happened, I'd started Disappearing again, and so was in a 'Let's deal with this shit' place when this arrived in my inbox. If I'd been feeling particuarly delicate, or perhaps more likely, if I'd woken up yesterday thinking 'As days go, I'm not looking so shabby, today's a good day,' there's no telling what it might have done to me.

Here's the thing: nobody 'lets us' get this way. We do this to ourself - whether driven by demons or drawn by cream cakes. And more often than not, only we can get ourselves out of the situations we're in. However well meant advice on what we look like and how we're likely to fall over and die may be, it's actually very rarely effective in terms of getting us to do anything positive. It's very difficult to actually shame us into doing something you think we should do, and more often than not, it hardens us into a 'Fuck you!' response, and a desire to run...or at least get a cab...to the nearest cake shop and buy EVERYTHING, because there's a degree of self-hate but also a degree of self-comfort and protection in eating foods that give us an immediate emotional buzz, like cakes and chocolate (or whatever we've associated as 'comfort food').

Now as it happens, my friend and I are cool, and I'm already in the Disappearing Zone. But generally, reacting with horror and forecasting death - nnnnnotsomuch the way to get your fat friend to do things that are good for them. Being a hardass is all well and good if your fat friend's a hardass too. But some aren't, and even some who seem to be in front of all the world are actually self-hating with a crispy sugary casing of hardassery they've had to master just to get through the day.

As I say, I know my friends, and I'm not posting this to start a chorus of angry responses - can the torch and pitchfork stuff. For me, from this friend, this was fine. Just in general, be sure you've judged your friend and their responses well before you go down the 'What the hell have you done to yourself?' route. We have to be pretty hardass to get through society being significantly outside its metrics of acceptability and attractiveness. Be VERY sure our hardassery's not just the candy shell we wear, and that you're not about to stake us through the heart before you deploy your own hardass love.

The Myth of Captain Healthy

While I'm thinking of it, the other reason not to weigh every goddamn day or chance you get is that, in case you missed this, scales are Nazi bastards, and they'll try and upset you and make you reach for your "Fuck it all, I'm leaving home!" treat of choice.

Last night, d and I were in Cardiff, and, as you do, and as is one of the great pleasures of liking any one or number of human beings more than the general mirthless, remorseless crowd of fuckwits, dickheads and douchebags that make up the human race, we had a meal together, sharing time, exchanging days and breaking bread. Breaking literal bread in my case, as we ended up in an Italian place that we've always walked by to get somewhere else, every time saying "Y'know, we really should try that place some day. Anyway..."

So last night, we said "Y'know, we really should try that place some day. Anyway...", walked on, discovered that the place we were heading for was about as attractive as a bullfrog on a blind date, and doubled back to finally cross the Italian off our List of Places To Eat At Before We Die.

It was...good. Not great, but good. Not fine dining, certainly, but fine if you found yourself in a particular part of Cardiff and seized with a sudden dangerously low blood-carb content. I had a brushcetta starter piled with tomatoes and raw onions - yeah, technically it was date night, but what you have to understnad is it was eleven year married date night. d had meatballs that were OK, but with which, should the need have arisen, you could at least have taken out the eyes of your first few attackers, come the zombie apocalypse. She added a side of garlic spinach, because, as I say, this was an eleven year married date night, dammit. For main, she went lasagne, and I went penne amatriciana - pasta, following bread, I know, sue me.

She went chocolate cake for dessert. I went smiling and a decaff latte.

All was good and groovy, except that in the aftermath of the meal, d wasn't well. Something had disagreed with her, and it wanted out any which way it could. I'm not sure a swaying bus ride home in the freezing cold especially helped either, but it was that or stand around for half an hour as her spine turned to one of Elsa's ice sculptures from Frozen. So we swayed.

Me - all I can tell you is that something must really have agreed with me, because 24 hours later, I still contain absolutely all of a bruschetta starter piled with tomatoes and raw onions, and a plateful of penne amatriciana.

Which is a real bastard if you're weighing every day, because then you wake up the morning after an official weigh-in, and weigh, and want to kill yourself when you see two weeks of pedalling run away yelling  "Fuck you, Disappearing Boy!" and throwing you V's and one-fingered salutes, giggling as it goes. I'm not getting on the scales tonight because something seems to be knitting itself a raft or a trap door in my colon and to have determined it wants a never-ending lock-in.

All I can do is continue as normal, get some dinner, get some biking done, try to get some sleep and move the hell along.

On the upside, I had my annual diabetic review today, after which you can kiss my ass and call me Captain Healthy. They bled me last week, and apparently, all is groovy. I have an HBA1C level of 54.

Impressed? Yeah, I didn't have a clue. "All good," said the nurse. Having just checked online, I can tell you the HBA1C is a measure of glycated haemoglobin - different from blood sugar in some...erm...crucial way, apparently. Now, the online stats say you should aim for an HBA1C of 48 or below, unless you've been advised otherwise - which to my nowledge, I haven't. So either my diabetic nurse knows more about my condition than she's ever bothered to let on, and I fall into the "below 59 is fine" category (which does appear to exist), or it was after 5PM when she saw me and she just couldn't give a shit any more. Pretty much like me in my current predicament.

Annnnnyhow. All good is what she told me, so all good is what I'm going with for now. The more I lose, the more the system is likely to come under better regulation, and the more optimal my HBA1C will be.

So, with d set to finish work just two hours from now, I need to get my clogged ass up and get some dinner and biking done. Catch you later, Disappearers all!

The Big Brother Grin

Honestly, the resemblance is uncanny.

It's been an odd couple of days in this CCTV-watched life, where self-absorption is of course as natural as breathing, and yet we're never entirely sure who sees what.

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. 

The Walking Fool

I've now officially failed on the 'Walk the Taff Trail Every Day For Seven Days' challenge I set myself.
I did it every day until today - and yesterday, with the Trail and other walking, I topped out at 9.7 miles in the day. But, by the time I got to bed, my feet were two big flippers of pain. So this morning - notsomuch with the walking, or in very great measure, the moving about. I ended up going to Cardiff with d, and, when we could have got a train back in time for me to cut my feet further into ribbon steak, she told me to be sensible.

Sensible won out. What the Nazi Scales say in the morning is pretty much up to them. I've done what I could do this week - in the last four days, I've walked over 35 miles. Have I eaten well? Up to today, yes. Today, we had lunch at Jamie's, which involved both bread and pasta, and in my case, some frozen yoghurt - yes, dessert of a kind, but again, I'm testing the Aristotelian principle, and this time, generally I'm winning.

I also have ended the day without getting on the bike, so ultimately, today's been a higher-than-normal food day, and a lower-than-normal exercise day - absolutely the antithesis of what a Monday should be. But as I say, whatever tomorrow's reading is, it is, and we move on from there. Any journey will have setbacks. The important thing appears to be not let them push you back, but to accept them and move the hell forward.
 

The Uphill Evolution

Went walking this morning as is becoming normal, but instead of our usual round and round and round route in the local park, I put a foot down.
"I really want to actually go somewhere," I said.
"Where then?" said Ma.
"Up," I said.
Ma gave a mischievous grin. We do uphill really quite well round here.
"Right then," she said.

We parked up at the local retail park, and walked up from there to her new bungalow. I'm familiar with this walk - we've done something like it before, but not since last year, when, to be frank, it nearly killed me. I was one wheezing, sweating, panting mess the last time.

This morning - notsomuch. Powered on up, did three miles. Sure, it was touch, but not tough enough to make me pant. This, I'm guessing, is the result of what progress there's been so far.

Keeping this entry brief - just feels like one of the most tangible metrics of Disappearing measurement so far. Eventually there's going to be measurable change in terms of clothing, but until that shows up, being able to do things that used to hurt me is good enough to put a grin on my face.

Since then, I've had a relatively calorie-heavy day - porridge for breakfast, beans on toast (two slices) for lunch, followed by a fruit salad and some cashew nuts that probably shouldn't have been wolfed down as they were. Still - not going to stress and freak as I would have done a couple of years ago - "Waaargh! The nuts of doom have passed my lips" Not doing that this time. Just keeping head down, ass up, and get on the bike as per usual. Pushing on, doing what I can do, delighting in the fact that that's more than it used to be.