No whinging this week - can't be arsed, don't have time, have deadlines to meet.
Did buggerall by way of exercise again - I know, quelle surprise, eh? As such, this morning, was up a apound and a half - 17 stone 5.5. Grr, waah, humph, etc etc - I'm trying to condense the mourning cycle into a pellet-form, so as to swallow it and get it out of the way. Next couple of days will be fairly brutal and housebound, but I'm hoping, after that, to get back on the walking trail, elbowing tourists in the throat left and right as the moment requires, and so adding back some actual exercise into a routine that I absolutely know has become too sedentary again.
Here's a thing.
Far too frequently, in this life we lead, I take the Path of the Dick.
Bear with me, this is going somewhere.
My pal Sian, also, famously within our circle, whenever given a choice between two options, takes the Path of the Dick.
We are two Dicks together.
Over the last couple of days, we've been getting our heads together, coming clean on our various Dick-Path choices, and resolving, whenever possible, to take the Non-Dick Path from now on.
For instance, the Dick-Path approach to my job involves winging every deadline to the limit, on the basis that I can do things really fast if I need to, but not, perversely, UNTIL I need to. The Non-Dick-Path would involve setting daily achievement targets to achieve work goals on or ahead of time. The Dick-Path approach to finance is to spend entirely theoretical money on the basis that it'll be coming in; the Non-Dick-Path would involve impulse control, saving, eating Rice Krispies out of the box and possibly bank robbery.
The Dick-Path approach to Disappearing of course is to eat as though I'm going to counteract it with exercise...and then do buggerall exercise. The Non-Dick-Disappearing Man would not only do the exercise to counteract the calories taken in, but also wouldn't, for instance regard Tuesdays, post-weigh-in, as a kind of 'Fuck it, I'll make up for it the rest of the week' day on the eating front.
Now, I should tell you that THIS Tuesday has been marked with a fish-and-chip supper, and apparently may yet contain apple crumble, which I intend to embrace like a long-lost friend.
But...y'know...starting tomorrow...the Non-Dick Path for sure.
Hmm...been audiobook-listening to some oddish self-help books this year. Maybe The Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick has a future?
Showing posts with label routine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label routine. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Tuesday, 16 April 2019
The Human Extraction
OK, so last night there was gnocchi for dinner, and cornflakes for 'dessert', and occasional mouthfuls of the ridiculously good fudge d's taken to making. It was as if, dumbass-like, I'd said 'Sod it!' to the notion that today was Tuesday, with its appointment with the Nazi Scales, and decided to sail right off that cliff-edge of idiocy once more with feeling.
This morning though - 17st 3.5. Down 2.5 pounds on last week.
That'll be the walking, then.
Haven't, by any means, walked every day over the last week. Walked about three, maybe four days out of seven. But still, clearly, that unexpected addition of movement gave the system a tiny shock and let me claw back some progress towards the 17 stone border. So yay. As the song says though, more, more, more is what's needed. More sense, more walking, more biking, less late-night lunacy. It's not as if this fundamental equation is particularly hard to grasp. It's the human factor that in Disappearing, as in most things, is the doorway for error.
So I guess what I'm saying is I need to be less human.
It's arguable, actually, that that was part of what led me to be able to Disappear the first time - being less human. Shutting down the intrinsic emotional responses to pleasure-stimuli, by looking ahead to longer-term strategic goals. Or at the very least re-training myself as to what should trigger those emotional responses.
Hmm...something in that. Be less human. Be more robot. Be the Disappearing Man.
Hehe, yes, I know it starts to sound like a trailer for a new Netflix sci-fi drama, but if you're going to get anywhere in this game, you do sort of have to believe your own hype, see yourself in some starring role, otherwise it just becomes a parade of daily self-abnegation and self-denial, more or less because you hated how you were yesterday.
And yes, incidentally, you get more boring - or at least, I do. If I go full-on Disappearing Man, I become the most boring human being to talk to, because my internal clockwork is always somewhere else, running not entirely silently behind my eyes - intake, calorie value, exercise, calorie burn, balance, day by day, week by week and so on until an objective is achieved.
But there's another factor to the being less human, something that's fundamentally changed in my life since the first time I did this. The first time, I was heading towards my fortieth birthday. This year, I'll be 48. There's a degree to which you have to be able to see the point of the end goal, and at 40, that feels rather different to how it feels at 48. Disappearing did good things for my body - allowed me to radically reduce my medication-burden, allowed me to be more active without thinking about it or bitching about it, and so on. All that felt positive at 40. If I allow my human nature to hold sway, all that feels like a shrug at 48. Vanity - woo! Who cares, really? The irony of course is that vanity's a human element, so shutting that down in pursuit of the longer-term goal leaves you with less, at 48 (or rather, leaves me, at 48 with less) reason to give a Disappearing Fuck about the end result. The only time I've ever really been physically vain was during and at the end of that first Disappearing. It was the only time in my life I ever thought I had any kind of right to be vain. I'm not sure at 48 anybody benefits from the vain version of me, which means I'm left with the end-result of the Disappearing being little more than an increased ability to do the things I do because I want to Disappear...which makes the process rather blurred and unfocused.
Ach, so much for long-term strategic thinking. This is the kind of circular thinking that makes me dizzy when I let myself dwell on it. Enough - in the short-term, I'm down 2.5 pounds this week. Whoop-de-doo. Same again next week would put me within sniffing distance of the 17 stone borderline. That's my next objective, so let's focus on that for now, rather than on the diminishing returns of the Disappearing Man.
This morning though - 17st 3.5. Down 2.5 pounds on last week.
That'll be the walking, then.
Haven't, by any means, walked every day over the last week. Walked about three, maybe four days out of seven. But still, clearly, that unexpected addition of movement gave the system a tiny shock and let me claw back some progress towards the 17 stone border. So yay. As the song says though, more, more, more is what's needed. More sense, more walking, more biking, less late-night lunacy. It's not as if this fundamental equation is particularly hard to grasp. It's the human factor that in Disappearing, as in most things, is the doorway for error.
So I guess what I'm saying is I need to be less human.
It's arguable, actually, that that was part of what led me to be able to Disappear the first time - being less human. Shutting down the intrinsic emotional responses to pleasure-stimuli, by looking ahead to longer-term strategic goals. Or at the very least re-training myself as to what should trigger those emotional responses.
Hmm...something in that. Be less human. Be more robot. Be the Disappearing Man.
Hehe, yes, I know it starts to sound like a trailer for a new Netflix sci-fi drama, but if you're going to get anywhere in this game, you do sort of have to believe your own hype, see yourself in some starring role, otherwise it just becomes a parade of daily self-abnegation and self-denial, more or less because you hated how you were yesterday.
And yes, incidentally, you get more boring - or at least, I do. If I go full-on Disappearing Man, I become the most boring human being to talk to, because my internal clockwork is always somewhere else, running not entirely silently behind my eyes - intake, calorie value, exercise, calorie burn, balance, day by day, week by week and so on until an objective is achieved.
But there's another factor to the being less human, something that's fundamentally changed in my life since the first time I did this. The first time, I was heading towards my fortieth birthday. This year, I'll be 48. There's a degree to which you have to be able to see the point of the end goal, and at 40, that feels rather different to how it feels at 48. Disappearing did good things for my body - allowed me to radically reduce my medication-burden, allowed me to be more active without thinking about it or bitching about it, and so on. All that felt positive at 40. If I allow my human nature to hold sway, all that feels like a shrug at 48. Vanity - woo! Who cares, really? The irony of course is that vanity's a human element, so shutting that down in pursuit of the longer-term goal leaves you with less, at 48 (or rather, leaves me, at 48 with less) reason to give a Disappearing Fuck about the end result. The only time I've ever really been physically vain was during and at the end of that first Disappearing. It was the only time in my life I ever thought I had any kind of right to be vain. I'm not sure at 48 anybody benefits from the vain version of me, which means I'm left with the end-result of the Disappearing being little more than an increased ability to do the things I do because I want to Disappear...which makes the process rather blurred and unfocused.
Ach, so much for long-term strategic thinking. This is the kind of circular thinking that makes me dizzy when I let myself dwell on it. Enough - in the short-term, I'm down 2.5 pounds this week. Whoop-de-doo. Same again next week would put me within sniffing distance of the 17 stone borderline. That's my next objective, so let's focus on that for now, rather than on the diminishing returns of the Disappearing Man.
Wednesday, 2 January 2019
The Wagon Training
Hey there, Disappearinos.
Well, I went from Christmas to almost New Year still glued to the office, so the food-richest time of the year was compounded by ass-boil-growing levels of physical inactivity.
Which makes sense of yesterday's weigh-in. 17st 11.5. Up three-quarters of a pound. Not by any means where I wanted to be, but given both the factors at play, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, go 'Lalalala' and claim (in the entire absence of evidence) reasonable positivity. Up less than a pound between Christmas and New Year - yeah, I'll take that.
Yesterday, the morning after a hefty Indian banquet including rice, naan, bhajis and a cocount milk-based sauce, my blood sugar was a smidgen over the double-figure goal, coming in at 10.9.
This morning, 2nd January, nudged it back under the line - 9.3. And, more significantly, kicked off the walking habit of 2019. Not an enormously long walk - my Samsung Health app tells me it was 4.03 km, so basically just 'over there and back again.' But still - further than I've gone any time recently, and hopefully the start of getting the numbers going in the right direction again.
January is of course the traditional time for starting new things, new plans, and particularly new weight-loss or exercise or 'cleansing' routines. In my case though, I tend not to put too much pressure on January - it's like starting a diary: if you go at it hammer and tongs in January, chances are you'll burn out by February.
In my case, it's just a coincidence that I happen to suddenly be free to get back to walking now it's January. The goal remains the same in January as they were in December - 2 pounds per week. So by the 8th, I hope to be weighing in at 17st 9.5. By the 15th, 17st 7.5 (or, as a bonus, maybe 17st 7). By 15th Febuary, my hope is to be in the 16s, and so on. I haven't gone enormously outside my rules over Christmas - though there was one rather glorious Fish And Chipfest - but it was certainly Christmas and New Year, and now it isn't that any more, so it's back to the focus.
I think that's an odd thing this time round. Long ago, when I was doing this the first documented time, I had my rigid 'perspex boxes' - I couldn't go even slightly wrong, at all, ever, because if I did, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And indeed, it was a fish and chipfest that eventually broke me, and things DID come tumbling down in a mass of self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get to 48, you realise the sun goes down every night, and comes up every morning* and it's up to you what you make of it. If you wanna carry on as you've been doing, you don't necessarily have to treat the new day as another day of addictive behaviour. Yeah, you fell off the wagon - at least with food, as opposed to almost everything else that triggers pleasure centres, you're unlikely to have a chemical addiction-trigger to have to re-fight (Although, sugar...). If you want to, you can just get right back up on the damn wagon, and start another day 1. So this is me - having enjoyed my Christmas, and my New Year, saddlin' up my wagon again and riding it through 2019. Two pounds a week should see my almost 7.5 stone (104 pounds) lighter by the first week of January 2020 - and that of course isn't counting the Brexit Famine. Around the 10 stone mark, or 140 pounds.
There's Probably-Not-Dying-So-Soon in that there weight-loss.
Giddy-up!
Well, I went from Christmas to almost New Year still glued to the office, so the food-richest time of the year was compounded by ass-boil-growing levels of physical inactivity.
Which makes sense of yesterday's weigh-in. 17st 11.5. Up three-quarters of a pound. Not by any means where I wanted to be, but given both the factors at play, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, go 'Lalalala' and claim (in the entire absence of evidence) reasonable positivity. Up less than a pound between Christmas and New Year - yeah, I'll take that.
Yesterday, the morning after a hefty Indian banquet including rice, naan, bhajis and a cocount milk-based sauce, my blood sugar was a smidgen over the double-figure goal, coming in at 10.9.
This morning, 2nd January, nudged it back under the line - 9.3. And, more significantly, kicked off the walking habit of 2019. Not an enormously long walk - my Samsung Health app tells me it was 4.03 km, so basically just 'over there and back again.' But still - further than I've gone any time recently, and hopefully the start of getting the numbers going in the right direction again.
January is of course the traditional time for starting new things, new plans, and particularly new weight-loss or exercise or 'cleansing' routines. In my case though, I tend not to put too much pressure on January - it's like starting a diary: if you go at it hammer and tongs in January, chances are you'll burn out by February.
In my case, it's just a coincidence that I happen to suddenly be free to get back to walking now it's January. The goal remains the same in January as they were in December - 2 pounds per week. So by the 8th, I hope to be weighing in at 17st 9.5. By the 15th, 17st 7.5 (or, as a bonus, maybe 17st 7). By 15th Febuary, my hope is to be in the 16s, and so on. I haven't gone enormously outside my rules over Christmas - though there was one rather glorious Fish And Chipfest - but it was certainly Christmas and New Year, and now it isn't that any more, so it's back to the focus.
I think that's an odd thing this time round. Long ago, when I was doing this the first documented time, I had my rigid 'perspex boxes' - I couldn't go even slightly wrong, at all, ever, because if I did, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And indeed, it was a fish and chipfest that eventually broke me, and things DID come tumbling down in a mass of self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get to 48, you realise the sun goes down every night, and comes up every morning* and it's up to you what you make of it. If you wanna carry on as you've been doing, you don't necessarily have to treat the new day as another day of addictive behaviour. Yeah, you fell off the wagon - at least with food, as opposed to almost everything else that triggers pleasure centres, you're unlikely to have a chemical addiction-trigger to have to re-fight (Although, sugar...). If you want to, you can just get right back up on the damn wagon, and start another day 1. So this is me - having enjoyed my Christmas, and my New Year, saddlin' up my wagon again and riding it through 2019. Two pounds a week should see my almost 7.5 stone (104 pounds) lighter by the first week of January 2020 - and that of course isn't counting the Brexit Famine. Around the 10 stone mark, or 140 pounds.
There's Probably-Not-Dying-So-Soon in that there weight-loss.
Giddy-up!
Tuesday, 20 March 2018
The Probably Shirt and The Unhumble Pound
'Waah!' I sqealed.
'What? What's wrong?' called d from the living room, precipitating a bit of an Ealing comedy in our little flat about what had made me squeal, whether I was alright, and how thrilled I was that she'd found one of my Hellboy T-shirts in a box (Yes, that's right, dammit, I'm old enough to own T-shirts from when the first Hellboy movie was released. People tell me they're now rebooting it. I'm choosing to take that as a mark of being classic and vintage, rather than simply old). But no!
I mean, yes, it's awesome that the Hellboy shirts have come to light from some box or other - and even more awesome that my 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life' T-shirt has survived and found its way back into the light...
Have I told you about the Probably Shirt before?
Long story short-ish: a few years ago, before messages on buses blotted their copybook forever (*Shakes fist at sky, yells 'BREEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXITTTTTTTT!!!!'*), there was a campaign on a bus, with the simple motto 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.' It was started by comedy writer Ariane Sherine (with whom I now get to occasionally interact, as I'm one of her legion of Facebook friends, though if I'm absolutely honest, I'd rather forgotten till just now that the campaign is prrrrobably why I first sent her a Friend Request back in the day), had support from the British Humanist Association, of which when last I checked I was still a member, and it gave me quite some fun, one way and another.
Loved the campaign, supported the campaign, bought the aforementioned T-shirt.
Wore the shirt regularly - got me accosted on High Street Kensington station once by a bloke who less-than-calmly informed me that 'Dawkins is shit and he's gonna burn in Hell,' to which my early-morning, pre-coffee response was 'You may be right, but why are you telling me? D'you think I'm gonna ring him up and say 'Oh, Professor? Some bloke in Kensington says you're shit?'
As I say - pre-coffee response, I wasn't at my wittiest.
Where the shirt reallllly came into its own was when, in spite of anything that might be considered to be 'common sense,' I wore it on a flight over to New York State, via Chicago. On American Airlines.
No-one batted an eye at Heathrow, and we boarded without issue. As usual on a transatlantic flight, I fell asleep, only to be woken by a flight attendant.
'Wha-? Eh? Are we nearly there yet?'
'Sir, I noticed your shirt there.'
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes. d, I think, pretended extra hard she was unconscious.
'Wha-? Oh. Oh yes?' I asked.
'Sir, I happen to know there actually is a god.'
'O...K. That's....nice for you?' I said, hoping the rising inflection would take the sting out of my disbelief for her. She pursed her lips - apparently the sting was still intact - and then moved on.
Well, that was odd, wasn't it, boys and girls? I thought, humphing over onto my other hip and trying to get some more shut-eye.
Some time passed. Possibly, some drool escaped down my chin, because fuck human dignity when you have to sleep in public. Then someone gently shook my shoulder.
'The pheasant's in the collander! The collander!' I assured half the plane. When my eyes worked again, they showed me that my friend the attendant was back.
'Hello, sir. Would you like to join me in the back?'
'Err...what?'
'I've got a buddhist gentleman, a muslim, a hindu and myself as a Christian having a discussion back there about why there definitely is a god, if you'd like to come join us.'
'Errr...yyyyeah,' I said. I could feel d Being Asleep with all her might. 'I think I'll skip it, if it's all the same to you,' I decided. 'Could I maybe get a Diet Coke instead?'
At security in Chicago O'Hare, some guys with guns told me I 'got balls, wearing that thing in this country.' They didn't seem to regard having those particular balls as a bad thing as such, they just wanted me to know, in case I'd been worried, that balls were in my possession, and apparently on display, as proven by the wearing of the shirt on American soil.
And then, having cleared customs, and being just about ready to transfer to a flight to Buffalo, a lovely Miss Marple-style old lady excused herself, saying she'd noticed the shirt.
'Yes?' I asked, trying to maintain the illusion of Being A Nice Human Being.
'Yes. I just wanted you to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your right to wear that shirt absolutely,' she told me. I wanted to hug her, but I figured I might crush her if I did - she really was frail and tiny. But I thanked her for taking the time to reach out in sisterhood to someone who had a different position to her. I doffed my hat (Always have a hat, it makes doffing it much more straightforward, and if you try and doff your hair it just looks weird). Made me really rather wish I'd been as good as she was and joined that inter-faith meeting at the back of the plane. Ah well...
It was later on that trip, while at dinner with the folks of some friends that, recalling these events, I was asked perhaps the oddest question in my life so far, by one of the sisters of the family.
'So...' she said, intent and earnest. '...do you...y'know...have Christians over there in England?'
I couldn't for the life of me work out if she was serious for a moment.
Yes, she was.
Anyhow, when we got home, d politely asked me to retire the shirt from my regular wardrobe, and because it's a T-shirt and she's my wife, I did. To be honest, I think she was just sick of it being 'A Thing.' But now, on opening boxes in the new place (yes, still - we really have a lot of stuff!), the Probably Shirt has come to light again, and, much to my surprise, gone into the wash.
'How come?' I asked.
'I'm much less worried about you wearing it round here than in London,' she explained. 'I mean, it'll still get on lots of people's nerves, but at least they're less likely to be armed. And if they want to push you under a train here...it's harder work than it would have been on the Tube.'
She's not wrong. We live in Railway-Children-On-Sea now - you have to jump up and down and wave at the driver to get a train to stop. And of course if anyone wanted to push me under a train these days, they'd kinda have to give me a lift to the station first.
Annnnnyway - thrilled though I am to get the Hellboy and the Probably Shirt back in rotation, that wasn't why I'd squealed.
I'd squealed because it's weigh-in day, and I'd expected to go up, following a week of editing deadlines, grim weather, even grimmer determination and Eating All The Pies. But no - down a single, unhumble pound, to 19 stone 1 pound.
I've now been crawling downward by the most ridiculous amounts - a quarter-pound here, a half-pound there - since I started Disappearing again, and have yet to even get the water-loss bump that usually comes in the first two weeks. And while it seems I'm destined never to see an 18 in the Stones column again, this unexpected pound does mean the first half-stone has been shed, of the many that need to be dissolved. Hence the squeal that led to much T-shirt discussion.
Here's to walking more in my kickass Probably Shirt, eating less and cracking through the crust of 19 stone next week. Maybe.
Oh, PS - just did a Google search for an image of the Probably Shirt. It's now on Redbubble with designer pre-fading, listed as a 'Classic T-Shirt.'
See - told you! Classic. Not old...
'What? What's wrong?' called d from the living room, precipitating a bit of an Ealing comedy in our little flat about what had made me squeal, whether I was alright, and how thrilled I was that she'd found one of my Hellboy T-shirts in a box (Yes, that's right, dammit, I'm old enough to own T-shirts from when the first Hellboy movie was released. People tell me they're now rebooting it. I'm choosing to take that as a mark of being classic and vintage, rather than simply old). But no!
I mean, yes, it's awesome that the Hellboy shirts have come to light from some box or other - and even more awesome that my 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life' T-shirt has survived and found its way back into the light...
Have I told you about the Probably Shirt before?
Long story short-ish: a few years ago, before messages on buses blotted their copybook forever (*Shakes fist at sky, yells 'BREEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXITTTTTTTT!!!!'*), there was a campaign on a bus, with the simple motto 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.' It was started by comedy writer Ariane Sherine (with whom I now get to occasionally interact, as I'm one of her legion of Facebook friends, though if I'm absolutely honest, I'd rather forgotten till just now that the campaign is prrrrobably why I first sent her a Friend Request back in the day), had support from the British Humanist Association, of which when last I checked I was still a member, and it gave me quite some fun, one way and another.
Loved the campaign, supported the campaign, bought the aforementioned T-shirt.
Wore the shirt regularly - got me accosted on High Street Kensington station once by a bloke who less-than-calmly informed me that 'Dawkins is shit and he's gonna burn in Hell,' to which my early-morning, pre-coffee response was 'You may be right, but why are you telling me? D'you think I'm gonna ring him up and say 'Oh, Professor? Some bloke in Kensington says you're shit?'
As I say - pre-coffee response, I wasn't at my wittiest.
Where the shirt reallllly came into its own was when, in spite of anything that might be considered to be 'common sense,' I wore it on a flight over to New York State, via Chicago. On American Airlines.
No-one batted an eye at Heathrow, and we boarded without issue. As usual on a transatlantic flight, I fell asleep, only to be woken by a flight attendant.
'Wha-? Eh? Are we nearly there yet?'
'Sir, I noticed your shirt there.'
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes. d, I think, pretended extra hard she was unconscious.
'Wha-? Oh. Oh yes?' I asked.
'Sir, I happen to know there actually is a god.'
'O...K. That's....nice for you?' I said, hoping the rising inflection would take the sting out of my disbelief for her. She pursed her lips - apparently the sting was still intact - and then moved on.
Well, that was odd, wasn't it, boys and girls? I thought, humphing over onto my other hip and trying to get some more shut-eye.
Some time passed. Possibly, some drool escaped down my chin, because fuck human dignity when you have to sleep in public. Then someone gently shook my shoulder.
'The pheasant's in the collander! The collander!' I assured half the plane. When my eyes worked again, they showed me that my friend the attendant was back.
'Hello, sir. Would you like to join me in the back?'
'Err...what?'
'I've got a buddhist gentleman, a muslim, a hindu and myself as a Christian having a discussion back there about why there definitely is a god, if you'd like to come join us.'
'Errr...yyyyeah,' I said. I could feel d Being Asleep with all her might. 'I think I'll skip it, if it's all the same to you,' I decided. 'Could I maybe get a Diet Coke instead?'
At security in Chicago O'Hare, some guys with guns told me I 'got balls, wearing that thing in this country.' They didn't seem to regard having those particular balls as a bad thing as such, they just wanted me to know, in case I'd been worried, that balls were in my possession, and apparently on display, as proven by the wearing of the shirt on American soil.
And then, having cleared customs, and being just about ready to transfer to a flight to Buffalo, a lovely Miss Marple-style old lady excused herself, saying she'd noticed the shirt.
'Yes?' I asked, trying to maintain the illusion of Being A Nice Human Being.
'Yes. I just wanted you to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your right to wear that shirt absolutely,' she told me. I wanted to hug her, but I figured I might crush her if I did - she really was frail and tiny. But I thanked her for taking the time to reach out in sisterhood to someone who had a different position to her. I doffed my hat (Always have a hat, it makes doffing it much more straightforward, and if you try and doff your hair it just looks weird). Made me really rather wish I'd been as good as she was and joined that inter-faith meeting at the back of the plane. Ah well...
It was later on that trip, while at dinner with the folks of some friends that, recalling these events, I was asked perhaps the oddest question in my life so far, by one of the sisters of the family.
'So...' she said, intent and earnest. '...do you...y'know...have Christians over there in England?'
I couldn't for the life of me work out if she was serious for a moment.
Yes, she was.
Anyhow, when we got home, d politely asked me to retire the shirt from my regular wardrobe, and because it's a T-shirt and she's my wife, I did. To be honest, I think she was just sick of it being 'A Thing.' But now, on opening boxes in the new place (yes, still - we really have a lot of stuff!), the Probably Shirt has come to light again, and, much to my surprise, gone into the wash.
'How come?' I asked.
'I'm much less worried about you wearing it round here than in London,' she explained. 'I mean, it'll still get on lots of people's nerves, but at least they're less likely to be armed. And if they want to push you under a train here...it's harder work than it would have been on the Tube.'
She's not wrong. We live in Railway-Children-On-Sea now - you have to jump up and down and wave at the driver to get a train to stop. And of course if anyone wanted to push me under a train these days, they'd kinda have to give me a lift to the station first.
Annnnnyway - thrilled though I am to get the Hellboy and the Probably Shirt back in rotation, that wasn't why I'd squealed.
I'd squealed because it's weigh-in day, and I'd expected to go up, following a week of editing deadlines, grim weather, even grimmer determination and Eating All The Pies. But no - down a single, unhumble pound, to 19 stone 1 pound.
I've now been crawling downward by the most ridiculous amounts - a quarter-pound here, a half-pound there - since I started Disappearing again, and have yet to even get the water-loss bump that usually comes in the first two weeks. And while it seems I'm destined never to see an 18 in the Stones column again, this unexpected pound does mean the first half-stone has been shed, of the many that need to be dissolved. Hence the squeal that led to much T-shirt discussion.
Here's to walking more in my kickass Probably Shirt, eating less and cracking through the crust of 19 stone next week. Maybe.
Oh, PS - just did a Google search for an image of the Probably Shirt. It's now on Redbubble with designer pre-fading, listed as a 'Classic T-Shirt.'
See - told you! Classic. Not old...
Monday, 19 March 2018
A Tale Of Two Tuesdays
Hello!
Sorry, had a bit of a mad couple of weeks. Up and out the door before I was wise two Tuesdays ago. Last week was fine, but I simply never got round to posting a blog because I was on an editing deadline for rather a smashing book. Last week's weigh-in was 19st 2.0.
Joy. Am apparenlty nevver destined to get beneath 19 stone again. Humph. Have now cleared most of the troublesome flotsam away from the exercise bike, so there's that. And the forms have gone in to sign up with a new doctor, so again, some sort of progress.
Of course we've also had the Beast From The East since I last posted (and no, I don't mean whoever poisoned the former spy in Salisbury). Snow on the beach and all such fun. Has had a tendency to make me want to stay indoors and eat everything, but as I say, last Tuesday, the weigh-in was encouraging, without in any way marking progress.
I have, of course, because this is me and I always feel this way, a notion that tomorrow's weigh-in will be a disaster - didn't go out very much at all last week, more down to the editing deadline than the snow, really, and have felt bloated and full for the last few days. I haven't been mainlining intravenous eclairs or anything, but still, the relative haystack into which I've frozen in terms of my activity can't really bode that well. So...we'll see what happens in the morning. Just been for my first walk to Wiseman's Bridge in a while though, so that's positive. As is the fact that two weeks ago, my new optician told me he was concerned that I had Macular Degeneration in my eyes. I duly went last week to be dilated and let him have a proper look around. Turns out - buggerall degeneration, must have been something else on the day he saw what he thought he saw. So that was immensely positive. On we go, through whatever tomorrow brings, to another relatively upbeat weak. Honest.
Sorry, had a bit of a mad couple of weeks. Up and out the door before I was wise two Tuesdays ago. Last week was fine, but I simply never got round to posting a blog because I was on an editing deadline for rather a smashing book. Last week's weigh-in was 19st 2.0.
Joy. Am apparenlty nevver destined to get beneath 19 stone again. Humph. Have now cleared most of the troublesome flotsam away from the exercise bike, so there's that. And the forms have gone in to sign up with a new doctor, so again, some sort of progress.
Of course we've also had the Beast From The East since I last posted (and no, I don't mean whoever poisoned the former spy in Salisbury). Snow on the beach and all such fun. Has had a tendency to make me want to stay indoors and eat everything, but as I say, last Tuesday, the weigh-in was encouraging, without in any way marking progress.
I have, of course, because this is me and I always feel this way, a notion that tomorrow's weigh-in will be a disaster - didn't go out very much at all last week, more down to the editing deadline than the snow, really, and have felt bloated and full for the last few days. I haven't been mainlining intravenous eclairs or anything, but still, the relative haystack into which I've frozen in terms of my activity can't really bode that well. So...we'll see what happens in the morning. Just been for my first walk to Wiseman's Bridge in a while though, so that's positive. As is the fact that two weeks ago, my new optician told me he was concerned that I had Macular Degeneration in my eyes. I duly went last week to be dilated and let him have a proper look around. Turns out - buggerall degeneration, must have been something else on the day he saw what he thought he saw. So that was immensely positive. On we go, through whatever tomorrow brings, to another relatively upbeat weak. Honest.
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, 4 January 2017
The Uphill Struggle
Sigh.
Since the post-pizza moment yesterday, no more bathroom trips for Yours, Disappearingly. Consequently, the meals are piling up in my system. Sometimes, I even depress myself - weighed last night before going to bed. Grumped my way back into the bedroom.
'Y'OK honey?' said d.
'Fine,' I grumbled. 'But I've got three meals in me...'
She laughed, bless her.
Two more meals since then. Feeling huge and full and bloated.
Had a hard day's day-jobbery and editing, which meant by 5pm, I'd travelled all of 137 steps in the day.
Decided I wanted to do something more, something bigger and more challenging. So tonight I headed off up something called Penyard Hill, and along a ridge that allows you to look down on the town centre. I've always looked down on the town, so Penyard makes a certain intrinsic sense to me, and it's the first of Merthyr's many hills on which I lived as a child. I walked down from the ridge, ending up at the town's Tesco store. Walked around that for a while, for no terribly good reason. Then decided to walk up the high street home.
For thos who don't know, Merthyr is a town built of all the hills left over after Indianna was rolled out with the geolocial equivalent of a steamroller. Even the downhills go up in Merthyr, it's a geographical absurdity. The high street leads upward and flows into a second, steeper incline called Pontmorlais, and at the top of Pontmorlais, our house now clings to the side of an enormo-hump, like a giant geological zit, which involves trekking up two fundamental bastard hills - we live at the almost very top of the second of them.
Which is why we take a lot of cabs since moving out of our flat in the town centre.
By the time I got to the two utter bastards, I was realising how long it's been since I've done anything like that. By the time I'd clawed my way to the top of the first bastard, I was gasping, thinking 'Fuck it, I'll just live here, by this lamppost.' In fact, I actually texted d from that lamppost, at the bottom of our street, to say as much.
By the time I got in through the door I was a sweat-drenched, breathless pug of a human being.
Which of course is one of many, many reasons to do this damned thing in the first place. Still - reasonably good eye-opener, that. One has a tendency to think that nothing has changed in one's fitness level until the real world smacks one in the face with a two-by-four. Or an evil bastard hill.
Onward! Upward! Downward through the stone-counter, dammit!
Since the post-pizza moment yesterday, no more bathroom trips for Yours, Disappearingly. Consequently, the meals are piling up in my system. Sometimes, I even depress myself - weighed last night before going to bed. Grumped my way back into the bedroom.
'Y'OK honey?' said d.
'Fine,' I grumbled. 'But I've got three meals in me...'
She laughed, bless her.
Two more meals since then. Feeling huge and full and bloated.
Had a hard day's day-jobbery and editing, which meant by 5pm, I'd travelled all of 137 steps in the day.
Decided I wanted to do something more, something bigger and more challenging. So tonight I headed off up something called Penyard Hill, and along a ridge that allows you to look down on the town centre. I've always looked down on the town, so Penyard makes a certain intrinsic sense to me, and it's the first of Merthyr's many hills on which I lived as a child. I walked down from the ridge, ending up at the town's Tesco store. Walked around that for a while, for no terribly good reason. Then decided to walk up the high street home.
For thos who don't know, Merthyr is a town built of all the hills left over after Indianna was rolled out with the geolocial equivalent of a steamroller. Even the downhills go up in Merthyr, it's a geographical absurdity. The high street leads upward and flows into a second, steeper incline called Pontmorlais, and at the top of Pontmorlais, our house now clings to the side of an enormo-hump, like a giant geological zit, which involves trekking up two fundamental bastard hills - we live at the almost very top of the second of them.
Which is why we take a lot of cabs since moving out of our flat in the town centre.
By the time I got to the two utter bastards, I was realising how long it's been since I've done anything like that. By the time I'd clawed my way to the top of the first bastard, I was gasping, thinking 'Fuck it, I'll just live here, by this lamppost.' In fact, I actually texted d from that lamppost, at the bottom of our street, to say as much.
By the time I got in through the door I was a sweat-drenched, breathless pug of a human being.
Which of course is one of many, many reasons to do this damned thing in the first place. Still - reasonably good eye-opener, that. One has a tendency to think that nothing has changed in one's fitness level until the real world smacks one in the face with a two-by-four. Or an evil bastard hill.
Onward! Upward! Downward through the stone-counter, dammit!
Monday, 2 January 2017
The Night-Before Nerves
And noooooow, the time is heeeeere, and so I faaaaaace, my first new weiiiigh-innn...
Tomorrow morning, whatever the Nazi Scales, in their black little digital heart, decide to show me, it's what we record. I've had a week of pre-Disappearing, in which I went down from 20 stone to 19 stone 7.5. And then a week of Disappearing proper, including every day walking, during which I will have achieved...whatever the Nazi Scales allow me in the morning.
Naturally, I'm quite nervous about the first weigh-in. I'm nervous because I have a feeling I've fallen into bad, if natural Disappearing habits, such as having only a few meals a day, with nothing in between. That has a tendency, or so I'm told, to slow the metabolism, leave it purring like a kitten that's never known hardship, but doesn't especially help when it comes to shifting the weight. The first week's weight loss of course is mostly water. The second, as far as I recall, is mostly water too, btu these first two weeks can give you quite a boost. You don't need me to tell you that - the first week droppped me almost seven pounds. Who knew I was that subcutaneously soggy? I won't lie to you though, life already feels significantly easier.
Nor will I lie to you about tomorrow - I'd love to see an 18, which would mean losing 7.75 pounds at least over the course of this second week. Unlikely, of course, but one has to dream. More likely I'll be down 'some pounds.' Two pounds or over, and Tony's a happy boy - as much as you have to dream, you also have to temper your dreams to reality and stay the course you've set for yourself.
It's funny though, the way the night-before nerves can get to you. Last night, d made pizza while I went out walking. We settled down around 9.30, and I had three smallish squares of what was frankly gorgeous - note in case this sounds weird, you're actually allowed pizza on my weird, self-imposed regime, you're just not allowed any sort of satisfying amount of it at a time, especially later in the evening.
I spent most of today in Cardiff, at my Starbucks. Yes, you're allowed Starbucks too, but you have to be sensible about it. My own bizarre concoction, courtesy of my mate Harry, who used to work there, is a...(draws deep breath...) Venti Decaff Wet Extra Hot Non-Fat Sugar Free Caramel Misto. A Misto, for those who've never encountered it, is equal parts coffee and milk. And if you Non-Fat it, it's a whole lot of drink for roughly 130 calories a time. Four or five of those a day and you feel relatively full, because of course you are relatively full, and for surprisingly little in terms of calories.
On the way home, d, who knows the night-before nerves of old, asked 'So...pizza tonight then? Or something lighter?'
I squirmed, because the pizza, it should be noted, is fricking excellent. You've never had pizza like this. But am going for the lighter option, simply because it's the night before a weigh-in. That, my friends, is the night-before nerves. I'm having pizza for lunch tomorrow, beyond a shadow of doubt. But tonight...something less, simply because the 'main meals, no snack' routine has slowed the metabolism, or certainly the digestive system down, and I have it within me to actively resent the food that doesn't make it out of my system by weigh-in time tomorrow. I am that idiot.
So this is me, drinking water to try and flush out my system, and having something lighter than pizza for dinner, to pay tribute to the night-before nerves and aim to skew numbers and physics and Nazi Scales in my favour.
Here's hoping.
Friday, 30 December 2016
The Walking Restart
Disappearing of course is not just the business of not eating X, Y, tasty-as-fuck Z, and eating pretty much cardboard and salads. It's also about increasing the amount of energy expended in any given day, so the body wakes up to a new normal, and releases some of the stored fat to burn the energy it's not getting from all the high-fat, high-sugar shit it's grown accustomed to getting.
The Disappearing Man has never really been just about 'Here's what I ate, here's what I evacuated, here's what I did.' But in an effort to show the balance of factors, I shoudl probably record that every day since the first of the new blog posts, I've got off my ass and done some walking.
Having been stricken with a lurgi at the start of the week, and being chronically out of practice, I didn't go far the first couple of days - just 5000 steps or so, from my house, up a steady hill (Merthyr Tydfil is basically what Nature did with all the unweildy hilly bits it, past a gas station to a roundabout, and back, picking up a treat for d and a vending machine coffee for myself on the way back.
Yesterday, we were in Cardiff, so this neat, if slightly clumsy, routine was interrupted. But the fun about that is that an aimless amble around Cardiff added up to over 7000 steps. We actually had a meal out last night, and I decided not to care about it, because even when Disappearing, you can drive yourself absolutely nuts if you turn the world into a bunch of calorie-values - and believe me, I've done that before now. It's waaaay too early to, as d puts it, 'obsess like a Californian Valley Girl' about calorie values - my body's no kind of temple right now, so at this point, it's just about pushing things down, pushing things in the right direction, kickstarting the process.
Today, my appalling deadline schedule has meant I've had my ass planted to the chair, editing my face off. Had an Indian ready meal this evening, and - which was less wise - a cereal breakfast this morning. Need to not do that until I can master the art of minimisation again, the art of having two Weetabix, a little milk and feeling satisfied with that. This morning, two Weetabix, a handful of Bran Flakes and a handful of granola. Too damned much, frankly - especially on a day as generally sedentary as this.
The sun went down and the demands of the business kept me planted to the chair till after 7 o'clock. I was fed, watered, warm and busy, and the greatest temptation in the world was to say 'Fuck it, I'll exercise tomorrow.'
Fortunately, at the moment at least, I'm able to recognise that impulse and turn it in on itself, using it as an alarm to get my ass out the door.
Changed my route tonight, going up something that even in my town of hills has earned itself the name 'Dangerous Hill,' and up through the first home I remember, a region called Penydarren.
Penydarren's built like a sloping roof - lots of streets built parallel on a sharp angle to a topmost strut-street, which itself goes upward from the base of the Dangerous Hill (the picture for this entry, all the way to the gateway to two other regions, the Gurnos and Dowlais regions. Almost at the crossroads of those regions is the gas station that's become my base camp and turnaround point.
I haven't lived in Penydarren for decades.
I'm now fairly sure that while I've been away, someone has stuck a jack under the ass end of Penydarren and pushed that bastard up, because damn! I swear it never used to be that steep.
Admittedly I was younger and lighter and fitter the last time I tried to walk the damn thing, but still, I think my jacked-up theory has merit.
Ended up walking about 6900 steps, though significantly more of them were uphill tonight than on any of the previous walks, so I can feel it more in the legs tonight.
So the exercise restart continues - I'd like to think my Tuesday, I'll be up to the standard 10,000 steps a day. On we go to New Year's Eve, and to notional new beginnings. So sue me, I like to get my new beginnings in ahead of the crowd.
Wednesday, 20 April 2016
The Forgotten Prohibition
'Your face looks slimmer today,' said d.
It will surprise no-one who's acquainted with my ego that I brightened at her words. I won't say I actually preened, but there was a definite flutter of optimistic self-delusion in my brain.
'Well, I was a pound down this morning as it happens,' I told her. 'Maybe it fell straight off my chin.'
She grinned at me, the way people grin at a pet rat who's just done an extraordinarily cute trick for the zillionth time.
'D'you wanna go out for breakfast?' she asked, and I agreed - there's a local cafe where they have extraordinarily good bread for toast from the bakery next door, and where, after we've been living here four years, nine times out of ten, they can get d's order right.
Be under no illusions - this is no kind of veiled criticism. Watching my girl order food is an astonishing way to spend your time. I frequently call her 'Sally' when we're out eating together, and this is why. Sally Albright and my girl - Sisters from another mother. Clearly, they're by no means unique in knowing what they want and how they want it - if they were, it would have been merely vanity putting it in a movie. And I absolutely don't say this to get her to stop - it's astonishing and wonderful and I want her to have what she wants. What's more, being in some respects so British it mkaes my bones squeak, I've been known on many an occasion to cash in on her ability to precisely describe what she wants, and how, and even for the most part where, so that I too can now occasionally actually get what I want in restaurants and cafes, rather than doing that thing where I eat whatever's put in front of me, even if it was intended for the lady with the impetigo in the corner, and meekly nodding when asked that obligatory, awful question, 'Is everything all right for you?'
I think it's a simple cultural thing - the land of freedom and choice vs the land of social inhibition, taking what you're given and lumping it. Twelve years on, watching my girl order food is still a wonder and a pleasure, and long may it continue.
This morning, as it happens, our cafe was off its game - there was a soggy toast issue - but I didn't say any of this to highlight soggy toast. I said it because we've been there quite regularly, and d's example has boosted my confidence. So now, I don't have to use a menu. I'm confident in my delivery. In a loud, clear voice, I ask for 'the lunchbox small, no back pudding, extra sausage instead and a mug o' decaff.'
It came, it was fab, d and I arranged a toast exchange like spies in the Cold War, and all was good. She had stuff to do in town, I had stuff to do back in the office so we went our separate ways.
It was only as I rounded the final bend before the flat that something hit me in the face like a ball peen hammer.
The Forgotten Prohibition!
I'd not only forgotten a prohibition that wa a central part of the original Disappearing act, without remembering it was there I'd pretty much stomped up to it, flicked it a merry set of V's, waggled my groin at it, turned around, farted in its face and swaggered off content in the knowledge of a prohibition told most royally where to go.
No Fried Foods.
In the list I made a night or two ago of all the rules of Disappearing, I'd somehow neglected to add one of the most fundamental - no fried foods.
The thing is, fried foods are sneaky little bastards. If you're not constantly vigilant, they can sneak up on you, looking like part of the culinary furniture and then - wallop! - before you know it, they're down your gullet, being digested and spreading their lovely comforting fried fabulousness to all the cells of your body. And sure enough, I'd scoffed bacon and sausage for breakfast. Fried sausage and bacon. I nokw you can do them other ways. our cafe doesn't. So witout even remembering it was there, I'd broken a Disappearing rule. Good start, no?
I thought about flagellating myself senselessly for about six hours, but to be honest, I had a magazine to put out so I didn't really have the time. It is what it is, and was what it was, and by all the listening gods, I'm gonna miss those sausage and bacon. But there it is - now I know the prohibition's there, it would be an act of dishonesty to break it again.
Arse.
Anything else of interest to tell you today? Well, Victoria Wood died, and I feel like that's punched me in the face, but that's a topic for a different blog, tomorrow.
And I went walking again tonight, and took longer about it. Managed 9.12 km in just over two hours. Which sounds massively more impressive than 'five and a bit miles,' but equates to the same thing as far as my screaming feet are concerned. Walked the length of two villages, essentially, from Merthyr through Pentrebach to the centre of Troedyrhiw (non-Welsh folk, don't worry about trying to pronounce the names, Welsh is a thorougly perverse language), and back.
One thing I learned on the way is that my whole 'sluggish transit, sweetcorn experiment' thing might in fact be just a symptom of what I like to think of as Slug Life. I was about a quarter of the way nto the return journey (with, say, two miles left to go), when my system announced a pressing, urgent need to find a bathroom.
So, that will explain why my 'per kilometre' speed actually went up on the return trip, despite being the uphill portion of the walk. Motivation is clearly of great importance when it comes to getting the miles covered.
There have to be easier ways.
Oh - damn. Something just struck me. I'll have to go back to using a menu at the cafe now that fried food's quite literally off my table.
Bugger.
It will surprise no-one who's acquainted with my ego that I brightened at her words. I won't say I actually preened, but there was a definite flutter of optimistic self-delusion in my brain.
'Well, I was a pound down this morning as it happens,' I told her. 'Maybe it fell straight off my chin.'
She grinned at me, the way people grin at a pet rat who's just done an extraordinarily cute trick for the zillionth time.
'D'you wanna go out for breakfast?' she asked, and I agreed - there's a local cafe where they have extraordinarily good bread for toast from the bakery next door, and where, after we've been living here four years, nine times out of ten, they can get d's order right.
Be under no illusions - this is no kind of veiled criticism. Watching my girl order food is an astonishing way to spend your time. I frequently call her 'Sally' when we're out eating together, and this is why. Sally Albright and my girl - Sisters from another mother. Clearly, they're by no means unique in knowing what they want and how they want it - if they were, it would have been merely vanity putting it in a movie. And I absolutely don't say this to get her to stop - it's astonishing and wonderful and I want her to have what she wants. What's more, being in some respects so British it mkaes my bones squeak, I've been known on many an occasion to cash in on her ability to precisely describe what she wants, and how, and even for the most part where, so that I too can now occasionally actually get what I want in restaurants and cafes, rather than doing that thing where I eat whatever's put in front of me, even if it was intended for the lady with the impetigo in the corner, and meekly nodding when asked that obligatory, awful question, 'Is everything all right for you?'
I think it's a simple cultural thing - the land of freedom and choice vs the land of social inhibition, taking what you're given and lumping it. Twelve years on, watching my girl order food is still a wonder and a pleasure, and long may it continue.
This morning, as it happens, our cafe was off its game - there was a soggy toast issue - but I didn't say any of this to highlight soggy toast. I said it because we've been there quite regularly, and d's example has boosted my confidence. So now, I don't have to use a menu. I'm confident in my delivery. In a loud, clear voice, I ask for 'the lunchbox small, no back pudding, extra sausage instead and a mug o' decaff.'
It came, it was fab, d and I arranged a toast exchange like spies in the Cold War, and all was good. She had stuff to do in town, I had stuff to do back in the office so we went our separate ways.
It was only as I rounded the final bend before the flat that something hit me in the face like a ball peen hammer.
The Forgotten Prohibition!
I'd not only forgotten a prohibition that wa a central part of the original Disappearing act, without remembering it was there I'd pretty much stomped up to it, flicked it a merry set of V's, waggled my groin at it, turned around, farted in its face and swaggered off content in the knowledge of a prohibition told most royally where to go.
No Fried Foods.
In the list I made a night or two ago of all the rules of Disappearing, I'd somehow neglected to add one of the most fundamental - no fried foods.
The thing is, fried foods are sneaky little bastards. If you're not constantly vigilant, they can sneak up on you, looking like part of the culinary furniture and then - wallop! - before you know it, they're down your gullet, being digested and spreading their lovely comforting fried fabulousness to all the cells of your body. And sure enough, I'd scoffed bacon and sausage for breakfast. Fried sausage and bacon. I nokw you can do them other ways. our cafe doesn't. So witout even remembering it was there, I'd broken a Disappearing rule. Good start, no?
I thought about flagellating myself senselessly for about six hours, but to be honest, I had a magazine to put out so I didn't really have the time. It is what it is, and was what it was, and by all the listening gods, I'm gonna miss those sausage and bacon. But there it is - now I know the prohibition's there, it would be an act of dishonesty to break it again.
Arse.
Anything else of interest to tell you today? Well, Victoria Wood died, and I feel like that's punched me in the face, but that's a topic for a different blog, tomorrow.
And I went walking again tonight, and took longer about it. Managed 9.12 km in just over two hours. Which sounds massively more impressive than 'five and a bit miles,' but equates to the same thing as far as my screaming feet are concerned. Walked the length of two villages, essentially, from Merthyr through Pentrebach to the centre of Troedyrhiw (non-Welsh folk, don't worry about trying to pronounce the names, Welsh is a thorougly perverse language), and back.
One thing I learned on the way is that my whole 'sluggish transit, sweetcorn experiment' thing might in fact be just a symptom of what I like to think of as Slug Life. I was about a quarter of the way nto the return journey (with, say, two miles left to go), when my system announced a pressing, urgent need to find a bathroom.
So, that will explain why my 'per kilometre' speed actually went up on the return trip, despite being the uphill portion of the walk. Motivation is clearly of great importance when it comes to getting the miles covered.
There have to be easier ways.
Oh - damn. Something just struck me. I'll have to go back to using a menu at the cafe now that fried food's quite literally off my table.
Bugger.
Thursday, 21 January 2016
The West Wing Burn
Alrighty, well you learn something every day.
First of all, the dull stuff. Intake today:
One small bowl Fruit and Fibre cereal, one banana, semi-skimmed milk.
One tin Heinz tomato and basil soup, two slices brown bread.
Two lavazza coffees, semi-skimmed milk
One small container fruit and nut mix, approx 335 calories.
Small bowl Chinese stir fry, with rice.
None of which is especially relevant.
The new thing I've learned today is the inspirational power of The West Wing.
I mean, I knew it was emotionally and philosophically inspiring, I just never knew it could make my legs move faster.
One biking session, one hour. Hit 500 calories two nights ago, dropped back to a paltry 400 last night. Hit 520 tonight while watching two-thirds of "Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail," an episode of The West Wing I could practically act. Thing is, since I started back to biking on Monday, I've biked to music, I've biked to audio plays and audio books. Who knew it was The West Wing I needed to really start pushing the numbers.
I realise of course that the numbers are still pretty poor when you consider that for the rest of the day, I've sat on my ass and done computer-based work. But the eternal lesson is "Less in, more out," and if you compare today with what I ate and what I did a week ago today, I'm on the right side of that equation for once. I'm also not about to start going nuts in week one, because that's the easy way to give up in week two. This is me doing the Tortoise thing. Slow, steady, repetitive, controlled.
All of which means tomorrow's an interesting challenge, for tomorrow is Starbucks day - the first since I re-started. I'm not concerned about that, though perhaps I should be. I guess the thing is I could go wild and crazy, out of the safe, home, self-controlled environment and routine, I could go for all kinds of uberfraps. But the Day Four factor is kicking in. I've biked over thirty miles since Monday. The last thing I want to do is have a Fuck-It-Up Friday, because that means all the pain of the first two days, and all the routine that I've started to build, breaks like glass underneath my boots.
So - I must be my own Frap Nazi. I have a very weakass, light, skinny, sugar-free version of a caramel frap that I usually have as my first of the day (though I've recently taken to having that with cream again, which is pretty freaking stupid). I'll strip the cream out and might have it first thing tomorrow. But after that, it's buckets of pointlessness for me all the way. I also have an idea, about which, more tomorrow.
First of all, the dull stuff. Intake today:
One small bowl Fruit and Fibre cereal, one banana, semi-skimmed milk.
One tin Heinz tomato and basil soup, two slices brown bread.
Two lavazza coffees, semi-skimmed milk
One small container fruit and nut mix, approx 335 calories.
Small bowl Chinese stir fry, with rice.
None of which is especially relevant.
The new thing I've learned today is the inspirational power of The West Wing.
I mean, I knew it was emotionally and philosophically inspiring, I just never knew it could make my legs move faster.
One biking session, one hour. Hit 500 calories two nights ago, dropped back to a paltry 400 last night. Hit 520 tonight while watching two-thirds of "Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail," an episode of The West Wing I could practically act. Thing is, since I started back to biking on Monday, I've biked to music, I've biked to audio plays and audio books. Who knew it was The West Wing I needed to really start pushing the numbers.
I realise of course that the numbers are still pretty poor when you consider that for the rest of the day, I've sat on my ass and done computer-based work. But the eternal lesson is "Less in, more out," and if you compare today with what I ate and what I did a week ago today, I'm on the right side of that equation for once. I'm also not about to start going nuts in week one, because that's the easy way to give up in week two. This is me doing the Tortoise thing. Slow, steady, repetitive, controlled.
All of which means tomorrow's an interesting challenge, for tomorrow is Starbucks day - the first since I re-started. I'm not concerned about that, though perhaps I should be. I guess the thing is I could go wild and crazy, out of the safe, home, self-controlled environment and routine, I could go for all kinds of uberfraps. But the Day Four factor is kicking in. I've biked over thirty miles since Monday. The last thing I want to do is have a Fuck-It-Up Friday, because that means all the pain of the first two days, and all the routine that I've started to build, breaks like glass underneath my boots.
So - I must be my own Frap Nazi. I have a very weakass, light, skinny, sugar-free version of a caramel frap that I usually have as my first of the day (though I've recently taken to having that with cream again, which is pretty freaking stupid). I'll strip the cream out and might have it first thing tomorrow. But after that, it's buckets of pointlessness for me all the way. I also have an idea, about which, more tomorrow.
Sunday, 20 September 2015
The Celebratory Train Wreck
I finished Draft Three of my novel this
week. Weighed in on Tuesday at 18st 0.75, which wasn’t too bad, but I’m going
to be absolutely honest with you here – since then, I’ve had a few days of
notsomuch going off the rails as ripping up the rails and juggling the damn
things. I find myself on Sunday, having been out for a celebratory lunch with
d, feeling absolutely horrid and huge, bloated to the point where you could
squeeze me like a giant, overripe zit. This clearly needs to stop, and I also
need to stop taking celebrations as excuses to drive my bodily car into a rock
face at 125 miles per freakin’ hour. Enough. As luck would have it, tomorrow’s
a Monday, the day for starting ill-thought-out endeavours like weeks and
suchlike other mistakes. Tomorrow then, we knuckle down and reinstall some
discipline into the daily routine.
Wednesday, 19 August 2015
The Rainmaker’s List
Have you ever said, with a determined look
on your face, ‘tomorrow, dammit, I hang out laundry’?
Annnnd what happened?
Yeah. Thought so. Same thing as happened to
me today, probably, after having confidently declared that ‘weather permitting,
tomorrow I walk!’
Yyyyeah, notsomuch, as the rain it raineth
every piggin’ day on planned parades.
‘So – you bikin’ then?’ is, I know, the
next most logical question on your eager lips. To which the answer is likewise notsomuch
– If this counts for anything, I’ve wiped about six or seven things off my To-Do
List today – eight if you include ‘Blog,’ which, to be fair, I hadn’t today,
but have on many another day. No – having woken up and weighed and found myself
back within a quarter-pound of 18 stone (what a difference a day makes, as the
song has it), I’ve been focusing on clearing the crap and the clutter out of my
List of the many, many things I’ve had to do. While the philosophical funk
remains, the more that finally disappears off that list, the lighter my mind
feels about the day-to-day doing of things. So…. Yeah – lighter mind, lighter
body?
No, I know, no-one’s buying that one, and
nor should they, to be fair. But I feel better in any case. Have just a smidgen
more time, so may just about manage to cross one more thing off my list before
the day’s out. Starbucking tomorrow and Friday, but with chances of walking and
biking on both days. Tomorrow’s d’s Hereversary though – 11 years ago tomorrow
she landed in the UK for good, and we began the mad (and I do mean mad) run-up
of things to still be done before our wedding. It’s jusssst possible there’ll
be sumptuous amounts of food involved in celebrating tomorrow. Still – let’s
see.
Saturday, 2 May 2015
The Dogged Slog
Err...I do appreciate that precisely the point of today's blog entry does make it less likely to be particularly riveting as a blog entry. Some days are diamonds, I guess - some are just miles walked, and biked, and not a whole lot eaten. One thing I should say is the Mirror from yesterday smashed and buggered off, so that's useful.
Anyhow - on with the work, then on to the bike.
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