You know that phenomenon when people who stand to gain from the ruination of the earth say 'Brr, it's cold today. See, there can't be any global warming?'
I feel almost embarrassed to have been able to type that sentence, but you know what I mean.
Yyyyeah, that is me, right now, in relation to the ecosystem of my body.
Yesterday, I went to get my semi-traditional beating by the usually-not-listening drug-mule diabetic nurse, after submitting some vials of the old red stuff for testing last week.
I knew I'd be getting a beating, because I haven't been particularly good for a while. And fair enough, she knew her role in the proceedings, and beat me within an inch of my life. Blood sugar down on a year ago, but still pretty freaking high. Choloesterol up. Liver enzyme count up. She changed my prescription slightly, offered me her latest 'super safe, honest, in the trials' gizmo - a kind of injectable nausea, that makes you feel a bit sick and makes you feel full. I said I'd read up on it, but that if I could avoid the whole injectable pathway, that'd be good thanks.
The one thing she impressed on me, several times, looking me straight in the eye and annunciating importantly, like a character in a Chris Chibnall Doctor Who story delivering plot-exposition, was that 'Doing nothing...is the wrong thing.'
My body, it seems, is finding ways to cope with my dumb ass. It's working just fine...ish, despite elevated blood sugar levels and all the rest of it. Just as Mother Nature's finding ways to deal with our shit, but she doesn't have to be happy about it. You can run it this way, said the nurse, but if you do, one day it'll break. Badly. And that'll more or less be that.
Which of course I already knew, but which doesn't especially help. I'm going to 'talk to someone' she recommended, because I feel the need to unravel this shit at the root - the sense of self, the sense of identity, the sense of giving myself a ready explanation for things, and the self-detructive lemming factor, and the self-war...so that'll be fun for whoever it is I talk to. Get an overthinker to tell you about themselves. What could possibly go wrong there?
And then, today, it was weigh-in day, and I tipped the Nazi Scales at 17 stone 4.25 (I would do it in Kilos for you, but we've had a memor through from Jacob Rees-Poshgit to only use imperial measurements). Down a pound and a half on last week, down...I think a couple of pounds or so on two weeks ago. And in my brain, immediately the line sprang up: 'See? Can't be all that bad - I'm losing weight!'
A...ha. And the rain means there's no global warming too, asshole. Get your shit together Fyler, for fuck's sake...
Showing posts with label scales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scales. Show all posts
Tuesday, 6 August 2019
Wednesday, 10 July 2019
Ths Inexplicable Trip
Hello again.
Been three weeks since I wrote. On the one hand, that's because there's been little to say - three weeks of more or less stability - 17st 6 and change.
On the other, have been busy trying to swim against a current of Stuff to Do, or at least get my head above the water of work. Haven't quite got there, but certainly getting there.
Haven't, if truth be known - and why not know it? That would seem to be the point, after all - been all that good. d's been making fruity summer tarts and the like for sale in the local deli, and I've denied myself little. Which is perhaps why the summons from the nurse to come and see her before I go and get my next medication has struck such abject inevitability into my heart - it's not fear, per se, but it is the understanding of a grindingly miserable, patronising, 'Stop acting like a child or I'll have to punish you' lecture from the nurse that my life will shortly have to contain, coupled with the knowledge that she has historically listened to not a word I've said and has been rather too keen in my view to try out the newest Thing on me. I'm entirely happy to leave my body to medical science of course, I just could wish they'd wait till I'm actually dead before treating me like a guinea pig for their latest toys.
Anyhow - that's just a ramble about the imminence of patronising deafness. Does nothing to explain the inexplicable good fortune of recent days. While still denying myself nothing, I discovered I'd shed some pounds late last week. I even - because I've been jerked around like that by the Nazi Scales before - took a picture on what the scales said on Monday, in case I'd need to prove to you that I'm not just making this up. As it happens though, I don't need it.
Weighed in yesterday at 17st 3.5. Down some 2.5 to 3 pounds. Happy with that, certainly - and of course, from the moment I realised it was possible, have re-started my walking, now having done a whopping two days of schlepping.
So - somewhere along the line, I appear to have tripped, fallen over, and fallen down a couple of pounds. They're mysterious pounds, certainly - hell, for all I know, in the fairly heavy heat of this week, I've just evaporated or expirated a couple of pints of water, and when the weather breaks I'll go back up. Except of course whatever the reason, it's kicked me into a kind of gear again - walking, not eating things that are outright stupid for me, portion control and all that good happy stuff.
So this is just a quick note from the front to say hoorah, let's crack on. Three and a half to the borderline.
Been three weeks since I wrote. On the one hand, that's because there's been little to say - three weeks of more or less stability - 17st 6 and change.
On the other, have been busy trying to swim against a current of Stuff to Do, or at least get my head above the water of work. Haven't quite got there, but certainly getting there.
Haven't, if truth be known - and why not know it? That would seem to be the point, after all - been all that good. d's been making fruity summer tarts and the like for sale in the local deli, and I've denied myself little. Which is perhaps why the summons from the nurse to come and see her before I go and get my next medication has struck such abject inevitability into my heart - it's not fear, per se, but it is the understanding of a grindingly miserable, patronising, 'Stop acting like a child or I'll have to punish you' lecture from the nurse that my life will shortly have to contain, coupled with the knowledge that she has historically listened to not a word I've said and has been rather too keen in my view to try out the newest Thing on me. I'm entirely happy to leave my body to medical science of course, I just could wish they'd wait till I'm actually dead before treating me like a guinea pig for their latest toys.
Anyhow - that's just a ramble about the imminence of patronising deafness. Does nothing to explain the inexplicable good fortune of recent days. While still denying myself nothing, I discovered I'd shed some pounds late last week. I even - because I've been jerked around like that by the Nazi Scales before - took a picture on what the scales said on Monday, in case I'd need to prove to you that I'm not just making this up. As it happens though, I don't need it.
Weighed in yesterday at 17st 3.5. Down some 2.5 to 3 pounds. Happy with that, certainly - and of course, from the moment I realised it was possible, have re-started my walking, now having done a whopping two days of schlepping.
So - somewhere along the line, I appear to have tripped, fallen over, and fallen down a couple of pounds. They're mysterious pounds, certainly - hell, for all I know, in the fairly heavy heat of this week, I've just evaporated or expirated a couple of pints of water, and when the weather breaks I'll go back up. Except of course whatever the reason, it's kicked me into a kind of gear again - walking, not eating things that are outright stupid for me, portion control and all that good happy stuff.
So this is just a quick note from the front to say hoorah, let's crack on. Three and a half to the borderline.
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
Yoga For Dumbasses
'Nope. Fuck it, s'gotta be done.'
Those, ladies, gentlemen and other groovers, are the words of a dumbass.
A dumbass who, on the night before a weigh-in, just an hour or so after eating a bowlful of glorious Chinese carbs (rice AND noodles, motherfucker!), decides the only thing that will do in the best of all possible words is to top it off with a bowl of cornflakes before falling, stupefied into bed.
So - yeah, when the Nazi Scales this morning were all uppity and 'What the fuck did you do? Man, you're 17 stone 6 pounds, take it and get the hell away from me,' there was a certain inescapable logic to their decision.
Up a pound and a half on last week. This...is not how things were supposed to go, quite frankly. I'd complain to the Department of Dumbasses (Don't tell me there's no such thing, have you seen the world lately?), but they'd probably, rightly, tell me to go fuck myself because we live in a deterministic universe with laws of cause and effect and all that gubbins.
Sometimes, cause and effect can kiss my flabby old ass.
So this is Yoga for Dumbasses - where I twist myself into pretzels of rationalisation and reality-denial, more or less solely for your amusement.
Here's where I plead that halfway through this week, the Nazi Scales were being my friends, and had dropped me down a pound from last week, to 17st 3.5. Where I rationalise the carbitude of the meal, and the bigness thereof. Where I add that probably the cornflakes hadn't had time to pass through my system, and so between them and the meal, there was probably more than a pound and a half of sheer food-weight in my system, just waiting for the first train out of there. (Don't look at me, I didn't say it would make sense, I said it would be a pretzel of rationalisation), and where, finally, as a sort of offering to the Disappearing gods, I throw in the fact that immediately after the Nazi Scales had their say this morning, I strapped on my walking boots, deadline or no pigging deadline, and I went walking, which I had more or less conspired with myself not to do over the last seven days. Yes, I fling that into the ring of Disappearing equations, by way of saying 'Look, look, this is me, taking it seriously again, honest!' and of course, as much as fooling anyone else might be my primary motive, the trick is to fool myself that This Is A Taking-It-Seriously Gesture, and that things will be getting back on track any minute now.
Honest.
Ooh - ow. Bugger. I think I've seized up mid-pretzel. Talk amongst yourselves for a bit, I need to untangle my legs...
Those, ladies, gentlemen and other groovers, are the words of a dumbass.
A dumbass who, on the night before a weigh-in, just an hour or so after eating a bowlful of glorious Chinese carbs (rice AND noodles, motherfucker!), decides the only thing that will do in the best of all possible words is to top it off with a bowl of cornflakes before falling, stupefied into bed.
So - yeah, when the Nazi Scales this morning were all uppity and 'What the fuck did you do? Man, you're 17 stone 6 pounds, take it and get the hell away from me,' there was a certain inescapable logic to their decision.
Up a pound and a half on last week. This...is not how things were supposed to go, quite frankly. I'd complain to the Department of Dumbasses (Don't tell me there's no such thing, have you seen the world lately?), but they'd probably, rightly, tell me to go fuck myself because we live in a deterministic universe with laws of cause and effect and all that gubbins.
Sometimes, cause and effect can kiss my flabby old ass.
So this is Yoga for Dumbasses - where I twist myself into pretzels of rationalisation and reality-denial, more or less solely for your amusement.
Here's where I plead that halfway through this week, the Nazi Scales were being my friends, and had dropped me down a pound from last week, to 17st 3.5. Where I rationalise the carbitude of the meal, and the bigness thereof. Where I add that probably the cornflakes hadn't had time to pass through my system, and so between them and the meal, there was probably more than a pound and a half of sheer food-weight in my system, just waiting for the first train out of there. (Don't look at me, I didn't say it would make sense, I said it would be a pretzel of rationalisation), and where, finally, as a sort of offering to the Disappearing gods, I throw in the fact that immediately after the Nazi Scales had their say this morning, I strapped on my walking boots, deadline or no pigging deadline, and I went walking, which I had more or less conspired with myself not to do over the last seven days. Yes, I fling that into the ring of Disappearing equations, by way of saying 'Look, look, this is me, taking it seriously again, honest!' and of course, as much as fooling anyone else might be my primary motive, the trick is to fool myself that This Is A Taking-It-Seriously Gesture, and that things will be getting back on track any minute now.
Honest.
Ooh - ow. Bugger. I think I've seized up mid-pretzel. Talk amongst yourselves for a bit, I need to untangle my legs...
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
The Dickishness Cessation
Urk.
Missed last week's weigh-in day blog. It sort of stuttered and fell back on the To-Do List, to the point where I intended to write it Thursday, for my pal Ruth's birthday...annnd then that didn't happen either. Today though, there must be blogging, otherwise it's starting to look like I've fallen entirely out of the habit.
Well - last week was an entirely unreasonable disappointment. unreasonable because gaining was very likely the outcome of a week of retreating lurgi (it's been borne in upon me that some Americans have no idea what a lurgi is - it's a UK word meaning a flu-like bug or virus, but has overtones of lurking, swamp-like sinuses and, to quote both Friends and my friend Sarah, 'sexy phlegm'), which menat I still didn't feel like getting out and DOING anything, but, because life's just that kind of bastard, my appetite came roaring back.
So, it should have been entirely forecastable that I'd go up again last week, but somehow I managed not to forecast it. The Nazi Scales though were amused.
'Haha,' they said, as if they were actors in a bad melodrama, 'We liked you better when you were fully sick. Then we took two pounds off you, and you cheered. Now you're just lollygagging about, you may have your two pounds back - 17st 4 pounds for you!'
Bastards.
Entirely fair, utterly predictable, but nevertheless bastards.
Because I say so, that's why.
This week...
I'm not sure in which direction to vaguely stab when trying to deflect responsibility this week. There was fudge, but then it seems entirely likely there will be irresistible fudge going forward, as d's making the Fudge of the Gods for a local deli, which, rather gratifyingly, is making fudge-fans all over Facebook weak at the knees. Because, as I may have mentioned on one or two previous occasions, d has mystic sorcery skills. She's kind of the Scheherazade of cakes. The Mata Hari of sweets. The Ada Lovelace of meats. Food is a conduit of love in her hands, a spring of creativity. It's her poetry.
So that's not a direction in which you'll find me stabbing.
Basically, haven't gone out to walk since the long one just before the lurgi fell on me from a great height. And my general eating pattern has included far more in the way of sweet things, stodgy things and carby things than it should have were I properely dedicated to this Disappearing lark since more or less the same point - starting out with comfort food when I was ill, and then, as I've recovered, keeping the comfort food in place, despite not upping the corresponding exercise level.
So...yeah. That'll be it. Basically, I've been a dick.
You want the tell-tale heart of this dickness? I haven't tested my blood sugar since the lurgi hit. That's the equivalent of not opening the post when you fear the arrival of bills. It's denial activity, to maintain your coccoon of ignorance.
Tested again for the first time in a while yesterday - 9.8. Today, slightly better - 9.5. Both of these are technically within the range my Diabetic Nurse wants me to stay inside, but they're actually noticeably over what I should be - between 6-8.
What's more, I could lie to you and say now that I feel better, I'll crack on with more walking this week - but I won't. I absolutely won't, because the deadlines are piling up and need addressing in a big old hurry. Maaaaaybe, after tomorrow, when I intend to complete one project, I could steal a couple of hours a day to at least say I've done something to give my system a boost.
Maybe.
Still - with deadlines clanging and the behaviour-patterns of a dick, this week, the Nazi Scales have me at 17st 4.5 - up another half-pound, which I guess, given the dickishness, is less catastrophic than it might have been. I'm aware of the gentleness of continental drift though - let things go for too long and you find you're seven pounds up, and have them to lose all over again. So...yes. Dickishness needs to end now. Focus and all that malarkey needs to be the way of the week.
Woo! Bring on the fun...
Missed last week's weigh-in day blog. It sort of stuttered and fell back on the To-Do List, to the point where I intended to write it Thursday, for my pal Ruth's birthday...annnd then that didn't happen either. Today though, there must be blogging, otherwise it's starting to look like I've fallen entirely out of the habit.
Well - last week was an entirely unreasonable disappointment. unreasonable because gaining was very likely the outcome of a week of retreating lurgi (it's been borne in upon me that some Americans have no idea what a lurgi is - it's a UK word meaning a flu-like bug or virus, but has overtones of lurking, swamp-like sinuses and, to quote both Friends and my friend Sarah, 'sexy phlegm'), which menat I still didn't feel like getting out and DOING anything, but, because life's just that kind of bastard, my appetite came roaring back.
So, it should have been entirely forecastable that I'd go up again last week, but somehow I managed not to forecast it. The Nazi Scales though were amused.
'Haha,' they said, as if they were actors in a bad melodrama, 'We liked you better when you were fully sick. Then we took two pounds off you, and you cheered. Now you're just lollygagging about, you may have your two pounds back - 17st 4 pounds for you!'
Bastards.
Entirely fair, utterly predictable, but nevertheless bastards.
Because I say so, that's why.
This week...
I'm not sure in which direction to vaguely stab when trying to deflect responsibility this week. There was fudge, but then it seems entirely likely there will be irresistible fudge going forward, as d's making the Fudge of the Gods for a local deli, which, rather gratifyingly, is making fudge-fans all over Facebook weak at the knees. Because, as I may have mentioned on one or two previous occasions, d has mystic sorcery skills. She's kind of the Scheherazade of cakes. The Mata Hari of sweets. The Ada Lovelace of meats. Food is a conduit of love in her hands, a spring of creativity. It's her poetry.
So that's not a direction in which you'll find me stabbing.
Basically, haven't gone out to walk since the long one just before the lurgi fell on me from a great height. And my general eating pattern has included far more in the way of sweet things, stodgy things and carby things than it should have were I properely dedicated to this Disappearing lark since more or less the same point - starting out with comfort food when I was ill, and then, as I've recovered, keeping the comfort food in place, despite not upping the corresponding exercise level.
So...yeah. That'll be it. Basically, I've been a dick.
You want the tell-tale heart of this dickness? I haven't tested my blood sugar since the lurgi hit. That's the equivalent of not opening the post when you fear the arrival of bills. It's denial activity, to maintain your coccoon of ignorance.
Tested again for the first time in a while yesterday - 9.8. Today, slightly better - 9.5. Both of these are technically within the range my Diabetic Nurse wants me to stay inside, but they're actually noticeably over what I should be - between 6-8.
What's more, I could lie to you and say now that I feel better, I'll crack on with more walking this week - but I won't. I absolutely won't, because the deadlines are piling up and need addressing in a big old hurry. Maaaaaybe, after tomorrow, when I intend to complete one project, I could steal a couple of hours a day to at least say I've done something to give my system a boost.
Maybe.
Still - with deadlines clanging and the behaviour-patterns of a dick, this week, the Nazi Scales have me at 17st 4.5 - up another half-pound, which I guess, given the dickishness, is less catastrophic than it might have been. I'm aware of the gentleness of continental drift though - let things go for too long and you find you're seven pounds up, and have them to lose all over again. So...yes. Dickishness needs to end now. Focus and all that malarkey needs to be the way of the week.
Woo! Bring on the fun...
Tuesday, 19 March 2019
The Spasmodic Crunches
Unnnnnnnnncleeeeeeeeean! Unnnnnnncleeeeeeean!
Bloke with a lurrrrrrgi! Unnnncleeeeeean!
Yes, you heard me - while of course it's the case that d has had a lurgi in perfect, get-on-with-it quietness and suffered appallingly while demanding dick-all in special privileges, I'm been going Total Sick Bloke for...well, actually since all the coughing and spangle-seeing of that long uphill walk I detailed last time. Sick as a dog. Useless. Sleeping hours of the day away, mostly because consciousness was such a pain in the chest. Spending additional hours in the bath because of the heat and the healing vapoury gloriousness of Olbas bubbles.
Have done precisely bog-all by way of exercise since that walk - first because of deadlines and then because of all this joyful lurgification.
Which means I have no logical way to explain to you how, getting on the Nazi Scales this morning (technically pre-bathroom, for those interested in the ins and outs of the thing, but it didn't seem especially worth waiting for), and saw:
17st 2.
Down...three and a quarter pounds.
All I can tell you is either this flu has a tapewormy element that has yet to be diagnosed, in which case I'm frankly happy to feed the fucker for a while before the nastiness of coaxing it out one way or another, or all the hacking coughs have acted like spasmodic stomach crunches, and I've been getting more of an enforced workout over the last seven weeks than I could possibly imagine, cos damn! Two pounds short of the next milestone, and into the Sixteens. That will be something to do a happy dance about - and happy dances will be altogether more possible than they have been, too. So yay. The lurgi of apparent weightloss has been an utter bastard, but the results are altogether rather more pleasing than the experience. Onward - to the border of Sixteeniness!
Bloke with a lurrrrrrgi! Unnnncleeeeeean!
Yes, you heard me - while of course it's the case that d has had a lurgi in perfect, get-on-with-it quietness and suffered appallingly while demanding dick-all in special privileges, I'm been going Total Sick Bloke for...well, actually since all the coughing and spangle-seeing of that long uphill walk I detailed last time. Sick as a dog. Useless. Sleeping hours of the day away, mostly because consciousness was such a pain in the chest. Spending additional hours in the bath because of the heat and the healing vapoury gloriousness of Olbas bubbles.
Have done precisely bog-all by way of exercise since that walk - first because of deadlines and then because of all this joyful lurgification.
Which means I have no logical way to explain to you how, getting on the Nazi Scales this morning (technically pre-bathroom, for those interested in the ins and outs of the thing, but it didn't seem especially worth waiting for), and saw:
17st 2.
Down...three and a quarter pounds.
All I can tell you is either this flu has a tapewormy element that has yet to be diagnosed, in which case I'm frankly happy to feed the fucker for a while before the nastiness of coaxing it out one way or another, or all the hacking coughs have acted like spasmodic stomach crunches, and I've been getting more of an enforced workout over the last seven weeks than I could possibly imagine, cos damn! Two pounds short of the next milestone, and into the Sixteens. That will be something to do a happy dance about - and happy dances will be altogether more possible than they have been, too. So yay. The lurgi of apparent weightloss has been an utter bastard, but the results are altogether rather more pleasing than the experience. Onward - to the border of Sixteeniness!
Tuesday, 12 March 2019
The Fluctuation Factor
My Nazi Scales are taking the piss today.
Post-bathroom weigh-in this morning - 17st 6.25 - same as last week. I'll be honest, I was happy enough to take that on a week which has included d's sdalty peanut fudge, cos dayum!
Padded about a bit in a semi-regular morning daze, listening, of all things, to an audiobook reading of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (don't let that fool you, I'm not high-brow, I've moved on to a Doctor Who novelization now). Went back. Scratched myself where I itched. Stepped back on the Nazi Scales.
17st 4.0. Tried that a few times, got consistent results.
'Fuck off,' I muttered. 'There's no way I lost precisely dick-all in seven days, and then 2.25 pounds in half an hour's dicking about. You're just fucking with me now.'
I pulled the scales to a slightly different position on the tiled floor. Stepped on again.
'Fine, see if you like this then,' said the Nazi Scales. 'Can do you a 17st 5.25. That suitably reasonable for you, is it?'
'Thank you,' I muttered - re-doing the weigh-in seveal more times, to make sure I got consistent results.
So. Somewhere between where I was last week and two and a quarter pounds lighter is probably where I aactually am.
For no terribly good reason, I'm going to take the middle reading, and claim 17 stone 5.25 as today's 'actual' reading. Because hell, it has to be something, and it might as well be that - each of the three readings was taken at least three times, for the 'No, really, stop fucking with me' value, so it's as valid as anything else, doesn't push me into entirely unbelievable places, and still allows me to go completely into Smug Mode today at having fudge and carrying on.
So...yeah. Nazi Scales say 17st 5.25 today. IF I were to, y'know, get my shit together and have some properly good weeks of not eating fudge and walking my ass off, I could theoretically push on down into the 16s three weeks from now - which would be something to shove in the face of my diabetic nurse next time I see her. The letter's already arrived, but I'm pretending it hasn't, because my recent blood results have been less than stellar, tending to go from 9ish to 11ish and back again. #MustDoBetter, clearly, at least on that score.
Oh, and talking of walking - went and did it last night. First time in about two weeks, I think. Now, here's the thing. Our flat is in the centre of a very small seaside town. About five, maybe six streets, that's the heart of the town. My usual walking route is ennnntirely flat, along the main street, alont a side street, through a couple of tunnels (see previous entries where I fell and knackered my ankle), and then along a lovely coastal path with the sea on my right, usually from Saundersfoot, via a fancy restaurant called Coast, to the rather gloriously-named Wiseman's Bridge. This is my 'basic' walk - usually when I get cocky about it and want to do more, I divert just before Wiseman's and head into a forest, past an old iron works and on into the wide green yonder.
Last night, I decided to do something different.
I went up the fairly steep-ish hill that leads the way out of the town centre to the other side of us. Saw an interesting uphill street attached to it. Walked up there. And up there. And up and up and up there. Coughed, spluttered, saw spangles, thought briefly 'This is it, this is how I die,' pressed on ever upward.
Eventually, oh, SO eventually, found a downhill road. Came down and down and down and realised I'd taken about an hour to go the 'eight minutes on the flat' journey to Coast.
That's a rubbish way to get to Coast, unless you happen to want to burn calories, flay leg-muscles and stop being able to breathe. So - result. I saw another uphill road. And followed it, up, and up, and up...annnnnnnd down again to Wiseman's. Basically, I leapfrogged my way to Wiseman's Bridge, with more pain, more gasping and more destruction of my will to live. But it actually felt rather good to do it, simply because I haven't done any proper walking for a while.
Came back the flat way though, obviously. I mean, I'm clearly a moron, but even I have limits.
Got in just as the 65mph gusts of the joyfest that is Storm Gareth were beginning to hit us.
So...haven't walked at all today. Haven't, in fact, been outside the door today, apart from a quick pop to the corner shop. Probably won't, now, until Saturday cos aaaaaargh - deadlines.
But before deadlines - The Great British Sewing Bee.
Shurrup, don't judge me, it's compelling...What the hell kind of stitch is that?
Post-bathroom weigh-in this morning - 17st 6.25 - same as last week. I'll be honest, I was happy enough to take that on a week which has included d's sdalty peanut fudge, cos dayum!
Padded about a bit in a semi-regular morning daze, listening, of all things, to an audiobook reading of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (don't let that fool you, I'm not high-brow, I've moved on to a Doctor Who novelization now). Went back. Scratched myself where I itched. Stepped back on the Nazi Scales.
17st 4.0. Tried that a few times, got consistent results.
'Fuck off,' I muttered. 'There's no way I lost precisely dick-all in seven days, and then 2.25 pounds in half an hour's dicking about. You're just fucking with me now.'
I pulled the scales to a slightly different position on the tiled floor. Stepped on again.
'Fine, see if you like this then,' said the Nazi Scales. 'Can do you a 17st 5.25. That suitably reasonable for you, is it?'
'Thank you,' I muttered - re-doing the weigh-in seveal more times, to make sure I got consistent results.
So. Somewhere between where I was last week and two and a quarter pounds lighter is probably where I aactually am.
For no terribly good reason, I'm going to take the middle reading, and claim 17 stone 5.25 as today's 'actual' reading. Because hell, it has to be something, and it might as well be that - each of the three readings was taken at least three times, for the 'No, really, stop fucking with me' value, so it's as valid as anything else, doesn't push me into entirely unbelievable places, and still allows me to go completely into Smug Mode today at having fudge and carrying on.
So...yeah. Nazi Scales say 17st 5.25 today. IF I were to, y'know, get my shit together and have some properly good weeks of not eating fudge and walking my ass off, I could theoretically push on down into the 16s three weeks from now - which would be something to shove in the face of my diabetic nurse next time I see her. The letter's already arrived, but I'm pretending it hasn't, because my recent blood results have been less than stellar, tending to go from 9ish to 11ish and back again. #MustDoBetter, clearly, at least on that score.
Oh, and talking of walking - went and did it last night. First time in about two weeks, I think. Now, here's the thing. Our flat is in the centre of a very small seaside town. About five, maybe six streets, that's the heart of the town. My usual walking route is ennnntirely flat, along the main street, alont a side street, through a couple of tunnels (see previous entries where I fell and knackered my ankle), and then along a lovely coastal path with the sea on my right, usually from Saundersfoot, via a fancy restaurant called Coast, to the rather gloriously-named Wiseman's Bridge. This is my 'basic' walk - usually when I get cocky about it and want to do more, I divert just before Wiseman's and head into a forest, past an old iron works and on into the wide green yonder.
Last night, I decided to do something different.
I went up the fairly steep-ish hill that leads the way out of the town centre to the other side of us. Saw an interesting uphill street attached to it. Walked up there. And up there. And up and up and up there. Coughed, spluttered, saw spangles, thought briefly 'This is it, this is how I die,' pressed on ever upward.
Eventually, oh, SO eventually, found a downhill road. Came down and down and down and realised I'd taken about an hour to go the 'eight minutes on the flat' journey to Coast.
That's a rubbish way to get to Coast, unless you happen to want to burn calories, flay leg-muscles and stop being able to breathe. So - result. I saw another uphill road. And followed it, up, and up, and up...annnnnnnd down again to Wiseman's. Basically, I leapfrogged my way to Wiseman's Bridge, with more pain, more gasping and more destruction of my will to live. But it actually felt rather good to do it, simply because I haven't done any proper walking for a while.
Came back the flat way though, obviously. I mean, I'm clearly a moron, but even I have limits.
Got in just as the 65mph gusts of the joyfest that is Storm Gareth were beginning to hit us.
So...haven't walked at all today. Haven't, in fact, been outside the door today, apart from a quick pop to the corner shop. Probably won't, now, until Saturday cos aaaaaargh - deadlines.
But before deadlines - The Great British Sewing Bee.
Shurrup, don't judge me, it's compelling...What the hell kind of stitch is that?
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
The High Wire Step
Sometimes, you lose. Sometimes, you gain.
Sometimes, on weeks where you don't particularly eat sensibly, but DO start walking again toward the tail-end of the seven days, you take a high-wire step. Firmish, possibly wobbly, but when all is said and done, you're still a long way up in the air.
This week, I'm static at 17st 8.25. Which I'm happy enough to take, this week. A wobble-but-not-fall does not leave you smeared all over the sawdust with the lions taking an interest in your entrails. You're still oh-fuck metres up in the air (and in my case, you've still got weak ankles, so it doesn't bode well), but all you've done is progress in the time dimension. Another week older and buggerall's changed, as Tennessee Ernie Ford almost certainly never sang.
Yes, I'm wittering. I do that. A lot.
Bottom line - ate some inadvisable stuff this week, walked for the last two days of the weigh-in week, nothing changed.
Had my face-fuzz all of almost fifteen shaved off almost immediately after weighing-in. Fairly sure that would have lost me at least a quarter-pound, had I managed to have it done before the weigh-in. Feels very odd, but wanted to get rid of it in a gesture of 'Grr, let's get serious about stuff.'
Kind of look like a toddler now. Churchill as a toddler.
Also, hasn't especially worked as a focusing device. Had my first ice-cream of the tourist season later that day.
Yes, in February.
I'd say 'Don't judge me,' but in a blog about trying to lose weight, that's almost entirely what you're here for, so judge away, by all means. Am heading into a deadline-bottleneck, so the likelihood of much walking in the coming week seems slimmer than I am. Any loss next week will have to come from other sources.
Damn, already shaved off all my beard-hair.
Wonder how much toenails weigh...
Sometimes, on weeks where you don't particularly eat sensibly, but DO start walking again toward the tail-end of the seven days, you take a high-wire step. Firmish, possibly wobbly, but when all is said and done, you're still a long way up in the air.
This week, I'm static at 17st 8.25. Which I'm happy enough to take, this week. A wobble-but-not-fall does not leave you smeared all over the sawdust with the lions taking an interest in your entrails. You're still oh-fuck metres up in the air (and in my case, you've still got weak ankles, so it doesn't bode well), but all you've done is progress in the time dimension. Another week older and buggerall's changed, as Tennessee Ernie Ford almost certainly never sang.
Yes, I'm wittering. I do that. A lot.
Bottom line - ate some inadvisable stuff this week, walked for the last two days of the weigh-in week, nothing changed.
Had my face-fuzz all of almost fifteen shaved off almost immediately after weighing-in. Fairly sure that would have lost me at least a quarter-pound, had I managed to have it done before the weigh-in. Feels very odd, but wanted to get rid of it in a gesture of 'Grr, let's get serious about stuff.'
Kind of look like a toddler now. Churchill as a toddler.
Also, hasn't especially worked as a focusing device. Had my first ice-cream of the tourist season later that day.
Yes, in February.
I'd say 'Don't judge me,' but in a blog about trying to lose weight, that's almost entirely what you're here for, so judge away, by all means. Am heading into a deadline-bottleneck, so the likelihood of much walking in the coming week seems slimmer than I am. Any loss next week will have to come from other sources.
Damn, already shaved off all my beard-hair.
Wonder how much toenails weigh...
Tuesday, 18 December 2018
The Deadlined Decembrist
Brr.
Double brr and buggery.
Firstly, it's been freezing, and positively pissing down much of this week, which has a natural tendency to make me curl up into a ball, pull a duvet over my head and hang a sign round my neck saying 'Fuck You Till Spring.'
Secondly, I've been on a tight deadline all week, which is now at the stage in a Bond movie where the villain pushes the hero's face closer and close to a bandsaw and Connery (let's face it, it's always Connery in metaphors, whoever your own personal Bond may be) grimaces and tries to summon some Scottish grit so he can donkey kick the villain in the balls and break free. That's meant that, even had the weather been lovely, I wouldn't have had time to take its kindness personally and go walking. This has been a week where staying indoors and eating and drinking hot things has been Plan A for several, extremely rational, reasons.
Which is why this morning, I weigh in at 17st 10.25.
Static. Hey, it's the deal, right? You move, the weight moves. You stay still, at your very luckiest, the weight stays still.
So that means it won't be till at least the last week of January that I see a 16 on the face of the Nazi Scales. Joy.
What's less, but still concerning, is that I've had blood sugars in the 7s and 8s all week, except today, when clearly, my personification of the universe is out to kick me, and I baaaarely scraped acceptability with a 9.9.
The obvious result of course is that when things don't go your way for the first time in a Disappearance (and probably at several more such points on the way down), your immediate impulsive reaction (or mine, anyway - it may be an only-child thing for all I know), is to sulk and pout and whine and storm off to the store for the biggest bar of chocolate you can find. It's Christmas, you can find some really huge bars of chocolate right now. There's a bar of Galaxy in our local Tesco Express that's only about a head shorter than I am. I know. I just checked, in a fume. it's a popsitively toddler reaction of throwing your toys out of the pram - 'Well, if being good isn't going to bring me results, I might just as well be bad, so there!'
Ride this idiocy out, or you'll fall, right there and then.
Perversely - and get a lot of the titanium testicles on THIS guy - my house is currently full of home-made fudge. After Eight Fudge. Bounty-studded Fudge. Fudge made by the fair hand of my wife, who has on occasion this week offered me 'just a smidge, to test.' But no. I eschew the Fudge of love ('...and STILL you don't lose!' roars my toddler-brain) - were I to go on a rampage, frankly, you wouldn't hear about it till afterwards, when I was penitent and ready to confess, and I wouldn't got o town on d's homemade fudge. I'd go to Tesco and get an enormo-bag of M and Ms and eat them without tasting them, in secret, for the sheer visceral pleasure of self-defeat - did anyone miss the fact that in my case, this weight shit is frequently compulsive, and secret, and self-harming? Fairly sure I covered that, but might not have been for years...
But no. Bought myself a small bottle of apple juice (Because ooh, the pleasure) and a new box of breakfast cereal, came home, spat these words into the computer, and am going back to the bandaw in a moment). This week, I'm clearly not the Disappearing Man. This week, I'm the Staying-At-Home-In-The-Warm-And-Moving-Nowhere Man.
It happens. I know it happens. It's how you deal with it happening that's the key.
Onward, and downward, we go.
Bastard...
Double brr and buggery.
Firstly, it's been freezing, and positively pissing down much of this week, which has a natural tendency to make me curl up into a ball, pull a duvet over my head and hang a sign round my neck saying 'Fuck You Till Spring.'
Secondly, I've been on a tight deadline all week, which is now at the stage in a Bond movie where the villain pushes the hero's face closer and close to a bandsaw and Connery (let's face it, it's always Connery in metaphors, whoever your own personal Bond may be) grimaces and tries to summon some Scottish grit so he can donkey kick the villain in the balls and break free. That's meant that, even had the weather been lovely, I wouldn't have had time to take its kindness personally and go walking. This has been a week where staying indoors and eating and drinking hot things has been Plan A for several, extremely rational, reasons.
Which is why this morning, I weigh in at 17st 10.25.
Static. Hey, it's the deal, right? You move, the weight moves. You stay still, at your very luckiest, the weight stays still.
So that means it won't be till at least the last week of January that I see a 16 on the face of the Nazi Scales. Joy.
What's less, but still concerning, is that I've had blood sugars in the 7s and 8s all week, except today, when clearly, my personification of the universe is out to kick me, and I baaaarely scraped acceptability with a 9.9.
The obvious result of course is that when things don't go your way for the first time in a Disappearance (and probably at several more such points on the way down), your immediate impulsive reaction (or mine, anyway - it may be an only-child thing for all I know), is to sulk and pout and whine and storm off to the store for the biggest bar of chocolate you can find. It's Christmas, you can find some really huge bars of chocolate right now. There's a bar of Galaxy in our local Tesco Express that's only about a head shorter than I am. I know. I just checked, in a fume. it's a popsitively toddler reaction of throwing your toys out of the pram - 'Well, if being good isn't going to bring me results, I might just as well be bad, so there!'
Ride this idiocy out, or you'll fall, right there and then.
Perversely - and get a lot of the titanium testicles on THIS guy - my house is currently full of home-made fudge. After Eight Fudge. Bounty-studded Fudge. Fudge made by the fair hand of my wife, who has on occasion this week offered me 'just a smidge, to test.' But no. I eschew the Fudge of love ('...and STILL you don't lose!' roars my toddler-brain) - were I to go on a rampage, frankly, you wouldn't hear about it till afterwards, when I was penitent and ready to confess, and I wouldn't got o town on d's homemade fudge. I'd go to Tesco and get an enormo-bag of M and Ms and eat them without tasting them, in secret, for the sheer visceral pleasure of self-defeat - did anyone miss the fact that in my case, this weight shit is frequently compulsive, and secret, and self-harming? Fairly sure I covered that, but might not have been for years...
But no. Bought myself a small bottle of apple juice (Because ooh, the pleasure) and a new box of breakfast cereal, came home, spat these words into the computer, and am going back to the bandaw in a moment). This week, I'm clearly not the Disappearing Man. This week, I'm the Staying-At-Home-In-The-Warm-And-Moving-Nowhere Man.
It happens. I know it happens. It's how you deal with it happening that's the key.
Onward, and downward, we go.
Bastard...
Tuesday, 10 April 2018
The Evolutionary Flop
There are moments, when you've been swimming against tiny, irritating eddies, and suddenly find yourself gulping for air, flopped on the sand, when you take a breath, and think 'Blimey, that was harder work than it should have been. Maybe some lungs and some legs would help.'
It feels, in short, like changing from one environment to another, hand having the whole long palaver of 'being a land animal' ahead of you. Still, you gasp, and rest, and then begin to waggle your tail to stop the water seizing you and dragging you back.
Did the stupid 'day-before' unofficial weigh-in again yesterday - no, I have no idea why, you'd think I'd no better. Did it in the middle of the day, when I was sloshing with a variety of liquids and packed down with a cereal breakfast - weighed-in at 19st 4.75.
After which came a day including some roasted cashew nuts, a baked potato, and a chunky ciabatta chicken sandwich.
Then...
Well, then I went to sleep.
Was up at three with a belly that felt like you could bounce canonballs off it. Much peeing later, I appeared to have let out the rigidity.
Up at five, startled from a dream of being about to go on stage, live, in my first stand-up gig to a hostile audience, and searching backstage for any kind of bathroom before the show began and I naturally died in front of a home-town crowd who would hate every word I said. Anxiety dream? Sure, if you like, but it did wonders for the solid stomach - seemed to shave another shirt size off the ball bearing belly.
Woke this morning, went to weigh-in.
18st 12, said the Nazi Scales.
'Fuck off,' I casually whispered. Losing nearly half a stone in the space of about 18 hours?
I stepped on them again. 'Wellll, alright, see if this feels more realistic then,' they wheedled.
18 stone 13.75.
I got off, switched them off, got on. 18 stone 13.75.
I did it one more time for a confirmation reading, vaguely kicking myself that I hadn't taken my luck when I'd first found it.
18 stone 13.75 pounds. 265.75 pounds, for the Americans.
Finally pushed down beyond the 19 stone barrier. 18 is still nothing to celebrate - I tend not to feel like I'm genuinely Disappearing till I see a 17 - but still, given this time's rather slower beginning, this is me panting breathless, taking my first waggle up the beach as some kind of land animal.
It feels, in short, like changing from one environment to another, hand having the whole long palaver of 'being a land animal' ahead of you. Still, you gasp, and rest, and then begin to waggle your tail to stop the water seizing you and dragging you back.
Did the stupid 'day-before' unofficial weigh-in again yesterday - no, I have no idea why, you'd think I'd no better. Did it in the middle of the day, when I was sloshing with a variety of liquids and packed down with a cereal breakfast - weighed-in at 19st 4.75.
After which came a day including some roasted cashew nuts, a baked potato, and a chunky ciabatta chicken sandwich.
Then...
Well, then I went to sleep.
Was up at three with a belly that felt like you could bounce canonballs off it. Much peeing later, I appeared to have let out the rigidity.
Up at five, startled from a dream of being about to go on stage, live, in my first stand-up gig to a hostile audience, and searching backstage for any kind of bathroom before the show began and I naturally died in front of a home-town crowd who would hate every word I said. Anxiety dream? Sure, if you like, but it did wonders for the solid stomach - seemed to shave another shirt size off the ball bearing belly.
Woke this morning, went to weigh-in.
18st 12, said the Nazi Scales.
'Fuck off,' I casually whispered. Losing nearly half a stone in the space of about 18 hours?
I stepped on them again. 'Wellll, alright, see if this feels more realistic then,' they wheedled.
18 stone 13.75.
I got off, switched them off, got on. 18 stone 13.75.
I did it one more time for a confirmation reading, vaguely kicking myself that I hadn't taken my luck when I'd first found it.
18 stone 13.75 pounds. 265.75 pounds, for the Americans.
Finally pushed down beyond the 19 stone barrier. 18 is still nothing to celebrate - I tend not to feel like I'm genuinely Disappearing till I see a 17 - but still, given this time's rather slower beginning, this is me panting breathless, taking my first waggle up the beach as some kind of land animal.
Tuesday, 27 March 2018
The Swearing teeth and the Nazi Scales
Scuse me a second, I need to put my swearing teeth in.
Goddamnsonofanadultdiaperpissingcockarsewanker....
Sigh. Thanks. Feel at least a smidgen better now.
Last week, against all odds and logic, you might remember I'd lost a pound. Whoop de doo, a whole solitary pound, that took me down to 19st 1 pound.
Yay, thought I - all I have to do is be as good next week as I was this week - which wasn't that good, all told - and I'll be on the 19 stone border. Just a little better, and I might see an 18.
D'you wanna know what I saw when I got on the Nazi Scales* today?
Do ya?
19 stone, 0.25, that's what.
A quarter of a goddamn pound. I'm a meaningful fart away from the border, dammit! The Nazi Scales are clearly having just a devil of a laugh with me, stringing me out for just as long as they possibly can.
Still, another week when I've lost weight. The barest, three-quarters of a pound of weight, true, but inching pathetically in the right direction nontheless. Yippee Skippy, and on we go.
* Fro those who don't know, I maintain a working theory that Nazis, when they die, get reincarnated as the bathroom scales of fat people. That means not only do they get an eternity of being stepped on, just to see how they like it, but also that there's a logic of utter bastardy in what every fat person sees when they step on a scale. Hence the Nazi Scales.
Goddamnsonofanadultdiaperpissingcockarsewanker....
Sigh. Thanks. Feel at least a smidgen better now.
Last week, against all odds and logic, you might remember I'd lost a pound. Whoop de doo, a whole solitary pound, that took me down to 19st 1 pound.
Yay, thought I - all I have to do is be as good next week as I was this week - which wasn't that good, all told - and I'll be on the 19 stone border. Just a little better, and I might see an 18.
D'you wanna know what I saw when I got on the Nazi Scales* today?
Do ya?
19 stone, 0.25, that's what.
A quarter of a goddamn pound. I'm a meaningful fart away from the border, dammit! The Nazi Scales are clearly having just a devil of a laugh with me, stringing me out for just as long as they possibly can.
Still, another week when I've lost weight. The barest, three-quarters of a pound of weight, true, but inching pathetically in the right direction nontheless. Yippee Skippy, and on we go.
* Fro those who don't know, I maintain a working theory that Nazis, when they die, get reincarnated as the bathroom scales of fat people. That means not only do they get an eternity of being stepped on, just to see how they like it, but also that there's a logic of utter bastardy in what every fat person sees when they step on a scale. Hence the Nazi Scales.
Monday, 27 November 2017
Winky
So – hoorah. Started pre-Disappearing today. For the
uninitiated, pre-Disappearing is what happens before the first official
weigh-in, which given that d made a mercy dash to a local hardware store this
afternoon, will now be tomorrow. Pre-Disappearing is nothing terribly special,
it’s just not doing the things I used to do, and doing some new things instead.
Was going to be up in time to growl at larks on the wing and
flick snails off the thorn and all that, but…what can I tell you, I live at the
seaside now, and that seems to bring a lethargy with it that allows larks and
snails to race about the place unimpeded. To be fair, I was up at
6…something-or-other to enjoy that delightful middle-aged need to pee in the
night, but it was still pitch black outside at that time, because it’s November and the sun’s having none of it
either. So, I turned over, listened to an episode of Survivors (a bleak audio
drama about the world after a pandemic plague wipes out more than 90 per cent
of us – check it out, it’s from bigfinish.com, and it’s excellent), and then,
when d woke up, all smiles and bounciness and greeting the day, I felt the need
to humph, turn over and snore. Cos I’m just Mr Personality like that.
So – got a post-lark-and-snail start on the day, but,
determined to make it at least a Disappearing start, got dressed and naffed
officially off on the first walk of the week. Nothing dramatic, nothing overly
taxing, just a slowish walk from Saundersfoot to Wiseman’s Bridge and back, but
my phone (Oracle of All Things as it is), tells me that amounts to 7691 steps,
5.89 km (with a twiddly uphill bit at the end), and a somewhat cracking 543
calories burned – which given that it felt like more or less tokenism, I’m
happy to take before breakfast. It only rained torrentially down on me twice
during the walk too, so that was a result, and something else happened along
the way.
You know how, if you’ve been desperate to pee, and worried
about making it home in time, you reach your bathroom, finally, blessedly, and
it’s like all the pressing concerns of the world condense into one thought –
that you’ve made it, and you’re alright – and as you pee, you smile because
something that was in doubt has been safely achieved, and for those moments,
you don’t care about anything else in the world?
It was like that, only less urinocentric. On the way back
from Wiseman’s Bridge, I felt the sudden need to look out to sea, and did, and
it was like crossing the point of no return, only for a different kind of
relief. I breathed deeply in, and slowly out, and the stress of the last year,
of trying to sell our flat, and having buyer after buyer frustrate us, of being
made redundant right at the point
when we were hoping to start looking at mortgages, of the last undotted i’s and
the last uncrossed t’s that meant further and further delay as the money ran
out and we were flung upon the kindness not of strangers but of friends and
family, all shuddered out of me on that out-breath, and the smile that grew on
my face probably disturbed the ever-living fuck out of an elderly couple coming
the other way with the perverse determination to walk a Dachshund.
So, in stress, if not in actual blubber, I feel lighter
today.
Then, of course, the deep fat fryer arrived, like the Fuck-You
of the Gods.
I’m joking, really – I knew it was coming. d has phases of
learning and re-practice where she feels the call of the culinary deities upon
her shoulders, which is why, for instance, she makes kickass bread, and fudge
and the like. When the money from the flat came through, her single indulgence
was to get a deep fat fryer. It’s not that she’s about to set herself up in
competition with the many exquisite fish fry restaurants in the area – honest.
It’s more that there are things called cannolis, and these other things called
doughnuts, and so there’s a need for deep domestic fat.
Not, now, of course, for me, but in general these things are
needed, and so now, we have one. I’m calling it Winky…or possibly, for reasons
no-one will understand, P’diddle, at least until its presence becomes a giant
mocking outrage in my grease-starved life, which is at least a little down the
line. And at which point, I’ll probably start calling it ‘Pieces of Winky.’
Popped into the local Tesco Express on the way home, and the
attitude adjustment hit me. ‘Ooh, chocolate biscuits,’ I thought. ‘Fuck that,
fool, the chocolate bars are right here,’ said a different, rather more Mr T
part of my brain. Then in floated the Inner Hippy. ‘We don’t do that any more,’
he said, in precisely the tone of voice most likely to get the shit kicked out
of him. The thing is of course, in my recently post-stress relief, he was easy
to listen to. Things will by no means always be that way, but today at least,
in what I like to think of as the real battle
of Man Versus Food…Man won.
Man came home with a box of Weetabix in fact, for easier,
more measurable breakfast cerealing than Rice Krispies allow. To show willing
though, I downsized the size of my Krispie bowl this morning. And didn’t add a
base layer of cookies. And didn’t ‘mount’ the bowl with double cream and sugar,
so as to get that ‘Executive Rice Krispy Treat’ coagulation going on.
No – really.
That’s been my breakfast, and occasionally lunch, for weeks now. You want lessons on force feeding, come to Papa.
Lunch was going to be beans on toast, but as it happened, d
grew increasingly busy with an editing client on the phone, and lunch became
dinner prep. I’ve just eaten two home-made cheeseburgers – as in patties made
from scratch, grated cheese, bought buns, along with two small but gorgeous
potato cakes, which were technically shallow fried, and so which, gorgeous as
they were, I won’t be having again for a while. And some beans, left over from
the beans on toast idea.
And that’s me done. When I finish and post this – broadband
is still non-existent here in our new place, and the wifi’s ropy at best – I’m
going to jump on the exercise bike and pedal for at least half an hour, so as
to begin reintroducing my body and my brain to the idea that this is a thing it
does now. That’s the game for now, I think – reconditioning. No chocolate
biscuits, but a short walk and a short biking session each day, so the brain
and the body start to build new patterns of expectation.
Thankfully, as I say, entirely due to a mercy dash from d,
there will be the first weigh-in tomorrow morning, which is when the
Disappearing starts in earnest.
The deep fat fryer may be winking at me, but tonight at
least, I have a date with a bike.
Disappearing Tip #1: Retrain
your brain.
Disappearing Tip #2:
Yes, this will suck.
Disappearing Tip #3: It’s
supposed to suck. Get through it, and
eventually, it will feel like normality. This is a good thing. Honest.
Sunday, 26 February 2017
The Catchup Confusion and the GBL List
What ho, chaps and chapesses, as Bertie Wooster would probably say, were he a) not fictional and b) here today. And indeed, what ho to all my non-binary Mx's too, because why the devil not, eh?
Apologies - missed quite a few days of entries, including, least forgiveably, a weigh-in day. Irritatingly, the Nazi Scales on weigh-in day were, sahll we say, fairly non-binary themselves, inasmuch as whenever I stepped on them, they refused to settle on the same figure twice. I woke up and they told me I was 18st 3.5. Hung aorund a bit, went for a fairly considered pee, and they put me UP to 18st 4.75. A few hours later, having still neither consumed anything nor notably expelled any more, they had me down as 18st 3.
So, really, who knows? I'm going to go with the first number they thought of, and say that irritatingly, I was still 18st 3.5 on Tuesday.
Since then, they've been doing some fairly similar things, varying by up to two pounds depending on, for instance, which foot goes on them first. We may be due a battery change, but certainly the news is not what I'd call conspicuously good. It's been one of those 'chained to the desk' weeks, though I have been pretty good in terms of going, like an automaton, for my 10,000 step walk every night, come rain, wind, sleet, snow and frankly just having a laugh. Still haven't plugged either the exercise bike or the treadmill in, which can't possibly go on much longer. What needs to happen is another big push, another system shock - a couple of days of double-walking, maybe, just to wake up a system that's now expecting 10,000 steps a day. Hmm. Will try and restructure a couple of days this week.
Pal of mine had a talk with a bariatric specialist today, and aparently had the whole 'Welll, you could be dead in ten years' talk. Believe me when I tell you, that'll put some rocket fuel in your Disappearing ass. It was being almost begged to have the procedure because otherwise I could be dead in ten that made me first decide to try to Disappear. That was something mad like six years ago now. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Four years away from notional deadline, where the hell am I? I'm trying to do it again the non-surgical way, and I'm only really a couple of stones lighter than Zoiksy McLifeThreatening was, six years ago. Still, whichever way you go, this fight for health and social normalcy is a bastard, so at the risk of dissolving into crappy quotes, you've either got to get busy living or get busy dying.
Of course, being able to feel like you're living helps. I'm struck by the urge to whinge and moan about how actually little I've accomplished, and whenever that urge comes on me, my Inner Working Class Bastard slaps me silly. I have an urge to whinge about how I'm not a published novelist yet, which would feel like getting busy living, and my Inner Working Class Bastard gets up in my face to say 'Best fucking write then, hadn't ya?' - I have a novel that I think needs a tweak to its ending and maybe one more go-through, but instead of doing any of that and sending it out, I'm editing like a mad bastard. I have two separate people who've given me writing gigs on Who audio plays, and instead of doing either of them, I'm...editing like a bastard. Have a feeling soon there will be a chart in my life - a GBL chart, which, rather than seeing all these things I want to do as part of my ordinary To-Do List, and so, sort of turning them into chores to be done, will turn them into temporal rewards: edited like a mad bastard for a whole project? Right - send off the novel to five agents. No really, fuck you, this is what this time is to be used for. Ring the bell when it's done and go back to edit another project.
In terms of Disappearing, it's the well-known idea of effort and reward. Get under 18stone - take a day to write for yourself. Get to 17st 7, take the day to rearrange the bejesus out of your website. And so on.
Yes - I like this plan. A GBL List, to get more stuff actually DONE, in more areas of life, and feel more alive. Feeling more alive=a bigger incentive to put the work in to do more Disappearing, and so on.
Now excuse me, have to just go and edit like a bastard before taking my 10,000 step walk in the frozen pissing rain.
Apologies - missed quite a few days of entries, including, least forgiveably, a weigh-in day. Irritatingly, the Nazi Scales on weigh-in day were, sahll we say, fairly non-binary themselves, inasmuch as whenever I stepped on them, they refused to settle on the same figure twice. I woke up and they told me I was 18st 3.5. Hung aorund a bit, went for a fairly considered pee, and they put me UP to 18st 4.75. A few hours later, having still neither consumed anything nor notably expelled any more, they had me down as 18st 3.
So, really, who knows? I'm going to go with the first number they thought of, and say that irritatingly, I was still 18st 3.5 on Tuesday.
Since then, they've been doing some fairly similar things, varying by up to two pounds depending on, for instance, which foot goes on them first. We may be due a battery change, but certainly the news is not what I'd call conspicuously good. It's been one of those 'chained to the desk' weeks, though I have been pretty good in terms of going, like an automaton, for my 10,000 step walk every night, come rain, wind, sleet, snow and frankly just having a laugh. Still haven't plugged either the exercise bike or the treadmill in, which can't possibly go on much longer. What needs to happen is another big push, another system shock - a couple of days of double-walking, maybe, just to wake up a system that's now expecting 10,000 steps a day. Hmm. Will try and restructure a couple of days this week.
Pal of mine had a talk with a bariatric specialist today, and aparently had the whole 'Welll, you could be dead in ten years' talk. Believe me when I tell you, that'll put some rocket fuel in your Disappearing ass. It was being almost begged to have the procedure because otherwise I could be dead in ten that made me first decide to try to Disappear. That was something mad like six years ago now. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Four years away from notional deadline, where the hell am I? I'm trying to do it again the non-surgical way, and I'm only really a couple of stones lighter than Zoiksy McLifeThreatening was, six years ago. Still, whichever way you go, this fight for health and social normalcy is a bastard, so at the risk of dissolving into crappy quotes, you've either got to get busy living or get busy dying.
Of course, being able to feel like you're living helps. I'm struck by the urge to whinge and moan about how actually little I've accomplished, and whenever that urge comes on me, my Inner Working Class Bastard slaps me silly. I have an urge to whinge about how I'm not a published novelist yet, which would feel like getting busy living, and my Inner Working Class Bastard gets up in my face to say 'Best fucking write then, hadn't ya?' - I have a novel that I think needs a tweak to its ending and maybe one more go-through, but instead of doing any of that and sending it out, I'm editing like a mad bastard. I have two separate people who've given me writing gigs on Who audio plays, and instead of doing either of them, I'm...editing like a bastard. Have a feeling soon there will be a chart in my life - a GBL chart, which, rather than seeing all these things I want to do as part of my ordinary To-Do List, and so, sort of turning them into chores to be done, will turn them into temporal rewards: edited like a mad bastard for a whole project? Right - send off the novel to five agents. No really, fuck you, this is what this time is to be used for. Ring the bell when it's done and go back to edit another project.
In terms of Disappearing, it's the well-known idea of effort and reward. Get under 18stone - take a day to write for yourself. Get to 17st 7, take the day to rearrange the bejesus out of your website. And so on.
Yes - I like this plan. A GBL List, to get more stuff actually DONE, in more areas of life, and feel more alive. Feeling more alive=a bigger incentive to put the work in to do more Disappearing, and so on.
Now excuse me, have to just go and edit like a bastard before taking my 10,000 step walk in the frozen pissing rain.
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Get Thee Behind Me, Milkshake
You remember that whole rant about how I walked in the rain, rather than using the brand, spanking new treadmill that's sitting in my comparatively warm, comparatively dry office?
Yyyyyeah, today I did my whole 10,000 step route in the absolute pissing rain. So - clearly, that works. I feel like I've just done 5,000 steps of walking, and 5,00 strokes of swimming. I may need an intervention, or something like a Post-It stuck to my forehead or somesuch, with the words "That's Why You Have The Treadmill, Dickwad!" on it.
Of course, if I had that, one, I wouldn't be able to read it, and two, it'd fall off in the pissing rain, so...maybe a tattoo on the inside of my retina or instead.
Mind you, I walked in the rain last night too. Came home, sank into a hot bath to warm up.
"You're right, you know?" said d just as we were about to go to bed.
"Really?" That seemed so massively unlikely I had to check. I wasn't sure what I could possibly have been right about, but I was willing to take it.
"Yes, really."
"Good then."
"Those Nazi Scales are messed-up."
"Oh," I said. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, they're all over the place. I just got on them four times and got four wildly different readings. Think they need a new battery or something."
"Ah. Cool then. When they tell me I'm a monstrous Disappearing failure in the morning, I'll tell them to go fuck themselves."
"Yes dear. That'll be fun for you."
And so we went to sleep. As I mentioned, I was really rather annoyed with the way the week had gone - yesterday when I woke up, I weighed in at 18st 12.5, which pissed me off because at various points in this week, I've seen 18st 7, and I've walked most days this week and done nothing especially out of the ordinary, so the bounce-back felt monumentally unfair.
As it happens though, a lot of walking yesterday and a relatively liquid diet along with it, and I weighed in this morning at an official 18st 7.75 pounds.
So that's one unfortunate fart away from a stone and a half (21 pounds) lost since a couple of weeks before Christmas. If nothing else, that proves to my body I'm not just dicking about with this this time. It also means I'm seven pounds and a fart away from the 18 stone border, which is the point at which I start to feel like I'm actually Disappearing. What that means is that it's gone from hard work to second nature. Which in turn means it's things that are first nature that can still, sometimes, trip me up.
Last night, prior to the Nazi Scale conversation but after marching up and down Cardiff Queen Street again, this time in protest at the Orange Obscenity's sudden anti-human clampdown on entry to the US, d had asked me to pick her up a couple of hot dogs from Five Guys and bring them home. No problem, no drama - went, put the order in...
...and then time tunnelled around me. I looked across at the Five Guys milkshake menu, and oh my ever-loving gods, but they sounded good. Having subsisted most of the day on one bowl of oatmeal and many coffees, and clocking up s faintly disappointing 17,000-odd steps, it was the most natural thing in the world to go "Oh, and a malted milk peanut butter shake, no cream..."
I heard myself say it. Heard my brain scream 'Wwwwwwhat the hell? This is what we don't do any more? Whaddaya dooooooinnnnnng?!' And I had the argument with myself - 'Fuck you, it's liquid. It's just a liquid, where's the bad, Oatmeal-Boy? Who can tell you not to do a thing? You know how good they taste. Surely 17,000 steps earns you a shake, right?'
The time tunnel collapsed. The server was looking at my face expectantly.
"Hmm?" I said, having one of those moments where you genuinely don't know if you've said something or only thought it.
"Is that everything for you?" he asked again. I glanced over at the milkshake menu again, felt the longing, the craving. Swallowed.
"Err...yeah. Thanks." And the moment passed.
Or almost - I had five other time tunnel moments while waiting for the order to be delivered, to the extent that I almost tried to take someone else's food when it came out before mine, so keen was I to stop my brain from dangling the icy, creamy pleasure in my path, and point out that there was no line, and that I could just nip across and add a shake to the order, no problem.
Sigh. See? Beware of your first nature - it's the primal pleasure principle and the idea of denying it is where the idea of 'sin' comes from. But, at least for this day, the 'demon' Milkshake didn't trip me up, which means the erratic Nazi Scales this morning were relatively kind, and on we jolly well go. I'd like to tell you the next stop is 18 stone, but it probaby, in all honesty, isn't. There'll probably be some amount of dicking about in the upper half of the 18s before I start to make progress to things like 18st 4. Then, in all likelihood, there'll be endless faffing to get down beneath the border of 18. But the goal at least is to a) get beneath 18st 7, and then b) get beneath 18 stone.
Yyyyyeah, today I did my whole 10,000 step route in the absolute pissing rain. So - clearly, that works. I feel like I've just done 5,000 steps of walking, and 5,00 strokes of swimming. I may need an intervention, or something like a Post-It stuck to my forehead or somesuch, with the words "That's Why You Have The Treadmill, Dickwad!" on it.
Of course, if I had that, one, I wouldn't be able to read it, and two, it'd fall off in the pissing rain, so...maybe a tattoo on the inside of my retina or instead.
Mind you, I walked in the rain last night too. Came home, sank into a hot bath to warm up.
"You're right, you know?" said d just as we were about to go to bed.
"Really?" That seemed so massively unlikely I had to check. I wasn't sure what I could possibly have been right about, but I was willing to take it.
"Yes, really."
"Good then."
"Those Nazi Scales are messed-up."
"Oh," I said. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, they're all over the place. I just got on them four times and got four wildly different readings. Think they need a new battery or something."
"Ah. Cool then. When they tell me I'm a monstrous Disappearing failure in the morning, I'll tell them to go fuck themselves."
"Yes dear. That'll be fun for you."
And so we went to sleep. As I mentioned, I was really rather annoyed with the way the week had gone - yesterday when I woke up, I weighed in at 18st 12.5, which pissed me off because at various points in this week, I've seen 18st 7, and I've walked most days this week and done nothing especially out of the ordinary, so the bounce-back felt monumentally unfair.
As it happens though, a lot of walking yesterday and a relatively liquid diet along with it, and I weighed in this morning at an official 18st 7.75 pounds.
So that's one unfortunate fart away from a stone and a half (21 pounds) lost since a couple of weeks before Christmas. If nothing else, that proves to my body I'm not just dicking about with this this time. It also means I'm seven pounds and a fart away from the 18 stone border, which is the point at which I start to feel like I'm actually Disappearing. What that means is that it's gone from hard work to second nature. Which in turn means it's things that are first nature that can still, sometimes, trip me up.
Last night, prior to the Nazi Scale conversation but after marching up and down Cardiff Queen Street again, this time in protest at the Orange Obscenity's sudden anti-human clampdown on entry to the US, d had asked me to pick her up a couple of hot dogs from Five Guys and bring them home. No problem, no drama - went, put the order in...
...and then time tunnelled around me. I looked across at the Five Guys milkshake menu, and oh my ever-loving gods, but they sounded good. Having subsisted most of the day on one bowl of oatmeal and many coffees, and clocking up s faintly disappointing 17,000-odd steps, it was the most natural thing in the world to go "Oh, and a malted milk peanut butter shake, no cream..."
I heard myself say it. Heard my brain scream 'Wwwwwwhat the hell? This is what we don't do any more? Whaddaya dooooooinnnnnng?!' And I had the argument with myself - 'Fuck you, it's liquid. It's just a liquid, where's the bad, Oatmeal-Boy? Who can tell you not to do a thing? You know how good they taste. Surely 17,000 steps earns you a shake, right?'
The time tunnel collapsed. The server was looking at my face expectantly.
"Hmm?" I said, having one of those moments where you genuinely don't know if you've said something or only thought it.
"Is that everything for you?" he asked again. I glanced over at the milkshake menu again, felt the longing, the craving. Swallowed.
"Err...yeah. Thanks." And the moment passed.
Or almost - I had five other time tunnel moments while waiting for the order to be delivered, to the extent that I almost tried to take someone else's food when it came out before mine, so keen was I to stop my brain from dangling the icy, creamy pleasure in my path, and point out that there was no line, and that I could just nip across and add a shake to the order, no problem.
Sigh. See? Beware of your first nature - it's the primal pleasure principle and the idea of denying it is where the idea of 'sin' comes from. But, at least for this day, the 'demon' Milkshake didn't trip me up, which means the erratic Nazi Scales this morning were relatively kind, and on we jolly well go. I'd like to tell you the next stop is 18 stone, but it probaby, in all honesty, isn't. There'll probably be some amount of dicking about in the upper half of the 18s before I start to make progress to things like 18st 4. Then, in all likelihood, there'll be endless faffing to get down beneath the border of 18. But the goal at least is to a) get beneath 18st 7, and then b) get beneath 18 stone.
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, 18 January 2017
Walking With Fiends
Inspired (for which pretty much read 'pissed off') by yesterday's unfortunate weigh-in result, I determined that tonight I would re-start the longer, 11 or 12,000 step walks.
Normally, I do this with my phone, because a) it's the 21st century, who goes out for long walks in the dark without their phone?, but mostly b) the step-counter's on the phone, and it monitors my daily walking so I can chart my daily, weekly and monthy achievements - oh make no mistake about it, there's no end to my nerdiness.
Tonight, in the deep, encompassing dark with a fine Valleys attempt at swirling fog for atmosphere, I set out on my long walk. Got past most of the main uphill sections, reached Dowlais, and decided to check my step-count, which is as good an excuse for a momentary breather as any other. Put my hand in my pocket, only to come up empty.
Crap. Had the phone, which is almost chunky enough to be an 80s housebrick, fallen out of my fairly loose pockets somewhere along the line, or was it still at home somewhere? I'll just call d and find out, I thought, reaching into my pocket for my -
Goddamnsonofabitchandbastard!
Here's a weird note. I seriously considered turning round and coming back home, because, jeez, who can be outdoors, safely, wihtout a phone these days?
Only by strenuously reminding myself I'd done it for more than twenty years before getting my first mobile phone, cos yes folks, I really am that old, did I push on.
It's probably worth mentioning that in the darkness and poor town lighting, and swirling fog, my audio companion of choice tonight was the beginning of a fourteen-hour unabridged reading of Dracula.
Now in no way did I move faster because of the narrative of vampires and wolves and suchlike nonsense (from what I can see so far, Dracula's more like a psychological thriller as Jonathan 'Emo Much?' Harker lets his fears drive him stark screaming mad), but there's a certain gothic frisson to walking round a town shrouded in darkness and mist while the narrative unfolds in your head, and you realise that if you get jumped, as you might, and as I have been in this town, you can't call for help. Powered my way around the route and home. The phone was sitting innocently on my desk, going 'Whaaaat?' Git.
Anyhow, the push to push the Nazi Scale numbers back in the right direction has begun - now powered by vampires!
Normally, I do this with my phone, because a) it's the 21st century, who goes out for long walks in the dark without their phone?, but mostly b) the step-counter's on the phone, and it monitors my daily walking so I can chart my daily, weekly and monthy achievements - oh make no mistake about it, there's no end to my nerdiness.
Tonight, in the deep, encompassing dark with a fine Valleys attempt at swirling fog for atmosphere, I set out on my long walk. Got past most of the main uphill sections, reached Dowlais, and decided to check my step-count, which is as good an excuse for a momentary breather as any other. Put my hand in my pocket, only to come up empty.
Crap. Had the phone, which is almost chunky enough to be an 80s housebrick, fallen out of my fairly loose pockets somewhere along the line, or was it still at home somewhere? I'll just call d and find out, I thought, reaching into my pocket for my -
Goddamnsonofabitchandbastard!
Here's a weird note. I seriously considered turning round and coming back home, because, jeez, who can be outdoors, safely, wihtout a phone these days?
Only by strenuously reminding myself I'd done it for more than twenty years before getting my first mobile phone, cos yes folks, I really am that old, did I push on.
It's probably worth mentioning that in the darkness and poor town lighting, and swirling fog, my audio companion of choice tonight was the beginning of a fourteen-hour unabridged reading of Dracula.
Now in no way did I move faster because of the narrative of vampires and wolves and suchlike nonsense (from what I can see so far, Dracula's more like a psychological thriller as Jonathan 'Emo Much?' Harker lets his fears drive him stark screaming mad), but there's a certain gothic frisson to walking round a town shrouded in darkness and mist while the narrative unfolds in your head, and you realise that if you get jumped, as you might, and as I have been in this town, you can't call for help. Powered my way around the route and home. The phone was sitting innocently on my desk, going 'Whaaaat?' Git.
Anyhow, the push to push the Nazi Scale numbers back in the right direction has begun - now powered by vampires!
The Nazi Grudge - 17/1/16
Humph.
I have not been walking as much or as far these last few days as I had last week, and so have created for myself a kind of false plateau by the simple expedient of not dedicating enough time or effort to the bloody-mindedness of Disappearing.
Nevertheless, I was irritated by the Nazi Scales this morning. The last few nights, when I've weighed before going to bed (yes, I'm perfectly aware I shouldn't be doing that, so as to maintain a positive, sunny outlook on my weightloss, but really, you have to ask - do I strike you as Captain Sunshine?), I've been slightly over the 19 stone border, falling back under the border come the morning by more or less the simple process of evaporation it seems.
Last night though - after a fairly hefty meal including sausage (d's secret weapon against the joys of occasional constipation that come with Disappearing and not drinking enough water), and roast potato (Yes, I know - it's best not to ask - if the recent hot chocolate thing hasn't clued you in yet, my walls of division between what I allow myself and what I don't are serious, but frequently entirely illogical) - I weighed 18st 13.75 going to bed, and comforted myself that with the usual couple of pounds of overnight evaporation, plus the weight of the food I could expect to be gone from me before I weighed, I might confidently expect to be 'really' weighing 18st 10 this morning, my stated and intended goal.
Imagine my chagrin then, when morning came and in one of the first genuinely post-bathroom weigh-ins since we began again, I checked in at 18 st 13.
It feels neither right nor entirely fair, but let's not cry about it. Somehow, this week, I've not only not lost anything, I've regained an official pound. More than anything, that's tiresome because it means there's work to do again that was already done, albeit it's just the weight of a substantial pee.
So - on we go, with an occasional glare at the Nazi Scales in passing. A little bit longer, a little bit further to go.
I have not been walking as much or as far these last few days as I had last week, and so have created for myself a kind of false plateau by the simple expedient of not dedicating enough time or effort to the bloody-mindedness of Disappearing.
Nevertheless, I was irritated by the Nazi Scales this morning. The last few nights, when I've weighed before going to bed (yes, I'm perfectly aware I shouldn't be doing that, so as to maintain a positive, sunny outlook on my weightloss, but really, you have to ask - do I strike you as Captain Sunshine?), I've been slightly over the 19 stone border, falling back under the border come the morning by more or less the simple process of evaporation it seems.
Last night though - after a fairly hefty meal including sausage (d's secret weapon against the joys of occasional constipation that come with Disappearing and not drinking enough water), and roast potato (Yes, I know - it's best not to ask - if the recent hot chocolate thing hasn't clued you in yet, my walls of division between what I allow myself and what I don't are serious, but frequently entirely illogical) - I weighed 18st 13.75 going to bed, and comforted myself that with the usual couple of pounds of overnight evaporation, plus the weight of the food I could expect to be gone from me before I weighed, I might confidently expect to be 'really' weighing 18st 10 this morning, my stated and intended goal.
Imagine my chagrin then, when morning came and in one of the first genuinely post-bathroom weigh-ins since we began again, I checked in at 18 st 13.
It feels neither right nor entirely fair, but let's not cry about it. Somehow, this week, I've not only not lost anything, I've regained an official pound. More than anything, that's tiresome because it means there's work to do again that was already done, albeit it's just the weight of a substantial pee.
So - on we go, with an occasional glare at the Nazi Scales in passing. A little bit longer, a little bit further to go.
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.
Thursday, 21 April 2016
The Burned-Bank
Ow.
Ow.
Did I mention, ow?
The feet were fine last night, then I jumped in the shower, and the deadened areas came screaming back to life. If I've learned one thing over five years of succeeding and failing at this Disappearing lark, it's that if you push things too far too fast, you end up blistered or injured and falling back simply due to an inability to keep up the exercise.
Now this morning, I had an appointment at the hospital. Got a cab up, tipped a coffee over myself, had an audiology test (mostly involving squeezing the skull and pressing buttong), and got discharged. Then decided it was important to get steps into the day, and walked home.
The hospital's not that far, really, from the town centre. I appear to have had a brainstorm, going a different way to normal, ending up wandering around a houseing estate called Cefn Coed, and ultimately, walking 3 km. By this point in the day, I've done over 4 km, or two miles and a stretch. That's not very far. I've also had a takeaway tonight - Indian, chunks of meat in a relatively dry sauce, and a supposedly 'healthy' roti bread. Also, almost inadvertantly, a chapati. So, perhaps a little bread-heavy.
So - in an attempt to a) give myself an alternative for more inclement days, and b) focus the exercise in terms of time, because as I write this it's gone 8pm and I don't have two hours, I'm about to jump back on the bike and sweat my face off.
Suffice it to say, this morning, the Nazi Scales were happy with me. For two days of active Disappearing, the 'first-week water' was Disappearing reasonably quickly. What they'll think of me after a day with less walking and more bread is anyone's guess. But I'm facing forward and adding calories to the 'burned bank' - the collective of calories burned in activity - against which the day's food intake has to be set. So who knows? All I can do is push, and stay committed.
(Adopts fighting stance). Grrrrrr. To the burned-bank, Disappearing Man!
Ow.
Did I mention, ow?
The feet were fine last night, then I jumped in the shower, and the deadened areas came screaming back to life. If I've learned one thing over five years of succeeding and failing at this Disappearing lark, it's that if you push things too far too fast, you end up blistered or injured and falling back simply due to an inability to keep up the exercise.
Now this morning, I had an appointment at the hospital. Got a cab up, tipped a coffee over myself, had an audiology test (mostly involving squeezing the skull and pressing buttong), and got discharged. Then decided it was important to get steps into the day, and walked home.
The hospital's not that far, really, from the town centre. I appear to have had a brainstorm, going a different way to normal, ending up wandering around a houseing estate called Cefn Coed, and ultimately, walking 3 km. By this point in the day, I've done over 4 km, or two miles and a stretch. That's not very far. I've also had a takeaway tonight - Indian, chunks of meat in a relatively dry sauce, and a supposedly 'healthy' roti bread. Also, almost inadvertantly, a chapati. So, perhaps a little bread-heavy.
So - in an attempt to a) give myself an alternative for more inclement days, and b) focus the exercise in terms of time, because as I write this it's gone 8pm and I don't have two hours, I'm about to jump back on the bike and sweat my face off.
Suffice it to say, this morning, the Nazi Scales were happy with me. For two days of active Disappearing, the 'first-week water' was Disappearing reasonably quickly. What they'll think of me after a day with less walking and more bread is anyone's guess. But I'm facing forward and adding calories to the 'burned bank' - the collective of calories burned in activity - against which the day's food intake has to be set. So who knows? All I can do is push, and stay committed.
(Adopts fighting stance). Grrrrrr. To the burned-bank, Disappearing Man!
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.
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