The Denial of Disappearing Climate Change

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...

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.

The Flaw In the Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick

Of course, the trouble with the Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick (I'm SO gonna write that book...) is that you have to...y'know...NOT be a dick.

Totally been a Dick this week. In almost every conceivable way, this week, I own the Dickitude.

Walking: no. Exercise: no. d's home-made Bread To Die For? Oh hellyes, to the point of utter enstuffedness. Sunday lunch with a sleep afterwards, just so it can realise there's nowhere to go and get stored as fat? Yep. All that and more. More or less took a flamethrower to the idea of Not Being A Dick this week. Don't ask me why, that gets us nowhere of value. Sometimes, just 'Because' is all the answer there is.

Therefore, it's not really a surprise that the only time I've unofficially weighed-in this week (having scared the living daylights out of myself by a casual mirror-glance on getting out of the bath), I've seen the Nazi Scales punch me in the paunch, with readings of 17 stone 12.75!

However, that has turned out to be something of a malicious beating, as this morning's official weigh-in has me clocking in at 17 stone 5 pounds. Down, by half a pound. Yes, absolutely it's pathetic - in the words of comedian Peter Kay on the experience of watching people being congratulated at a Slimming World meeting, 'What's a pound? I shit a pound!' - but given the endickitude of the week, I'm more than happy to take it.

Of course the danger there is that one begins to believe the universe is on one's side - 'Wahay, I was a dick and still went the right way.'

This. Is. Never. True.

This, in fact, is the very acme of a false sense of security. This attitude must be punched repeatedly in the face until it shuts up and allows reason to rule again.

So, another week of resolving to Not Be A Dick. Just like last week...

Hmm. Fight the endickitude!

The Hamster-Wheel of Panic

Last week I wrote this blog three days after my weigh-in, and, in that kind of maudlin, silent signalling of self-inflicted martrydom that I vaguely believe I learned from my bio-dad (He had a knack with a muscial choice, did my bio-dad, throwing down the late Elvis tracks like Suspicious Minds and My Boy, and singing his heart out to affect the mood of the room, while claiming he'd just fancied the sound of them), but which I can justly claim to have refind into a rather more fully sickening brow-clutching 'Woe is me! No, really, I'm fine' double standard, I reported that, in the wake of having dropped two pounds in a day and then maintained that level for a week, I would probably celebrate by injecting chocolate into my eyeballs or somesuch.

The point of which of course is that I wrote it on Friday, not Tuesday. So by Friday, I already knew what the intervening three days had looked like - sedentary, and while not exactly crammed from end to end with intra-venous chocolate, certainly not by any stretch as seriously dedicated to healthy eating as I should have been. So I prepped you for disaster by that throwaway line of what would 'probably' happen.

This, by the way, is the kind of hamster-wheel that circles all. The. Time in my brain. Reality, perception, work, non-work, how to justify and find the appropriate answers, the appropriate pose. Now, imagine that kind of acidic over-analysis applying to every single thing. Every single choice, every single action, where to stand, how to be, what to say and not-say-now, what to do and why not to do it till it's almost too late, and how, above all, to wage war. war on myself, war between the selves that want to succeed and want to fail, want to do what they set out to do and want to coolly revel in the epicness of failure. The war between the urge to triumph and the urge to self-destroy, and round, and round, and round, and round it goes, never stopping, never pausing, never ever shutting up - just in case you were wondering why I wear headphones 80% of the time, it's to block out this ungovernable nonsense in my brain.

I tried explaining this to a doctor once - he gave me more diet pills.

And yes, of course, incidentally, I know that this particular entry sounds like I just did an 8-ball of coke and have nowhere to go. Partially, that's because that's what it sounds like inside my head all the time, partially, it's because it's vaguely cathartic to get this out of my fingertips for a moment, and partially of course it's because some level of hamster-wheeling said 'Let them know - THAT'll be fun!'

All of which is by way of explaining that last week's entry was written with insider knowledge that I'd probably go up this week.
Then there was a Walk.

A walk I agreed to when there seemed fewer clouds in the sky and less work to do and fewer encroaching deadlines, and a walk which, when I woke up an hour before it was due to start, I gave a hearty 'Oh fuck!' about because by then I really didn't want to do it, because it was a 'led' walk, with Other Human Beings, which if you've been here a while you'll know I applaud in the abstract but detest in the reality. Nevertheless, the hamster-wheel turned, and the idea of having to explain I'd booked a place on the walk and then had been too put off by the proximity of humans to actually go through with it gave me a result of at the very least looking like I was having some kind of real problem with the outside world and its humans, and so, to disprove the appearance of that, irrespective of the reality of that, I should get my arse out the door and go.

So I went.

The walk itself was fine. The having to be sociable sucked - I'm not entirely sure why. They were nice people, good people, each with their own interesting backstory, but something deep in my heart resented the fact that I was obliged to be sociable with them, to ask them questions to which I could give not the most shrivelled of figs for the answers, to try and make them smile and laugh and, frankly, fail - tough crowd, your average ramblers, it appears - and JEEESUS, I swear I'm not on coke right know, but if you're reading this with spaces between the words it's only because my fingers are more courteous than my brain and they're cutting you a break. Anyyyyhow, did the walk. Longish walk, over 10,000 steps, many of them uphill, came home, collapsed, whinged in muscle-ache for the next day and a half, did nothing.

Weighed in this morning.
17 stone 4.

Might not sound like much to you, this half-pound of progress, but really, honestly, I will take it and kiss it and stroke it, and I shall call it George, because the onnnnly goddamn thing that can have got me there is yomping through the local nature with a bunch of people I'd much rather have shut out behind the safety of some earbuds. So - yay to them.

I know, right - this didn't go quite where you were thinking it would go, probably, because of all the high-octane fatalism at the front end, you probably expected a result of grandiose failure - hell, I kind of did. Again, thank the fingertips, they're far more often where the actual processing power of my brain is located - the majority of my ACTUAL brain is locked into spirals of hamster-wheeling about every decision from 'Tea or coffee?' to 'What do we need to do with the day?' to actually get anything constructive done, which is why a) the processing power's in the fingertips, and b) that's a good thing.

I think perhaps the thing is that this blog's been written not on cocaine, nor even on the grandly self-castigating melodrama of 'Oh woe is me, I've put on weight!' I have just checked my bank balance though, which rather spurred the self-revolving lemming in my brain to a series of monotonous 'Oh fuck''s, and it's probably that that started me off in such an insane spirit in this blog. Even as I write this, I can feel the panic levels falling, dropping, the boiling hot fear of crashing myself into the ever-loving ground eeeeeasing, even though nothing whatsoever has actually changed in that reality since I started writing the blog. Don't get me wrong, the hamster-wheel absolutely does revolve in the way I've detailed, all the time, without end (though crucially, gazing at the sea sometimes helps), but I can feel myself coming down from the abject, world-punching panic and fear of peering down the gunbarrel of financial oblivion, as the hamster-wheel revolves. Send the emails one needs to send. Get the money in the door. Pay the bills one has to pay, Revolve, revolve, revolve...

If this is now just sounding like splurge on a page, there's one important piece of connective tissue. Saw the weigh-in this morning, was all kinds of 'Cool - I'll take that this week. Saw the bank account, went 'Bang!' and started revolving at coke-speed. First thing I did? Went to Tesco, grabbed a sleeve of chocolate biscuits.

That's not even comfort eating, that's panic-eating. I didn't even particularly want them, I'm not, today, especially motivated by the sweetness and the chocolatey fantasticness of things. But get this - in response to a moment of stone cold panic, I spent money I do not have, on food that's practically guaranteed to elevate my blood sugars and is likely to be stored, in the absence of exercise, as fat. I paid...to self-harm.

I had four, as the basis of a bowl of cereal. Breakfast of self-defeating windbags, right there.

Now of course, I've come clean about them to you here, which means I'm not going to eat any more of them. But ultimately, the point is that the way my wind works is a constant wheel of questions, choices, judgements and random moments of panic.

And the immediate, unthinking response to a moment of panic was to grab the chocolate biscuits.

Did I mention that I ttried to explain this to a doctor once? Yyyyeah - diet pills.
While I know that the fundamental equation of weightloss is straightforward - take in less of the 'bad' stuff, do more of the good stuff that burns up the bad stuff, hoorah, all is well in the land of Oz - it is possibly worth acknowledging that what you're dealing with in many people's cases is not the calm, sunny-weathered mental landscape that can simply follow this equation to Positivityville. More often, you're throwing the equation (and the pills) into a cyclotron full of forks and expecting it to survive and make sense, even when the cyclotron panics.

My cyclotron panicked this morning. Fortunately, of course, it panicked after the weigh-in. Here's to not panic-eating evvvvvverything in the district before we do this again.

The Temporal Irrelevance

So last week, I had to report a rise in weight to 17 stone 6.5, despite not really feeling like it was a valid reading.

The day after the weigh-in, with a more...shall we say regular approach to the business of digestion, I did an unofficial weigh-in and tipped the scales at 17 stone 4.5.

After a certain amount of jumping up and down, yelling 'Ha! Bloody told you so!' and flicking somewhat vehement Vs at the Nazi Scales, I went about my business, and, thinking that, with a two pound lead on the week, I should really do my best to capitalise on it. Went walking for three consecutive days (only slightly embuggeranced on the way by the fact that d started making mini pineapple upside-down cakes). The rest of the week I didn't walk, due to deadlines, but I did act rather more like a human being determined to live - smaller portions, relatively sensible lunch choices, protein and vegetation-rich dinners etc.

Which means it is with a certain pride that I can tell you I weighed in this week at:
17 stone 4.5.

The whole week might as well not have existed after Wednesday. Buggerall moved, buggerall changed, I might as well have locked myself in a deep freeze and gone cryogenic from Wednesday to Tuesday - the result would have been the same.

So, on the one hand, and I mean this sincerely - BUM.

On the other of course, I have at least technically moved two pounds in the right pigging direction. So yay - let tiny banners be waved, let tiny trumpets be blown, let tiny vuvuzuelas be confiscated immediately, because they inarguably should be, irrespective of the celebration.

And on we go. At this point, I just want to be done. More immediately, I'm booooooored of writing a 17 at the front of my weight. I want the creamy goodness of a 16, because it feels at this point like there's still so far to go, and right now I'm merely dicking about, back and forth in the shallow end of the 17s. 

Will that mean I work extra hard to push on down this week?
You know me - what do you think? Probably means I'll mainline chocolate biscuits into my eyeballs or somesuch dumbass thing.

But let's see. At least for now, I'm heading in the right bloody direction again.

The Human Extraction

OK, so last night there was gnocchi for dinner, and cornflakes for 'dessert', and occasional mouthfuls of the ridiculously good fudge d's taken to making. It was as if, dumbass-like, I'd said 'Sod it!' to the notion that today was Tuesday, with its appointment with the Nazi Scales, and decided to sail right off that cliff-edge of idiocy once more with feeling.

This morning though - 17st 3.5. Down 2.5 pounds on last week.

That'll be the walking, then.

Haven't, by any means, walked every day over the last week. Walked about three, maybe four days out of seven. But still, clearly, that unexpected addition of movement gave the system a tiny shock and let me claw back some progress towards the 17 stone border. So yay. As the song says though, more, more, more is what's needed. More sense, more walking, more biking, less late-night lunacy. It's not as if this fundamental equation is particularly hard to grasp. It's the human factor that in Disappearing, as in most things, is the doorway for error.

So I guess what I'm saying is I need to be less human.
It's arguable, actually, that that was part of what led me to be able to Disappear the first time - being less human. Shutting down the intrinsic emotional responses to pleasure-stimuli, by looking ahead to longer-term strategic goals. Or at the very least re-training myself as to what should trigger those emotional responses.

Hmm...something in that. Be less human. Be more robot. Be the Disappearing Man.

Hehe, yes, I know it starts to sound like a trailer for a new Netflix sci-fi drama, but if you're going to get anywhere in this game, you do sort of have to believe your own hype, see yourself in some starring role, otherwise it just becomes a parade of daily self-abnegation and self-denial, more or less because you hated how you were yesterday.

And yes, incidentally, you get more boring - or at least, I do. If I go full-on Disappearing Man, I become the most boring human being to talk to, because my internal clockwork is always somewhere else, running not entirely silently behind my eyes - intake, calorie value, exercise, calorie burn, balance, day by day, week by week and so on until an objective is achieved.

But there's another factor to the being less human, something that's fundamentally changed in my life since the first time I did this. The first time, I was heading towards my fortieth birthday. This year, I'll be 48. There's a degree to which you have to be able to see the point of the end goal, and at 40, that feels rather different to how it feels at 48. Disappearing did good things for my body - allowed me to radically reduce my medication-burden, allowed me to be more active without thinking about it or bitching about it, and so on. All that felt positive at 40. If I allow my human nature to hold sway, all that feels like a shrug at 48. Vanity - woo! Who cares, really? The irony of course is that vanity's a human element, so shutting that down in pursuit of the longer-term goal leaves you with less, at 48 (or rather, leaves me, at 48 with less) reason to give a Disappearing Fuck about the end result. The only time I've ever really been physically vain was during and at the end of that first Disappearing. It was the only time in my life I ever thought I had any kind of right to be vain. I'm not sure at 48 anybody benefits from the vain version of me, which means I'm left with the end-result of the Disappearing being little more than an increased ability to do the things I do because I want to Disappear...which makes the process rather blurred and unfocused.

Ach, so much for long-term strategic thinking. This is the kind of circular thinking that makes me dizzy when I let myself dwell on it. Enough - in the short-term, I'm down 2.5 pounds this week. Whoop-de-doo. Same again next week would put me within sniffing distance of the 17 stone borderline. That's my next objective, so let's focus on that for now, rather than on the diminishing returns of the Disappearing Man.

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!

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?

Smashing Through

Baaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha!

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Surprise Benificence

Ha. Well, OK.

Wasn't expecting that.

Have done precisely buggerall to deserve that.

Down today to 17st 8.25.

There's no really plausible explanation for that, as I seem to be building a hibernation nest around myself. Sometimes, I guess, the universe just likes a tosser. Not often. Certainly not often enough to depend on. But occasionally, it throws you a bone and allows you to throw victorious V-signs at the Nazi Scales. Honestly, as weeks go, this has been another stupid one, with occasional bits of sense flung into the abyss of fried breakfasts and Valentine's Day gorgeousness and suchlike.

Blood's been haywire this week - the morning after Valentine's Day it was up to 16.0 - which is basically two people's ideal blood sugar, coursing around one system. #BadTony

But otherwise, if this blog isn't to deteriorate again into just a series of posts of what I should do, what I intend to do, and what I didn't do again because Reasons, there's not an enormous amount to report from this week. Stayed indoors a great deal, edited a great deal, ate a faaaairly great deal. So no - no real idea how I'm even down at all on last week.

Thanks, Universe!

I supppose the motivating point from all this is similar to what it was last week. If I WERE to get my shit together, knuckle down, eat more sensibly and maybe, just maybe, move my ass a little this week, I technically could break a barrier - could go beneath 17st 7, into the lower half of the 17s, which would feel like disproportionate success, and would also, not for nothing, deal with the blood issues.

Yeah - that's motivating as all get-out, and I knew that this morning after I got off the Nazi Scales. Which didn't, somehow, stop me having chips for lunch.

Yes, absolutely, sometimes I need beating upside the head.

Onward though - with a little wink from the universe - hopefully to a more sensible week and even better, less fluke-based and therefore more rational results next week.

The Pleasing Perversity of Outliers

Huh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taking A Pounding

Odd week, this one. Was busy walking early in the week when I twisted an ankle and slammed into the ground. Haven't walked properly since then till today. So that was irritating. Also had a couple of big 'banquet'-style meals over the course of the week,  so wasn't exactly expecting to have lost seven pounds this week.

Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 9.75 - down a pound on last week. If I had any kind of energy right now, I'd witter on about how, at this rate, I'll have to cut my annual goal in half, from 104 pounds to 52 pounds, but I'm simply not going to do that because it would just be silly.

As I write this, Madam Secretary is on in the background - it's become a kind of West Wing for the Era of What-The-Fuck - and the doctrine of Suck-It-Upism. On the day of the so-called 'Meaningful Vote' on Brexit, Suck-It-Upism, the philosophy of taking what's real and dealing with it, seems like the mindset of the day, so am sucking it up, and looking at a one pound loss through the lens of it being a loss in spite of x, and y, and z - z being the other bullshit excuse I would have had to make up to justify putting on weight this week.

Screw it - a pound is a pound is a positive snapshot on weigh-in day, and back to walking today. On and on and on we go...one pound at a tiiiiiiiiiiime, sweet Mithras...

The Trampoline Factor

First week of the new year, and there has been, at least, a little movement.

Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 10.75.

In other words, for anyone following this nonsense, it's two weeks ago. Again. Or indeed three weeks ago for that matter, as there was a week of no movement. The upside of course is that the half a pound I put on last week in the distinctly muted madness of a Christmas and New year celebration has evaporated. The downside, for those of my own, rather more melancholic nature, is that 0.5 pounds is a pretty poor repayment of effort for a week which has at least seen me begin walking again.

Hey ho, let us dance the happy dance of weightloss, but let us dance it with a trademark Alan Rickman sneer, just for balance.

It feels almost like being on a trampoline, with weekly snapshots taken at whichever point on a repeated bounce-wave I happen to be at on a Tuesday morning - 17st 10.75, 17st 10.75, 17st 11.5, 17st 10.75. Of course on that imagery, what I aim to do by a week today is to plunge through the black rubber of the trampoline and touch the ground underneath - the ground which in this case reads 17st 8.75. In itself, that feels like a nothing result, but the key is that if I achieve it, the week following, I'll be under another milestone - 17st 7, or the halfway point of the 17 stone spectrum. It feels hard to escape the logic of course that says next week, the trampoline will twang me back up, because for the fourth week in a row I haven't been able to get beneath the 'barrier.' Must do though, because of course, it's actually not logical at all, it's an invention which runs the risk of getting way out of hand. Let's act like we believe in zen calm and all that, and acknowledge that barriers are only barriers if we believe they're barriers.

Be the weightloss, be the weightloss, be the weightloss.

Ach, bugger zen calm and chanting - more walking, less food seems to be the order of the week. Woohoo.

Oh, and rather annoyingly, the blood sugar results are spiking again this week - this morning, 11.0. Yesterday 9.5. Day before, 11.8 (though there's a a rational reason for that - d's birthday on the 5th meant there was steak, and a rich madeira sauce, and arancini starter, and even a slice of appallingly gorgeous chocolate cake...), so 11.8 the following morning was relatively reasonable. 5th January was 10.4 - an annoying smidgen outside the lines. 4th - 9.7, a smidgen the other way. 3rd - 11.6. 2nd - 9.3. 1st, after a New Year's Eve Indian banquet - 10.9.

Apart from the logical results after big feasts, I could invent reasons randomly for the elevated results this week - possibly more fruit juice in my system than water? But let's take a little stock, shall we? I've just - believe it or not, and despite seeming to realise it last week, I've JUST realised taht the day after the Indian banquet was when I last weighed in, and that might just possibly explain a thing or two about last week's result. And I've similarly just realised that this week has included d's birthday feast, including cake, which may well have slammed the brakes on any greater loss this week. It was worth it, to be fair, so that's where you find me - having stomped the bounce and preparing to go all stern-eyed and walky to achieve a loss from this low point next week. Game on. Cake off. Downwarrrrrrrd!

The Impatience Of the Long-Distance Disappearer

*Kicks stone, disconsolately.*

Hey hey.
Headlines first. Weigh-in today - 17st 10.25. Down two pounds.
Blood sugar - 8.5, after a week of mostly being in the 7s.

So, all is good and groovy, right?

Well...yeah...kinda. If you just look at the numbers.
The thing of course is to do that.

The other thing, unfortunately, is human nature. Normally kicks in at about this point, so it's hardly a surprise. I know the medical advice is that it's 'safe' and 'recommended' to lose at most two pounds a week. But the impatience of the long-distance Disappearer kicks in, and you start to want a fast forward button on your life, or a Rocky-style training montage to speed the whole damn thing up.

Perfectly natural, I know. Quite apart from the fact that we Eighties Teens were absolutely surrounded by training montages or friendship montages or skill-attainment montages (seriously, montages were big in the Eighties. Hell, everything was big in the Eighties), once you've been on a changed lifestyle path for a few weeeks, all the entirely invented viciousness stored in your fat cells starts to release into your bloodstream, and things seem so toddleristically unfair! You start to whinge and chunter - if those around you are lucky, you only do this in your head - about how him next door or her two doors down eats more than you and never puts on a pound. There's every likelihood that this is when you start making the voodoo dolls, of course.

But more than that, you start looking up. You look up at the mountain, rather than at your moving feet, and the whole mountainous nature of the mountain takes your breath away, and the 'safe' weightloss recommendation starts to feel like an artificial hand brake applied to your efforts to climb Mount Fat-Fuck. If you can afford it, and don't have a heart condition, this is probably also when speed starts to feel like a viable diet option.

Objectively, I'm 3.25 pounds away from my next milestone at 17 stone 7 pounds. Subjectively, it's two...more...bloody...weeeeeeks before I get there. Two more weeks of eating and watching and walking and bleeding, and around and around and around we go, like a hamster on a pigging wheel.

Christmas Day, in fact, is when I should hit the next milestone. So that'll be jolly. Then another three, or more likely four weeks before I dip under the 17 stone mark. That feels like aeeeeons away right now, let alone looking at the bigger chunk of mountain still left to go.

Sigh. Buck up, Fyler, you're depressing everyone. Objectively, as I say, the news is all good and groovy. It's just that, in Disappearing as in life, to quote Douglas Adams, 'the last thing, the very last thing you actually need is a sense of perspective.'


And today feels like a very perspectivey day. 

Splitting The Difference

'You've been doing the whole "unofficial weigh-in" thing again, haven't you?'

'Yep.'

'Thought so. You always go a bit mad when you do that.'

d's assessment, of course, and of course, she's not wrong.

At one deeply unofficial point this week, I tipped the scales at just 17 stone, 10.75, and that without doing much that was particularly different. Since then there appears to have been some recession, whcih means I can report that today's weigh-in has me at 17 stone, 12.25.

In other words, two pounds lighter than this time last week. As I forecast, safely within the 17s, and in fact, precisely the two pounds per week that's said to be the safe amount to lose per week. Also, give or take a quarter pound, halfway between last week's result and the best unofficial result of this week.Splitting the difference of probabilities, I suppose.

It's a fundamental personality test, doing this sort of thing. Is the glass half empty or half full? Do we cheer at the two pound lost, or mourn the additional pound and a half of potential loss that has itself been...erm...lost?

Frankly, on any given day, it's six to five and pick 'em with me. Today though, you find me in a businesslike, getting-on-with-stuff mood, so I find myself able to solidly bank the two pound loss in my brain, having crossed my traditional Rubicon of Disappearing, and feeling like it's real now we're in the 17s. I feel almost like this is no big thing this time around, because of course I started in the 18s, not in the 20s, as previously, but it's still the lightest I've been in quite some while, so yay for that, and it feels like it has a treat in store, which is the notion that if I keep this up, seven weeks from now I'll be in the 16s, which will really feel like a momentous change, and a gut-friendly, heart-friendly, surviving-to-be-a-contemptible-old-crankypants-friendly shift in the dynamic of what I can do.

Seven weeks is the 15th January. That feels like a good date at which to aim.

Of course, between now and then, there's Christmas. I seem to have been Disappearing at Christmas for altogether too many years of my life, given that at times which are not Christmas, and wouldn't therefore turn me into Captain Anti-Social, Captain 'No, I can't, thanks...but you feel free,' I've gone on to be a total gorgemonster. In other words, I've put people through a lot at Christmas time for very little ultimate purpose. If I'm going to be that kind of git, it feels like it should be worth something in the long term, otherwise it's just gittery for gittery's sake.

I really should have thought that sentence through rather more, as I generally have no problem with gittery for gittery's sake, but still - onward, week by week, through Christmas to January 15th!

The Belt Of Potential And The Pizza Stupidity

Been an interesting week.

On the one hand, I decided, round about the middle of last week, to dress up. To eschew my usual slothery in clothing and get back into trousers with all the complexities of the 21st century - zips and a button and suchlike madness.

All very well, but the pair into which I got were what I euphemistically describe as my 'comfy trousers.' Which is to say, 'big trousers.'

To give you some idea how long it's been since I last swanned around in them, I put them on, went out of my front door, annnd immediately had to grab at them to pull them up. Step, step, step - GRAB. Rearrange, seemingly firmly in place. Step, step, step, SLIP- GRAB!

So, I finally had to acknowledge to d (who loves nothing better than to try and get me into belts, despite my fundamental loathing of such masochistic items) that I needed a belt to stop myself from becoming a local scandal. A belt was procured and I slid it round myself.

One of the reasons I hate belts is that I'm always scared of the humiliation when they turn out to be human-sized, and do not go around the girth of me.

This off-the-shelf belt was very nearly that sort of belt. But importantly, not quite. I could just manage to pull it tight and fasten it on the last possible notch. As such, it became not a humiliation, but a challenge. We've started on the last possible notch. It will be another marker of progress as I become able to fasten it on tighter and tighter notches, and I daresay around entirely different trousers. A marker of progress, then, that doesn't rely on the Nazi Scales for its veracity.

All was going well. On one unofficial weigh-in this week, I saw a 17 in the 'Stones' column.
However, late last week I was stricken with a lurgi which saw my head become a bowl of snot and my chest a cheese-grater slathered in mucus. That rather knocked my walking schedule on the head, and replaced it with a lie in bed, whimpering, coughing and sleeping schedule, which affected my calorific-exercise balance more than somewhat.

Nevertheless, things were still going well - I've had blood sugar results in the 7s and 7s this week, which has been positive.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, I decided I could risk having a carb-heavy early dinner (round about 4.30pm). Had myself a pizza.

Have yet to...erm...shall we say get rid of the remnants of that pizza, some 21 hours on.

Which is why this morning's weigh-in - one with which I sought to argue for some hours! - puts me at:
18st 0.25.

Technically of course, this is highly positive and worth a yippedee doo-dah - it's a loss of two pounds, which is the 'right' amount to lose, medically speaking, in the space of a week. It's really only the fact that I saw a 17 earlier in the week, and the inherent understanding that one productive half-hour in the bathroom would see me over the 18 stone border, that makes it irritating to still be officially trapped on this side.

But there we are. Week 1, 2 pounds. Keeping to the schedule, next week I'll be well and truly into the 17s, rather than just barely so.

Having slept through the night for the first time in half a week, I feel better and stronger and all that happy Six Million Dollar Man crap today, even though the lurgi is still there on my chest. So the likelihood is that tomorrow I get back to the walking again, and on we go, pushing on down, two pounds and perhaps fewer stupid pizza moments at a time.

The Daily Disparity

Apologies all, obviously meant to post this blog yesterday.

I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.

When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.

Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.

18st 12.5 this morning.

Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?

For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.

Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.

The Apparent Inconsequence of Inaction

'Don't take this as a mark of what you can get away with!'

'Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't, honest...' I lied. Well, it wasn't an intentional lie, just more of an understanding of the way in which my brain could be said to 'work.' Which is frankly, along absurd lines of hypocrisy and self-justification, with a touch of tedious public self-flagellation (which of course is where you come in).

This week, after having flopped over the first real  border line in the downward push, two things happened.

Firstly, a picture from a pal of mine of me as I was six years ago this week was re-shared on Facebook. Six years ago was when I was at my lightest in recent memory. I have kinda skinny stick-arms in the pic, but the rest of me looks as good as I remember looking in a long while. Oddly enough, the pic was taken round these parts, on a birthday celebration break for another pal of mine.

Apropos of nothing much, d also found a pic from EIGHT years ago of me on my beach, and bugger me but I was a miserable cur that day - probably faiiirly close to my heaviest in living memory.

So those were some interesting kicks in the head.

But the other thing that really happened this week was that I slipped matter-of-factly off the wagon. I didn't mean to do that either, the edge of self-control just kept lapping around my ankles. It wasn't even that leaping off into an oblivion of indulgence looked particularly pleasurable. I have a feeling it was just that thing self-harmers talk about - agency. Choice is choice, even if it's a bad choice, even - in fact, especially - if you know it's a bad choice, and you make it in spite of everything because it's yours.

Which is a long-ass double-dark way of explaining why I had ice cream this week. And doughnuts. And chips, and relatively little walking.

The thing is, for a guy who spills more words out of his fingers into cyberspace than would seem entirely feasible, I am pigging dreadful at talking about things.

Absolutely pigging dreadful. 'Only child' thing, possibly, but by the time I have to talk about things, I've already had the conversation a gazillion times on the inside of my head, and I tend to choose a fairly peppy way of bringing it into the world, because I've lived with it, picked it clean, put it back together a thousand ways, while whoever it is I talk to  comes to the subject new, and usually kind of 'Ohhhhkay, what the hell is this and where is it coming from?'

This, incidentally, is why, more often than not, d can look sideways at me and say 'Oh god...you're Thinking again, aren't you? I can hear it from here.'

She's dead right, of course. Most of the time, the subject dies, kicked to death by my Thinking, and never comes to light. This is also why, for instance, d long ago agreed to let me sleep with my iPod attached. My undistracted brain, given eight hours of silence to contend with, is a potential bedlam of Thinking, every angle of every line, every thought, every action, intonation, meaning...it's crowded as hell in there and it drives the 'conscious' me to utter sleepless distraction.

So...what? I hear you ask.

Well, so nothing, really, just the way of things in my head. And...well, there is a Thing. Hell, as ever with me, there are at least a handful of Things, but there's a particular Thing this week, in that I'm trying to drag something out of my brain for a writing submission, which has to be based in truth, and tell the story of some kind of healing from emotional trauma.

I'm not...good...with trauma. I'm never sure I have any right to talk about it, because let's face it, almost everyone has had more trauma in their life than me. Plenty of people have undergone trauma specifically to ensure that I don't have to. I've also undoubtedly been the cause of trauma to others, and probably still am.

But there was a Thing, back in ye olden days, that well and truly fucked me up for at least a couple of decades, and which to be honest is probably still fucking me up to some much lesser degree even now, despite a degree of healing. And I'm not sure exactly how much of the 'trauma,' such as it is, was inflicted from outside, and how much was a result of my Thinking. Probably by far the largest part was Thinking-based - but of course I still haven't worked out how to silence the Thinking, only to drown it out. And I've been trying to write about the Thing this week. Which, and here I'm guessing, might have had something to do with the drive to agency, and the slippage into ice cream, and doughnuts, and chips, and relatively little walking.

There have also been relatively few medications, as I've been holding on to finally get sorted and set up with a doctor and a pharmacist.

There was ice cream even yesterday, before I forced myself to have a somewhat longer walk than has become usual. Yesterday also marked the final slotting into place of a doctor, a prescription and a pharmacist, so all is happy and bouncy and groovy on that score, finally.

But with one thing and another, I had zero expectation of progress this week - I expected to be up at least four or five pounds, in fact, as a result of the Thinking-based slide into food-based idiocy.

18 stone 13.25.

That's the verdict of the Nazi Scales this morning. Down another half-pound in this endless crawl to progress. In spite of the Thing and the Thinking and the food and the lack of walking and the sparse medication...down a half-pound.

I officially now have no freakin' idea what's going on. Hmm...something else to Think about...

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.

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.