15th July - The Diminishing Disappearance

There’s a slightly worrying trend developing in this Disappearance. Started off with the six pound bump, then two or three weeks of a steady two pound drop. Last week, I was down a pound and a half, and today, down a pound and a quarter, to 18st 1.5.

Now as I said last week, there’s bound to be a bit of a palaver when you measure pre-bathroom in the morning, as your weekly result then depends on whether you have a big meal the night before or not. As it happens, I didn’t last night – steak, with a tiny bit of pasta, followed by fruit. And of course, yadda yadda, still going in the right direction etc. But that can’t continue – this gradual breaking force will begin to have a real effect next week, because next week, according to my adjusted first week forecast, I’m due to see a 17 in the stones column, and if the braking force continues, I won’t see that at all. Time to really kick some stuff up a notch. Walking and biking, or walking and gymming. Something, anyhow, to take the metabolism by surprise again, stop it settling and getting used to the dietary regime. Something to make it do my bidding, bwahahahahaaaa!

Looking at things with a more “Starbucks mug half full” viewpoint of course, this is the first time I’ve seen a 1 in the pounds column in a long while – I actually went from 19st 2 to 18st some-odd, missing out the 1 entirely. Seeing a 1 is always a bit weird – you get the thrill of being close to a border, then the moderate deflation of being only close to the border. I know, I know, doesn’t sound like a mug hall full philosophy but if you’re going to be a Disappearer, it doesn’t do to get too content with anything, however much it pushes you closer to your goal. But still, despite the braking force and the need to double down to get over the borderline, I’m quite happy with the result today. No walking today – needed to focus on the editing for a solid day – and no walking tomorrow either, as I’m on an UberCommute. But Thursday, dammit, doubling down and cracking on.

The Frappucino Aversion

Went on my long day's journey into Kent yesterday and stopped off at Starbucks before 8AM. They have a habit in Starbucks of occasionally throwing new things into their menus, and I decided while not exactly to extend the bubble in my perspex walls as such, to try something new for the sheer curiosity of it, without letting it touch my core resolve at all.

Which is how I came to breakfast on a banana yoghurt frappucino.

In case you're wondering, yes, it was entirely as noxious as it probably sounds.
The good thing about this of course is that it lessens to zero any potential 'gateway' likelihood the move might have latently had, to get me swigging down buckets of sugar and fat in frappucino form. In fact if anything, it acted entirely in the opposite direction, to make me stick to what I know and what can be calorifically controlled.

Didn't go walking this morning - didn't get in till close to midnight last night and this morning my legs were spasming and rubbery. Oh, I should say - after this yoghurtastrophe, I had a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich on Tonbridge station, and a small packet of nuts en route from Paddington to Cardiff, along with several more regular coffees.
And peculiarly, despite it being a day of no particular exercise and an awful lot of sitting on trains, managed to achieve my Gestapo Phone's demanded 10,000 steps.

So - today no walking early, though I haven't yet given up on the idea of going walking this evening. So far today, just the regulation three Weetabix with semi-skimmed and one large mug of coffee, also semi-skimmed.

The odd thing really is that today feels like Tuesday because I only normally travel cross country on a Monday for the UberCommute. Am going for one of those next Wednesday too, to by a week today, I probably won't know what day, month or year it is. Still, as long as the flesh keeps Disappearing...

The Quesadilla Determination

Now...follow me here, I'm about to turn my brain inside out to ensure Things Are All Alright.

As you'll know, since I restarted the Disappearing Man effort in serious earnest some weeks ago, I have been doing three weigh-ins a day every Tuesday - one pre-bathroom, pre-walk, one pre-bathroom post-walk, and one post-bathroom, post-walk.

Quite why I've been doing this is a bit of a mystery, because I always then end up taking the first figure as the official weigh-in for the week. Of course, my pal Wendy thinks I just have a bit of a weighing fetish. I refuse to justify such an idea with a refutation, just in case it turns out to be actually irrefutable.

Today though, I'm forced to consider the wisdom or otherwise of knowingly taking a weight that is recorded before nature and digestion have had a chance to even my metabolic paying field. I'm forced to do so by quesadillas.

Last night, for dinner, d made quesadillas. You're probably familiar with them - toasted tortilla sandwiches, in essence. Gorgeous little beasts, but very moreish. I took perhaps rather too many more, before going to bed.

So when I weighed in this morning, pre-everything, I recorded 18st 3.25. Down just 1.5lb on last week.

Went walking, and weighed in again, this time at 18st 2lb.
When finally moved by the passage of time to use the bathroom, I did my third weigh-in, and was down to 18st 1.5lb. So - if we assume that the 1.25lb that disappeared on the walk is not a genuine or representative loss, but the half-pound from the bathroom was definitely no longer part of me, then I lost my regulation two pounds this week.

But am I going to assume such a thing?
No. That way, mathematical madness lies. What I have learned today - or re-learned, rather, as I used to know it before - is the importance of what one eats on a Monday night in terms of one's calculations (or indeed machinations) on a Tuesday morning. I'm fighting every sneaky instinct in my own brain that says "Hmm, that means you could cut yourself some slack for some of the week, then starve yourself on Mondays..."

Sigh - sometimes my brain just needs a good slap. The truth, quesadillas or no quesadillas, is that today's like-for-like weigh-in has me only 1.5lb down on last week, at 18st 3.25. And on we go. Still means that I'm on target to see a 17 two weeks from today. I look forward to that day with what might be described as a lively anticipation.

Odd day tomorrow. My friend Sian has a Mother. Not a mother, you understand, a Mother. One of those maternal powerhouses that imprint their personality on a whole generation of friends, and who retains, even into the adulthood of those friends, a sense of "Do not under any circumstances fuck with me". She appears to be really rather unwell, and has been taken into hospital. Which, given her general squeezy bollockhold on the life-force is worrying enough to have me taking a day's leave and taking off across the country - to Tunbridge Bloody Wells of all places - to see her. Essentially, it's a London Ubercommute day...with knobs on. Much Starbucks on the way, I feel...

Enter The Drag-On

Was determined to have a lie-in this morning. Then at precisely 8.04, a bunch of inconsiderate bastards decided to drill through my skull.

To be fair, it wasn't just my skull. The rampantly idiotic building program that's taking place right opposite our flat is essentially a pain in the ass of everyone in Merthyr. The truth though is that it doesn't wake everyone up. Just those of us cursed to live opposite it. I tried turning my deaf ear to it for ten minutes, then grumpily punched a pillow and got up. d somehow managed to sleep through it.

I was under no obligation to go and walk this morning, and honestly, I faffed around for an hour or so on the computer, feeling sleepy and heavy and in no respect like I wanted to drag my ass down the Trail... before finally making my mind up to do it anyway.
This dragging-on of the self in spite of freedom and a lack of actual desire rings a bell or two - there were plenty of mornings when we lived in London where I just simply didn't want to get out of bed at unff o'clock and do this stuff - and then ended up doing it just the same.

So went, walked, came back...spent much of the rest of the day editing and occasionally bitching about various aches and pains.
Food today - three Weetabix, semi-skimmed
Two pieces of white toast, scrambled egg, large coffee.
Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner (yes, carb, though eaten at a reasonable 7pm).

Tomorrow, walking again at 8am. Haven't weighed since Tuesday, so have no idea what's happening in that domain. Can only trust I'm still doing enough to have lost my weekly 2lb - if so, I'll see 18st 2.75lb. That'll feel pretty good, but I'm still waiting for a true Rubicon at 17st 13lb in a couple of weeks. Still haven't got back on the exercise bike, oddly enough. That really should change.

Maybe tomorrow...

The Nutterball

Weird start this morning. Ma had prophesied (some would say forecast - but only if they didn't know Ma) torrential rain this morning, so we'd agreed not to go walking together. Nevertheless I woke up naturally at 6.20, an figured, given the absence of the sounds of torrential rain, I'd get up and go anyway. I switched off the 6.30 alarm, thinking "I'lllllgetupinaminute...."
Needless to say, I woke again with rathr more of a start at 6.50. Got quickly dressed, went downstairs to turn on my phone and texted Ma that I'd slept late, just as she was texting me to say she'd slept late but we could go walking if I wanted.

We did, but not our normal route down the Trail. This morning we took a circuitous and largely uphill route to Costa on a whim (a rather bittersweet decision, I should say - I'd been planning to meet Rebecca there at 8, but cried off because I was going to be walking down the Trail at that time!)
Only burned about 400 calories that way, then had a medium decaff skinny latte which replenished abut 150 of them. With the addition of my usual three Weetabix with semi-skimmed and a large coffee when I got home, I could pretty much have forgone breakfast an stayed in bed for two hours. The calorific impact would have been the same.

Lunch was yesterday's dinner leftovers - chicken and rice - again, carbs. And today throughout the day I've had handfuls of mixed nuts, which with one thing and another are probably not the healthiest or most advisable of metabolic boosters.

The result is that tonight I feel underexercised and bloated and flabby, like a butterball...but made of nuts. A nutterball, I suppose.

Now the sensible among you will say "Well, get on your bike, lardass!"
And I might, still, but I have to tell you, I've been pretty much exhauste ever since coming back from this morning's wak. Actually went back to bed from 10.30-11.30 (taking an early lunch break), because I couldn't keep my eyes open. Didn't feel like a diabetic thing, just...unff...

We'll see. The bike might rescue me from this feeling. Orrrrr it might not. Let you know tomorrow.

Oh, Happy Indepence Day to all my American friends, by the way.

The Bubble Expansion

I say - the oddest thing is happening.

Reasonably regular readers will remember that recently I declared a bubble in my perspex walls (the mental construct that allows me to exercise discipline and not eat everything in the entire world), which allowed me a cold liquid option in Starbucks during the summer. Normally, I'd regard these as basically liquid desserts, but by getting them to take every conceivable calorie and gram of fun out of a frappucino, I convinced myself that I could actually drink them without imperilling my control. And so it has proved - I have one or two cold ones when I go to spend a day in Starbucks now, and have no problem with that. My discipline remains strong, my routine of exercise remains unchallenged, and I don't feel like diving into the nearest cheesecake as a result of having a "liquid dessert" - the logic that used to connect one to the other appears to have been at least partially quelled.

Well, today things have gone a degree further - a bubble expansion, if you will.
The staff at my particular Starbucks all now pretty much know me. the head honcho there even occasionally passes me stuff that's due to be chucked out if I can make use of it - sachets of instant, packets of beans for grinding, that sort of thing.

Today she handed me a dessert.
Well, it could be seen as a dessert. Yoghurt, compote and granola - that's pretty desserty if you think about it. I read the calorific information - about 300, since you ask - realised I'd walked six miles this morning, and then checked my decision-making paradigm. Was this not the thin end of the wedge? Was it not the top of the slippery slope into secret lunch time chippy trips and head-first dives into the Hagen Daz?

It really doesn't seem to be. It was a thing - I treated it as lunch and moved the fuck on. Even now, some hours later, I'm not connecting it with desserts and desires. It's as if there's a wall that won't let the usual demented logic connect in my brain.

Firstly, we like this. We like this a lot, because the Demented Disappearer is frankly a pain in everybody's ass. And secondly - on we go. Depending on the weather, going to either walk again in the morning or head to the gym. Still haven't wrecked my calorie count for the day, and don't intend to now I'm home, and we move the hell along. Am I going to crave the same thing next time I go to Starbucks? Don't think so - didn't crave it today. Obviously, I'll let you know if that changes, but certainly at the moment I'm just focusing on losing my 2lb by Tuesday, to take me down to 18st 2.75.

The interesting thing is I said this not long before having the fish and chips, back in March 2012 that began my slide back into old and dangerous habits. Let's see if the Bubble Expansion and the Logic Block remains, shall we?

The Scales of Obsession

"You do make me laugh."
"Erm...good. I guess. Erm...why?"

Conversations occasionally go this way with Wendy. I'm sometimes not sure what it is I've said that makes her laugh, but I'm quite happy to take it when it happens.

"You just loooooove weighing yourself," she explained.
"Nonsense, only the once a week. Well, three times, but..."
"Exxxxactly. Point to me, I think."

Rassen frassen grrrrr...

To be fair, the three weigh-ins were all done today - and in line with a precedent set last week. Weigh-in first thing in the morning, pre-walk, and pre-bathroom. Weigh-in post-walk and pre-bathroom, to discount the amount lost as water on a six mile walk from the equation. Then weigh-in post-bathroom to measure for...well, weight that isn't part of the equation any more either.

The first weigh-in of the day - the one I ended up using last week - showed me down my regulation 2lb this morning to: 18st 4.75. Happy to take that as my official weigh-in for the day. Just for the sake of completeness, though, and (cough) since I have the data, post-walk, pre-bathroom - 18st 2.5. Post-everything, 18st 2.

So now the disparity in the weigh-ins has a potential impact, in that it amounts to a week's worth of work (or, as my brain insists on thinking about it, a get-out clause), from beginning to end.

Lalalalalalalalala - not thinking about it that way, just continuing to do the good things, keeping the bad things to a minimum, and hoping for 2lb per week. So, on the record, next week I want to be 18st 2,75 BEFORE everything.

More home-made pasta tonight for dinner (other food - three Weetabix, semi-skimmed, three coffees, large, two slices toast with scrambled egg, two handfuls of assorted nuts throughout the day, four plums, one apple, one small pack of cashews and cranberries - 100 calories - so, quite a lot, but reasonable and spread throughout the day to keep the metabolism running).

Tomorrow, doing the walk again, then doing a Starbucks editing day. And so another week begins. So far, I've managed to keep on schedule for the first three weeks. This week, I might have more time on my hands, so might even start trying to work a walk and a bike session into each day...see what that does.