Turning Round and Spitting Twice

Blood this morning 4.0 initially. d fiddled with my tester. Blood when sensibly re-adjusted - 5.2.

Went swimming this morning, but followed it up with no biking whatsoever, and got caught up in a good movie until it was time for work (Houdini, with Tony Curtis). Worked, then dashed out to meet a fantastic building society fixer-upper, which left me with quite a spring in my step and abbbbsolutely no time to do the 'pathways walk' I was scheduled to do this lunchtime. Working, working, working...So much working, so little bike today. About to dash out again, this time back to the doctors after getting a quick call from them. Still intending to bike tonight though dammit...And aquacise...and gym taste...Plus wanna make some serious headway on my proper writing tonight - people much busier than me with their Real Lives are suddenly publishing novels, which really rather leaves you with the 'no excuses' feeling, so I want to kick myself in my own ass and push on.

Which, in case you're wondering, is why this blog's so short - In a day that was always gonne be pretty packed, right now there's no time to turn around and spit twice.

So - consider this your one spit, I guess, and try not to judge me too harshly - gotta keep wolves from doors and want to try and Become A Novelist in the meantime. Talk about First World Problems, eh?

The Callibration Factor

Hmm...
Well, the headline, such as it is, is that at today's weigh-in, I was:
15 stone 9.5. A whole whopping pound lighter than last Tuesday. BUT there's a hidden headline in there somewhere - for while the news was OK last Tuesday, by Wednesday - and consistently for some days - I was back up to 15 stone 12.75. But now consistently yesterday and today, I'm 15 stone 9.5, so I find the reading more believable.

That said, we went to the diabetic nurse today, and on her scales, which she claimed had been properly callibrated and were as accurate as could be, I was 15 stone 8 in January clothes - which I've previously experimented with (cos yeah, in case you're new, I really am that sad!), and which amount to two whole pounds of clothes. So...you can judge for yourself the importance of callibration, but I've always previously resisted the lure of external scales, so even though I find the Nazi Scales a little suspect int his case, the weight I'm recording is 15 stone 9.5 pounds - two litttle, poxy pounds from this ever-elusive five-freaking-stone barrier...

Next week, dammit. Next week for sure.

Oh and while we're talking about callibration, I also did a blood test at the nurse's, and it showed as 6.2 - whereas when I got home, it showed as 4.8. Again, the importance of callibration. The nurse was still pleased with me though - apparently, (these things bloody well shift!), the safe, good-control region for blood sugar in the UK now is between 4 and 7, so I'm still well within range. She mentioned that if things continue as they've been going, I will soon be able to drop one kind of medication allllltogether. Take that, Diabetes!

Didn't actually go swimming this morning though - had planned to, but I'm sleeping pathetically at the moment - an hour here, a half-hour there...so at 4.30 this morning (oh the irony - 4.30 on a Tuesday, rather than a Monday...) I turned off the alarm and rolled over. Did manage to get 500 calories of biking in before work though, and popped to the gym for the 'taster' session this lunchtime - more biking, more push-up things, some back work and an indeterminate number of ab crunches. Fairly hateful but oddly, less boring that swimming great hulking lengths back and forth. Weird day tomorrow - either swimming and biking or just double biking in the morning...mmmm...double biking in the warm and dry...followed by a lunchtime 'pathways walk', followed, after work, by an aquacise session leading straight in to a gym taster...we'll be knackered by the end of tomorrow night (but then, saying that, we did just go out for a Chinese buffet, so I think probably we'll deserve to be knackered by tomorrow night!).

Should, in all likelihood, get back on the bike right about now, but d makes the very good point that I've spent more time on a bike today than I have in her company during the entire day, so, y'know what? Nice cup of de-caff tea, feet up, heated couches on and the last remnants of the evening spent with my girl, I reckon. Catch you all on the flipside of the exercise-a-thon...

Disappearing Syndrome

See, I think it’s a sickness.

To most people, to normal people, I’m sure “woohoo, I don’t have to get up at 4.30AM!” is an excuse to lay in bed till the last possible moment.

To me, it appears to be an excuse to get up a whole two hours later, at 6.30, pop to the pool, do my now-regulation ten lengths, then bugger off home and bike for an hour before work.

That can’t be right, surely?

Still, Monday and all – day before the weigh-in – Dum-dum-daaaaaaah!

Honestly, anyone still give a rat’s ass? Except me, I mean, and only then cos it directly affects me.

Was talking to d last night about the temptation to do an Aristotelian experiment...

For those who are just joining us, or, mysteriously, who don’t commit to memory every pearl of wisdom ever written in this blog, an Aristotelian experiment is an experiment with pleasure. Aristotle’s Ethics, which I read a while back, seemed to view pleasure with a great deal of suspicion and to argue that, more often than not, it should be avoided, because it colours your view of what is genuinely good. But, said Ari, those who completely avoided pleasure were miserable cop-outs, and couldn’t really claim to have mastered desire simply by staying the fuck away from pleasurable things. The real test, he said, was to have pleasure in very great moderation, and then master it again every day.

Tell me honestly – you wanna party with this guy, don’t you?

Anyhow – my idea of an Aristotelian experiment goes back to reading the book, because I’m one of those who has banned pleasure of a certain kind – of a culinary kind, clearly – entirely from my diet, in an effort to Disappear significantly. So Aristotle’s words rang in my brain as a kind of test, a kind of “come and have a doughnut if you think you’re hard enough!” call from across the terraces of time.

“I’m thinking of doing an Aristotelian experiment,” I said last night.

“A what?” said d.  I explained it to her as I’ve just explained it to you.

“Oh...OK,” she said. “What are you thinking of having? Want a muffin? I can give you a muffin...”

Double-entendres waaaaay aside, this was a kind offer – she’s started baking seriously again recently, and people at our Sunday morning car boot sales are starting to sit up, take notice and pay money. She was offering me the last of her Morning Glory muffins (again, insert your own double entendre here if you like, safe in the knowledge that I did...).

“Nono,” I said. “Too healthy. I’m thinking of a Welsh Cake...”

I should explain – a Welsh cake is a small bake-stone cake filled with currants. Normally, that’s as far as it goes, but one of the stalls at our local market has been commended by Jamie Oliver as a food hero. They do a kind of Welsh Cake sandwich, with jam and what is essentially frosting in the middle. I’m given to understand it’s practically orgasmic.

“Ohhh, yeah, good choice,” said d.

“Oh no, wait!” I thought again. If you were going to experience pleasure, why dangle your toes in the water, when you could jump in head first.

“How about a Sundae,” I said, fantasising about any and all of the colossal, whorish desserts on offer at the local Harvester. D wasn’t as keen on that idea, but as I’ve mentioned before, I have the discretion of an 8-year-old boy when it comes to desserts. The gaudier the better, almost by default.

“Mmmmm...” I Homered. “Sunnnnndaes....”

“Yyyyeah – way to test your strength there,” said d.

The thing is – the point is - that when today dawned, and the opportunity surely arose to put this plan into action, instead of diving into a dessert head-first, I went swimming and biking, and I’m currently wondering if I have time to get another hoursworth of biking in before dinner. Seems to be some perverse kind of addiction-replacement going on again. More water, more revolutions, dammit! Give me moooooore!

Did I mention, I think it’s a sickness?

Sigh...

Tomorrow should be Interesting. Meeting with a diabetic nurse, presumably for a medication review now we’ve moved across the country. Blood remains relatively constant – on just the one pill (down from four at the start of this experiment last March), my blood this morning was constant from yesterday at 5.2. Woohoo!

Also, have another ‘gym taster’ at lunchtime tomorrow, and intend to swim before work again....annnd possibly bike too...Fightback well and truly started. Let’s see if this positively addictive behaviour is even remotely reflected in the weigh-in tomorrow morning...

Best Exercise Accessory...Ever

Meant to mention this a couple of days ago, but blood on Friday was 4.8. Blood this morning, on a single pill, was 5.2 - still within acceptable boundaries apparently, so time to examine my meds on a more fundamental basis come Tuesday's nurse appointment, probably.

Today has been all about chaos. In trying to empty boxes, I've basically created chaos out of order in the office. Once I'm done writing this of course, I'll go and try and reverse the process, minus the boxes. I'm not sure the universe works quite like, but hey - pissing off the universe is one of the many things I'm about.

Apart from that, there's a big rumour today - that we're due a big Siberian wind, loaded with 'tumps' of snow - official Weather Channel word, by the way, when did that happen?

Now it should be pointed out that, as yet, there is no snow where we are. Further up the Valley, yes, but nowhere near us or our travel direction when I bugger off to Cardiff, and then London, in the morning. BUT - it could happen. So my boss has allowed me to opt out of the UberCommute tomorrow. Awoohoo!

Going back upstairs now, to re-excavate the bike (turned it on briefly earlier, peddled a little, felt my heart sing a song of Back In The Saddle joy and love between a man and a piece of electrical exercise equipment, got off - delayed gratification and all that. Ahhhh, it's great to be alive with an exercise bike in the shadow of a rumour of snow - it means you can eradicate the calorific memory of everything you've eaten and stay up later than 9PM. I ask you - does life get any better than that?

Oh wait - being thin enough to eat desserts, right...

Well...sonofabitch, that was a beautiful moment ruined, wasn't it?

No Excuse

Did I mention, the fightback starts here?

Aquacise and gym today, within a couple of hours of each other. You've heard our morning banter many a time, but this morning, you featured in it.
"D'you really want to do this?" mumbled d at 7.15.
"Course I don't really want to do this," I muttered, drooling into my pillow after a crappy night's sleep. "But I really really don't want to have to report in today's blog that I didn't do it."
d laughed a somewhat hollow laugh.
"You're using the blog as a surrogate conscience now?"
"Hey, whatever works, right? After all, there's no excuse not to go, is there?..." I mouthed those words a little bitterly. They weren't originally mine, but my mother's.

My mother, bless her, has a spectacular way with language, with which she blazes through the world like a bulldozer on crack. She, after all, was the woman who introduced herself to her then-prospective daughter-in-law (who grew up in an Sicilian American family), with the immortal line "Oh, don't worry about us, love - we're just like the Mafia!"

One day this week, Ma was here in our little jewel-box, and we were discussing how much we loved being so central for everything that's everything in this town - including the leisure centre, with its gym and swimming pool.
"Oh, absolutely," she said, casually. "There's no excuse not to go now, is there?"

Let's be clear here - there's no malice in her words, and hardly any deeper meaning. But the words have rather hung around us, every time we've been lying here not wanting to do something horribly energetic. No no...there's no excuse now.

And so, against the will of our bodies, we hauled ourselves into consciousness and into the pool this morning, for a range of exercises which are theoretically supposed to be made easier by the fact they're done in water, but each and every one of which we can feel in our muscles now. I, being a sick fuck on times, went back for the lunchtime gym session, to do some biking, some back-strengthening, and some chest pressing - the practical usefulness of which I suppose will only be revealed to me if I ever get trapped beneath a broken building and have to push great hunks of masonry off myself.

Oh and you remember I said yesterday I'd ordered a new bike power cord?
Arrived TODAY! The postal service is clearly enjoying its annual January speed allotment. So now, there's even less of an excuse to not exercise every possible chance I get.
Have of course also done some office-clearing today - as I know have to unearth the bike, in order to get on it! Read some old journals we wrote, to and about each other, and came over all gooey at our certainty, which, over time, has been more than justified, I'd say.

Sigh...ignore me, just having a sentimental moment.

Tomorrow, more office-clearance, while d and Ma do another car boot sale. And undoubtedly, I'll be getting back on my own bike tomorrow...

After all, there's...

Stranger In A Strange Land

"You might wanna follow me in here," called d from the shower.
"Mmm, yeah," I agreed, working on a feature piece for my magazine. It was early, but we didn't have time to hang about. We had an appointment at the gym.
"No, really," she called. "Don't get too engrossed, you should come and shower before we go."
"Meh," I said. "I'm gonna be showering afterwards anyway..."
"Alrighty then," she said. I'm fairly sure there was a note of "way not to get some, dude," in her tone, but I had to get the piece finished before we went.
As it happened, we just about got out in time. The snow, which had come and pretty much gone overnight had hardened, here and there, into treacherous-bastard ice, so we slipped and picked and determinedly heel-toed our way across to the leisure centre.
"Two for Introduction To Zumba please," said d when we got there, technically a minute late.
The guy at reception looked at me.
"Two?" he asked, then blinked, recovering quickly. "Righto, there you go..." He handed us our receipts and we made our way to the dance studio.

I should say, whenever I've told anyone I was joining d for Zumba, I've had two reactions. Women everywhere have gone "Oh....really?" Men have, without exception, gone "What the Hell is Zumba?"

Zumba, for those who don't know - which is to say, the men - is a kind of bizarre combination of aerobics, Salsa, line dancing, battle drill and comedy. It is, usually, an exclusively female pursuit - except, and this should be stressed - in the case of the male participants being Latin and hot. It's a dancing form of group exercise, which - as every man reading this is now saying to himself - explains why it's mainly a female thing.

As we were a minute or so late arriving, there was a pulsing Latin soundtrack coming from the studio, with occasional high-pitched parade-ground yell. Then we were in there, with women from wall to wall, step-step-stepping from side to side and clapping. d and I shuffled to the back, and eventually started step-step-step clapping.

The instructor was the same shouty, sweat-obsessed perkybot from our gym taster a few days ago. Within minutes she was again asking if we were sweating, except this time, she was asking the room.

Of course, Latin dance is all very well if performed by lithe, serpent-hipped people with rhythm and a bodyful of hormones. If performed by a roomful of wheezing, wobbling, unco-ordinated Welsh folk, it loses something of its sultriness. When your instructor has the thickest South Wales accent, and confidently tells you "Don' follow me...I'm a shit dancer!", it's incredibly easy to forget what it is you're there for. And when instructed to do series after series of wide overarm sweeps...your wife's advice about showering before going into the class tends to come back to you, really rather forcefully.
The overarm sweeps were to be performed to the tune of "Rollin' Down The River", on the line "Big wheels keep on turning..."
Well I'm here to tell you that when you hit yourself with a wave of your own rancid armpit-juice with every overarm sweep, the wheels get smaller and smaller in a reeeeeeal big hurry. You kind of end up with hamster wheels keeping on turning pretty quick. When you also have no co-ordination, it slows you down. But there's a good reason why Zumba is generally a womens-and-hot-men's game.

There's a lot of body-shaking involved, and a lot of dance. Both of which are almost calculated to put women at their ease in each other's company, and to make men, by contrast, entirely ill at theirs. There's an air of an Anne Summers party with music about it, and while, surprisingly, I wasn't the only man in the studio, it was like being men in Sex and the City - we were curiosities, little more. Strangers in a strange land of female instinctive understanding.

That said, d had a fantastic time, and made the instructor's day by smiling and laughing probably more than anyone else had breath for. And in her pleasure, my own found some expression. So, clueless curiosity or not, I'll be back next week for more grinding and shaking and foot-slap-clapping - but next week, you can bet your ass I'll shower first!!


As for the rest of the day, a couple of good bits - got a second pair of swimming shorts, so now there's nothing to really stop me swimming most mornings and evenings if I want to. And I did it - I finally ordered a replacement power cord for the bike, so next week, I can start to really get back on track, irrespective of weather, or money, or work or any other damn thing.

That said, we had an Indian takeaway tonight - hardly diet food! But then we're up early tomorrow for another undoubtedly-largely-female exercise class - Time to hit the pool, for the delights of Aquacise! At this point it's anyone's guess what happens on Tuesday, or what prevails - the exercise or the food. We'll just have to see. But the tide is definitely turning. One way or another, the tide is turning from the mayhem of preparing the move, and doing the move, and setting up the hosue, and setting up routines. The next four weeks - the final four weeks of my first year as a Disappearing Man - will see the tide turn forcibly back in my favour, and things will move my way again before we're done with Year One. I will break through my five stone barrier, dammit, before the 1st of March, I will be more than half the way to my goal. I just...will...

Snow Patrol

Ever had that weird lurgi that comes on you out of the blue, kicks the crap out of you and then buggers off, leaving you feeling OK, but vaguely embarrassed about the whole episode?

"Oh, you look awwwful!" said d, coming home from the local Tesco store. I nodded.
"Good. If I felt this crappy and looked a million dollars, I'd be cross," I mumbled.
"Go and have a nap for an hour," she suggested. It was near enough lunchtime anyway, so I obeyed her without protest. She woke me in stages - it was one of those deals where when you first wake up, you feel like you'll never move again, but after an extra ten or fifteen minutes, you begin to feel, as Jerome K Jerome probably put it, that you perhaps won't die today after all, and that s spot of lunch might bring you back firmly within the realm of the living.

Had intended to go swimming this lunchtime, then got knocked on the head by this lurgi, and that put the tin hat on that for a while. When I woke up feeling relatively fine, I figured I'd just go and battle the lanes of water-traffic tonight instead. Then we looked out the window.
"Holy crap!" said d, pulling the curtains back to show me.
"Brr," I shuddered.
It was snowing. Proper snowing, so to speak, not just airy-fairy trying-to-snow. Big fast flurries of fat flakes, that seemed to be sticking.
"To Tescos, Batman!" said d. I didn't question her decision - at the first sight of snow in this country, people panic. If we waited an hour, there'd be nothing on the shelves. So we took advantage of our almost-ridiculous proximity to everything that matters in this town, and legged it. Getting there, it looked like the austerity principle of baking your own bread was really taking hold - pretty much an entire shelf of flour had vanished between d coming home and telling me I looked awful and the two of us returning, about four hours later.
"So - still going swimming dear?" asked d as we struggled back up the steps to our place.
"Yeah, cos I've always wanted to try my hand at pneumonia," I muttered. In short - bugger it all to Hell, am staying home and warm. And, thinking about it, am doing a web search as soon as I finish blethering to you lot - for a freakin power chord for this bike! It's kinda sitting there now, looking like a long-lost but equally long-suffering spaniel pup, all big wet eyes and "nobody loves me". Clearly not true - it's an evil bastard given half a chance, but getting on a bike at the gym a couple of days ago felt good, felt right, and if I could only find the chord, I wouldn't have to dice with pneumonia or feel guilty about every morsel of grub I put in my mouth, cos I could just come upstairs to the office and pedal those morsels right the Hell back off...Right, let's see...Bremshey Cardio Comfort Control leads...