It should be perfectly obvious to most people by now that I don't write this blog to conquer the literary world. Way back in the very beginning, I said something like 'There will be rants, there will be bitching. Come along for the ride if you like and let's see what happens.'
The thing is, I'm - and I'm about to lay a technical PR industry phrase on your asses, to hold onto something - entirely bollock useless at promoting what I write. I haven't updated my website for months on end, which means there's a pile of geeky articles probably as tall as I am that need to go on, and that probably never achieved their full potential in terms of eyeballs and brand-growth. Likewise, I tend to only tag a small handful of people into entries of this blog that I'm fairly confident will read and enjoy them, or at least read them to know what the hell I've been upto on any given day, shoudl they want to catch up.
So it was a bit of a mystery to me, a couple of weeks ago when a pal of mine from waaaaaay back - we're talking first year of comprehensive school, when both of us had hair and I had a different surname altogether - suggested to me via Facebook that I should put the first year of the blog together as an e-book, and fling it out into the wilds of Amazon, to at least allow me to say I had something out there.
I'll be honest, the idea was mostly intriguing because I've done what most people would think of as 'the hard bit' - the blogs are written for conspicuously longer than that first, successful year.
Naturally though, I've taken every opportunity in the meantime not to take the idea seriously because - well, again, bollock useless at taking myself seriously.
Imagine my surprise then to get a message out of the blue late last night from someone I didn't know, a friend of Tania, the Starbucker who I promise I'll stop calling the Christmas Elf any minute now, honestly. This friend was enormously complimentary, and, bless her, appears to have read the whole freaking thing. A full year of every-day entries, followed by four years of more sporadic entries, false starts, restarts and fundamental failures. I'm not even sure I've read the whole frekaing thing, because as you can probably tell, most of it is entirely stream of consciousness.
Won't share her actual review as I've somehow managed to get to nearly 8pm today without having the forethought to ask her if I could (I mentioned the bollock useless thing, right?), but suffice it to say, it was more than enough to put a spring in my step, both in terms of pushing on with this attempt to Disappear again and in the potential idea of packaging up the blog entries as an actual book-like...thing. Ha - Year 1: The Disappearing Man. Years 2-4 - The Reappearing Man. Year 5, goddammit, the Return of the Disappearing Man!
Just a lovely moment in life, to get a note through from someone who's actually read the thing and found some worth in it.
Right - enough sentiment. There are bikes to jump on and sweat to be shed. Catch you tomorrow, Disappearers.
Saturday, 23 January 2016
22nd January - The Compensation Principle
Today was the first Starbucks day I've had since re-starting the effort to Disappear. Strange day, all in all, and I got very little that was productive done. But you might remember I mentioned that I had a cold 'usual' in Starbucks, which I'd recently taken to having in its unreconstructed, non-Disappearing-friendly, cream-topped form.
I went in and asked for it with 'all the pleasure taken out' - which seems to be how my brain processes it, even if it's not an especially helpful description for my barista pals.
'Oh right,' said Naz, one of those pals, 'so decaff, skinny, light base...'
'That's the one,' I agreed.
'But keep the cream, right?'
I chuckled. 'Nope - all the pleasure, Naz,' I insisted.
She forwned. 'Really?'
'Really.'
She got busy making the drink, but there was a frown of puzzlement on her face. When the drink was nearly finished, she looked across at me again.
'Reeeeeeally?' she double-checked, her hand already on the cream siphon. 'You're sure?'
'I'm absolutely sure,' I told her. 'Absolutely.'
She looked at me with sweet bemusement - to be fair, it's a look that she often wears when I tell her things, a kind of 'what planet are you from, you strange, strange man?' look that makes you want to chuckle and pretty much hug her, because in that moment, she's not the confident woman in control of her own destiny that she actually is, but a wide-eyed five year-old, blinking at the madness of the grown-ups when they try and explain some silly nonsense to her.
'Oh, he's trying to be good,' put in Tania, a relative newbie to my Starbucks world, who appears to have had all natural human badness siphoned out of her nature at an early age, and who makes a damn fine Christmas elf. 'You should read his blog.'
Now Naz, to be fair, has always been supportive of my Disappearing efforts, and has read the blog previously. In fact, this is Naz - when she first discovered I was trying to lose weight, she'd write little inspiring pep-talks on my to-go cups. That's the level of sweet and helpful humanity we're dealing with here. Pure class.
'Oh,' said Naz, in response to this advice. 'Oh, all right.' And before any of us really knew what was happening, she'd caramel syruped what I think it's only fair to call 'the bejesus' out of the faux frap, the usual recipe for which is really more or less ice, skinny milk and desperation.
I chuckled. 'Thanks Naz.'
'Wellllll,' she explained, 'we've got to compensate you somehow.'
Made me grin, that one.
What's more, it tasted damn good, I'll admit, the compensation.
Generally, the rest of yesterday went pretty much as planned - mostly milk-light, sugar-free hot drinks, Starbucks plain porridge for breakfast, a bowl of soup and two rolls for dinner, no lunch (calorific compensation for the fact that I put rather a lot of milky liquid into myself yesterday), and home just in time to bike my ass off for an hour before walking over to collect d from work.
Now, I swear I wasn't trying to do this. In fact, just yesterday, I mention specifically not trying to do this, but after my West Wing bikefest, a geek-pal of mine named Adam mentioned a show to me that I'd always meant to catch but never had, and which - I daresay much to d's delight - I'm under absolutely no obligation to review either. The show is Gotham, and since Adam mentioned it was available on Netflix, I've been inhaling the thing in any spare moments I get.
Believe me when I tell you that no moments in life will ever be sparer than the moments you spend sweating your life away on an exercise bike, so I fired up the Flix on the phone, and Gothamed myself into a frantic sweaty oblivion for an hour, topping out at a calorie-burn of 613. 600 always used to be my racing target, because of course it works out at ten calories per minute, which is the kind of thing you need to know if you're on an exercise bike bored out of your brain and trying to make the time past faster. But an episode of Gotham burned away the boredom and let me hit a mark I wasn't even trying to hit.
We like this. A lot.
Onward! Bring on the Gotham, and the pain and the sweat and, whatever else is coming. I've still yet to complete week one of this Disappearance, so the trick at this stage is not to get too full of myself and think I've somehow 'done it,' somehow conquered the insatiable nature of self-permission. Clearly though, not my first rodeo, this. So far, so good, so positive.
I went in and asked for it with 'all the pleasure taken out' - which seems to be how my brain processes it, even if it's not an especially helpful description for my barista pals.
'Oh right,' said Naz, one of those pals, 'so decaff, skinny, light base...'
'That's the one,' I agreed.
'But keep the cream, right?'
I chuckled. 'Nope - all the pleasure, Naz,' I insisted.
She forwned. 'Really?'
'Really.'
She got busy making the drink, but there was a frown of puzzlement on her face. When the drink was nearly finished, she looked across at me again.
'Reeeeeeally?' she double-checked, her hand already on the cream siphon. 'You're sure?'
'I'm absolutely sure,' I told her. 'Absolutely.'
She looked at me with sweet bemusement - to be fair, it's a look that she often wears when I tell her things, a kind of 'what planet are you from, you strange, strange man?' look that makes you want to chuckle and pretty much hug her, because in that moment, she's not the confident woman in control of her own destiny that she actually is, but a wide-eyed five year-old, blinking at the madness of the grown-ups when they try and explain some silly nonsense to her.
'Oh, he's trying to be good,' put in Tania, a relative newbie to my Starbucks world, who appears to have had all natural human badness siphoned out of her nature at an early age, and who makes a damn fine Christmas elf. 'You should read his blog.'
Now Naz, to be fair, has always been supportive of my Disappearing efforts, and has read the blog previously. In fact, this is Naz - when she first discovered I was trying to lose weight, she'd write little inspiring pep-talks on my to-go cups. That's the level of sweet and helpful humanity we're dealing with here. Pure class.
'Oh,' said Naz, in response to this advice. 'Oh, all right.' And before any of us really knew what was happening, she'd caramel syruped what I think it's only fair to call 'the bejesus' out of the faux frap, the usual recipe for which is really more or less ice, skinny milk and desperation.
I chuckled. 'Thanks Naz.'
'Wellllll,' she explained, 'we've got to compensate you somehow.'
Made me grin, that one.
What's more, it tasted damn good, I'll admit, the compensation.
Generally, the rest of yesterday went pretty much as planned - mostly milk-light, sugar-free hot drinks, Starbucks plain porridge for breakfast, a bowl of soup and two rolls for dinner, no lunch (calorific compensation for the fact that I put rather a lot of milky liquid into myself yesterday), and home just in time to bike my ass off for an hour before walking over to collect d from work.
Now, I swear I wasn't trying to do this. In fact, just yesterday, I mention specifically not trying to do this, but after my West Wing bikefest, a geek-pal of mine named Adam mentioned a show to me that I'd always meant to catch but never had, and which - I daresay much to d's delight - I'm under absolutely no obligation to review either. The show is Gotham, and since Adam mentioned it was available on Netflix, I've been inhaling the thing in any spare moments I get.
Believe me when I tell you that no moments in life will ever be sparer than the moments you spend sweating your life away on an exercise bike, so I fired up the Flix on the phone, and Gothamed myself into a frantic sweaty oblivion for an hour, topping out at a calorie-burn of 613. 600 always used to be my racing target, because of course it works out at ten calories per minute, which is the kind of thing you need to know if you're on an exercise bike bored out of your brain and trying to make the time past faster. But an episode of Gotham burned away the boredom and let me hit a mark I wasn't even trying to hit.
We like this. A lot.
Onward! Bring on the Gotham, and the pain and the sweat and, whatever else is coming. I've still yet to complete week one of this Disappearance, so the trick at this stage is not to get too full of myself and think I've somehow 'done it,' somehow conquered the insatiable nature of self-permission. Clearly though, not my first rodeo, this. So far, so good, so positive.
Thursday, 21 January 2016
The West Wing Burn
Alrighty, well you learn something every day.
First of all, the dull stuff. Intake today:
One small bowl Fruit and Fibre cereal, one banana, semi-skimmed milk.
One tin Heinz tomato and basil soup, two slices brown bread.
Two lavazza coffees, semi-skimmed milk
One small container fruit and nut mix, approx 335 calories.
Small bowl Chinese stir fry, with rice.
None of which is especially relevant.
The new thing I've learned today is the inspirational power of The West Wing.
I mean, I knew it was emotionally and philosophically inspiring, I just never knew it could make my legs move faster.
One biking session, one hour. Hit 500 calories two nights ago, dropped back to a paltry 400 last night. Hit 520 tonight while watching two-thirds of "Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail," an episode of The West Wing I could practically act. Thing is, since I started back to biking on Monday, I've biked to music, I've biked to audio plays and audio books. Who knew it was The West Wing I needed to really start pushing the numbers.
I realise of course that the numbers are still pretty poor when you consider that for the rest of the day, I've sat on my ass and done computer-based work. But the eternal lesson is "Less in, more out," and if you compare today with what I ate and what I did a week ago today, I'm on the right side of that equation for once. I'm also not about to start going nuts in week one, because that's the easy way to give up in week two. This is me doing the Tortoise thing. Slow, steady, repetitive, controlled.
All of which means tomorrow's an interesting challenge, for tomorrow is Starbucks day - the first since I re-started. I'm not concerned about that, though perhaps I should be. I guess the thing is I could go wild and crazy, out of the safe, home, self-controlled environment and routine, I could go for all kinds of uberfraps. But the Day Four factor is kicking in. I've biked over thirty miles since Monday. The last thing I want to do is have a Fuck-It-Up Friday, because that means all the pain of the first two days, and all the routine that I've started to build, breaks like glass underneath my boots.
So - I must be my own Frap Nazi. I have a very weakass, light, skinny, sugar-free version of a caramel frap that I usually have as my first of the day (though I've recently taken to having that with cream again, which is pretty freaking stupid). I'll strip the cream out and might have it first thing tomorrow. But after that, it's buckets of pointlessness for me all the way. I also have an idea, about which, more tomorrow.
First of all, the dull stuff. Intake today:
One small bowl Fruit and Fibre cereal, one banana, semi-skimmed milk.
One tin Heinz tomato and basil soup, two slices brown bread.
Two lavazza coffees, semi-skimmed milk
One small container fruit and nut mix, approx 335 calories.
Small bowl Chinese stir fry, with rice.
None of which is especially relevant.
The new thing I've learned today is the inspirational power of The West Wing.
I mean, I knew it was emotionally and philosophically inspiring, I just never knew it could make my legs move faster.
One biking session, one hour. Hit 500 calories two nights ago, dropped back to a paltry 400 last night. Hit 520 tonight while watching two-thirds of "Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail," an episode of The West Wing I could practically act. Thing is, since I started back to biking on Monday, I've biked to music, I've biked to audio plays and audio books. Who knew it was The West Wing I needed to really start pushing the numbers.
I realise of course that the numbers are still pretty poor when you consider that for the rest of the day, I've sat on my ass and done computer-based work. But the eternal lesson is "Less in, more out," and if you compare today with what I ate and what I did a week ago today, I'm on the right side of that equation for once. I'm also not about to start going nuts in week one, because that's the easy way to give up in week two. This is me doing the Tortoise thing. Slow, steady, repetitive, controlled.
All of which means tomorrow's an interesting challenge, for tomorrow is Starbucks day - the first since I re-started. I'm not concerned about that, though perhaps I should be. I guess the thing is I could go wild and crazy, out of the safe, home, self-controlled environment and routine, I could go for all kinds of uberfraps. But the Day Four factor is kicking in. I've biked over thirty miles since Monday. The last thing I want to do is have a Fuck-It-Up Friday, because that means all the pain of the first two days, and all the routine that I've started to build, breaks like glass underneath my boots.
So - I must be my own Frap Nazi. I have a very weakass, light, skinny, sugar-free version of a caramel frap that I usually have as my first of the day (though I've recently taken to having that with cream again, which is pretty freaking stupid). I'll strip the cream out and might have it first thing tomorrow. But after that, it's buckets of pointlessness for me all the way. I also have an idea, about which, more tomorrow.
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
The Third Step
People who tell you the first step of any journey is the hardest probably haven't actually achieved anything.
The first step is great - it feels like decisiveness, control over your own destiny, bold, positive action against a sea of whatever troubles you think are dogging you where you stand. So's the second step, to be fair - that's when you get that slight 'Look at me, I'm actually doing this' smugness.
Step three - or lap three, or circuit three - that's when you have to shake your head a little to clear it of the new reality that settles on you like malicious snow. Really? We're doing this now? At which point what you absolutely mustn't ever do is take a long view of the horizon, because the horizon, or the finishing line, or the moment of completion and success is so astonishingly far away, still, that it will aactively demotivate you.
Step three, or lap three, or circuit three, is not by any stretch where things get hard. Not even slightly. But it's the step at which, if you like, and changing metaphors completely, you've jumped off the high board, and you get that sense of questioning whether, all things considered, that was the best move you could have made.
Whether it is or it isn't, of course, there's precisely nothing to be done about it at that point but head ultimately onward, and downward, and try not to break anything too important when you get there.
Day three is always a little tricky because it's when things start to call to you. Comforts, or in my case, carbs, sweet things, all the lines and lines of unwisdom that can keep me bound in this body and ultimately kill me ahead of all the other contenders that fancy a crack at the gig. It's simply the body reacting to a change of circumstance of course, a body that's been used to living one way, and has let you have your fun for three days, but now really would prefer the old life back, thankyouverymuch - the lazy life, the sweet life, the reach out and grab it, say "fuck it all" life.
I've been down this road enough times now to stick my fingers in my ears and sing "lalalalala."
Day four is always better. You get the horrendously premature sense of trophyism, the "Look what I've done" sense of having beaten day three. It's more than a little pathetic of course, but it works like anaesthetic to make the next few days easier. You amass your three pathetic little days and they become the beginning of something, and you don't want to spoil them. You begin to weigh three days against whatever it is that's calling to you, on that whole "one day at a time" principle, and you begin to think you're going to win.
So, having just done my day three biking, let's be having day four along quick smart, if you please.
The first step is great - it feels like decisiveness, control over your own destiny, bold, positive action against a sea of whatever troubles you think are dogging you where you stand. So's the second step, to be fair - that's when you get that slight 'Look at me, I'm actually doing this' smugness.
Step three - or lap three, or circuit three - that's when you have to shake your head a little to clear it of the new reality that settles on you like malicious snow. Really? We're doing this now? At which point what you absolutely mustn't ever do is take a long view of the horizon, because the horizon, or the finishing line, or the moment of completion and success is so astonishingly far away, still, that it will aactively demotivate you.
Step three, or lap three, or circuit three, is not by any stretch where things get hard. Not even slightly. But it's the step at which, if you like, and changing metaphors completely, you've jumped off the high board, and you get that sense of questioning whether, all things considered, that was the best move you could have made.
Whether it is or it isn't, of course, there's precisely nothing to be done about it at that point but head ultimately onward, and downward, and try not to break anything too important when you get there.
Day three is always a little tricky because it's when things start to call to you. Comforts, or in my case, carbs, sweet things, all the lines and lines of unwisdom that can keep me bound in this body and ultimately kill me ahead of all the other contenders that fancy a crack at the gig. It's simply the body reacting to a change of circumstance of course, a body that's been used to living one way, and has let you have your fun for three days, but now really would prefer the old life back, thankyouverymuch - the lazy life, the sweet life, the reach out and grab it, say "fuck it all" life.
I've been down this road enough times now to stick my fingers in my ears and sing "lalalalala."
Day four is always better. You get the horrendously premature sense of trophyism, the "Look what I've done" sense of having beaten day three. It's more than a little pathetic of course, but it works like anaesthetic to make the next few days easier. You amass your three pathetic little days and they become the beginning of something, and you don't want to spoil them. You begin to weigh three days against whatever it is that's calling to you, on that whole "one day at a time" principle, and you begin to think you're going to win.
So, having just done my day three biking, let's be having day four along quick smart, if you please.
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Starting Over Again...Again...Again
Yesterday, I began Disappearing again with the now-traditional 5AM wake-up, panicked blog, assessing everything I'd done wrong, laying down the rules and so on. I mentioned that weigh-ins were on Tuesday (an odd practice I got into because my occasional ubercommutes to and from London in a day tend to either be on Mondays or Wednesdays, but rarely if ever Tuesdays. If you're going to ask me why that's relevant, I'm firstly going to go ahead and assume you've never felt the need for a tremendous, King Kong-style evacuation first thing in the morning, and then I'm going to call bullshit.). I said I was expecting to be over 19st 7, and I wasn't just skipping along like Mary Sue and plucking a number out of the air when I said that. Before a recent three-day trip to London with d, I was 19st 3. That's the number my Fitbit has stored in it as my starting weight because I got it at Christmas and I figured I'd be that heavy by the end of the whole festive yin-yang. (Oh fuck yeah, I have a Fitbit; I'll try any piece of yuppie shit out there, I have no pride). But on a faintly desperate unofficial weigh-in when I got home from London, I was over 19st 5. Weirdly, that wasn't enough to make me stop and consider my lifestyle. Two days ago, I ate two pizzas and a bunch of leftover Christmas chocolate. So 19st 7 was a realistic estimate.
But yesterday, I started this Disappearing business again. I seem to be breaking myself into it relatively gently, which rather flies in the face of the whole 'absolutist' schtick of yesterday's blog, but as days go, it was much better. Over the space of 18 hours, I ate one bowl of butternut squash soup and a hunk of bread, drank two venti decaff skinny Americano mistos with sugar-free caramel (I'd still quite like an explanation of sugar-free caramel, incidentally - how is that a thing? What do you burn to make sugar-free caramel? Hopes and dreams?), one bottle of John Lewis smoothie. Then for dinner, I had steak, vegetables and ridiculous but tasty M&S meat-filled parcel things that probably have a proper name somewhere in this universe, followed by some fruit and yoghurt. I'm in two minds about the fruit and yoghurt thing, it smacks of dessert to me, but for now at least, while the massive likelihood is that I can still lose weight while having it, I'm bowing to the wisdom of my wife and the fact that it's freakin' tasty.
I also got back on the exercise bike for the first time in weeks, and for the first time in about a year, I pedalled that thing for a solid hour. Not madly, not intending to break a land speed record or my constitution, just solidly, without giving up, for an hour. Like I used to when I started this process originally, some five years ago. So - that made me feel all serious about the thing, and gave me thighs that refused to move again, ever.
Today's been a work from home day. I know, technically, every day's a work from home day in my case, but what I mean is, it's been a day when d's working a 12-hour shift when I didn't jump on a train and go to Starbucks. Nope - my ass has been housebound for most of the day. Doing...y'know, worky stuff.
Intake so far - one small bowl Fruit & Fibre cereal, semi-skimmed milk. Two Lavazza coffees, water, one tin of tomato and chilli soup, two dinner rolls. Bought myself some fruit for healthy snacking, and the only thing keeping my ass and my protesting thighs from the exercise bike for another hour of pedalling fun and joy is that I haven't finished this blog yet. Soon as I do, that's me, donning the shorts of power and boring my own ass off for a whole hour, dammit. Burned somewhere in the region of 450 calories last night, which is always the problem with biking - depressingly small return for the energy invested - but, oh yeah, this was the point of the blog:
Today's weigh-in: 19st 3.
Never actually thought I'd be pleased to see that figure, but after London, and pizza and chocolate and what-have-you, was happy enough to bite its hand off when the Nazi Scales flashed that at me this morning. So, clearly, it was 450 calories of seriousness and giddy-up. Which is why I'm going right the hell back to it, right now. We've begun with a figure that's both massively high, and simultaneously lower than expected. But more importantly, we've begun. Again.
But yesterday, I started this Disappearing business again. I seem to be breaking myself into it relatively gently, which rather flies in the face of the whole 'absolutist' schtick of yesterday's blog, but as days go, it was much better. Over the space of 18 hours, I ate one bowl of butternut squash soup and a hunk of bread, drank two venti decaff skinny Americano mistos with sugar-free caramel (I'd still quite like an explanation of sugar-free caramel, incidentally - how is that a thing? What do you burn to make sugar-free caramel? Hopes and dreams?), one bottle of John Lewis smoothie. Then for dinner, I had steak, vegetables and ridiculous but tasty M&S meat-filled parcel things that probably have a proper name somewhere in this universe, followed by some fruit and yoghurt. I'm in two minds about the fruit and yoghurt thing, it smacks of dessert to me, but for now at least, while the massive likelihood is that I can still lose weight while having it, I'm bowing to the wisdom of my wife and the fact that it's freakin' tasty.
I also got back on the exercise bike for the first time in weeks, and for the first time in about a year, I pedalled that thing for a solid hour. Not madly, not intending to break a land speed record or my constitution, just solidly, without giving up, for an hour. Like I used to when I started this process originally, some five years ago. So - that made me feel all serious about the thing, and gave me thighs that refused to move again, ever.
Today's been a work from home day. I know, technically, every day's a work from home day in my case, but what I mean is, it's been a day when d's working a 12-hour shift when I didn't jump on a train and go to Starbucks. Nope - my ass has been housebound for most of the day. Doing...y'know, worky stuff.
Intake so far - one small bowl Fruit & Fibre cereal, semi-skimmed milk. Two Lavazza coffees, water, one tin of tomato and chilli soup, two dinner rolls. Bought myself some fruit for healthy snacking, and the only thing keeping my ass and my protesting thighs from the exercise bike for another hour of pedalling fun and joy is that I haven't finished this blog yet. Soon as I do, that's me, donning the shorts of power and boring my own ass off for a whole hour, dammit. Burned somewhere in the region of 450 calories last night, which is always the problem with biking - depressingly small return for the energy invested - but, oh yeah, this was the point of the blog:
Today's weigh-in: 19st 3.
Never actually thought I'd be pleased to see that figure, but after London, and pizza and chocolate and what-have-you, was happy enough to bite its hand off when the Nazi Scales flashed that at me this morning. So, clearly, it was 450 calories of seriousness and giddy-up. Which is why I'm going right the hell back to it, right now. We've begun with a figure that's both massively high, and simultaneously lower than expected. But more importantly, we've begun. Again.
Monday, 18 January 2016
The Devalued Currency and the Need For Absolutism.
So here we are. All over again.
I write this at 5.13 in the morning, a dispatch from a life once more beyond all notion of control.
I recently went to London for a three-day work session, and I came back from that at least weighing 19st 5. Since when I've had a couple of days of insane immobility and consumption, which means I am afraid if I were to get on the scales right now, I would be over 19st 7. Less than a single stone (14 lb) lighter than when I began all this, five years ago.
I feel like a devalued currency, this Disappearing Man. Took me a year of absolutism to lose six stone (84 lb). Has taken me the next four years to put five of them back on. And such insane years they've been.
It seems that for me, at least for now, there's no alternative but absolutism. Absolute commitment to not killing myself by putting things in my body that do me harm. Absolute commitment to reducing the pressure on my systems - my heart, my bones, my joints, my organs. Something has to give, and if it's not me, it'll be them - there's no mysticism about this, the human being's a closed system: causes have effects, actions have consequences. The only variable is the mind which can decide what causes happen.
Seems like forever since I've been inside what I call my perspex boxes - my mental barriers between the temptations of unwise consumption and the actions of it. But clearly there is, for me, nothing that acts as an effective deterrent but this absolutism of mind. One day at a time, kumbayah and all that happy shit.
This will be hard. As I say, I'm very much out of practice. But this, it seems, is what must be done. Conveniently of course, tomorrow is Tuesday. Always did love a Tuesday.
The hardest thing to really get into my brain though won't be the absolutism of self-denial - no sugar, no desserts, no alcohol, low fat, low carb and all that stuff that makes one so interesting at parties. It will be the starting again from zero. I've had a tendency, up till now, to start off madly, pushing myself to overdo and suffering stupid consequences as a result. Relatively recently, I bounded off on a walking jag, doing four miles a day for two days - then having to abruptly stop as my feel were blistered.
When I began this thing, it began as I recall with biking. Committed, dedicated hour or half hour biking sessions, to music rather than to speech. The walking, when it came, came in smaller doses - I didn't start off doing miles. I started off doing half-miles at a time - across Hyde Park to Lancaster Gate tube station. And when I started, even that hurt. I have to stop thinking I should be able to do the things I could do even at 17 stone. I simply have to do what I can do right now, and let the rest come back to me as the rewards of progress.
So - for those who haven't heard me do this a hundred times or so over the last five years, here are the rules. Weigh-ins on Tuesday. Safe loss is 2lb per week. One year (to begin with - it's been pointed out to me that this blog has now been active, if not actively updated - for five years). 52 weeks at 2lb per week is 104lbs. That would be a loss of over 7 stone. I'm not mad enough to think I can achieve that - as I say, the first (and only successful) time I did this, I managed six. There will be continued ranting. There will undoubtedly be bitch-slapping. Come along all over again.
I write this at 5.13 in the morning, a dispatch from a life once more beyond all notion of control.
I recently went to London for a three-day work session, and I came back from that at least weighing 19st 5. Since when I've had a couple of days of insane immobility and consumption, which means I am afraid if I were to get on the scales right now, I would be over 19st 7. Less than a single stone (14 lb) lighter than when I began all this, five years ago.
I feel like a devalued currency, this Disappearing Man. Took me a year of absolutism to lose six stone (84 lb). Has taken me the next four years to put five of them back on. And such insane years they've been.
It seems that for me, at least for now, there's no alternative but absolutism. Absolute commitment to not killing myself by putting things in my body that do me harm. Absolute commitment to reducing the pressure on my systems - my heart, my bones, my joints, my organs. Something has to give, and if it's not me, it'll be them - there's no mysticism about this, the human being's a closed system: causes have effects, actions have consequences. The only variable is the mind which can decide what causes happen.
Seems like forever since I've been inside what I call my perspex boxes - my mental barriers between the temptations of unwise consumption and the actions of it. But clearly there is, for me, nothing that acts as an effective deterrent but this absolutism of mind. One day at a time, kumbayah and all that happy shit.
This will be hard. As I say, I'm very much out of practice. But this, it seems, is what must be done. Conveniently of course, tomorrow is Tuesday. Always did love a Tuesday.
The hardest thing to really get into my brain though won't be the absolutism of self-denial - no sugar, no desserts, no alcohol, low fat, low carb and all that stuff that makes one so interesting at parties. It will be the starting again from zero. I've had a tendency, up till now, to start off madly, pushing myself to overdo and suffering stupid consequences as a result. Relatively recently, I bounded off on a walking jag, doing four miles a day for two days - then having to abruptly stop as my feel were blistered.
When I began this thing, it began as I recall with biking. Committed, dedicated hour or half hour biking sessions, to music rather than to speech. The walking, when it came, came in smaller doses - I didn't start off doing miles. I started off doing half-miles at a time - across Hyde Park to Lancaster Gate tube station. And when I started, even that hurt. I have to stop thinking I should be able to do the things I could do even at 17 stone. I simply have to do what I can do right now, and let the rest come back to me as the rewards of progress.
So - for those who haven't heard me do this a hundred times or so over the last five years, here are the rules. Weigh-ins on Tuesday. Safe loss is 2lb per week. One year (to begin with - it's been pointed out to me that this blog has now been active, if not actively updated - for five years). 52 weeks at 2lb per week is 104lbs. That would be a loss of over 7 stone. I'm not mad enough to think I can achieve that - as I say, the first (and only successful) time I did this, I managed six. There will be continued ranting. There will undoubtedly be bitch-slapping. Come along all over again.
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
The 45 Deadline
Hello there.
Yes, yes, back again. It's been pointed out to me by several people that the blurb of this blog still says it's the journey of a single year in the life of a man...yadda yadda yadda, and yet here we are - a year from now I will be 45. In fact, pretty much eleven months from now I'll be 45, and when I started this blog waaaay back in the day, I would be turning 40 during the 'Year of Disappearing.'
The horrible truth is that I have been for some time out of all control, 'out of all compass' as Shakespeare says of the famously fat Falstaff.
I weighed in today at 18stone, 12.25 lbs. 264 lbs, for my American friends. Still some 23lbs lighter than I was when I originally started, but still, - pretty damned heavy.
Recently, it's felt utterly compulsive again, rather than for the purposes of enjoyment or rational feeding. I've felt like I've been whipped by my own brain to try and destroy my body. I have no enormously productive idea why one part of myself should want to do that to another, but there it is nonetheless.
And so, we begin again. I do not want to be this way, I want to be an entirely other way. I want to wear clothes without having to think about them, without having to worry about them and most of all without having the unconscious gag reflex when I see myself in them.
I want, ideally, not to be one of those people that people shake their heads about sadly at their funerals, and mutter about them being 'a fool to themselves.' I'll be a fool for anyone and anything you understand, but it seems the very acme of redundancy to die for foolishness. I say this of course in the week when a lot of people who had, as far as we can tell, no desire to die were killed by the foolishness of others, but obviously that wasn't their fault. As far as is humanly possible, I don't want my death to be my own fault either. I want the bastard that is clamshell packaging to get me, to burst a blood vessel in pointless frustration aged 97 trying to open a new pair of earphones and be done before I hit the floor. I don't want to be a statistic of self-destruction.
And so, as I say, we clear the decks, we jump on the exercise bike, we pedal. And so begins another year - a year of aiming to lost five stone at minimum before I hit 45.
Here we go again...
Yes, yes, back again. It's been pointed out to me by several people that the blurb of this blog still says it's the journey of a single year in the life of a man...yadda yadda yadda, and yet here we are - a year from now I will be 45. In fact, pretty much eleven months from now I'll be 45, and when I started this blog waaaay back in the day, I would be turning 40 during the 'Year of Disappearing.'
The horrible truth is that I have been for some time out of all control, 'out of all compass' as Shakespeare says of the famously fat Falstaff.
I weighed in today at 18stone, 12.25 lbs. 264 lbs, for my American friends. Still some 23lbs lighter than I was when I originally started, but still, - pretty damned heavy.
Recently, it's felt utterly compulsive again, rather than for the purposes of enjoyment or rational feeding. I've felt like I've been whipped by my own brain to try and destroy my body. I have no enormously productive idea why one part of myself should want to do that to another, but there it is nonetheless.
And so, we begin again. I do not want to be this way, I want to be an entirely other way. I want to wear clothes without having to think about them, without having to worry about them and most of all without having the unconscious gag reflex when I see myself in them.
I want, ideally, not to be one of those people that people shake their heads about sadly at their funerals, and mutter about them being 'a fool to themselves.' I'll be a fool for anyone and anything you understand, but it seems the very acme of redundancy to die for foolishness. I say this of course in the week when a lot of people who had, as far as we can tell, no desire to die were killed by the foolishness of others, but obviously that wasn't their fault. As far as is humanly possible, I don't want my death to be my own fault either. I want the bastard that is clamshell packaging to get me, to burst a blood vessel in pointless frustration aged 97 trying to open a new pair of earphones and be done before I hit the floor. I don't want to be a statistic of self-destruction.
And so, as I say, we clear the decks, we jump on the exercise bike, we pedal. And so begins another year - a year of aiming to lost five stone at minimum before I hit 45.
Here we go again...
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