You remember that whole rant about how I walked in the rain, rather than using the brand, spanking new treadmill that's sitting in my comparatively warm, comparatively dry office?
Yyyyyeah, today I did my whole 10,000 step route in the absolute pissing rain. So - clearly, that works. I feel like I've just done 5,000 steps of walking, and 5,00 strokes of swimming. I may need an intervention, or something like a Post-It stuck to my forehead or somesuch, with the words "That's Why You Have The Treadmill, Dickwad!" on it.
Of course, if I had that, one, I wouldn't be able to read it, and two, it'd fall off in the pissing rain, so...maybe a tattoo on the inside of my retina or instead.
Mind you, I walked in the rain last night too. Came home, sank into a hot bath to warm up.
"You're right, you know?" said d just as we were about to go to bed.
"Really?" That seemed so massively unlikely I had to check. I wasn't sure what I could possibly have been right about, but I was willing to take it.
"Yes, really."
"Good then."
"Those Nazi Scales are messed-up."
"Oh," I said. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, they're all over the place. I just got on them four times and got four wildly different readings. Think they need a new battery or something."
"Ah. Cool then. When they tell me I'm a monstrous Disappearing failure in the morning, I'll tell them to go fuck themselves."
"Yes dear. That'll be fun for you."
And so we went to sleep. As I mentioned, I was really rather annoyed with the way the week had gone - yesterday when I woke up, I weighed in at 18st 12.5, which pissed me off because at various points in this week, I've seen 18st 7, and I've walked most days this week and done nothing especially out of the ordinary, so the bounce-back felt monumentally unfair.
As it happens though, a lot of walking yesterday and a relatively liquid diet along with it, and I weighed in this morning at an official 18st 7.75 pounds.
So that's one unfortunate fart away from a stone and a half (21 pounds) lost since a couple of weeks before Christmas. If nothing else, that proves to my body I'm not just dicking about with this this time. It also means I'm seven pounds and a fart away from the 18 stone border, which is the point at which I start to feel like I'm actually Disappearing. What that means is that it's gone from hard work to second nature. Which in turn means it's things that are first nature that can still, sometimes, trip me up.
Last night, prior to the Nazi Scale conversation but after marching up and down Cardiff Queen Street again, this time in protest at the Orange Obscenity's sudden anti-human clampdown on entry to the US, d had asked me to pick her up a couple of hot dogs from Five Guys and bring them home. No problem, no drama - went, put the order in...
...and then time tunnelled around me. I looked across at the Five Guys milkshake menu, and oh my ever-loving gods, but they sounded good. Having subsisted most of the day on one bowl of oatmeal and many coffees, and clocking up s faintly disappointing 17,000-odd steps, it was the most natural thing in the world to go "Oh, and a malted milk peanut butter shake, no cream..."
I heard myself say it. Heard my brain scream 'Wwwwwwhat the hell? This is what we don't do any more? Whaddaya dooooooinnnnnng?!' And I had the argument with myself - 'Fuck you, it's liquid. It's just a liquid, where's the bad, Oatmeal-Boy? Who can tell you not to do a thing? You know how good they taste. Surely 17,000 steps earns you a shake, right?'
The time tunnel collapsed. The server was looking at my face expectantly.
"Hmm?" I said, having one of those moments where you genuinely don't know if you've said something or only thought it.
"Is that everything for you?" he asked again. I glanced over at the milkshake menu again, felt the longing, the craving. Swallowed.
"Err...yeah. Thanks." And the moment passed.
Or almost - I had five other time tunnel moments while waiting for the order to be delivered, to the extent that I almost tried to take someone else's food when it came out before mine, so keen was I to stop my brain from dangling the icy, creamy pleasure in my path, and point out that there was no line, and that I could just nip across and add a shake to the order, no problem.
Sigh. See? Beware of your first nature - it's the primal pleasure principle and the idea of denying it is where the idea of 'sin' comes from. But, at least for this day, the 'demon' Milkshake didn't trip me up, which means the erratic Nazi Scales this morning were relatively kind, and on we jolly well go. I'd like to tell you the next stop is 18 stone, but it probaby, in all honesty, isn't. There'll probably be some amount of dicking about in the upper half of the 18s before I start to make progress to things like 18st 4. Then, in all likelihood, there'll be endless faffing to get down beneath the border of 18. But the goal at least is to a) get beneath 18st 7, and then b) get beneath 18 stone.
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Sunday, 29 January 2017
The Treadmill Obstinacy
See, here's the thing.
Since we moved house, we haven't been able to find the charger for my exercise bike. It's also been December and January, so technically, in Wales, some of the most meteorologically unsound months to be exercising outdoors.
But I own a treadmill now. My pal Harry, having decided he wants to get double-hard bastard-serious about physique and suchlike, has joined a gym. And in so doing, he decided to free up some of his living space by giving away his treadmill. I pounced on that offer, because - free Disappearing equipment, and now we have the space for it, where's the bad. But he and his wife Laura delivered it to us a few weeks ago now (d basically tied them to their chairs and fed them cake). Since when, it's sat there in my office, looking up at me with lugubrious imaginary spaniel eyes, radiating dejection because I've not yet got on it and put it through its paces.
In fact, just a couple of days ago, Harry asked if I'd used it yet.
'Been getting out and about to walk,' I explained, 'if for no other reason than I can get some outside air. Besides, it's been fine. Treadmill's for when it pisses down.'
'Ah,' he said. 'I see the logic there.'
Which would be fine, except then there's today.
Today it was grim here. Not exactly pouring down, but wet and mizzly. Could have walked directly after lunch, but chose not to. Was even contemplating not walking at all, and just cracking on with the work I had to do. But as evening fell, I decided to go walking after all.
Long before I got halfway, slogging it through the persistent Russian Hooker drizzle and the attendant sapping of the spirit to go on, I decided I couldn't do the full usual route. Took a right when I usually take a left, and subsequently ended up doing far less by way of walking than I should have - a mere 700-odd steps.
The thing that's confusing about that of course is that the treadmill's there, in my nice, comparatively warm, dry office, just waiting for me to get on it on days when the weather's objectionable.
Instead of which, I chose to go out, get soaked, lose the will to walk and ended up doing significantly fewer steps than I either would have or should have. And I still have to endure the treadmill's 'You don't love me' eyes. Sometimes, clearly, I'm too stupid and too obstinate for my own good. That needs to change.
Overall, I'm really rather irritated by the way the week has gone, if I'm honest. At some points this week, I've been four whole pounds lighter than I was when I did this morning's unofficial weigh-in, which is a sucky admission with just two sleeps before the next official weigh-in. At corresponding points to the weightloss though, it should be noted, I was doing over 20,000 steps per day, and not eating after the last of them. That hasn't been the case for the last three days, and the significant weighloss has rebounded with alarming alacrity as the effort has given way to available time and, today, drizzle.
Tomorrow offers me the chance to get back into something like a good routine. I have the morning off, so can wake naturally, and get my first 12,000 steps done. Then there's a meeting I have to phone in for in the afternoon (see my previous entry, where I got the day of that meeting wrong), and then there's a two-hour protest march in Cardiff in the evening, which I'm thinking of spending £8 of train fare to go to simply to add my voice and legs to the resistance to the unPresident's obscene policies of prejudice. Not exactly wise, nine long-ass days to payday, but if £8 and a couple of hours is the difference between resisting and not resisting, I can find it. Plus, from a purely Disappearing point of view, it allows me to get a couple of hours' more walking in.
So there's the chance of a positive upset before Tuesday, but not any particular likelihood of news as earth-shatteringly good as I had reason to hope for a few days ago. Which is utterly irksome, but there we go. Perhaps next time I get the chance to stay indoors and do some damned treadmill work, I'll be altogether less snooty about the whole thing. Steps are steps are steps, after all...
Since we moved house, we haven't been able to find the charger for my exercise bike. It's also been December and January, so technically, in Wales, some of the most meteorologically unsound months to be exercising outdoors.
But I own a treadmill now. My pal Harry, having decided he wants to get double-hard bastard-serious about physique and suchlike, has joined a gym. And in so doing, he decided to free up some of his living space by giving away his treadmill. I pounced on that offer, because - free Disappearing equipment, and now we have the space for it, where's the bad. But he and his wife Laura delivered it to us a few weeks ago now (d basically tied them to their chairs and fed them cake). Since when, it's sat there in my office, looking up at me with lugubrious imaginary spaniel eyes, radiating dejection because I've not yet got on it and put it through its paces.
In fact, just a couple of days ago, Harry asked if I'd used it yet.
'Been getting out and about to walk,' I explained, 'if for no other reason than I can get some outside air. Besides, it's been fine. Treadmill's for when it pisses down.'
'Ah,' he said. 'I see the logic there.'
Which would be fine, except then there's today.
Today it was grim here. Not exactly pouring down, but wet and mizzly. Could have walked directly after lunch, but chose not to. Was even contemplating not walking at all, and just cracking on with the work I had to do. But as evening fell, I decided to go walking after all.
Long before I got halfway, slogging it through the persistent Russian Hooker drizzle and the attendant sapping of the spirit to go on, I decided I couldn't do the full usual route. Took a right when I usually take a left, and subsequently ended up doing far less by way of walking than I should have - a mere 700-odd steps.
The thing that's confusing about that of course is that the treadmill's there, in my nice, comparatively warm, dry office, just waiting for me to get on it on days when the weather's objectionable.
Instead of which, I chose to go out, get soaked, lose the will to walk and ended up doing significantly fewer steps than I either would have or should have. And I still have to endure the treadmill's 'You don't love me' eyes. Sometimes, clearly, I'm too stupid and too obstinate for my own good. That needs to change.
Overall, I'm really rather irritated by the way the week has gone, if I'm honest. At some points this week, I've been four whole pounds lighter than I was when I did this morning's unofficial weigh-in, which is a sucky admission with just two sleeps before the next official weigh-in. At corresponding points to the weightloss though, it should be noted, I was doing over 20,000 steps per day, and not eating after the last of them. That hasn't been the case for the last three days, and the significant weighloss has rebounded with alarming alacrity as the effort has given way to available time and, today, drizzle.
Tomorrow offers me the chance to get back into something like a good routine. I have the morning off, so can wake naturally, and get my first 12,000 steps done. Then there's a meeting I have to phone in for in the afternoon (see my previous entry, where I got the day of that meeting wrong), and then there's a two-hour protest march in Cardiff in the evening, which I'm thinking of spending £8 of train fare to go to simply to add my voice and legs to the resistance to the unPresident's obscene policies of prejudice. Not exactly wise, nine long-ass days to payday, but if £8 and a couple of hours is the difference between resisting and not resisting, I can find it. Plus, from a purely Disappearing point of view, it allows me to get a couple of hours' more walking in.
So there's the chance of a positive upset before Tuesday, but not any particular likelihood of news as earth-shatteringly good as I had reason to hope for a few days ago. Which is utterly irksome, but there we go. Perhaps next time I get the chance to stay indoors and do some damned treadmill work, I'll be altogether less snooty about the whole thing. Steps are steps are steps, after all...
Friday, 27 January 2017
The Temporal Schism
So - good, bold idea yesterday, this whole 500 mile thing. What's become clear since then is that it's not the walking that'll be the issue with it. It's time management.
Yesterday, I posted the blog, but the day-job ran through what would normally be my lunch hour.
'What are you gonna do? Gonna go?' asked d, as 3 o'clock came and went.
'Absolutely,' I said, all grim determination and fullness of my new idea.
'Annnd how long does it take?'
'What, once-round my route?'
'Yep.'
'Aaaabout two hours.'
'So you've missed a lunchtime slot. And you can't go now cos it's the middle of the afternoon, so you're looking at 5 o'clock. Plus two hours. What are you gonna do? Go round to get your 10,000 steps, come in, have dinner, go out and do another one? You're gonna be walking around this town at 10 o'clock?'
'Yeah, if that's what's necessary,' I said, still fired up with my idea and my cause.
'Cos that's not obsessive at all.'
'It's what's...necessary,' I said, coming back to the word. I have a staggering capacity to re-frame the world in black and white, the necessary and the unnecessary, when the focus comes over me, as those familiar with the Disappearing Man will already understand. And yes, sometimes that leads me to excesses of selfishness that can affect those who love me. Cos yeah, sometimes, I'm a blinkered bastard.
'It's not necessary,' she said. 'It's you formalising some of your slavish tendencies. Must Walk Twice is not a holy mantra you know? What's next? Three times?'
Now - there are times when I should be jocular, annnnd then there are other times. 'Only reason to go to three would be to cut the middle one down to a single hour,' I said.
'Mm-hmm. Slavish.'
'I just...it seems to be working for me, baby. I don't want to stop it working.'
She came and kissed me. 'You're a numpty,' she said. 'I don't want to stop it working either. I just don't want you to become some obsessive walking zombie.'
I held her tight. 'Won't. Promise. Just wanna get my steps in.'
'So go once, and do a different route. Do what you feel you need to do, baby, just...come home and be.'
'I will baby. I always will...'
'Right,' she said. 'Best get on then - you've got two hours of money to earn before you turn into the Happy Wanderer.' She kissed me again, and left me to it.
Come 5 o'clock, I went a-happy wandering. My usual route is uphill to one roundabout, uphill to a second roundabout, then left through Dowlais and round in a biggish circle. I go that way, turning left because the alternatives are odd. You can turn right, and go in an entirely different circle, or you can go up again. If you go up the third up, you're almost committing to a number of follow-on ups, because my town is built out of hills on top of hills. Last night I walked the ups. All the way up through several high horizons, all the way to the Asda store that sits at the top of the town, looking down over all our lives like King Retail on his blasted heath of a throne.
Given that it's so dauntingly high, and takes so much schlepping to get to, I was surprised to find it was only 5,500 steps from home to Asda. That meant I'd have to go there and back twice to get my 20,000 steps in. Having got up there, I ruled that out. Came back in a very convoluted way, inolving going up several blind alleys that I didn't know were blind alleys. The long and the short of it is that I ended up doing 21,000 steps not as two chunks, but as one.
That's not something I'd recommend. Came home and had to bathe my feet. But crucially perhaps, doing it in one chunk, while technically doable, was neither time-wise nor especially diet-friendly, because when I got back, we ate dinner, falling back into the pattern that previously had me not moving down.
This morning, in my obligatory unofficial weigh-in, that was refelected by a bump in the figures on the Nazi Scales, the 21,000 steps almost negated by their place in the day, prior to eating dinner.
Today, timing continued to be my own personal bastard. For reasons you don't need to know about, I'd booked half of today off, plus all day Monday and Tuesday. Half day today because I had a big meeting to phone in for today at two. After last night's stepathon, I slept in massively, found myself getting to my desk just a little before midday. Not quite enough time to do my walk and get back for my meeting, so worked on some editing in the meantime.
Two o'clock came, and I sat ready for the call.
Two thirty came, and I started calling - my boss, everyone else in the office...Texted, sent emails and Skype-messages. Was I missing the meeting?
At three o'clock I got a text back from the boss. "Meeting 2pm MONDAY. At a funeral right now."
Soooo that was a screw-up, then. Way to look like a psycho stalkerboy with no sbility to read a calendar. Class.
Went out eventually to do my walk, but couldn't, tonight, do more than my single revolution, and what now feels like a relatively paltry 10,000 steps, because on the way round, I was struck by stomach cramps again. Made it home safely but am getting more than a little peeved with the digestive roller-coaster of this thing.
And of course, my screw up meant that again, I did my walking, came home, ate, and then was sedentary until the point of going to bed. Need to master the now-unfamiliar art of of morning walking again, to give myself a jump on the day and its exercise-needs if I'm to achieve my goals here.
Onward then...
Yesterday, I posted the blog, but the day-job ran through what would normally be my lunch hour.
'What are you gonna do? Gonna go?' asked d, as 3 o'clock came and went.
'Absolutely,' I said, all grim determination and fullness of my new idea.
'Annnd how long does it take?'
'What, once-round my route?'
'Yep.'
'Aaaabout two hours.'
'So you've missed a lunchtime slot. And you can't go now cos it's the middle of the afternoon, so you're looking at 5 o'clock. Plus two hours. What are you gonna do? Go round to get your 10,000 steps, come in, have dinner, go out and do another one? You're gonna be walking around this town at 10 o'clock?'
'Yeah, if that's what's necessary,' I said, still fired up with my idea and my cause.
'Cos that's not obsessive at all.'
'It's what's...necessary,' I said, coming back to the word. I have a staggering capacity to re-frame the world in black and white, the necessary and the unnecessary, when the focus comes over me, as those familiar with the Disappearing Man will already understand. And yes, sometimes that leads me to excesses of selfishness that can affect those who love me. Cos yeah, sometimes, I'm a blinkered bastard.
'It's not necessary,' she said. 'It's you formalising some of your slavish tendencies. Must Walk Twice is not a holy mantra you know? What's next? Three times?'
Now - there are times when I should be jocular, annnnd then there are other times. 'Only reason to go to three would be to cut the middle one down to a single hour,' I said.
'Mm-hmm. Slavish.'
'I just...it seems to be working for me, baby. I don't want to stop it working.'
She came and kissed me. 'You're a numpty,' she said. 'I don't want to stop it working either. I just don't want you to become some obsessive walking zombie.'
I held her tight. 'Won't. Promise. Just wanna get my steps in.'
'So go once, and do a different route. Do what you feel you need to do, baby, just...come home and be.'
'I will baby. I always will...'
'Right,' she said. 'Best get on then - you've got two hours of money to earn before you turn into the Happy Wanderer.' She kissed me again, and left me to it.
Come 5 o'clock, I went a-happy wandering. My usual route is uphill to one roundabout, uphill to a second roundabout, then left through Dowlais and round in a biggish circle. I go that way, turning left because the alternatives are odd. You can turn right, and go in an entirely different circle, or you can go up again. If you go up the third up, you're almost committing to a number of follow-on ups, because my town is built out of hills on top of hills. Last night I walked the ups. All the way up through several high horizons, all the way to the Asda store that sits at the top of the town, looking down over all our lives like King Retail on his blasted heath of a throne.
Given that it's so dauntingly high, and takes so much schlepping to get to, I was surprised to find it was only 5,500 steps from home to Asda. That meant I'd have to go there and back twice to get my 20,000 steps in. Having got up there, I ruled that out. Came back in a very convoluted way, inolving going up several blind alleys that I didn't know were blind alleys. The long and the short of it is that I ended up doing 21,000 steps not as two chunks, but as one.
That's not something I'd recommend. Came home and had to bathe my feet. But crucially perhaps, doing it in one chunk, while technically doable, was neither time-wise nor especially diet-friendly, because when I got back, we ate dinner, falling back into the pattern that previously had me not moving down.
This morning, in my obligatory unofficial weigh-in, that was refelected by a bump in the figures on the Nazi Scales, the 21,000 steps almost negated by their place in the day, prior to eating dinner.
Today, timing continued to be my own personal bastard. For reasons you don't need to know about, I'd booked half of today off, plus all day Monday and Tuesday. Half day today because I had a big meeting to phone in for today at two. After last night's stepathon, I slept in massively, found myself getting to my desk just a little before midday. Not quite enough time to do my walk and get back for my meeting, so worked on some editing in the meantime.
Two o'clock came, and I sat ready for the call.
Two thirty came, and I started calling - my boss, everyone else in the office...Texted, sent emails and Skype-messages. Was I missing the meeting?
At three o'clock I got a text back from the boss. "Meeting 2pm MONDAY. At a funeral right now."
Soooo that was a screw-up, then. Way to look like a psycho stalkerboy with no sbility to read a calendar. Class.
Went out eventually to do my walk, but couldn't, tonight, do more than my single revolution, and what now feels like a relatively paltry 10,000 steps, because on the way round, I was struck by stomach cramps again. Made it home safely but am getting more than a little peeved with the digestive roller-coaster of this thing.
And of course, my screw up meant that again, I did my walking, came home, ate, and then was sedentary until the point of going to bed. Need to master the now-unfamiliar art of of morning walking again, to give myself a jump on the day and its exercise-needs if I'm to achieve my goals here.
Onward then...
Thursday, 26 January 2017
The 500 Mile Challenge
'You should do that.'
As a sentence, it's the kind of thing from which great endeavours of cataclysmic foolishness are built.
This time, the line was delivered to me on Facebook, by a pal named Denise.
And she was talking about a song.
I'm fairly sure you all know the song, but maybe you're young or have been living in a particularly impenetrable cave, so here you go. If you don't know the song, it's called 'I would Walk (500 Miles)' and it's sung by gloriously Caledonian tune-lovers, The Proclaimers. Very catchy songwriters, The Proclaimers, and 500 Miles is one of a handful for which they're known outside their hardcore fan-base. It's a song that extends round the world, for both its joyous marchability, and its seeming note of lyrical, personal dedication. Good song. Great song.
Ahem...Here's a geeky-visualed version of the song. Hey, whaddaya want from me, I'm a geek, alright?
The reason the song suddenly appeared back in my life yesterday is simple to explain. Having started doing two walks a day in order to reduce my ridiculous and unsustainable girth, I ended up walking the equivalent of 8.9 miles yesterday. Not by any means miraculous,
'And I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...' quipped Denise, before adding the fatal words. 'You should do that.'
You don't TELL me things like that. You really just don't. Those are seeding words. Those are words that sprout.
It took but the work of moments and a trusty calculator to work out that 500 miles, at 8.9 miles a day, worked out to be 56 days of walking. Say 60 days to deal with what should probably be known as the radical bloody-minded inclemency of British weather, the occasional bursts of life-having and suchlike.
60 days is two months.
Which is where the beginnings of a ridiculous plan started to form.
As a sub-challenge of The Disappearing Man, why not actually try to do that? Walk 500 miles. All the figures seemed to claim it should be doable, if not by any means easy. Lose weight, but give it some sort of definition, some challenge, some scope...
And then I started to ponder. If you're going to do something like that, if you're going to actually walk 500 miles - which is the equivalent of 25 marathons, by the way, in terms of pure distance - it would surely be a crying shame for it to go to...waste, so to speak. Why not do it for something? A sponsored walk of Proclaimers' proportions.
But who to do it for. There are plenty of deserving causes in the world. My first thought was Diabetes UK, given that a) I'm a UK diabetic, and b) the Disappearing Man weightloss effort was first inspired by the real, paralysing fear of the potential consequences of that disease.
And then it hit me. An organization that does astounding, much-needed work, but which is under actual threat. An organization that supports work I believe in, and which typifies the freedoms on behalf of which a whooooole lot of people recently did a good, effective bit of walking.
Planned Parenthood.
I recently did the Sister Walk in Cardiff. I'm a member of the UK Women's Equality Party. Could well be time to put my feet where my convictions are. I would walk 500 miles for Planned Parenthood, if you'd donate to them. I would do it in 60 days, because there has to be a structure to these challenges. I'd set up a separate 500 Mile Walk blog to chart progress, separate from The Disappearing Man, which has a history of getting rather sweary and scatalogical. Progress would be marked on my Samsung smartphone's S Health step-counter (unless some delightful techie-firm wanted to donate a properly hardcore pedomenter), and progress would be logged daily, so supporters could see how far I'd walked by that point.
What do you think? Would you support a walk like that, Disappearers?
Now, I should say, this is all top-of-the-head thinking at the moment. I haven't even found out whether Planned Parenthood accepts donations from sponsored events like this. But if they did, would you sponsor me to get my Proclaimers on and walk 500 miles to support them?
I've never done this in a Disappearing Man blog entry before, but if you'd be willing to sponsor such a madness, drop me a line, either through Facebook, Twitter (@FylerWrites) or via Fylerwrites@gmail.com (annnnd for all I know, cue the anti-PP hate mail...)
The 'official' walk won't begin till I've set up blogs and got sponsors and so on. For now, they're all just 'practice walks.' Speaking of which, I have to dash - Walk #1 for today is way overdue. But before I go, if you want to cut to the chase and simply support vital healthcare that's under threat from political dogmatism, they do take donations direct - go here and help them out right now.
As a sentence, it's the kind of thing from which great endeavours of cataclysmic foolishness are built.
This time, the line was delivered to me on Facebook, by a pal named Denise.
And she was talking about a song.
I'm fairly sure you all know the song, but maybe you're young or have been living in a particularly impenetrable cave, so here you go. If you don't know the song, it's called 'I would Walk (500 Miles)' and it's sung by gloriously Caledonian tune-lovers, The Proclaimers. Very catchy songwriters, The Proclaimers, and 500 Miles is one of a handful for which they're known outside their hardcore fan-base. It's a song that extends round the world, for both its joyous marchability, and its seeming note of lyrical, personal dedication. Good song. Great song.
Ahem...Here's a geeky-visualed version of the song. Hey, whaddaya want from me, I'm a geek, alright?
The reason the song suddenly appeared back in my life yesterday is simple to explain. Having started doing two walks a day in order to reduce my ridiculous and unsustainable girth, I ended up walking the equivalent of 8.9 miles yesterday. Not by any means miraculous,
'And I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...' quipped Denise, before adding the fatal words. 'You should do that.'
You don't TELL me things like that. You really just don't. Those are seeding words. Those are words that sprout.
It took but the work of moments and a trusty calculator to work out that 500 miles, at 8.9 miles a day, worked out to be 56 days of walking. Say 60 days to deal with what should probably be known as the radical bloody-minded inclemency of British weather, the occasional bursts of life-having and suchlike.
60 days is two months.
Which is where the beginnings of a ridiculous plan started to form.
As a sub-challenge of The Disappearing Man, why not actually try to do that? Walk 500 miles. All the figures seemed to claim it should be doable, if not by any means easy. Lose weight, but give it some sort of definition, some challenge, some scope...
And then I started to ponder. If you're going to do something like that, if you're going to actually walk 500 miles - which is the equivalent of 25 marathons, by the way, in terms of pure distance - it would surely be a crying shame for it to go to...waste, so to speak. Why not do it for something? A sponsored walk of Proclaimers' proportions.
But who to do it for. There are plenty of deserving causes in the world. My first thought was Diabetes UK, given that a) I'm a UK diabetic, and b) the Disappearing Man weightloss effort was first inspired by the real, paralysing fear of the potential consequences of that disease.
And then it hit me. An organization that does astounding, much-needed work, but which is under actual threat. An organization that supports work I believe in, and which typifies the freedoms on behalf of which a whooooole lot of people recently did a good, effective bit of walking.
Planned Parenthood.
I recently did the Sister Walk in Cardiff. I'm a member of the UK Women's Equality Party. Could well be time to put my feet where my convictions are. I would walk 500 miles for Planned Parenthood, if you'd donate to them. I would do it in 60 days, because there has to be a structure to these challenges. I'd set up a separate 500 Mile Walk blog to chart progress, separate from The Disappearing Man, which has a history of getting rather sweary and scatalogical. Progress would be marked on my Samsung smartphone's S Health step-counter (unless some delightful techie-firm wanted to donate a properly hardcore pedomenter), and progress would be logged daily, so supporters could see how far I'd walked by that point.
What do you think? Would you support a walk like that, Disappearers?
Now, I should say, this is all top-of-the-head thinking at the moment. I haven't even found out whether Planned Parenthood accepts donations from sponsored events like this. But if they did, would you sponsor me to get my Proclaimers on and walk 500 miles to support them?
I've never done this in a Disappearing Man blog entry before, but if you'd be willing to sponsor such a madness, drop me a line, either through Facebook, Twitter (@FylerWrites) or via Fylerwrites@gmail.com (annnnd for all I know, cue the anti-PP hate mail...)
The 'official' walk won't begin till I've set up blogs and got sponsors and so on. For now, they're all just 'practice walks.' Speaking of which, I have to dash - Walk #1 for today is way overdue. But before I go, if you want to cut to the chase and simply support vital healthcare that's under threat from political dogmatism, they do take donations direct - go here and help them out right now.
Wednesday, 25 January 2017
The Double Walking Jive
Right. Yesterday I decided, in the wake of more or less static news from the Nazi Scales, that Something New needed to be done. So - did something new.
By pure force of time-management and meetings, I actually didn't eat breakfast, but decided to nip out at lunchtime for a quick once round the route I've developed - only with the novelty factor of daylight to guide me. That seemed to work - I was able to push on into a couple of different nooks and crannies I hadn't previously investigated for fear of trippage in the dark.
Got home with some more Dracula listened to, which was pretty satisfying, then carried on with my day-job afternoon. Had a reasonably early dinner - pork, home-made stuffing, jacket potato, corn. Then looked over at d. We'd discussed things the night before.
'So...this is when I should actually go out and do the proper walk then?' I checked. 'After eating? So as to fire up the overnight metabolism?'
'Well...yes,' she agreed. 'But I'm not gonna make you go out in the cold...'
'Nono, that's fine,' I said, the masochism of this whole thing really rather appealing to me. 'It can be a double-walking day.' In my mind I saw the step-counter whirring like a clock in a film, showing the passing of time. 'Right. This is me. Going. Again.'
'Have fun, honey,' she said, waving me out the door.
So, fun was had - the route was known, and I didn't feel the need, the second time round, to push on into new and unfamiliar places in the dark. This was all bonus, all extra, so I did a version that cuts about a thousand steps or so out of the route. Got back around 9.30, no more Dracula under my belt, but a podcast and a half listened to (I have waaay too many of those to get through, so this could be useful). Came home and drank more still water than I have in weeks, deciding, through a semi-occasional torrent of invective when I tried to move, 'That felt good - am going to try and get up at 6.45, and get a morning walk in tomorrow, start tryign to do it morning and night, rather than lunchtime and night...'
6.45 came this morning. The Morning Mood from Peer Gynt played in our bedroom as delicate sunbeams danced through the window, lit upon my cheeks, and like fairies, tried to tease me into wakefulness.
I farted, rolled over and crushed them to death.
7.15 came, and I did the mental mathematics required to let me stay in bed. If I got up now, went for a pee, shuffled into my clothes and sodded off, I still wouldn't be back at my desk by 9. Bugger. Tomorrow, then.
Slept on till 8.45. Got up like one of the big slabs of Stonehenge, with much use of pulleys, ropes and log rollers. Not to be a total smartarse, but these are just some of the joys of working from home.
Lunchtime's not here yet, but - and whether this is just a mark of my own masochism, or a comment on the current challenges of the day-job, I'm not sure, but - can't actually wait for lunchtime, to slip the trainers on the feet (haven't yet required the proper walking boots on anything but one snowy day so far this year), and head on up the road. And sickly, I'm quite looking forward to doing it the second time, later on, too.
Oh and for those following the intimate workings of my innards...water. Yep. That seems to work...
Right - on with the day, and another double-walker, hopefully. Next up, probably some incoherent whinging about blisters!
By pure force of time-management and meetings, I actually didn't eat breakfast, but decided to nip out at lunchtime for a quick once round the route I've developed - only with the novelty factor of daylight to guide me. That seemed to work - I was able to push on into a couple of different nooks and crannies I hadn't previously investigated for fear of trippage in the dark.
Got home with some more Dracula listened to, which was pretty satisfying, then carried on with my day-job afternoon. Had a reasonably early dinner - pork, home-made stuffing, jacket potato, corn. Then looked over at d. We'd discussed things the night before.
'So...this is when I should actually go out and do the proper walk then?' I checked. 'After eating? So as to fire up the overnight metabolism?'
'Well...yes,' she agreed. 'But I'm not gonna make you go out in the cold...'
'Nono, that's fine,' I said, the masochism of this whole thing really rather appealing to me. 'It can be a double-walking day.' In my mind I saw the step-counter whirring like a clock in a film, showing the passing of time. 'Right. This is me. Going. Again.'
'Have fun, honey,' she said, waving me out the door.
So, fun was had - the route was known, and I didn't feel the need, the second time round, to push on into new and unfamiliar places in the dark. This was all bonus, all extra, so I did a version that cuts about a thousand steps or so out of the route. Got back around 9.30, no more Dracula under my belt, but a podcast and a half listened to (I have waaay too many of those to get through, so this could be useful). Came home and drank more still water than I have in weeks, deciding, through a semi-occasional torrent of invective when I tried to move, 'That felt good - am going to try and get up at 6.45, and get a morning walk in tomorrow, start tryign to do it morning and night, rather than lunchtime and night...'
6.45 came this morning. The Morning Mood from Peer Gynt played in our bedroom as delicate sunbeams danced through the window, lit upon my cheeks, and like fairies, tried to tease me into wakefulness.
I farted, rolled over and crushed them to death.
7.15 came, and I did the mental mathematics required to let me stay in bed. If I got up now, went for a pee, shuffled into my clothes and sodded off, I still wouldn't be back at my desk by 9. Bugger. Tomorrow, then.
Slept on till 8.45. Got up like one of the big slabs of Stonehenge, with much use of pulleys, ropes and log rollers. Not to be a total smartarse, but these are just some of the joys of working from home.
Lunchtime's not here yet, but - and whether this is just a mark of my own masochism, or a comment on the current challenges of the day-job, I'm not sure, but - can't actually wait for lunchtime, to slip the trainers on the feet (haven't yet required the proper walking boots on anything but one snowy day so far this year), and head on up the road. And sickly, I'm quite looking forward to doing it the second time, later on, too.
Oh and for those following the intimate workings of my innards...water. Yep. That seems to work...
Right - on with the day, and another double-walker, hopefully. Next up, probably some incoherent whinging about blisters!
Tuesday, 24 January 2017
The Upside Of Alt-Facts
We now live in a surreal world. The world of Trump and Cronies (previously known as the US Government, but surely no-one can call them that with a straight face and a steady stomach), has just brought us the delightful phrase 'alternative facts.'
Like 'plausible deniability,' this is a thing that has never previously been quantified, but from the moment you hear it, you know it's going to become a 'Thing,' and that while in some shadowy Twilight Zone way it may have existed previously, having been given a name, it's going to more definitely become a fact of actual day-to-day life and your experience of it.
It's probably worth remembering that 'alternative facts' have been a thing much longer than people realise. Nixon said he wasn't a crook, which is about as alternative a fact as you can get. Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with that woman, which is a frankly ungrateful thing to say about someone whose dress you've ruined, and also an alternative fact. The most recent iteration only really lodges in the brain because the circumstances in which it's been deployed are so pathetic - the alternative facts being deployed so early into the Orange Emperor's reign are basically 'my crowd wasn't smaller than your crowd, so nehh!'
Which is very presidential behaviour.
See? Anyone can do the 'alternative fact' thing.
In which connection, I should like to announce that far from being entirely static after a week of walking my ass off, I have lost three pounds, and now weigh 18 stone 10 pounds. I should very much like to do that, in fact, and so, in the Empire of the Disappearing Man, this alternative fact is now...fact.
In the Empire of Agreed and Verifiable Reality, as policed by the likes of the Nazi Scales, this alternative fact remains very much more alternative than I would like, and my morning weigh-in today had me entirely immobile at 18st 13 pounds.
So you see, as much as we might decry them in our political landscape, there's most definitely an upside to alternative facts. I'm alternatively happy, and factually less so. in the Empire of Verifiable Reality, something needs to change about my routine - there needs to be less intake and more expenditure, in all probability, or at the very least, as d suggested, there needs to be a shift in timescales. Currently, I'm waiting till my day-job is done at 5pm, walking for something in the region of two hours, and by the time I'm sitting down to eat, it's more like 8pm, after which I do precisely nothing in terms of exercise for the rest of the night. Perhaps a shift to earlier eating, followed by exercise, would have a more energetic, less sedentary effect on my system. At any rate, I'm more than willing to try that, because the thing about alternative facts is that once you know they're alternative facts - or even, really, once you suspect they're alternative facts - they have a limited and diminishing satisfaction index. One cannot be entirely satisfied if one knows one is lying to oneself - at least, not without a larger and more all-encompassing personality disoreder than I have, which I suppose is one of many complicated reasons why I'll never be leader of the free world. Ho hum - back to Disappearing we go then.
Like 'plausible deniability,' this is a thing that has never previously been quantified, but from the moment you hear it, you know it's going to become a 'Thing,' and that while in some shadowy Twilight Zone way it may have existed previously, having been given a name, it's going to more definitely become a fact of actual day-to-day life and your experience of it.
It's probably worth remembering that 'alternative facts' have been a thing much longer than people realise. Nixon said he wasn't a crook, which is about as alternative a fact as you can get. Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with that woman, which is a frankly ungrateful thing to say about someone whose dress you've ruined, and also an alternative fact. The most recent iteration only really lodges in the brain because the circumstances in which it's been deployed are so pathetic - the alternative facts being deployed so early into the Orange Emperor's reign are basically 'my crowd wasn't smaller than your crowd, so nehh!'
Which is very presidential behaviour.
See? Anyone can do the 'alternative fact' thing.
In which connection, I should like to announce that far from being entirely static after a week of walking my ass off, I have lost three pounds, and now weigh 18 stone 10 pounds. I should very much like to do that, in fact, and so, in the Empire of the Disappearing Man, this alternative fact is now...fact.
In the Empire of Agreed and Verifiable Reality, as policed by the likes of the Nazi Scales, this alternative fact remains very much more alternative than I would like, and my morning weigh-in today had me entirely immobile at 18st 13 pounds.
So you see, as much as we might decry them in our political landscape, there's most definitely an upside to alternative facts. I'm alternatively happy, and factually less so. in the Empire of Verifiable Reality, something needs to change about my routine - there needs to be less intake and more expenditure, in all probability, or at the very least, as d suggested, there needs to be a shift in timescales. Currently, I'm waiting till my day-job is done at 5pm, walking for something in the region of two hours, and by the time I'm sitting down to eat, it's more like 8pm, after which I do precisely nothing in terms of exercise for the rest of the night. Perhaps a shift to earlier eating, followed by exercise, would have a more energetic, less sedentary effect on my system. At any rate, I'm more than willing to try that, because the thing about alternative facts is that once you know they're alternative facts - or even, really, once you suspect they're alternative facts - they have a limited and diminishing satisfaction index. One cannot be entirely satisfied if one knows one is lying to oneself - at least, not without a larger and more all-encompassing personality disoreder than I have, which I suppose is one of many complicated reasons why I'll never be leader of the free world. Ho hum - back to Disappearing we go then.
Monday, 23 January 2017
The Blurry Blowout
Deep joy. Hospital day, for diabetic retinopathy testing.
Basically, I have an alarming tendency to lose a whole day of work whenever I have to go and get this done - drops in the eyes, dilation of the pupils which lasts for a solid handful of hours, photographs of the back of the eye, and the Imperial March of doom as the doctor makes a judgment on whether my diabetes has thoroughly fucked my eyeballs up as yet, which would mean having lasers shot into my eyes to repair the damage.
Let me say this as clearly as I can - Fuck. That.
The whole idea of having things in my eyes freaks me right the hell out. I can't even successfully do the whole 'puff of air' test.
In fact, the idea of not succumbing to diabetic retinopathy was one of the big drivers in starting the Disappearing in the first place. Going blind is the thing that scares me secondmost, or possibly thirdmost, in the world. Ironically, I always assumed it would happen some day. Can't tell you how pissed I was to go half-deaf first - that seemed like such an inversion of my understanding with the universe.
Anyhow, today went reasonably swimmingly - I was in and out reasonably quickly. Apparently, there was some diabetic degeneration, but they were happy enough to tell me to more or less fuck off for another year, and 'No Lasers Today, Mum.'
Came home and had nothing to do for a few hours, or rather, no way of doing it, so went to bed with an audiobook while my eyeballs re-adjusted behind their lids.
That...erm...worked. Woke up several hours later with working eyeballs and a need to get my shit into gear to do my daily walk. As I say, I tend to lose most of a day whenever I have to have the retinopathy check - I'm sure there's probably nothing in the drops they give you to dilate your eyeballs that makes you exhausted. But they always seem to hit me that way.
Pretty perversely, having been dilated enough to let in lots of light, I walked by night as usual, like some kind of vampire (ironically listening to Dracula on my headphones), came home and had dinner. I have precisely no idea what happens with tomorrow's weigh-in. Nothing much good, I'm guessing - had pizza yesterday and don't seem to have recovered, weightwise, from the hit of that yet, despite having done the walk twice. Clearly something here has stopped walking - I keep wobbling back and forth over a two or three pound range. What I'm fairly confident is not happening is consistent loss any more. Something may well need to change, or be shifted up a gear, in order to get me off this goddamned borderline, and push me down towards the next one, because now it's starting to get to me. Now it's starting to seem stale - I should be further ahead than this.
So...there's that.
Basically, I have an alarming tendency to lose a whole day of work whenever I have to go and get this done - drops in the eyes, dilation of the pupils which lasts for a solid handful of hours, photographs of the back of the eye, and the Imperial March of doom as the doctor makes a judgment on whether my diabetes has thoroughly fucked my eyeballs up as yet, which would mean having lasers shot into my eyes to repair the damage.
Let me say this as clearly as I can - Fuck. That.
The whole idea of having things in my eyes freaks me right the hell out. I can't even successfully do the whole 'puff of air' test.
In fact, the idea of not succumbing to diabetic retinopathy was one of the big drivers in starting the Disappearing in the first place. Going blind is the thing that scares me secondmost, or possibly thirdmost, in the world. Ironically, I always assumed it would happen some day. Can't tell you how pissed I was to go half-deaf first - that seemed like such an inversion of my understanding with the universe.
Anyhow, today went reasonably swimmingly - I was in and out reasonably quickly. Apparently, there was some diabetic degeneration, but they were happy enough to tell me to more or less fuck off for another year, and 'No Lasers Today, Mum.'
Came home and had nothing to do for a few hours, or rather, no way of doing it, so went to bed with an audiobook while my eyeballs re-adjusted behind their lids.
That...erm...worked. Woke up several hours later with working eyeballs and a need to get my shit into gear to do my daily walk. As I say, I tend to lose most of a day whenever I have to have the retinopathy check - I'm sure there's probably nothing in the drops they give you to dilate your eyeballs that makes you exhausted. But they always seem to hit me that way.
Pretty perversely, having been dilated enough to let in lots of light, I walked by night as usual, like some kind of vampire (ironically listening to Dracula on my headphones), came home and had dinner. I have precisely no idea what happens with tomorrow's weigh-in. Nothing much good, I'm guessing - had pizza yesterday and don't seem to have recovered, weightwise, from the hit of that yet, despite having done the walk twice. Clearly something here has stopped walking - I keep wobbling back and forth over a two or three pound range. What I'm fairly confident is not happening is consistent loss any more. Something may well need to change, or be shifted up a gear, in order to get me off this goddamned borderline, and push me down towards the next one, because now it's starting to get to me. Now it's starting to seem stale - I should be further ahead than this.
So...there's that.
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