Of Demons

OK, let’s get this one put to bed. The original Fat Freddy, Furry Freak Brother Fat Freddy, didn’t have a dog. He had a cat. But that was just a cartoon, and I’m not one of them. Real flesh and blood me, ‘a big fat man with meat shaking on his bones’, as former Queen of the Beatniks, Judy Henske let rip on her ‘She Sang California’ album. However, with all respect due to Gilbert Shelton’s finest creation, I eschew the feline and embrace the canine (do not read too much into that last phrase, but instead enjoy some Fat Freddy’s Cat strips in the piracy of your own home. I particularly like the sixth one down).

I’m glad that issue’s out of the way, so that well-meaning folk can now stop reminding me about it!

This next bit is going to get nasty, and I apologise in advance. Persons of a nervous disposition are advised to leave the theatre, but only for the duration of this one blog.

I want to put down here some of what had happened to me in the run-up to my hitting 397lbs. My symptoms, if you like. It’ll not be pretty reading. Sorry.

One of the first things to come along was an inability to get out of my armchair except by hoisting myself up by pushing down hard on the arms of the chair whilst forcing myself up, at the same time as rocking my weight forward. A crane would have helped. In fact, there were plenty of chairs I’d simply refuse to sit in; I thought getting out of it unaided would be an impossibility, or that, by the simple act of lowering my obscene bulk onto it, however tentatively and carefully, I’d break the bloody thing. Point of fact, broke two, irrespective.

My armchair and I developed a bad thing where it would painfully cut into the back of my thighs like I was sitting on a narrow iron bar. Gradually my legs and feet swelled up; this too was agonising. You’d think I’d start getting the message? Did you?

Along with this, my knees started to collapse under the biomechanical strain of keeping all this lard aloft. It found it impossible to do so for long; I’d either lean against something, or perch on the edge of something, or, but only if a sturdy chair of the right height was available, I’d sit down. Anything but stand. Really couldn’t do it unaided for any length of time. Queuing was an impossibility. Even the time it took to fuel the car was longer than my knees wanted to do.

Once you’re upright, though, it’s time to do walking. My poor dog found that her sessions out with me reduced down and down. Late nights, we’d do the absolute minimum route possible, and she soon learned that she didn’t have far or long to do what she needed. I doubt whether the round trip was more than 400 yards: during which I might sit down an incredible five times. There were these handy low walls. I’d pretend I was looking out at the waves (at midnight!), or be looking up at the stars (if clear). In England, we would tend to interject at this point the phrase ‘What a tosser!’ True. Cap fits.

Other times we’d go out, instead of stepping out onto the beach, I’d stagger to the car and we’d go along to a field just back from the sea where I could sit on a bench a dozen steps from where I’d parked, and throw the ball for her to run about. Me? I had an entirely sedentary walkies. This field is all of five hundred yards from where we live. Impossible to walk that far. How could anyone contemplate such a thing? So, why didn’t I I ever take Lexie out onto the immediately adjacent beach? Easy. I couldn’t walk on it. Couldn’t keep my balance, and if I did fall, I’d not be able to get back up.

Look, I remember the humiliation of having to be helped to my feet in La Rochelle (France, not New Rochelle, NY) a couple of summers ago by two very sweet young French students, both girls (how on earth did they manage it?). I’d tripped on an uneven paving stone and, in the absence of something to cling on to, I was beached like a misdirected whale who’d run himself on shore. Not nice. And because I was for years incapable of getting back up from ground level, it meant no more down on the floor playing with the dog. It also meant that, if I dropped something, it was left for somebody else to pick up, because I couldn’t.

Of course, if you’re going out of the confines of your home into the big world outside, you need to have something on your feet. Open sandals, believe it or not. 365 days. My feet were so swollen, I couldn’t get them into regular shoes. In any event, I couldn’t get near enough to my feet to tie the laces. Oh, and socks were out of the question. Just couldn’t manage to get them on over the end of my toes, and in any event, had I done so they would have cut painfully into my calves.

Imagine me, midnight in the depths of last winter, the worst in the UK since 1978, out in the snow and ice which was around for ever, barefoot apart from my sandals, leaning desperately on a sturdy driftwood oak staff to try and avoid slipping. Pathetic.

And again, I couldn’t even fit into most sandals. The straps just would not stretch across the oedema and secure. So the one and only pair I had which did work continued to be worn every day until they were reduced to tatters. Go into a shop and try and find another pair that fitted? Out of the question. Not to be contemplated. Once again, it would be just too humiliating.

I didn’t mention, did I, that, however cold it was, my coat would be open, rather than buttoned up cosy and warm? I’ve got two Barbours, a couple of raincoats, a good warm anorak, and a thick arctic puffajacket, two heavy overcoats, several leather coats. Couldn’t button or zip up a one of them. Too fat. So go out with the coat open, every time. Particularly good when there's a huge storm blowing off the Channel and you can hardly see down the prom for the spindrift.

Now, remember I said I couldn’t tie my shoe laces? Well, for the very same reason, namely that I physically could not bend owing to this huge gut getting in the way, I found it all but impossible to cut my toenails. I could maybe manage two or three at a time, but it might take me days to get myself together to try it. There were some that I just could not reach at all. There were times I would just wait for the things to break. Gross or what?

The nadir, so far as toenails were concerned, and very much else to be frank, occurred on the morning of my father’s funeral (which I attended with my raincoat flapping open, and my feet in these self same tatty old disgusting sandals). I actually had to ask my son to cut my toenails for me, and graciously – bless him, for he is a sweet man - he did.

I swear that, however long I live, I will never ask him to do anything so demeaning again – demeaning so far as both of us were concerned, actually.

In my pursuit of brutal honesty and facing facts, I could go on almost without end on this topic. For instance, only being able to get out of bed by hauling myself up by the bedhead, and then having to rock forward from a sitting position on the edge of the bed, grabbing hold of the top of the cupboard a couple of feet in front of me. Getting in and out of the car (which I’d actually chosen because it was the right height and I could fit into it fairly upright, and my gut didn’t touch the steering wheel), was itself a major logistical exercise, and some days wearing the seat belt just was not possible – it wasn’t long enough, and depending what I was wearing I couldn’t always ‘clunk, click, every trip.’ Hardly being able to raise my leg high enough to climb in the shower, not being able to sit down in the bath (the impossibility of ever getting up again), and I've not mentioned the 42 stairs in our place in London: until recently I'd avoided going up to the top floor in years. I was delighted to see how well my wife had decorated up there. Look, even wiping my backside became something of a hit and miss affair, and one only to be attempted with one hand clinging to the towel rail, otherwise I would overbalance myself. But this is getting too far into the zone of too much information, and I apologise.

I was looking at an imminent future involving hoists and the sort of embarrassing aids and adaptations you see advertised on daytime satellite channels or in the backpages of magazines and papers with a largely geriatric readership, Saga Magazine, The Mail On Sunday, and shit. My subscriptions are to Mojo, The Gramophone, Private Eye, The Spectator, The Economist, Sunday Times. How come I was increasingly feeling myself being bundled in with this other decrepit crew with whom I had nothing whatever in common; apart from the fact that I was becoming more and more crippled? UK readers will understand when I say that I was pondering what I had to do to get a Blue Badge, and did I need to get one from Worthing Council, or would it be better to get one from Islington Council - because I wanted to be able to park anywhere, get my wheels in those disabled parking bays, anything apart from bloody walk. Because I couldn't.

But the thing is, while all this crap was pouring down, I just kept on eating, kept on drinking. How bloody mad was that? Nero fiddling had nothing on me. At least Felix the Cat kept on walking. This cat, though still quite cool in some respects, couldn't really walk at all.

Instead I just pretended to the world and, less confidently to myself, that everything was fine. I could justify absolutely anything at the drop of a hat. I was totally and consistently dishonest in respect of my condition and its causes. Actually, I didn’t want to know. ‘I’m fine. Do stop going on.’ How, and even why, my wife put up with it, I really do not know. That’s a mighty big debt I owe to a wonderful, strong, loyal and persistent woman. And if you read this, G, (and I suspect I dread you reading it) I’m genuinely sorry for everything I put you through for too many years. But fine words butter no parsnips, do they? Why do we give most hell to those we love most dearly? Doesn't make sense to me.

Even with my son having to cut my toenails like that, and at such a time as my old man’s funeral, it still took me more than eight months before I eventually crawled into LighterLife croaking ‘Save me!’ And I’ll let you into a secret. When I was all but shoved through that door, I was seething with resentment, because my missus had trapped me into it, and I did NOT want to go. And did I scheme up excuses not to. But eventually I did.

What sort of hold was something having over me, and why? Whatever it was. It was mighty powerful, unrelenting and unforgiving.

My eating and drinking were totally unreasonable and out of control, because my life was out of control. There was a whole raft of destructive behaviours going on, some of which had the effect of making me fat, and which were coming close to the point when they would finally kill me.

I think I realised that I could only deal with so many bits of this at one time. If my ingestion was threatening my life, then, clearly that had to be controlled, and the LighterLife regime, than which none stricter, gave me the structure, and demanded the discipline, to start nailing that one down. Miraculously, gratefully, and to my surprise I took to it like a duck to water, and instead of being 397, I am today following a modified path I’ve determined with plenty of real food alongside a sprinkling of LL's powders. I can go this modified route confidently and successfully because, at last, I'm back in control - of food and drink, at least.

I’m 291 and losing, en route to 173, and – absolutely determined - no returns!

As I wrote here last night (and please do forgive my Mystic Meg Moment) I feel daily stronger and more affirmed. This particular eating demon is sealed in its jar, but so long as I live it will be struggling to get out. Hence, I must be armed with the Paresh Principle of SDCM (self determination, control & motivation) and ensure I always eat with consciousness, because every cookie has its consequence. There’s a world of wisdom in the cliché ‘a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.’ No more these hips, Sweetie.

Unless there’s an established plan that says that if a cookie be eaten, or a run of huge festive holiday dinners gets demolished, then that’s OK, but it’s only OK so long as we take clear and determined actions to a) reduce any excess weight that’s accrued and (even more importantly) b) we take immediate steps to resume a more measured and moderate eating pattern. This, I maintain, and have written elsewhere on this ranting blog, must comprise good, fresh, local unprocessed ingredients which are cooked well and imaginatively in a way which preserves their nutritious qualities. It must not involve processed stuff that’s been tainted by the Frankenstein touch of the food technologist and comes not from the farm but from the factory.

Is this too much to demand of myself? Not if it saves my life, it isn’t. And this conscious correction must happen every time I allow myself to slip from the high standards that being a reformed food addict requires. Please note that I said every time I allow myself to slip; which means I’ll have considered what I’m doing, and taken a grown up decision to allow myself to come off plan this particular once. Unconsidered, haphazard, spur of the moment slips are not permitted. Like getting drunk and waking up somewhere with someone and not remembering a thing about it, who they are, or how you got there. No longer permitted. Puerile and inappropriate behaviour which no longer has a place in my life. SDCM applies, and demands due vigilance and ongoing and critical self-evaluation. But this is what you have to do to succeed in this thing and avoid the big yo-yo.

Now, the smart reader has for some time been thinking, ‘OK, you’ve got the eating and drinking demons back in the jars, but those guys don’t exist in vacuo. They’re just a manifestation of something more fundamental, which doesn’t fit too easily with your proclaimed position that ‘I am not a victim. Nobody made me eat stuff. These were my own decisions.’ So what's the real deal here?'

I’m not arguing with this, and I’m not ignoring it either. Instead I’m feeling a bit like Uma Thurman as The Bride in Kill Bill, tracking down and disposing of all of the second order demons that have ruined her life, whilst seeking the arch-demon himself that sicced the rest upon her, because he was ‘a rotten, murderous bastard.’ I find it interesting to note that the good old Lord Of The Flies, Baal Zebub himself is particularly associated with pride and gluttony, so I’ll be taking extra special care to make sure I never let the top off his jar again, because, as is apparent from everything I've written above, I’ve had both pride and gluttony in spades, and I don’t want them back.

Frankly, I can understand old King B being royally pissed at me for treating him so discourteously. But what kink along my biographical and psychological timeline enabled him to have me in his thrall so thoroughly and for so very long? I don’t believe the answer lies in my genome. I have largely been my own pig.

To relate the thing to Tarantino’s movie again, what is my personal Bill that needs rooting out from wherever it’s hiding, and stomping to oblivion? In the whacky world of demonology, who is my Amy, my personal Presiding Demon Of Hell? What,(and back when?) in my life turned me into such a hateful and self-destructive shit, releasing such violent, chaotic, disruptive behaviours into the world, and thoughtlessly hurting so many people en route? And why haven’t I taken the trouble to get a grip on this earlier?

That I failed to do so is precisely what made my weight loss fail last time. I went from 313lbs to 187, and then vengeful, spiteful Amy stepped in, said ‘Oh, no. This one’s mine,’ and carried me all the way up to 397. Fanciful bollocks. [And I love the fact that he’s called Amy. Think of all the other Amys in the world, but this Amy, according to Johann Wier’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum no less, is ‘a great president, and appeareth in a flame of fire, but having taken mans shape, he maketh one marvelous in astrologie, and in all the liberall sciences, he procureth excellent familiars, he bewraieth treasures preserved by spirits, he hath the governement of thirtie six legions, he is partlie of the order of angels, partlie of potestats, he hopeth after a thousand two hundreth yeares to returne to the seventh throne: which is not credible.’ Quite. Mos' def reminds me of several people I've known, but, like I said, fanciful bollocks.]

However, I accept there has to be something down there which started a kink in my life, and which I’ve colluded with for decades but never clearly identified, confronted, or come to terms with. It’s too easy to say it’s the devil or temptation. It’s not extrinsic to me, it’s part of me, gone wrong. I am my own devil, and I’m hoping Santa will bring me a new bell book and candle set to help get me fixed.

I’ve accepted this now, and I have accepted my responsibility to act like Uma Thurman and set off on an undeviating quest toward resolution and victory. So, from the starting point of looking at my wrong behaviour in respect of food, I am increasingly (and increasingly consciously) owning up to a swathe of interconnected inappropriate behaviours ranging across many of the endlessly fascinating facets that together comprise me.

If I hadn’t already given up the booze – itself, of course, massively and horribly destructive – the rest of it would have shocked me sober. You don’t need to worry yourselves about my horde of other energetic, ever-busy demons; they’re not up for discussion right now. Not here, at least. I’m down with the boy Wittgenstein at the very end of The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (I have it on my Kindle. Don’t you?), namely ‘Whereof one can not speak, thereof one must remain silent.’

Trouble is, this is an increasingly noisy world, and we’re having to dig deeper within to locate any silence whatsoever. And even there, if you’re built anything like me (and you are, because you’re a food addict. That’s why you’re here!), it’s still pretty rackety with the ceaseless imprecations of Beelzebub and his mates pleading with me to lighten up and loosen the lids of their jars. There’s still a load of work I have to do yet before I’m clean, and first off there’s 118lbs more I need to lose yet, but the answer to their ongoing demonic wheedling is ‘NO WAY.’

Ah, but I was so much weaker then. I’m stronger than that now.

Till the next time,

Your old pal, wondering where he can get himself a really good Samurai sword,

Fred