The Test of the Mom Jabbar

Am I Truly Human?

If I'd been trying to lose weight by willpower, this would be when it all went wrong.

A delightful train ride North was made better by the good company I met on the way. A lovely Polish student couple on holiday and a Russian lady who liked chess.

Didn't even get my books or laptop out of their bag until I got home with an armful of flowers. Still energetic and cheerful.

I'll be here for a few weeks, and I didn't fancy taking scales on the train, so I'm going to stop recording my weight, and I'm going to eat all the amazing food that Mum has been making in anticipation, letting only desire and mild emotional blackmail be my guides.

Fatted calves have been slaughtered in their scores. Crumbles have been made. My sister came up specially to make chicken pies, which are taking up all the space in the freezer.

There are chocolates. The fridge is full of cheese and specially high-fat and high-sugar forms of yoghurt, native to my home county. (Longley Farm, very highly recommended if you can find them. I particularly like the hazlenut flavour.)

My special personal oversized chip pan is full of nice new beef dripping.

Everything has been vetted for sulphites and PUFAs, but perhaps not with quite the fanatical caution I would have applied to the task myself. Whatever...

Some sulphites have already sneaked through. There was an enormous, delicious flapjack, and a couple of hours later I had a headache (but no nausea).

It turned out it had been made with Tate and Lyle's famous Golden Syrup.

A little research tells me that Golden Syrup was an inspired piece of Victorian marketing wizardry, where some genius rebranded the sticky goop that's left over after you turn molasses into white sugar as a delicious treat.

No sulphite warning on the tin, but molasses are a source of sulphites. White sugar isn't. I can guess where the sulphites end up.

So that's another thing I actually like on the banned list, along with HP sauce and peanut butter and beer and wine. Oh well.

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Predictions

I have no clue.

I don't think I'd even regained the post ex150ish water weight at the time of my last contact with scales at 92.1kg, just before I got the train, so shall we say that my current weight is around 93-94kg?

I'm going to try to keep my waking temperature at 36.6C and adjust my thyroid dose accordingly, and I'll carry on keeping records of both. I'm not going to record my weight, partly because I don't have any scales, and partly because I think it's a good thing to do to see what happens if I don't know what's going on.

If I've been totally fooling myself for the last few months then my weight will probably go right back up to around 100kg, and my tiredness will come back and my thyroid dose will go back to normal (100ug T4 and 1 grain NDT/day).

If I'm actually fixed somehow, then my weight should continue to drop as my body tries to regain a sane level of fat stores, and my energy levels should stay high and my thyroid dose should continue to drop.

Mum will almost certainly manage to persuade me to eat rather more than I actually want, so either way I'm expecting to come back a bit too heavy and then lose a bit over the following couple of weeks once I'm back in control of my own diet.

I'll find out in a couple of weeks, I guess.

I've taken my largest pair of trousers, which are currently rather baggy round the waist.

Wish me luck!