FAQ

Matt is me. Just some nerd trying to become less of a fatty. If you want to see some nerdy content, click here. When I’m not trying to get a bit fitter and a lot slimmer, I’m a developer who makes things on the Internet. Sometimes I get paid.

I found that adding some social pressure helps keep me motivated. Fear of looking like a failure has some uses after all.

Whenever I go for a review at the hospital they ask me to rate my everyday pain on a scale from 1 (little to no pain) to 10 (the worst pain you have ever experienced). My value for ten has grown many times. As a guide, a 5 was what my 10 used to be. If you want to know more, here’s a page all about it.

Medically, I have a condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis that causes a whole bunch of secondary crap. In all other aspects – yeah, I’m just a weird tubby nerd.

Absolutely bloody nasty. Ankylosing spondylitis is also sometimes called axial spondyloarthritis. AS is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation and pain. Fun side effects include spasms and tension that give headaches that make you crave death (imagine a xenomorph trying to burst out of your head); important nerves getting pinched so my right leg is always some degree of numb; and my personal favourite bamboo spine (where it fuses together). Oh, and you can just get bouts of acute sciatica and general arthritis symptoms for free. To understand what bamboo spine is like, try replacing your car’s suspension with a block of iron. When my spine should have absorbed some impact, I get to feel what it would be like if The Undertaker performed the backbreaker on me before tossing me on the canvas so Dwayne The Rock Johnson can stomp on my back. Ankylosing spondylitis is the worst.

I wish to lose weight because any extra baggage is just more pain to deal with when trying to move. That and I would like to buy clothes that are not specially made for two and a half elephants.

I’m not. I’m in my 40s and have seen family members dieting most of my life. It looks miserable and the food is crap. Instead, I am making lifestyle changes and expanding the range of foods I eat. Rather than eating leaves like a rabbit, I get to enjoy a wide old range of tastes, textures, and smells. Mostly this means that I have to go and learn about low-calorie foods that taste good and fill me up. There’s a lot of salads involved.

Blog posts. I track with blog posts. I have set up my blog so I can attach extra data to posts. That way I have records of pain, mental health, stiffness, weight, and quality of sleep. Depending on how much get-up-and-go I have, I may record more or fewer data points.

Magic and sacrificial non-nerds. That or maybe I have the ActivityPub plugin and some other cool toys like WebMention, Friends, and similar. You should be able to follow and interact with me in whatever way works for you.