FAT UPDATE

So it's been a couple of weeks - about three or four I think - since I made a vow to change what I can. Well. Here's my monthly update. Don't worry, it's not going to be boring - I'll put in some jokes to make it worth your while, I promise.

Well I've now totally given up milk, added sugar, as many processed foods as possible, and consciously attempt to by low-carbohydrate content, low fat foods. I try to eat fruit as often as possible, and I'm quaffing on average three litres of water a day. As a result of giving up the milk and sugar, I've also indirectly given up coffee and tea.

What is the result of all of this cold turkey you might be asking? Well it's interesting, as far as I'm concerned. My willpower has been sorely tested, many times. September is obviously the month a large portion of the planet (western world) was born. We've had four birthdays in our office. four cakes. Did I abstain? No. Did I eat two pieces of cake like I normally do? No. I ate one slice. Man it was good.

Most food tastes so much better as a matter of fact. I suppose it's because I'm not drinking sweet tea, or eating sugar every day. when we go out, I try to look for food that has a large portion of salady stuff with it. I leave off the skin, and most of the time any additional fat. Instead of snacking on biscuits or chocolate, I eat sesame seeds, or an apple.

The other day I was shopping, and accidentally walked down the milk isle. For those of you who know me, or who knew me, I could drink about two litres of milk a day without batting an eye-lid. Now, I'm drinking 0 litres of milk. I still have a yoghurt now and then, but not to excess. So I was walking past all these bottles of fresh milk, and I had to look away, I had to force myself not to stop. It was very difficult.

Now, when I walk past sweets, biscuits and so forth, I just look at the back of the box. If it's more than 50% carbohydrate I put it back. They usually give you the values in terms of 100 grams portions, so it makes life easy to do the maths. It's amazing how many things are full of carbohydrates. But look at this little bit of info I've gathered.

the next time you tuck into a standard pasta dish, know that the bowl pasta only contains 10 - 14% less carbohydrates then a bowl of maple syrup! Isn't that a gross idea? Instead of eating the pasta, just fill the bowl with syrup and down that. It's revolting to think that in terms of how our bodies see what we're eating, there is only a slight difference between a squirt of syrup and a spoonful of pasta...

Anyway, so I haven't yet started exercising. I've been in Durban, all over, running around like a mad man. There hasn't been an opportunity. Well at this moment in time, the willpower is so bent on keeping to the eating plan, that there is little room for adding gym to the equation sadly. I suppose once the food thing becomes a habit, the gym thing is next? I have resolved to go and buy some weights... yes I know the last ones I bought were used to prop up a bed and rusted into solid blocks of pig iron, but I've got to do something right...

So in the net result is that I've dropped a few kilo's... 4 to be precise. At the beginning of this enterprise I was 118, just shy of 120 or 240 pounds! Now, I'm on 114, which is what I was before winter last year. When I drop below 110 - which will be a weight I was in 2004, I shall be very happy. My goal is to crack 100 by the end of March or April next year. That gives me six months, or roughly 2 kilograms a month. I can, and will do it.

I have to. I made a vow. Next Gay Pride... I'm not going this year, but next year ... 2011... September I'm going in a speedo. Regardless of my shape or form. It will happen, and I will I know, have not an ab-washboard from heaven, I don't yet see myself as having one of those, but certainly as someone who is say around 90 kgs, and can wear a speedo without providing his own lower abdominal shade...

Fat, Lazy, Liar, know it all...

In about twenty two days and eight hours I'll be turning 30. This scares the hell out of me. Don't roll your eyes, this isn't one of those blogs... well actually it is. Sorry. I wanted to write this last night but my leg hurt to much. Yes. My leg. I was watching Boston Legal. It's a great show. But in it, was this huge - and I mean huge fat guy. He was sueing some drug company or something. But the episode wasn't about that specifically. That was just one theme. Danny Crane was taking some drug so as to not loose his memory. He didn't like what he was becoming, and here was a fat guy who didn't like who he was. Anyway, half way through the show the chair I was... the brand new fucking chair I was one. Shattered. One moment I was quietly sitting amused watching the show, the next minute - CRACK! FUCK! THUD! FUCK! ... FUCK!.

I was on my back, and my leg - as it has unconsciously flailed outwards in the hope of not ending in a foot (as it's done for nearly thirty years) but in a hand (as it's ancient DNA code once did) - had tried to grab hold of my desk. A lovely example of wooden 1950's desk-building. The leg is now bruised. The chair is now broken. This is the second time in as many months where my weight has caused my body, my person to fall uncontrollably to the ground. I am a big, fat, person. I am rapidly getting to that 120 kilo mark. And there is nothing in sight to stop it. As a matter of fact, just the other day I was at home working, and I ate on day 1 an entire box of Romany Creams. Day 2 saw me eat 8 twinkies. Am I depressed? Do I eat because I'm depressed? I suppose so. I do know that I eat for the taste or sensation. The sweetness or the smoothness, the tartness or the crunch.

OK so he's a sad fucker lamenting that he eats to much. Deal with it bitch. Eat less. Drink more water. And that's what I hate. It is SO simple. That's all I need to do. But then I got reflective, as I lay in bed last night. What do I dislike about myself. These are the points I came up with:

1 - Overweight

2 - Liar

3 - Financially inept

4 - No self control

5 - Unfit (different from being overweight imo)

6 - Being a know-it-all

7 - Not speaking my mind

8 - Not standing up for myself

These are basically the eight points that I don't like about myself. I haven't included not being able to play the violin, being afraid of snakes etc. As I feel that is next decades problem. If I am turning 30 in so few days I need to know that I'm going to want to continue into the 30's. The 20's have been one hell of a roller-coaster.

If I'd known what they were going to have in store... America, accepting my sexuality, coming out to everyone, having sex, moving to JHB, lecturing, starting a career, finding debt, buying a car, getting so drunk I wanted to die... it has been one amazing ride. And yet, when you boil it down, it really just has to do with accepting who I am.

So if the 20's are for accepting who I am, perhaps the 30's should be for restructuring who I am. Now that I roughly know my inner being, it's time to change the bad points. That is what my 30's are for. My 40's perhaps will be where I set up myself for getting older. The 50's, more of the 40's. The 60's, more of the 50's. The 70's, more of the 60's. The 80's - perhaps I'll have a little time to relax. But I like this game plan. I haven't had one before - apart from living to 121 so I can win a bet. But I haven't had a personal plan to achieve it. Now I do. I suspect I'll revise this blog in about eight or nine years when I'm facing 40.

Is 10 years too long though? Am I going too slowly? I don't think so. You see the first couple years - say 2 years you're trying to identify just how to change things. It takes time to effectively alter the previous 10 years of thought. Then after 2 years, you now know what you need to change. So you work on the change. But after another 2 years, you achieve your goal, only to discover that that was the tip of the ice-berg. Then you spend another 4 years in this kind of morphic limbo, finding, checking, correcting one's self. That leaves you with 2 years to relax, enjoy who you are, and find out that in a years time, you'll enter another decade, and another round.

When will I have time to have fun? All the time. The things I've listed can all be changed with fairly little impact to my world. I'm fat. So I need to eat less, cut out milk, and go to gym. But I also need to be financially stable. So that may mean cutting back on stuff at the house. Less internet time and more personal time for myself. Why should I accept hollow, digital victories when I could be accepting real victories on this planet. When I die, I don't think the great scales of worth will judge - lost 180000000 matches of Starcraft 2 to a 13 year old Korean. Right in you go. I think God's online gaming team wants better...

So I know most of my friends are staring at 30 or 40 coming up. Have you needed to change yourself? Have you needed to accept something about yourself? Or are you fucking perfect, without hang-up and the world is just peachy? Do other people out there have the same issues I do? Do you dislike/hate/loathe something about yourself and yet not ever get around to fixing it? Why not? What's so important that you can't be bothered to make your own world better by fixing yourself? Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go look at the milk in the fridge for a while, and have a little cry that it's silky, smooth, creamy, taste is something that I need to go without for a while... say the next 90 years or so...