Feedback Friday :: A Fresh Start

bulk :: 16st 2
cigarettes :: 0
joints :: quite a few
alcohol :: quite a bit
runs :: 0
swims :: 0
physical exercise of any description :: none
fresh starts :: 1

I guess I did see it happening, but… I suppose I just ignored it. That little pause in that last sentence there was where I spent five minutes thinking how I could jazz up what I was trying to say a bit. But there’s no jazzing it up. I just ignored it.

I had the best excuse though, which is that I was having a damnably good time. I’ve had some wonderful larks and frolics during the last couple of months.

But yes, those days are done, and things – other things – have been left to go rather awry.

Which is to say:

• I’ve stopped running.
• I’ve stopped swimming.
• I’ve stopped eating well.
• I’ve stopped eating less.
• My weight is ouncing back up the wrong way.
• I’ve broken promises to myself about marathon training and gym membership.
• There are pizza boxes on the kitchen floor and some of my possessions are still in boxes from moving house weeks ago.
• In the last five days alone I have literally grown trotters and a snout. And a cute little curly tale.

So.

What to do about it. Well, I figure a fresh start is called for. Or even, A Fresh Start.

First thing, I can cut out the junk food again. That’s a piece of cake. (Mmmmmm, cake.)

As far as running and joining the gym however, my concern is my back, which I stretched to buggery a couple of weeks ago and which has been hanging over me like the truss of Damocles ever since. It’s a small of the back affair and it concerns me greatly. So…

Second thing, go see a chiropractor or an osteopath or whatever, just do something about it and don’t be sitting around on your sorry fat ass all day and using it as an excuse.

Third thing, swim. Swimming is good for you, good for event the most fragile backs. Do it.

Etc.

So I’m pulling out my finger as of today. OK, bit late now. Tomorrow then. Tomorrow. The sun will come out. And next week’s feedback will reflect my newfound zeal for self-improvement. You see if it doesn’t.

Feedback Friday :: Late Night Ramble/Looks Like We Got Ourselves A Feeder

bulk :: 15st 13
alcohol units imbibed :: 20ish
cigarettes smoked :: 0
runs run :: 2 (both stupid)
swims swum :: 0 (There’s just not enough hours in a day. How do people do this stuff?)
shocking revelations :: 1
great shafts of sun-flavoured hope :: 1

Every now and then, I find myself drifting off and fantasising about all of the ghastly, miserable things which could descend upon me at any moment. Not that I’m willing them to happen or anything, but all this ceaseless happiness is beginning to get me down. You know? Where's the conflict? What the hell am I supposed to be blogging about now? I really think I need something dark and unpleasant to come along and wipe this saccharine smirk off my increasingly self-satisfied face.

No, I'm just kidding. If it came to a toss-up between happiness and an exciting blog, there'd be no question. Sally would be history. I joke, I joke.

Anyway, there’s always conflict.

But before we get to the conflict, let me say this: years ago, on the telly, Philip Roth said that he always makes a point of saying to the people in his life: ‘If you don’t want it going in a book, don’t tell me.’ And he said it with a kind of arrogant, don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you swagger. At the time, I thought he was distinctly lacking in moral fibre. But now I’m forced to agree with him.

If I meet you and you know I keep a blog, there’s a good chance you’ll feature. (Unless you’re just really, unspeakably dull.) And if you don’t know I keep a blog, you’re easy pickings.

So I was reminded of this late last night, when Sally and I fell into a quite intense telephone conversation about some of her many deep-rooted psychological issues. (They’re like meercats, Sally’s issues. Just when you think the coast is clear, one will pop its head above the parapet and twitch at you.) After one particularly amusing exchange, I rather drifted off for a moment. Quick as a flash, Sally said, ‘You’re thinking about blogging what I just said, aren’t you?’ And I couldn’t lie.

‘Is that alright?’ I asked. ‘It’s actually probably a bit weird, isn’t it? Is it?’

‘It’s very weird,’ she said. Then: ‘If I asked you to stop, would you not do it anymore? Writing about me, I mean.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to use my blog for Evil. If it makes good people feel bad, then it must die. Do you want me to stop?’

Pause

‘No.’ Fame whore. ‘Just try and steer clear of the megapersonal stuff.’

‘You mean like how you like me to push your face into the pillow and thrash your bumcheeks raw with the IKEA spatula?’

‘Yeah. All that stuff is off limits, please.’

‘I know, baby-girl. I know.’

So.

I discovered yesterday that Sally – my girlfriend – is a feeder. This is how it came out:

Sally: What did you have to eat tonight?

Me: Not a sausage.

Sally: Not even a little chipolata?

Me: No, and I don’t miss it. I think I feel another fast coming on.

Sally: Don’t you dare. There shall be no fasting on my watch, Biggles. Gandhi wasn't sexy.

Me: But it cleanses my soul. It’s good for me.

Sally: Eat, man! What's wrong with you? Not eating is sick. It’s a disorder. And besides any of that, you’re a growing lad.

Me: But I’m fed up with growing.

Sally: You need to eat. You need fuel.

Me: I want to shrink myself.

Sally: Well, I don’t approve. You’re going to waste away if you’re not careful. Promise me you’ll eat something, Stan. Promise.

Me: Absolutely not! If anything, I’m promising you I won’t eat. I have no intention of eating. And I’m beginning to worry about you. I’m beginning to think you might be a feeder.

Sally: I like a big man. There's nothing wrong with that.

Me: You like a fat man. That’s different. That’s weird.

Sally: I'm going to buy you some baggy clothes, so you can grow into them.

Me: No.

So anyway, usually, feeders are men who want to control their wives or girlfriends by making sure they’re at home eating and piling on the pounds, rather than out and about looking slim and sexy and attracting other men. So it’s kind of an abusive thing borne of hideous insecurity. But I don’t think Sally’s is like that at all. I think she just gets off on being pinned down and taken roughly from behind by massive sweaty fat blokes.

Another one of her other madnesses is her really quite passionate belief in homeopathy. Or ho-ho-homeopathy, as I refer to it when I’m being witty. Now I like to keep a half-open mind as far as homeopathy is concerned (incidentally, no mind should ever be any more than half-open, otherwise stuff gets out), but my instinct is to damn it as errant tosh for the desperate and gullible.

However, Sally maintains that it works. She swears by it. Her mother even recently qualified as a proper homeopath, if that isn’t an oxymoron. Also, when she was younger, Sally suffered from migraines for years, had all kinds of prescribed medicines and conventional wisdoms and nothing. Then she went a homeopath and they cleared up almost immediately. This makes me doubt my knee-jerk cynicism a little, I must say.

What has me yammering about this however, is the fact that I started to rash up last night after spending a couple of hours in the lovely hot sun. Just a mild itch at first, but blotching and bubbling are in the post if I persist. And when I told Sally about it, she said, ‘Mum could knock you up a remedy.’

So I’m going to give it a shot. Apparently I have to sit down with her and tell her everything about my life, including but by no means limited to my medical history. It actually sounded like a therapy session the way Sally described it. It sounds great. And I really want to be able to go out in the sun without blistering like a vampire. So I’m going to give witchcraft a go.

Wish me luck.

Have a smashing weekend.

Back On The Menu :: Food

I played tennis yesterday afternoon and afterwards I was feeling quite weak, so my tennis partner Pip (dog-killer) said: ‘Why don’t you come back to mine and I’ll cook you a huge fuck-off steak?’

‘Um… because I’m on a fast,’ I replied.

He shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Come on, don’t be a cunt. I’ve got a couple bottles of [some posh French red wine] an’ all.’

Well. When he put it so very swearily, I could hardly resist.

So I ate and drank like a man breaking a five-day fast.

And it was good. Really good.

My only fear now – now that I’m craving chocolate and bananas and salmon and Skittles and, well, just about anything with calories in it – is, will I put it all back on again within the next five days? Well, we shall see.

I hope not. I’m going to keep up the exercise. Now for example, rather than drive to the supermarket to buy 12 Terry’s Chocolote Oranges, I’m going to walk. I may even break into a run.

Day Five :: Break Point, Break Fast

bulk :: 16st 3 (I have lost one pound short of an entire stone in five days)
alcohol units imbibed :: 0
cigarettes smoked :: 18 (I know. I’m… there are no excuses. Basically, because I’d been smoking a few joints throughout the week, almost certainly further impugning the integrity of the fast, I began to worry about succumbing to the dreaded skunk psychosis that I’m hearing so much about. [From the voices in my head.] But I found myself suddenly really taken by a desire to continue smoking. And I’m afraid that since yesterday afternoon, I rather fell off the Baccy Wagon. I got a lot of work done, but that’s… that’s actually completely irrelevant and probably a sly attempt at some kind of justification. Anyway, harm done. Back on the wagon. Plus I finished off the weed last night so now it’s back to total abstention.)
joints smoked :: 10-15
runs run :: 0
swims swum :: 0
calories :: 0 (Meh. Maybe two or three in the paprika.)
concerns :: 1 (Namely, that I’m going to run out of Tree Syrup by the end of this evening. That'll teach me not to mainline it.)

Aaaaaah, April. She really is cruel, you know. She’s a manipulative, cruel cow who delights in tormenting; she waltzes in with her wicked sense of humour and convinces you that winter is a thing of the past, then she rains all over you for four weeks like a fetish lady. And snows to boot. As I write this, black clouds loiter above me like Spartans ready to storm in and ruin this afternoon.

This morning I was offered the opportunity to be slaughtered at tennis again. I really fancy it, especially as I’ve done nothing all week but smoke and starve myself. But I thought, if I play tennis after five days without food, I may very well do myself an injury. So I went out and bought half a kilo of spinach, and have just prepared it with oil and salt and chilli. It’s here in front of me now. Hold on.

Gone.

Mmm. That was divine. Food really has its moments. That was one of them.

It’s been an incredible week on the whole. I have been very happy with the fasting experience and overjoyed with everything that it’s thrown up. I’ll be back on the fast after the spinach, as I want to keep this going over the weekend. I’ve got a lot to do, including a bit of reading on this guy and the wonderful things he has to teach me.

Right, I’d better clean the sick of myself and get going.

Just kidding, no sick.

Happy Friday to you.

Day Four :: Whippet

It's in The Wasp Factory, and I think it’s Eric who describes sleep as a social construct. Society tells us we need sleep, preferably eight hours a night where the vast majority of us are tucked away in our beds, safe and sound, causing no trouble to no one. Something like that. Bloody Thatcher. Yes, it was Thatcher’s fault. She fed us sleep whilst never indulging herself. She made some passing contrivance concerning four hours a night but it was clear she was lying. Everyone knew her as the Iron Maiden, or the Sulphuric Harpy, or the Child Snatcher's Assistant, but to the wise, she was first and foremost a poignant and much misunderstood character. She was The Baroness of Dreams. Putting the Baroness to one side however, generally speaking, sleep is essential and everybody needs it. Eric was mad, and sleep, we can clearly see, is not a social construct.

Food however, most certainly is.

I haven’t eaten a solitary morsel since Sunday evening, and here I am, as fit as a giant kaleidoscope made entirely of fiddles. My brain has never been on more excitable form. I swear, it’s like a whippet in a breadbox.

I’ve been writing stuff all day. Little bit of work, but lots of other stuff too. In fact, between this sentence and the last, 45 minutes have passed whilst I sketched out some other quite, really quite sparklingly brilliant thing.

The mania continues apace, as you see. But I’m enjoying it. This fasting lark is like a whole case of adrenaline injected right into my ear. Or even into my third eye, man. And the strange thing is, I’ve hardly checked my weight today at all – not since first thing this morning. And that’s unusual. But today I’ve been alive with loads of other things. I even cracked open the flipchart I bought seven years ago. I seem to have reached such a point whereby this is really not anything to do with losing weight anymore, but what it is about now and – I mean, I’m guessing here – but this sounds like it’s about Total Brain Purification.

O yiieea...

I have lift off. I am floating up to Nirvana for my 2.30 transcendental appointment.

All Hail Gandhi.

And so on.

Next time I’m going to do it without grass though. I’ve enjoyed the grass to be sure, and I’m sure it’s brought me some fine thoughts, but I just feel it’s interfering with the clarity. The tobacco is tainting the spirituality.

Next time I need to feel just a little more like Jesus.

Christ. I can’t even begin to imagine what he must have felt like after 40 days. 40! And me tossing pearls like these after four! I really believe, after 40 days neither eating nor masturbating, anyone could perform miracles. But did Christ have Tree Syrup? That’s something I need to know.


Ah, this person here also wants to know how Jesus managed it. ‘I want to know if it is clear how Jesus fasted? I've been told that He couldn't have done it on Tree Syrup alone for 40 days because his digestion tract would be so severely damaged afterwards.’ It’s an interesting point, but one that rather overlooks the fact that Jesus was Magic and could have just pulled a brand new digestive tract out of his tattered sleeve.

Anyhow, I’ve been so full of typing beans that I’ve completely ignored my physical health - apart from the not eating of course - which is very bad. Neither have I had time to do any reading. Which reminds me… Some people, they love to interact with a good film. Don’t they though? Like those giddy souls who dress up for The Sound of Music orThe Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or then there’s those students who like to surround themselves with cider, whiskey, ale and lighter fuel and play the Withnail and I drinking game. Or those other students who exclaim that you simply must read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas whilst high on adrenochrome and ether! Or that you simple must read Three Men In A Boat whilst you’re actually in a boat! (Preferably with three men. Or of course, if you’re a man yourself, with just two other men.) Or that you simply must read Ulysses in a single day, Inspector Morse amongst dreamy spires, and American Psycho surrounded by silk ties, platinum business cards and lightly buttered prostitutes’ pelvises. But I say to you, no. You should in fact do none of the above. Because if Living the Book is what you’re into, then reading Knut Hamsen’s wonderful Hunger while you’re absolutely famished is where the real kicks are. I started today but got distracted. I’m going to continue tomorrow.

Is that it? Am I done? I think I am.

Next!

Oh, and don't eat food. It slows you down.

Day Three :: Fast Forward

And people say fasting’s for fools. They say, ‘What’s the point? Life’s too short. You might not eat for six days, then get hit by a bus and never be able to eat again – or walk - imagine how pissed off you’d be then.’ They say, ‘You’re depriving your body of essential nutrients. It’s not healthy. You’ll keel over!’ They say, ‘Fasting is gay.’

Well, let me tell you something: fasting is so not gay.

But apart from perkier pee-pee and less dense stools, the only thing I’m really noticing is that I feel fairly sharp, mentally. Like Mohammed Ali. Or Mr T. I have a sense of confidence, that I could achieve anything I put my mind to.

I actually think I’m a bit manic at the moment, and whether that’s due to no food or very little sleep I cannot say. I’m jumping from thing to thing a little more than usual. I have less concentration. I don’t feel particularly dynamic, but I’m definitely getting a lot done. My hands are freezing. But I’m sure that’s just the temperature. I worked late last night and finished the job, made the meeting this morning, turned down coffee and biscuits, impressed a guy in a suit and tie and even had a conversation about my availability for more work in the future. It went well, and I must admit, when I left the office in the sunlight, I felt good. I felt invincible. I felt like Bruce Wayne.

Not a gay.

My point is, I feel like I’m going forward. Whether I complete this fast or not, it’s already been good for me. It’s enabled me to focus myself. I feel like I’m gathering myself, readying myself for change. Both short and long-term. Things are going well and it’s up to me to consolidate. I need to take this bastard bull by the horns and throttle it into submission. Then eat it. But not yet. For now still the gathering, the gathering.

In the meantime, you should know, I hate Kafka. Or is it Herman Hesse I hate? To be honest, I’m going to go with my instinct and assume I pretty much despise the pair of them. And you know why? No sense of humour. And that’s no knee-jerk stereotype. That’s carefully wrought racism, arrived at by study. I read The Trial and I read Demian. Not so much as a titter.

But when I was searching stuff about fasting the other day I discovered that Kafka had written a short story called A Hunger Artist. It’s available online, here, and it’s only 4,133 words long.

I thought, well, it’s about fasting. It’s by Kafka. It’ll be hilarious. I could read it instead of cooking my now classic Cabbage and Pine Nut Pasta.

So I read it.



It was bollocks.

Day Two :: Fast, Slow

The good news is that between yesterday morning and this morning, I lost four pounds, without doing anything. For the first time in probably about three years, I weigh less than 17 stone. Imagine how that feels. Let me tell you how it feels: it feels good. Good like a fractious garden party in the trim bedding of your own golden drum.

Still on gardening, albeit in the dark, I dreamt last night that I was on Brixton Hill, on a stretch of green next to the prison, but it was really actually The Garden of Eden, and the garden was full of naked fat people offering me sex. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to have sex with any of them. I wanted to eat them. Then my zombified mother came out of the ground with green jelly overflowing from the pockets of her decomposing smock. Or was it brains? No, it was jelly. Fat, translucent, glandular, wibbly-wobbly jelly, which in the cold light of day, I don’t even care for.

Amazing.

I do feel a little light-headed, I must say. But apart from that, I feel good. My stomach is only just starting to make some funny noises, but there has been no pain as yet. In fact, so far it’s been a piece of cake.

Mmmmm, cake.

What’s queer is that foods I haven’t thought about in ages will suddenly appear in my mind with incredible clarity; the taste will suddenly arrive somewhere over my gullet and I’ll picture it and smile. I’ve seen sweets I haven’t eaten since I was knee-high to a careless kitten. I’ve seen the nutty porridge I once ate in the house of an African princess. Aaaaah, Awa Awa. She was looking for someone to write her autobiography and she made porridge from peanuts. It was delightful. She was wonderfully mad, and she came to me last night, as she comes to me now again. Now. O frabjous fasting day!

Well, yes, there is that. But on the whole the day is starting to drag. Mostly because I have a website to populate with words, a very dull website about something to do with money. I’m not sure what exactly, but they pay me well to pretend. It’s very dull and sadly, ever-pressing. And - as if that wasn’t enough - tomorrow morning I must go to another place – leaving this place in the process you understand – to go over the work in person, with a real, live other person. I’m really not looking forward to it because I hate pretending to be an adult. If I may speak frankly.

Since I was given this wonderful opportunity about three weeks ago, my plan of action has thus far consisted of doing as much as possible of absolutely anything at all except the work that needs to be done. Today, now that time is squatting on my chest and threatening to do its business in the pocket of my hoodie, I have still yet to pull my finger out. Indeed, today I have stuck to my overall strategy with surprising conscientiousness and tenacity, wasting masses of precious time and what little physical and mental energy I have left on attending to other, not-at-all pressing matters. Like manipulating digital Jelly Babies.

But now is the time. Enough! My will is like a shield of steel and crack, I say, crack on I must and shall. I’ve got a lot to do. If you want to help me out at all, you could maybe keep me going by letting me know what you’ve eaten today. I think that would really spur me on. I could take sustenance from your second-hand tales of elegant consumption.

Or maybe you could let me know, briefly but in your most succulent, mouth-watering prose, what’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten. Really spell it out for me. The flavours, the textures, the smells, the spices, the flourishes, the breadcrumbs, the chips. Make me want it.

Or if you'd prefer, just mention some meals.

I'd like to start with six superfine slices of raw horse, lightly cooked with lemon juice, squeezed from my own hand. And then a plate of mussels. That's what I'd like. Very much. I wonder if this is what that pregnant man feels like?

Feedback Friday :: Desperate Measures

bulk :: 17st 2
alcohol units imbibed :: 1000
cigarettes smoked :: 0
joints smoked :: 5
runs run :: 3
swims swum :: 0
sexy birds observed :: 2
halves of the country entirely written off :: 1
plots hatched :: 1

It seems my weight has levelled out. This is the first week since I started dieting that I haven’t lost any weight. Is it possible to level out at 17 stone 2? Or is this plateau more to do with the fact that I’ve been eating like a two-headed piglet all week? Hmm. It seems I have become complacent. At the beginning of the year, I made a conscious decision not to consume anything that wasn’t good for me. Alcohol excepted. This week (amongst other things) I have consumed:

- half a tonne of monosodium glutamate
- a vat of lager
- a third of a (small) tub of Nutella
- a Topic
- half a bag of mini-eggs
- two portions of Heaton Mess

Now you won't know what Heaton Mess is, because I only invented it yesterday, so allow me to explain. First of all, it has very little in common with Eton Mess. Just as Heaton - nasty little Newcastle backwater, populated entirely by underprivileged, cuss-spouting brutes with tattoos on their throats – has very little in common with Eton - charming little Berkshire town, populated entirely by overprivileged, Latin-spouting toff children with plums in their throats. No, Heaton Mess is a silly thing, but painfully tasty. It goes a little something like this:

Ingredients:

1 chocolate brownie
1 banana
1 helping of natural yoghurt
1 liberal sprinkling of pine nuts

Instructions:

- peel the banana and cut it into pieces with a shiny teaspoon
- place banana pieces in bowl and liberally sprinkle with pine nuts
- position head over bowl and take large bite of muffin
- chew muffin loosely and with mouth wide open (slightly reminiscent of Seth Brundle) so that loosely chewed muffin bits land in bowl with banana bits and nut sprinkling
- continue open-mouthed chewing process until entire muffin is broken up and in bowl
- cover with yoghurt
- wolf down like Cookie Monster
- repeat

I guess I should be happy that I haven’t put more weight on. I am in fact happy for this.

But I’m also determined to get back on the tired old horse before I do start piling it back on. And so, it’s time for a detox. Or rather, a fast. My Natural Tree Oil arrived a couple of weeks ago but I didn’t feel the time was right. But then, when is the time ever right to starve yourself for a week? I reckon now is as good a time as any. Well, not now. Monday. For a week. In the meantime… BINGE!!!

Have a great weekend.

Facts, Figures and a Few Home Truths…

Right. So. I’m six foot tall and I weigh a couple of bubbles of fat under 20 stone. That’s pretty gross. I’ve just read a little piece here entitled ‘Am I morbidly obese?’ The good news is, I’m not. The bad news is, I am very definitely ‘severely obese’.

I didn’t know. I thought I was just obese. Or even ‘horribly porky’. But no. I’m Severely Obese. This actually makes me Fairly Depressed.

But at least I’m doing something about it. And that’s worth remembering. PMA. Positive Mental Attitude. You bet.

My aim, as I’ve mentioned, is to get down to 12 stone. So that’s a little under 8 stone. In one year. Which means, basically, I have to lose 2.2 pounds every week. So according to this, my daily calorie intake should be no more than 1954.78. I’m going to call it 1900.

Is that a lot? I’m not sure. I’m going to work out how much I’ve had so far today in a moment.

The good news however, is that I haven’t smoked. Not a single cigarette. Actually, that’s great news. Well done, me. Also, I’ve broken the back of the work I have to do today. And now I’m going to finish it. And then I can devote a little bit of time to finding myself a lady. Oh yes.