Fast Fact #004 :: Brain Need Food

Day Three. The only remaining housemate is in the kitchen. He’s rather let himself go this week so the place is a bit of a mess. He’s even having to work by the light of the oven awning because apparently, four days isn’t enough time to nip over the road and buy a replacement for the main bulb. This is his first jug of Tree Syrup for some time now and as he fumbles with the lid to the canister, he realises that he’s a little jittery. The cap slips from his fist, pings from the brim of one of the many empty glasses on the lemon-strewn surface and skittles off under the front of the oven. In stooping to retrieve it, the housemate dislodges a grime-caked grill from the front of the oven and cops a hand full of grease and cat hair into the bargain. When he finally examines the Syrup cap, he sees that it’s peppered with mouse droppings, many years’ old. He shrugs listlessly, washes the cap under the tap and eyes an autumn-years banana with undisguised lust. ‘Mmmmm,’ he thinks, ‘mature.’

Then the housemate has a brainwave. Springing into action, he seizes the internet with his teeth and starts desperately skimming for something interesting, please God, anything that can be done to liven up this godforsaken fucking Tree Syrup to which he is now apparently married - and HEY PRESTO! He is reminded that you can also drink it with warm water. He fills a kettle with alacrity, and boils it.

Giddy with excitement, he prepares the three-pint jug. In goes the Tree Syrup. One, two, thr… well, that was only half a one, so that’s three there really, that one, and four, five, five-and-a-bit, six, and one for luck! Look at him! Taking it off the spoon! Down the hatch! It’s like methadone to a baby. Now, paprika or ginger? That is the question. Sod it, no one’s looking - they’re both going in. Weh-hey! This. Is Madness. It’s more than madness. It’s Radness. Fasting hasn’t enjoyed scenes like these since… since records began. Oof! Just look at him go at that half-lemon. Bish, bash, bastard! In goes the hot water. In goes the cold. Out goes tradition. This has been a Big Brother fasting frenzy.

Fast Fact #004 :: Fasting is dangerous, but it can also be stupid.

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: The Good, The Bad and The Bag Full of Urine

bulk :: 19st 1 (excellent. Finally I seem to making real progress. That’ll be the exercise. And the bananas.)
cigarettes :: 6 (I know, I know, I know. I’m sorry. I feel bad. Will explain and give excuses in a short while.)
alcohol units :: 19
bananas :: 17
runs :: 3
minutes run without stopping for cigarette rest :: 12
bottles of wine stolen by over-zealous airport staff :: 1
new Davids :: 3

So, my friend Keith has moved to Peckham. Ten minutes’ walk from the heart of Peckham Rye. Now, I’d always thought Peckham was the armpit of London, if not the scrotum, and for most of my life I have studiously avoided it. Indeed, the time I have spent there this week has done little to disabuse me of this, but also – despite the gobby teens, the astonishing amount of rubbish in the streets and the intoxicating, god-awful stench – it does have a certain charm of which I was hitherto unaware. Lots of fruit and veg stalls, for example, a preponderance of large African men singing religious songs in the street and yesterday I saw a steel drum trio, just playing in the street seemingly for the sheer joy of it. It’s kind of like Brixton in fact, but without the rather unpleasant drug culture and concomitant sense of impending violence. Plus, no one can deny the inherent charm in this shop sign…



Anyhow, Keith’s new house is in a little disrepair. It needs a lot of work, so for the last couple of days I’ve been helping him repaint his living room. I tried to make it into a fitness thing, applying the principles of the Mr Miyagi School of Fence Painting. So that was good.

However, speaking of unpleasant drug culture, I’m disappointed to have to confess that Keith recently purchased a large bag of stinky green. For smoking. So after an hour or two of the Miyagi Dulux Workout, the last two nights have dissolved into a predominantly workless haze of sickly sweet smoke, silly talk and giggles.

This is no bad thing of course - it was actually fantastic fun - except of course it meant that I found myself smoking tobacco for the second time in a week. Yes, as I mentioned in passing the other day, I also weakened in Istanbul and allowed a couple of low-down dirty Turks to persuade me that Turkish cigarettes are actually good for you. (If ever a Turk tries that tack with you, give him short shrift – Turkish cigarettes make Benson & Hedges taste like the elixir of life.) As a consequence of all this, I woke up this morning – cue blues riff - feeling like Death - cue clues riff - a cough like a convict - cue blues riff - and tar in my chest. So that’s bad. Very bad. But don’t worry, I don’t intend to make a habit of it. Plus I have already said a dozen Hail Marys, three Apostle's Creeds and half a handful of How's Your Fathers. So I’m sorted.

And the fact is, I don’t really feel that bad about the smoking because everything else is going so well. I’ve lost 10 pounds so far this month, and without wanting to turn into a weight bore (DAMN YOU, BRIDGET JONES!!!), I’m really really pleased about that. The running is obviously the key. It seems what they always said was true: bit of exercise, bit of fruit and veg, and suddenly everything’s coming up roses.

Except one thing. Keith told me this thing last night. He told me that for a couple of weeks now he’s had this sensation in his right hand, a little like pins and needles, and when it comes he finds it difficult use the hand. It’s been getting more and more regular and is now as frequent as every half hour or so. The fact that it’s so regular and has been around for so long worries me. A lot. I am a hypochondriac however. Keith is not. So I don’t want to infect him with my paranoia. But I am very concerned. I have convinced him to go and see someone. So, that's something. I know he’s scared, more scared than he’s making out, because he hasn’t told Patricia yet. Anyhow, fingers crossed, Keith (while you can still cross them!).

In other news…

1. I’ve just finished reading The Game and am now considering becoming a chick-a-day, finger-clicking pick-up artist. A dark little Fonzie, that’s what I’ll be. Give me a month.

I jest of course. But on a serious note, as well as being rather repugnant and an enormous cringe-fest at times, it was really rather fascinating. I intend to spend some of this weekend figuring out what I really thought.

2. I’m considering buying a lottery ticket. One a week for the rest of the year. Same numbers. What have I got to lose? Apart from £50 though, what? I know it’s lowest common denominator gambling-cum-cock tax but on the plus side, I’ve been thinking of all the wonderful things I could do with a few million quid. Selfless things too. I want to help people. The poor and the needy. I really do. In many ways, I am a latter day saint. Plus, even when you lose, it is for a good cause. Oh, God, I hate myself for even considering it. But I am…

3) If I can keep up the running and the weight loss at the same rate I managed this week, I reckon I should be down to somewhere in the region of 17 stone by April, which although by no means slender, is three stone slenderer than I was three weeks ago, and by that stage I reckon I’ll be ready to go speed dating. That’s right, speed dating. I have to give myself these hideous, terrifying goals, otherwise I’ll just stop and turn into a pork pie again. And I reckon speed dating is just the kind of baptism by fire that I need. So that’s that. It’s a decision I’ve made.

4. Give blood. Keith’s hand-spazzing and a conversation we had about how a blood transfusion saved his dad’s life – I like Keith’s dad much better than I like my own, I might add - I have decided that the least I can do is hand over some of my blood. It's the saintly thing, after all. Plus, I must have at least 12 pints of the stuff pumping through this hefty frame. I reckon I can spare an arm or two. I’m going to make an appointment.

5. Last night at Keith’s I met a workmate of his, a bloke called David. In the course of a (rather stoned) conversation, David told me about two other Davids I’d never heard of, both of whom were – in many ways – even better than the first David. These Davids were a) David Sedaris, and b) David Shrigley. Excellent Davids all.

That David Sedaris clip is really lovely. And just in case you were in any doubt – as I was – it actually exists.

Ooh, and one for the ladies too.


That’s nice.

Oh, and they do other equally tasteful products.



Jesus God, look at this: ‘Since 9-11 security has become a little tighter at sporting events. No longer can you sneak in your six pack of tall boys in a gutted out boom box. “The Beerbelly” saves the day.’

Wow. No matter how fat, ugly and sexless I may be, at least I will never ever be sad enough to either a) wear a Beerbelly, or b) use a terrorist atrocity to help me market one.

Now, time for my run.

So long.

Wednesday Weigh-In

Oops, bit late this week. More like the Friday Feedback. Actually I prefer that. Super.

Suffice to say, my weight has started to fluctuate wildly. It seems to go up and down – like the undergarments of a particularly eye-catching prostitute – depending on what I’ve been eating. I can’t understand it. Yesterday I ate nothing but carrots, peas, apples, bananas and wine, and today I’m five pounds lighter than I was yesterday morning. I suppose the idea is to continue with that, and maybe cut out the wine. OK, damn it, I’ll try.

bulk :: 19st 6
cigarettes :: 0
packets of Nicorette :: 0
alcohol units :: 25
exercise achieved :: walked approximately 10km
ladies bewitched by purple prose :: 3
ladies bewitched in real life :: 0

In general, I’m pleased with the cigarettes thing. That appears to be getting easier. So much so that I’ve even stopped with the nicotine gum. Carrots are a good substitute, I’m finding. The really good news however, is that my coccyx is almost totally cured now. So later on today, I will go for the first of my regular three weekly runs. I’m going to take it nice and easy at first, especially as I don’t want to be crippled this weekend, for this weekend I'm flying to Istanbul to see a friend. More of a colleague really. But someone I've done some word whoring for and got on very well with. I’m really looking forward to it, apart from the plane travel, and the not being able to eat hundreds of chicken kebaps.

Wish me well.

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.

Mistletoe and Pies: Losing Weight At Christmas…

I wonder how many fat people all over the Western world are presently convincing themselves that this Christmas will be their one last blow-out before getting down to the seriously hard work of getting in shape. Lots I imagine. I know it’s not just me.

But this is definitely my one last blow-out. I swear. I’ll be spending Christmas with my mate, Keith, his girlfriend and her two kids in Guildford. ‘You’ll be like John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’ Keith told me.

Hmmm.

‘So I’ll be like the annoying fat guy who Steve Martin takes pity on because he hasn’t got any friends or family of his own,’ I replied. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Is that not the case?’

Hmmm. Good old Keith.

Anyway, I spent the rest of today buying stuff to take, including lots of fine food and wines. I’m feeling fatter just looking at it all. And that makes me feel guilty. Speaking of which, earlier this week I watched a programme very much in the tradition of Can Fat Teens Hunt?, Help! I Sweat Lard! and F*** Off, It’s Me Glands!. That programme was Lose 30 Stone Or Die. It followed 36-year-old 48-stone Colin Corfield as he spent years losing enough weight to make a brand new set of Sugababes. The people who made the show described it as ‘poignant and moving’. Frankly I found it ‘repulsive and sick-making’. But also, I must admit, ‘heartening and inspiring’. It was part of the reason I was shuffling round the park with weights on my back this weekend.

I’m really not looking forward to it though, the actual hard work of not eating. I know it should be easy. It really should. And you hear it all the time from cocky thin people with no feelings. ‘Just stop eating,’ they say. ‘It really is that simple. Just stop stuffing the pies into your fat face.’ Boy oh boy, those people aggravate me. But they probably have a point. Unfortunately, as with many stout folk, food is for me a psychological crutch. Which I have to train myself not to lean on. And that’s what I’m not looking forward to.

I’ve actually been cutting down fairly substantially for the last couple of months. Trying to at least. I had this vague notion of losing a bit of weight in preparation for my new leaf. So I’ve been eating less. Mostly. And then pigging out and feeling guilty.

I’ve also been attempting to starve myself a bit, just to see how long I could last without eating. Bobby Sands lasted 66 days. And he was quite a skinny bloke to start with from what I can glean. I wonder how long I would last before I started to suffer ill effects. I’ve wondered this a lot recently, so a month ago I went in search of answers. Now if you want answers these days, there’s really only one place to the go: the internet. And although Wikipedia is good, you sometimes can’t be sure that the information you’re reading is 100% accurate. This is why I like to go to Yahoo Answers, where the net’s foremost philosophers hang out.

Hence this. They're so sweet! I actually lied a little about the 27 hours thing. It was more like 17, but I was damnably hungry. I’m hungry now actually. Oh bugger it. Let the festive feeding commence. Tomorrow I buy scales. In 11 days’ time, everything changes. Honest.

Happy Christmas, mysterious reader who left sweet comment.

Oh, and Belle de Jour has not accepted my friendship request on Facebook. This makes me a little sad. So sad in fact that I’ve decided to offer my friendship to some other people I don’t know. Starting with David Walliams. David Walliams has 4,435 friends. He must be accepting just about anyone, especially ugly men. We’ll see.

Happy Christmas, David. Happy Christmas everyone.