Fighting the Food Fight

                 It was my friend’s stag do this weekend – or bachelor party, if you’re American. It was a lot of fun, but far more relevant to this blog is the disastrous effect it had on my diet. I’m going to try and explain the culinary folly we committed, but I don’t actually remember all of it as I decided not to keep count of what I ate and drank. From memory:

10+ pints of Doom Bar ale (because it was prepaid).

8+ pints of Magner’s Cider.

6 shots of Disarrono.

6 shots of assorted rum.

1 (or more) shots of vodka.

Some Peach Schnapps.

Lots of pizza.

As many breaded chicken bite things as I could find.

More alcohol (various)

More pizza.

1 BK Double Bacon XXL.

1 BK Chicken Royale with cheese.

1 medium portion on chips.

8 BK onion rings (not worth it).

1 Whole Chicken bathed in rum.

                So a totally healthy and balanced diet, if you forget most of the food groups exist. I put on five pounds! That brought me to a total weight of 13st and 11lbs on Monday morning, which was pretty depressing. I’m sure I’ll lose it again quick enough but it was not what I wanted when I was exhausted, probably still hung over and having to go back to work after an epic weekend. I tried going for a run after work yesterday and that only made things worse – I now feel like my right thigh is made of wood and my lower back won’t bend without grumbling. 

This is another example of a ‘diet holiday’ wherein I can abandon the diet for a short time so I enjoy myself without any mitigation and then get back on the diet afterwards. As I’ve said before (I seem to take a lot of diet holidays) this is completely fine as long as you return to the diet. Like fighting any addiction a moment (or weekend) of weakness is excusable in the face of weeks of abstinence. I do appreciate the problem with an addiction is the classic ‘once you pop you can’t stop’ issue, and I’m not saying it doesn’t take willpower – I sincerely appreciate it does. I drink, I smoke very occasionally, I’ve over indulged in a plethora of things before but I don’t let them control me.

                Which is what it’s all about; control (what a roundabout way to arrive at my post subject…). I’ve got friends who smoke and say I don’t understand the addiction just because I’m not addicted. I had a friend at university who was an out-and-out alcoholic  - we’re talking beer for breakfast here, not just a couple before and after dinner – who said I didn’t know what it was like. I’ve known people who do hard drugs, adrenaline junkies and a whole host of other people with a varying array of addictions. Food is no different, it’s just less harmful (in the short term) and more socially acceptable; you can definitely be addicted to eating.

                People won’t notice it so much – we have to eat to live, after all, and usually it doesn’t alter your behaviour majorly. But you can notice some things; withdrawal definitely occurs. It’s usually confused/wrapped up in with being hungry but mood swings, aggressive behaviour and a lack of patience or rationality can all be seen in a food addict, just as with any other addict. I’m sure it’s related to the vitamins and various other things in food so should be supported by science. However, because eating food is necessary to live people tend not to notice if someone is addicted to it, or indulges unnecessarily. Sure, it won’t necessarily kill you like heroine might but it’s still a problem.

                I understand addiction. I am a food addict, and may have been a borderline alcoholic at one point. I feel that almost-overwhelming urge, the cry of need your mind lets out whenever it sees the item of your addiction. It’s like you’re being pulled towards it, drawn by a force as strong as gravity and you simply have to have it and you actually have no real choice in the matter. It is a terrifyingly powerful need and can feel impossible to fight – I have found it impossible to fight on many occasions. I had twenty-five years of finding it impossible to fight, basically living under the control of an addiction that fed itself and only became stronger with every day I gave into it which made it harder to fight on the next one. 

                It feels overpowering, overwhelming and overbearing; it is not actually any of those things unless you let it be. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it is simple. I’ve cut down on everything I over-indulged in – food, smoking, drinking, the lot of it – and none of it came easily (except smoking, as I never really made that habitual or a ritual). I didn’t give up completely – I still do each of those things and giving up food completely is pretty dumb – I just cut down on what I had. Alcohol and smoking were much easier; don’t buy them. They’re not necessary so they don’t have to go in your shopping basket. I never bought cigarettes anyway so that was easy for me. Alcohol was tougher, but I used the same tactic; I didn’t buy any. I shocked myself into doing it, I’ll be honest; after finding out a pint had as many calories in it as two slices of bread I steered clear. Losing weight was more important to me, and I made a good decision. Which is the important point here – I made a decision.

                I recently read a scientific study concerning out ‘decision’ making process. Apparently our instinctive mind is far more in control of our actions than our logical, conscious mind. Sit down because if this theory is correct (and for shock factor, imagine it is in this example) your logical mind is so slow and meticulous that it can only process one thought or action at a time – and this is the part of your mind that deals with movement. You know sometimes you have to stop walking to think about something properly, or in a complicated manner? Yeah, your logic-mind can’t do that and walk at the same time. So when you’re walking along and chatting to a mate you have very little control of what you’re saying – all those complicated opinions and thoughts you think you come up with and have in-depth discussions about are about as thought through as your decision about which hand you use to scratch your head. Think about it – that’s why I suggested you should sit down.

                So whenever you pick something on the menu, or see something that tempts you, that’s your instinctive brain, the feral little animal in your head you think you keep on a leash, willing you towards it. Every you give in to something that’s an addiction, you’re giving in to something that has enslaved your instincts through its use or abuse. This is why it is so difficult to fight it, to turn it down, to resist – because you very instincts are telling you to go and take it.

                And I’m sure some addicts will argue that it is not their fault. They couldn’t help it – if they’re instinctive drives control the majority of what they do, how can they themselves be held responsible? Firstly, your instinctive drives are dumb; it’s the part of your brain that tells you to look down the barrel of a gun to check what’s blocking it, or to test a knife edge with your finger if you’re having trouble cutting things. It’s simple, quick, and usually efficient but makes a lot of errors – Freudian Slips, attacks of Dyslexia, and saying the wrong name at inappropriate times are all the fault of this ball of instinctive demands. Ever wish you hadn’t said the first thing that came into your head? Or you’d thought more about which route to pick? You probably should have stopped for a couple of seconds and wrenched control of your decision making process out of the hands of the monkey within and into the smooth but slow system that is your higher logic function. 

                Secondly you can fight them. I do every day, apparently – although not always successfully, as today my desk mate had the most delicious looking cake and I caved after about ten minutes of her chanting “Get jealous” to me. It’s not easy – but it is the same part of the brain that makes people give in to all types of addiction, and it can be trained (apparently) like any animal. If you can find some way to reward it for saying no, you’ll find it learns pretty quick to ignore its previous addiction but you are likely just displacing it’s loyalty/affection/addiction to that other thing – which is fine, but you should be aware that’s how it works. You heard about rebounds, right? Yeah, that’s displacement. 

                The other way to train is with negative reinforcement. This is scientifically proven, across the animal kingdom, to be significantly less efficient at retraining instinctive responses but is usually easier. It does work; punishing yourself for eating too much does encourage you to eat less eventually. You have to stick with it, use that under-nourished part of your mind that functions on logic and not glandular stimulus, and continually berate yourself into doing it. If you read this blog around August-October time last year you will actually witness me doing this – I punished myself for eating too much by going to the gym afterwards or rewarded myself by eating a little more after a workout. I was training my instinctive mind to eat less and/or exercise more using this basic technique and I didn’t even know.

                My instincts were training themselves. I was just along for the ride – it’s like in the new Robocop film (not a spoiler) when they explain near the beginning why he functions so well in combat; he’s not actually making decisions, he’s just watching them being made. That’s what happened to me – and happens to a lot of people on a daily basis. We’re barely even living our lives, if this is true; we’re just experiencing them for the most part. The only time you make a real decision is if you sit down and spend time thinking it through – even then, apparently you can’t be sure.

                Or you can choose to look at it as you having two very powerful and unique decision making processes, on which your mind is used to using for quick, snap decisions and the other when you’re less under pressure. Being able to make decisions with both – or choosing which to use to make a specific decision – is where you get to take control of everything you do. And food, like any addiction, can be fought using either or both of these processes. One might start out as a weakness and the other as a little difficult to engage but eventually the first will be as strong a defence as it once was traitor and the second will be a smooth, slick mechanized machination matrix that will allow to create perfect decisions when you engage it. 

                I know it’s tough, I know it seems insurmountable, but you can say no. It might help to remember that what you’re really doing is saying ‘yes’ to something else – losing weight, being in better shape, having an excuse to buy new clothes, and much, much more! You don’t need the extra food unless you’re using it – and it’s a lot of work to shift a slice of chocolate fudge cake, trust me. So next time you feel inexorably drawn towards a dish or feel your sweet tooth tugging, remember you’ll have to run a couple of miles at least to work it off. Who knows; maybe not having to do the run will be enough of a carrot for you to avoid that extra snack.

Closing In

                In four weeks’ time, I will be twenty-six years old. I am 13st and 7lbs (189lbs) and only 7 stone off my target. This is entirely achievable, although I think I have to bring my daily calorie amount down a little to manage it safely. This means that in a year I will have lost 5st and 8lbs – 78lbs – without significantly impacting my lifestyle. Sure, I eat less and work out more but that hasn’t taken away from what I do as hobbies or general interests – if anything it has added to it. But, inarguably, there has been change and that is what I am posting about today.

                Biggest change? Eating habits. This is probably obvious but that doesn’t make it any less important to discuss. I do eat less – and less often. I now nibble at nibbles, rather than devour them en masse, and I snack on fruit over crisps or fast food. Deserts I avoided anyway but I’ve started having these now as a good way to compliment an otherwise-healthy meal when I’m low on calories so I don’t have to stuff my face with spinach leaves or other salad in a confused binge eating session. I very rarely have crisps at all now, and only drink sugar-free drinks (for the most part. Recent Red Bull moments have basically banned that from my list of acceptable drinks altogether), both of which have been a massive influence in both my weight loss and general eating habits. I still have these things occasionally, but nowhere near as often or in as large amounts.

                Second biggest change is the amount of physical exercise. Again, this is pretty obvious if you talk to me or read this blog but it is, again, still important. I am walking places more, running places more, randomly doing press-ups or sit-ups occasionally when I’m bored or waiting on something. I find myself more able – and more willing – to exert myself physically and do physical labour or activity. It’s a pretty awesome feeling, and very liberating. Sure, actually doing actually requires effort but it seems I’ve got a lot more of that to give now.

                Next a little bit of a negative; I’ve become more judgemental of my appearance. Conversely one could argue (as I’m sure one of my brothers would) that caring more about you appearance isn’t a bad thing and I can’t disagree with that statement. It just becomes a bit of an issue when I find myself judging how I look compared to how I want to look, rather than how I did in the past. I think it’s not necessarily fair on myself and might make me appear vain. I also worry about how my hair looks, which isn’t a thought that’s really gone through my head before now. This concern does, however, provide a constant source of motivation. I just hope it hasn’t made me overly-critical.

                Apart from those changes I’ve noticed my conversations have become a lot more focused, or at least I have had a lot more focused conversations. This happens to anyone who gains a lot of knowledge very quickly on a specific subject, I think, and since my friends know I’ve been finding out a lot about the subject so they have been asking me questions about this specifically – which is a compliment – so I don’t think I’ve lost my ability to have diverse conversations. However, I do take interest in a lot of conversations and articles that I previously would have ignored and my twitter account is plagued by any number of fitness/diet related tweets from myself or people I have followed purely for that reason.

                I have a lot less free time. This is probably a good thing – I used to spend my time on a whole host of time consumer and fairly unproductive tasks and time-spends. I now feel I achieve a lot more on each and every day, which is immensely satisfying, and I really appreciate it when I spend an evening relaxing or by myself. I’ve recently reaffirmed to myself that I am cripplingly introverted, and part of my apparently perpetual exhaustion is propagated by my plentiful public activities on top of work and personal life. I wouldn’t say I don’t enjoy it, but I am very busy now. I get very little time to myself – yes, this is totally my choice but if I want to enjoy my life I have to do things I enjoy, right? Seeing friends, doing things, actually indulging in my plethora of hobbies, they all take time. Really it’s a bit of a timetabling miracle that I find time to get my blog entries done some weeks.

                I’ve also become more grateful to people – for a lot of things. Support, encouragement, little phrases I used to consider just lip service have all started to mean more to me (probably because I think I’ve earned it) and each and every time someone says something along those lines to me it makes me feel like I have achieved something. So I am grateful, for that and also for everyone who comes to the gym with me, even if it’s not every week, or talks to me about food and dieting or shows their support in other ways, great or small. It has shown me exactly how good my friends are and I can only be grateful to them for it. I hope I show it enough, and regularly.

                Lastly I have become a lot more judgemental and damning of people who are selfish or ungrateful. I am guilty of behaving in this manner – hopefully a lot less often now than previously – but this has been something I’ve tried to actively remove from my behaviour. I find as detestable in myself as I do in others, and I’ve found it a good judge of someone’s character to see how they react when I tell them they’re being ungrateful. People who throw it back in my face and say they have nothing to be grateful for, or that they deserve better anyway, are the kind of people I’m trying not to associate with.

                It’s mainly due to a fear I’ll start replicating this behaviour, which would be horrible. I tried to explain it to someone as them spreading negative energy and attitude, and that it would infect my spiritual balance. I was only being semi-serious – I do believe that a person’s outward expression of energy and emotion can strongly influence another’s, but I was trying to see how far I could push the argument before they called bullshit. It was about the time I started talking about their negative energy creating evil spirits which then escaped from them and tried to possess others she started getting suspicious.

The point behind this tangent is that I’m trying to avoid this behaviour in a very proactive manner; I’ve come to understand that if you focus too much on what you think you deserve other people will start thinking you deserve lesser and lesser amounts. I forgot that for a short time recently and my general life satisfaction really did take a hit as a result. Yes, you absolutely have to live for yourself BUT you also have to live with other people, and they will be far more willing to offer you things if you offer something to them. Unless they’re a complete ingrate, at which point you should let them know and/or leave them to it. Alone.

So that is how my diet and weight loss has affected me, from my point of view. I would love to hear any feedback or opinions friends and/or readers have had from either seeing me in person or from a change in tone, style and attitude in my writing so please let me know – yes, this partly an attention seeking, ego-feeding request (to which I can unashamedly admit :D ) but it would also be very interesting to know what people thought. So let me know, and let me know as well if you’re dieting or have changed your eating or exercise habits recently how you think it has affected you. Comparing stories is always good – we could have a camp fire with smores, if we found a low-calorie smores substitute.

You Eat What You Earn

Last week was a lazy week. Only two gym visits and not one, not two but three whole cheat days. It didn’t go ideally to plan, and as of this morning I was about the same weight as last Monday, although I weighed myself after breakfast. Some of you might wonder how much I eat for breakfast that it matters what time I weigh myself in the morning but it can make all the difference sometimes – even if it’s only in my head some mornings.

                So how am I planning to fix this? Well, I’m not really sure. I’m going to the gym tonight and Wednesday, but I’ve been booked out tomorrow as well as the weekend and might be busy on Thursday night. So it may be that I don’t have that much time. I’m going to be trying to sneak in a session on Tuesday quickly but it’s not looking good. So it looks like a week of thin rations rather than plenty, and back to dieting basics. However I’ve encountered a few problems with this, having tried it last week.

                I really don’t like pasta any more. I stopped eating it so much since I started going to the gym, as I had more calories to use up and could have a wider variety of foods as a result, and having tried to go back to it as a low calorie, filling meal I’ve found I don’t find it appetising in the least. Weirdly, rice tempts me powerfully but is not as good a supplement as it takes more of it to fill me up and I’m pretty sure is less healthy. If I’m incorrect please correct me so I can have it without feeling like a diet-traitor. I’m also going off kale. I don’t think I ever really liked it, if I’m honest, but it is far too good for me to not eat. Coupled with my drop in interest for pasta it makes my evening meals a bit of a chore. “So you don’t have to eat anything in the evening, right? That’ll help the diet!” – Not really. I still need to eat to live.

                So how am I going to solve this conundrum? Well, I could talk to people who cook and find a couple of low calorie meals to make, varying my diet a little (shock horror) and making sure I never really fill my food life with too much of the same thing. This is probably the best plan I can come up with, so I should really make an effort to enact it. The problem is my evenings are quite busy and cooking can take an unfortunate amount of time. Yes, I know I keep saying we make time for the things we want to do but I don’t want to cook really; what I actually want to do is eat without having to work for it. That’s a very, very lazy outlook, I know. And when I do cook I do enjoy it but it still seems a bit of a chore when I think about it in advance, mostly due to the time it takes to do it rather than the effort. So what I’m looking for are quick, healthy, low calorie meals which require minimal effort to prepare and are fairly filling.

                Do not, do not, say salads. Yes, I appreciate my aversion to them seems mildly unintelligent and counter-productive but I don’t find them appetising at all. Maybe I need to learn to enjoy them, and this is something I am getting closer and closer to experimenting with. They are not something that I want forced upon me though. Part of my reticence is spawned of fear they won’t fill me up, which sounds pretty dumb now I come to voice the concern – I could always, you know, eat more to compensate as something lacking meat and carbohydrate isn’t going to have a massive calorie count to it so that shouldn’t be a worry. And yes, I know I can actually add some meat to them if I want a bit of carnivore-friendly flavour. It’s something I will look into, at some point, but before I push the boat out that far I’ll look for alternatives I feel more tempted by.

                So do I have any of my own ideas or am I just going to beg for them? Well, basically every woman I’ve spoken to has decided to mock my ability to cook based on the fact I’m a man and therefore am genetically unable to. Contrary to this, I can; it is definitely a ‘won’t cook’ issue for me. Tonight I’m probably looking at a risotto, which I appreciate is not the height of culinary genius but I’ll be honest; ‘cooking’ of any variety is basically heating things up to a specific temperature for a specific time. Yes, you can add herbs and spices and such, and I do, but it’s not a secret, ninja art taught only in shadow and quiet whispers. I don’t want to belittle those who can cook really well – you certainly have an admirable talent. What I want to say is if someone applies themselves they can probably prepare a meal of a fairly impressive standard for an amateur. I’m not saying any one can be a chef, but nearly everyone can be a cook.

                What am I trying to say, apart from perhaps digging myself into a hole with culinary experts and professional kitchen preparation artists everywhere? Simply, that anyone can cook. Get your ingredients, don’t be an idiot when you choose how to prepare them, make sure you don’t burn them, don’t drop them on the floor. The real trick is knowing what goes with what and when to mix them; the rest is just observation and light lifting. Yes, fire can be scary. Sure, you might get it wrong. Ideally check with whoever you’re cooking for that they eat what you’re going to prepare – having made this mistake it was very awkward half way through the meal when the other person revealed they didn’t eat one of the things I’d put in there. It wasn’t an allergic reaction, but it wasn’t a best pleased one either.

                Why is this relevant to dieting? Two reasons! One, it allows you to control your intake with a lot more detail and therefore you will find it easier to diet/not over eat. Again, it still requires a measure of self-control but even one of my work colleagues, who admits to having all the self-control of a small child that is high on sugar and has been set alight, is managing it now he’s preparing his own food. It also gives you a sense of satisfaction and pride in what you’re eating, a sense you deserve to eat it. I like to think this is linked to hunter-gatherer instincts rewarding you for your hard work.

                The second reason is that dieting can be expensive if you buy pre-packaged or pre-prepared diet food/meals. Actimel don’t price their yogurts and more cheaply than full fat ones because they’re giving you less stuff in them, and all types of food that sell themselves on containing less of X, Y and/or Z appear to cost more for the pleasure of their consumption. However, buying your own ingredients can be very cheap, as long as you’re not importing the finest ostrich meat from Australia or having caviar for breakfast regularly. I find that either the meals are cheaper if you buy the ingredients separately or you get a lot more meals out of the same amount of money as if you bought pre-prepared branded food stuffs. And you learn a life skill: sounds like a bargain.

                I therefore recommend doing you own cooking if you’re looking to lose weight, sticking with my theme for DIY dieting. The best way to do a thing is to learn as much as you can about it, so empower yourself with some creative cooking knowledge and get to it! Or, if you’re like me, do what you did at university in a desperate attempt to avoid awful malnutrition issues and find some succulent solutions to starvation which are both simple and satisfying.

Drogo Week

               Another week, another pound! I’m now 13st 10lbs, 192lbs or 87kg depending on your measurement preference. I fit comfortably into my 34” jeans as opposed to only just and have even more clothes to throw out. So plenty of good news, right? I’m also getting plenty of compliments too, so I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Or do I?

                I do, because I’m from the First World and as such have grown up looking for the flaws and imperfections that make my brilliant life ‘incomplete’. What am I complaining about? Myself – some might call that unusual but it is the purpose of this blog, really. What did I do? I cut my gym session last night by forty five whole minutes. I was still there for an hour and a half, and I did only cut it short because between finishing work at six, eating and getting to sleep at a decent (ish) time squashing in a gym visit of longer than an hour is difficult. The other issue was I had fallen so far behind in calorie count I had to make up by eating that I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to if I carried on through with my work out plan. I wasn’t exhausted when I left but I was tired, and had travelled fifteen km over three machines so it was by no means a wasted trip. I just feel I let myself down by not staying longer, and I’m also going to eat slightly less afterwards as I felt rotten after what was actually quite a healthy dinner of pasta, bacon and kale (cooked) – it was just an awful lot to eat at once. 

                Today my legs only ache a little and my upper body is fine, so I clearly didn’t do enough work. How to remedy this? Easy; I have created a contingency plan to compensate for this perceived failure and/or increase in ability. Now, being one of my plans, it is obviously considered, well thought through and suitably measured as a response. It certainly does not suffer from an abundance of ambition or an absence of appropriate expectation.

                This week is DROGO WEEK! I’ll be running to and using the gym every day until Friday, and most likely being increasingly tired verging on exhausted every day until Friday too. I definitely didn’t decide on this while under the influence of testosterone – which a friend has convinced me is a mind-altering drug. Regardless, that is my resolution and I will remain resolved to rectify my restrained exercise regime: If I can push myself harder, I should push myself harder.

                Now, just to prove I have given some thought to this titanic (ish) tactic I will point out that I will not be doing the same thing every day at the gym – for instance, having done thirty five minutes on the treadmill (5km) and the same time on the cross trainer (7.25km) yesterday, I will not be using them today. I’m looking at 30 minutes rowing and 35 minutes cycling. I did do ten minutes rowing yesterday for 2.3km but pushed myself too far considering I haven’t done it in about a month. I’m pretty sure if I pace myself I can manage half an hour. My brother’s comment on my rowing yesterday was pretty positive; “You looked pretty good but sounded like a Viking.”

                This is a review I will amenably accept – my music play was too loud for me to hear myself over but I have recently updated my work out playlist so rather than just being everything on my phone it is an actual playlist. It is formed of what I would consider manly, motivational tracks, so mainly metal or things like the Skyrim theme. I have crafted it after a conversation with a friend about the effects of testosterone after which I came to two conclusions; firstly I would use the sauna after every work out to calm down and secondly testosterone is the perfect biological fuel for the fires of my fitness rebirth. Ergo, the new playlist is full of tracks that were written and played after the writer/performer had injected themselves with about 250cc or equal parts testosterone and adrenaline. Currently it’s about thirty minutes in length but I’m planning to build on it. As a bonus I have substantially increased my collection of Scandinavian metal, so it has had non-exercise benefits too. It has certainly kept me motivated and pushing my limits to breaking point.

                The message this week is one of rediscovery. Don’t let your workout – or your diet – become stale or stagnant. It won’t keep you interested or enjoying it, and will make it a chore rather than a challenge, arduous rather than an adventure and embittering rather than empowering. Entropy is the only constant, the only real law of nature and therefore real rebels resist it rather than being rambunctious hipsters. Do not give in to laziness – it leads to inertia and to entropy, which leads to something much less exciting than the Dark Side. You should live your life, not just survive it and so I encourage you to vary your routine – boldly go where you haven’t been before, eat what you haven’t eaten before and do what you haven’t done before. Rediscover the enjoyment you can have from exercise or the satisfaction you find in dieting, or discover something new about those things. Hopefully you’ll even like it.

Once More Dieting for the Beach!

            So it's been nearly a month! Three weeks? Ish? I should have lost another six pounds. Man, being 190lbs would be great - that's only 10lbs from goal. That'd be pretty good going, right?

            Yes, is the answer. As you may have guessed from my wording I have sadly not achieved this progress. I am in fact now 197lbs - that's correct, I've put on one whole pound! In actual fact I put on four and lost three, which sounds a lot better. This was not due to a failing at Drogo'ing (Yes, that's totally a verb amongst my friends and I now - although it doesn't mean we pour molten gold on each other) but rather a spree of comfort eating and celebratory binge-ing.

            I suffered a couple of knocks to my confidence in the time since I last wrote, as well as dealing with the stress of starting a new job while leaving another - by Christmas I will have worked thirty of the thirty five days leading up to it. This combination of emotionally draining factors explains the comfort eating.

            The binges were a combination of celebrations and indulging in the restaurant at my new work place, which is superb but not too caring of diets - I'm pretty sure the chef is from somewhere where the idea of not eating heartily is punishable by becoming a yak and he would only laugh me down if I dared ask about calorie content. I expect roughly 100% less sympathy for these reasons.

            The lesson I'm taking from this is that I can relax the diet - quite a lot - and still recover from it. I didn't give up on the gym. Quite the opposite; I'm being accused of being an addict and fear it may be true. A week without three gym visits leaves me feeling like a failure now. I can also fit into 34" jeans now for the first time in about six years, so I'm going to put some of the weight gain down to muscle development and ignore people who argue otherwise until it's true.

            I did enjoy eating whatever I wanted again but I definitely overate on several occasions & felt pretty bad for it. Which is a good sign - I just have to heed it in the future. I also definitely enjoyed drinking freely again but after half a litre ish of vodka and a two-day hangover I've decided to give that up until New Year. Which can only help the diet :)

            How did I give up excess and return to a self-inflicted, grueling regime of restraint and self-denial? Firstly, my goal has not been achieved. This was foremost in my mind & I knew it would remain incomplete unless I put the effort back into working for it. Secondly I found it unrewarding once I'd gone too far. It just wasn't worth it to continue eating after a certain point. So I put it aside and got back on with working towards what I really wanted - a faster, stronger, better me.

            In one sense I gave up overeating for the same reason a lot of people give up dieting a short while after starting; habit and familiarity. This makes me happy - a warm glow under my aching muscles and occasionally grumbling stomach that let's me know I'm getting towards the level of fitness and the attitude which accompanies it that I want to have. While the last three weeks have been a set back they have demonstrated to me that I want to continue dieting and the exercise on both a conscious and subconscious level. Which is golden.

            So why haven't I blogged in three weeks? Social life, new work, old work sign off, family, gaming and more social stuff. Basically this part isn't habitual yet. I'll work on it - but thank you & sorry to everyone who has chased me up about this blog. I'll try to keep up with your interest in the future! Keep commenting/messaging/telling me your thoughts and I'll try to keep responding to them!

NB: I know England has a tiny beach season and few enough beaches that accommodate it comfortably but if I prepare now I'll be ready for it come July.