Diet Tip #1

1. Cook a lovely breakfast of two poached eggs, wilted spinach and grilled tomato on toast with a fresh strong coffee.

2. Attempt to balance plate of food, knife, fork and coffee.

3. Drop half your breakfast on the floor.

4. Half the calories remain.

Success!!!!1!

Run fat arse, run!

Holy Jesus fucking Christ. I just ran my first ever fun run. In summer. In Brisbane.

I am shagged. Shagged, but oh so proud of my self.

As per usual I have been struggling with my weight. Last year saw my weight hit the 105kg mark and that saw my self confidence take an absolute dive. Too much beer, not enough exercise and not enough commitment to myself health.

So my good mate is a runner (half marathons even) and one afternoon over beers he convinced me to do the "Resolution Run" - so named because its held very close to new years and its supposed to help you stick to your New Years Resolutions.

So I drunkenly booked in to do the 5.5km run about 6 weeks ago. Of course with Xmas and new years celebrations I have done next to no training, and as of last week was seriously considering pulling out. Surely I would embarrass myself completely having done no training?

But no. Benji was not pulling out of this race. 2012 is the year that I challenge myself at every opportunity (my only resolution) . So last night I had no booze, got all my gear together for the early stat (7.20am on a Sunday morning), and went to bed at a reasonable hour. THIS WILL BE GREAT.

Then - dickhead sleeps through his alarm. I woke up at 7:05, giving me 15 minutes to get dressed and into the CBD. FUCK.

But I made it - drove like a mad man, parked illegally ($150 parking fine), managed to drive while putting on shoes and socks, piss bolted down city streets to get the river stage and rocked up to the start line with about 2 minutes to spare.

And then I had to run. It was crowded, there were prams everywhere, ladies walking and blocking the path and I was already stuffed after running to get to the start. But I ran for quite some time before I had to stop to walk (someone decided to power up and over the Goodwill Bridge instead of take it at a reasonable pace). But the first walk wasn't until the 2.5km mark, so happy with that.

After that it was a combo of shuffle-running (cause I was hurting) and walking. I kept a girl in a green t-shirt in my sights. Her pace was perfect for me and it worked.

So my finished time (according to my iPod) was 38:40... not too shabby at all.

Now that I've knocked over my first run, time to start train gin properly and improve on my time.

Can you ever just be whelmed?

I'm in apathy city right now. If I were to put a positive spin on things I would say I'm just going with the flow, maintaining the status quo, but I'm not. It seems I really don't care what is going on a round me and I'm just too lazy to make the changes needed to get my life back on track.

I lost my higher duties contract at the end of March, and took a fairly sharp cut in my pay. But I have not applied for a single job since then to try and get back to the position I was in.

Lazy.

I'm barely putting in any effort to lose the last 8 kilos that I keep harping on about in previous posts. If I weren't locked into a contract with my gym, I probably wouldn't be doing any exercise at all.

Lazy.

With my recent health problems I should be breaking the old habit of getting trashed and hooking up with random blokes - especially when I got so trashed on Friday night and hooked up with the "Nice Guy" again. It really isn't doing my body and my state of mind any good at all.

Idiot.

So what can I do to get out of this major, deep sided rut I've got myself into? Well I'm thinking a change of city may be in order. I've done it once before (packed up and left Toowoomba and my life took a major turn for the better). Could it work again?

Sydney? Melbourne? Maybe even Cairns? Who knows? A change of scenery, a change to my circle of friends (as much as I love them all) may just force me to take some direction in life.

But is this just me wanting to run away from my problems here? Is it a lazy solution to me being lazy (even though its not easy to move city)? If I actually pulled my finger out at work, I could force myself into a new job here. If I even bothered to look at the job sites, and took the time to do an application I might actually succeed in finding something (I actually have a rather impressive resume).

All I know is I don't want to rush this. Giving up a permanent government job (no matter how much of a pay cut I took) in this economic climate is not a wise move, especially when I know I'm just being lazy. Moving to a city that is probably facing worse unemployment than my current locale is equally unwise.

But it is in the back of my mind. It it will sit there for a little bit longer.

If things haven't changed by Christmas I will revisit the proposition.

Thoughts?

I'm ballooning more than Oprah at an all you can eat rib bar...

I'm so sick of my weight fluctuations. Why can't I just keep going down, instead of this bullshit where I'll drop under 95kg, then back up an extra kilo, then down 1.4, and then up a little bit more?

But each drop does seem to take me down closer to my goal. I just want to be 90kg. It's only 4.4kg fucking kilos to go. Why does it have to be so hard?

Because Jesus hates me, that's why?

My Easter weekend of total boozy debauchery wouldn't have helped (even though I didn't have a single Easter egg). So much beer and scotch and sambucca really isn't gonna help the weight loss.

And then there was all the recovery McDonald's after each nights piss up. Hmmm... hangover double quarter pounder.

Oh.... but I will prevail. I will lose these massive love handles. I will be more tone and less jiggly. I will no longer be embarrassed to take my shirt off in front of strangers.

I will be thinner.

Now... time for afternoon tea. Where's my sausage roll and large ice coffee?

You've got to help me! I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas...

Well I'm home sick again... I've come down with a really bad case of gout in my right foot and I can't walk.

For those of you not familiar with gout, lets go to Wikipedia for some info;

Gout (metabolic arthritis) is a crystal deposition disease hallmarked by elevated levels of uric acid (hyperuricemia) in the bloodstream. In this condition, crystals of monosodium urate (MSU) or uric acid are deposited on the articular cartilage of joints, tendons and surrounding tissues. It is marked by transient painful attacks of acute arthritis initiated by crystallization of urates within and about the joints and eventually leads to chronic gouty arthritis and the deposition of masses of urates in joints and other sites, creating tophi. Gout results from a combination of prolonged elevation of uric acid and overall acidity in the bloodstream.

So right now my big toe on my right foot is hot, swollen and extremely painful with a very localised and painful arthritis. I got next to no sleep last night as its so painful to have anything touch my toe, let alone let it touch the bed. So every five minutes I would roll over and try to get comfortable, only to be jolted awake in extreme pain.

Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it right now... just have to keep taking pain relief and wait for it to go away.

But the concerning thing for me is that having another bout of gout (hey, that rhymes) is very indicative of how crap my diet and lifestyle has been the last few weeks.

When I was in the dating wonderland, there was lots of pizza for dinner, lots of wine, lots of beer. All foods that are not only bad for the waste line, but also can contribute to gout.

I jumped on the scales this morning and saw my weight hit 98kg again... only three weeks ago I was back down to 94.8... so I've chinked on over three kilos just by eating shit, drinking too much and not working out enough.

I need to get my arse into gear and get back on track. Food is an issue for me again... I just have an appetite that can't be sated right now.

Maybe a 10 day detox program is in order? Flush all the crap out of my system.

Anyone done one of these? Will it kill me? Am I just looking for an easy fix instead doing the hard work that I know I need to do?

Can I get extra cheese on that?

Americans don't rate high on the culinary scale in my opinion. Sure, they have given us some very yummy fast food delights, but you generally don't give much thought to a nation that serves corn dogs (our Dagwood Dog) with maple syrup as a breakfast item.

So to back up my claims that the USA has absolutely no taste, someone has gone and created a lovely little site called This Is Why You're Fat. It's kind of like a cook book without the recipes but chock full of pictures that will either make your mouth water, or make you vomit instantly.

Lets sample some of the tasty offerings;

The Bacon Donut... this is what I imagine a herpes ridden vadge might look like.
The Chicago Deep Dish Pizza - Oh. My. God. This one actually looks quite tasty, in that holy fuck, I just ate 70 trillion calories and now my heart is about to seize up as the vast quantities of fat clog every single artery and vein in my body, kind of way.

The waffle dog - a Dagwood dog that has a waffle as its crust. What is it with Americans combining the sweet and salty? Bacon on their pancakes? A hot dog with a sweet waffle and covered in tomato sauce? Yuck.

And finally;

A pizza vending machine. That's just fucking lazy.

B1 & B2 can fuck right off...

So I'm still sitting here at work on my first day back. I've got a massive deadline looming and I just have to get this shit done.

The lights above my desk are buzzing madly.

There is no one else left except the woman they fired today (Happy New Year! We have no budget left to pay for your salary for you anymore). I think she might be stealing the stationary but can't be sure.

It doesn't matter, I think I'll be here for a couple of more hours yet.

I'm starving.

I'm so hungry I could easily go down and buy 3 packs of chips and a couple of chocolates out of the vending machine. But I somehow managed to lose a couple of kilos over the last 10 days, so I want to continue the trend and get under 90 kilo's by my birthday. So I'm glad I remembered to pack some healthy snacks before I left today.

I opened up my bag to dig out my healthy snack. And it's a banana. I hate bananas.

Why the hell did I decide that was going to be a great afternoon appetite suppressant? Couldn't I have chucked some rice crackers in there? I'm pretty sure I had some little packets of tiny teddies stashed somewhere for these sort of occasions. But no, Benji had to pick a fucking banana.

And not just any banana. This one is just on the verge of being over ripe. The smell is rank. Kind of like the back room of a old-fashioned grocery store where they stash all the fruit that is no longer suitable to sell. I keep looking about just in case the little fruit flies have found it in my bag. It's squishy in too many places and the skin has far too many dark brown blotches on it to even consider eating it.

But I'm so hungry.

So I peel off the brown-spotted skin to reveal a squishy yellow stringy shape that really needs to be thrown away. But if I don't eat it, I'll just end up getting HJ's on the way home and that would be bad.

I just close my eyes and eat the fucking thing.

Yuck.

But it's gone now. And I'm not so hungry anymore.

I keep buying the stupid yellow things to stick in the fruit bowl, and more often than not, I just chuck the fuckers out. I know they are supposed to be quite good for men losing weight/gaining muscle, but I just hate them so much.

Actually the only thing I hate more than bananas, is banana flavoured products.

Banana paddle pops? Spew. Banana Quick? Chunder. Though I really like banana lollies.

Interesting Benji fact: I once beat two sisters in a banana deep throating contest. After I successfully put most of that thing down my throat (and it wasn't a lady finger thank you very much), one of them looked at me with absolute disgust, the other looked at me with what I think was a mix of pride, jealousy and lust.

That banana was thrown out.

It's important to keep up the liquids...

It's been muggy as all hell in Brisneyland the last couple of days, so I've been feeling a little dehydrated. When I look back at what liquids I had yesterday, I'm surprised I'm not dead really;

Coffee for breakfast

Coffee for morning tea

Two schooners of Hahn Super Dry at lunch (low carb choices are smarter choices), to go with my steak and chips.

Can of diet coke for afternoon tea

Two stubbies of Toohey's White Stag with dinner (low carb choices are smarter choices).

That's it. No water at all, but plenty of beverages with massive diuretic properties. So no wonder I had another massive headache by night's end.

This unhealthy drinking regime isn't doing me any favours in the weight loss game. And considering the guy I've been dating has a stomach like this;

Don't ask me how the hell I found him (well he found me really). But compared to him, I feel like this;

I need to get my arse back into the gym, and do some ab exercises... STAT!

I don't want to try this diet....

Thanks to Stevie B

My armpits hurt

I'm really enjoying getting back to the gym, and getting myself back on track. Even though I'm in a world of pain right now (who knew your armpits could hurt so much?), I'm remembering all the benefits that came from hitting the weights. But I'm also remembering all the things that shit me off about my gym;

The Chatterers - groups of three or four blokes (usually in their early 20's) who do one set of reps each and then sit and chat. It wouldn't worry me if they did it on the machines I hate (damn you seated row) but when they tie up the Fly for twenty minutes I want to punch them in the face. I need to work on my pectorals people!

The Denim Shorts Brigade - My jeans aren't the most comfortable things to wear so why the hell would you wear denim shorts to the gym? Oh... because you're a fucking wanker.

"Poofter Shoes" - That's what I call them, but I would never wear them. Thin canvas material on top, thin rubber sole, absolutely no support, so useless to protect you from any impact and generally worn without socks. Ugly, stinky shoes worn by pretentious wankers. Buy a pair of sneakers you tight arses.

The "Sunglasses Are Cool" Team - It's 7:30pm, you're inside, you're exercising. Why the fuck are you wearing sunnies? And there's the ones who leave the sunnies perched on top of their cap (these seem to be part of the Denim short crew). Put them in your locker you stupid cunts.

Black Socks - Not black ankle sports socks (they're fine if you're wearing dark coloured shoes), but black socks that go halfway up their shins. Usually business socks. Usually with bright white sneakers. Ruins any sort of hotness on a man.

The Sex Face - the men that put in so much effort when finishing off the set that they put on the strangest, most contorted, painful looking face. You just know they make the same face when they cum. It's not pretty.

The Bike Shorts and Bum Bag Man - he doesn't really annoy me that much, but he does go around and try to chat up the women. Seems to be in his 50's with a shaved head and goatee, and massive massive quads. Not sure what he's got in the bum bag, but I think he's got it strategically placed to protect his modesty - he's either massively hung, or the steroids have made it shrink!

Towel-less Wonders - you may think you don't sweat, but in reality you do, and you leave remnants of your sweaty arse crack on every machine you sit on. You make me want to vomit.

Giggle Girls - akin to the Chatterers, but these little bitches hang out on the cardio equipment walking at a stellar pace of 2.3kph and loudly judging everyone that walks past. At least I bag out people quietly to Kat, and not shout it out across the gym.

Now, all this talk of exercies has made me hungy. Time for a quad stacker from Hungry Jacks I think.

Sweet Zombie Jesus

I'll take two of these monstrosities... the lovely new Quad Stacker from Hungry Jacks.

According to news.com.au it contains one third of the recommended calorie intake for a man, and 50% for women.

All the health food authorities and parents groups have got the major shits over it, but I think it looks like the perfect "I'm trashed at four in the morning lets pick the biggest thing on the menu to make me spew in the car park" burger.

Better give me a diet coke to drink though... I don't want to ruin my figure.

Computer generated fatness

Ah, computers are wonderful. They are useful for finding useful things. Such as new shoes on ebay and porn. Lots and lots of porn.

But they have been very helpful in my weightloss. You know sharing of info via message boards and finding things to keep me motivated.

That's how I came across my virtual model. Plug in your details (height, weight, skin tone, shoulder width etc) and it comes up with a computerised version of your body.

Old fat me at 126.5kg on the left, and apparently the new me at 91kg on the right (I don't have the definition in the stomach or chest like that but it's close).

You can do all sorts of fun things like dress you up, give massive muscly abs etc.

Four kilo's in three weeks - I'll have a double quarter pounder thanks

Oh joy of fucking joys - I have been back into a call centre job for all of three weeks and I have already gained four kilo's.

Not happy Jan. Not happy at all.

Sure, it has been a fairly stressful few weeks. I've been labeled offensive and provocative by some silly whores who think they rule the universe (my partner in crime, Duxie, will back me up on this one), and I've actually been physically sick with rage from said whore-attending meetings.

But why do I have to fall back into the bad habits? Why do I feel the need to get a snickers or a kit kat form the vending machine? Who says I must get a doubler quarter pounder meal on the way home before I cook dinner?

So I am officially BACK ON TRACK (tm) - no more shit food, back to the gym, back to walking poor fat Rosie pup.

If you see me eating shit, you officially have permission to punch me in the ribs (there you go Duxie, punch away).

There's no way on the planet I'm going back to this -