Challenge #2: Watch diet/lose weight

Days Without Cigarettes: 15 (or 8*)
Current Weight: 83.5kg
Happy Thoughts Recorded: 6

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This one should have proven one of the harder ones, but I have rather unwittingly and inexpertly stumbled into two massive advantages that have turned this into a synch basically so far:

1. I just quit smoking
2. I just stumbled across an app made by these guys

Now, ordinarily, smoking suppresses one’s appetite, and quitters find themselves binge eating in response to nicotine cravings. I’ve had that once or twice. Not this time though. This time, my way of dealing with severe withdrawal symptoms was, as noted in a previous entry, to glare at my own reflection and watch myself curse pretty much everything in the world until I was left rolling around on the floor like a child who was both throwing a tantrum and also on fire, trying to put himself out. *SLIGHT DRAMATISATION* Any discomfort I experienced, whether tiredness, hunger or dry irritation was assumed to be the result of cravings, and therefore stupid and not worthy of any form of attention save for pure scorn. (At this stage, of course, I was pretty sure that all things were stupid and pure-scorn-worthy anyway, so I didn’t have to think about it very hard.)

During all this confusion my energy levels increased significantly and my lungs started functioning properly for the first time in quite a while. And once the worst of it was done, I had a gaping void where my habitual stress inhibitor used to be. Which I initially filled by doing upside-down sit-ups or handstand push-ups (against a wall) or playing dirty flute until my back hurt or singing Disney songs and Sweeny Todd with all the voices. It didn’t take long for my body to agree that physical stress release was actually a lot more satisfying than chemical stress suppression.

But as I say, I also got myself an app that made the whole thing a lot more straightforward as well. Thanks to “MyFitnessPal” it no longer matters what I think. A friend (who for confidentiality and the fact that it amuses me shall be referred to as “Mr Anderson”) told me about it and it suits my current purposes perfectly. In a nutshell, you record what you’re eating and what physical activity you’re getting up to and it tells you how many calories you’re consuming/burning each time. It can also scan most barcodes to give you this information too, which is JUST SO VERY NOVEL.

I started keeping track on 27/12, telling it I wanted to get down to 75kg. At the time, I was 87.2kg. It gave me the daily calorie cap of 1330, and in the 13 days I’ve stuck to that I appear to have knocked off 3.7kg already! I can’t really see any difference just yet but I am feeling it! I ran 8km the other night for no reason other than the fact I felt like it and it was pretty much awesome.

As someone who had no idea about this kind of stuff, I was blown away by how dramatic the differences between certain foods are. I know everyone in the know kind of raves about this point, so I won’t drag it out – but for example, if you’re looking at calories, drinking 1 glass of coke is cancelled out by legging it for about three kilometres. This just seems ridiculous to me, and the simple awareness of such things has resulted in much more tactical consumption habits on my part. The beautiful thing about my sense of smell and taste coming back with a vengeance is that even oatmeal is an amazing taste sensation to me right now. It is like a crazy party in my mouth with all these sloppy grains and just a tiny bit of golden syrup to keep the ravers happy. I’ve always appreciated food, but now that I’m actually paying a bit more attention, I’m actually really valuing it as well.

If you think just eating 1330 calories a day would leave me somewhat malnutritioned, I wouldn’t argue – I wouldn’t have any idea about that anyway. It’s a rare day that I don’t eat more than that – which simply means that I get off my arse a hell of a lot more to at least burn enough off that I meet my balance. Walk for a couple laps around the block and I’m allowed dinner again, do some jumping jacks while it’s in the microwave, feel fantastic while I eat it – it’s a pretty sweet deal. After I did the 8km run with Housemate Kermit Brown, he cooked a ridiculous thing with chickpeas and quorn and veggies and couscous and crazy spices all over the shop and we ate like Mediterranean goddamned KINGS. Oh, and we were so happy …

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Two days into revising Challenge #4 and it is fast proving to be the first really difficult task of the year. I’ve got a good feeling about it though, and the fact that it’s hard just makes me more certain that it’s going to yield extra juicy fruit. It is something Past Mykal (the one who actually believed he was happy) could have pulled off easy.

I guess it’s kinda weird when you admire who you used to be as if they were a whole other person?

 

*I scabbed a single rollie cigarette on New Year’s, but I don’t count this because I was far too drunk to really take much notice of it anyway