A good night

Day 53 and 107 kilos

Yesterday was an interesting day. Almost as soon as I had posted I received a text from an old friend saying that last night would be his final night out in Singapore and would I like to join him for a drink? This man was one of the very first people that I met when I arrived here and he took me under his wing and showed me around and made introductions.  He's been in Singapore for many years and although I have heard him say on more than one occasion that his plan was to retire at 50 to New Zealand, due to my fasting and non-drinking and hermit lifestyle, I had had no idea that that day has finally arrived. He's leaving next Wednesday. I must say that he was looking exceptionally well but I cannot help musing on the fact that he's giving up a job he's good at (an oil broker) an expense account with which he has entertained mightily, a city that is full of life and friends for a new and very different life outside Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand. Most people were predicting that he would be back within a year and I will be very interested to see whether that is the case or not. When the chief and I visited the North Island on our honeymoon last year we appraised the place with  a "could we live here?" eye. The fact is that we felt that it was so quiet and so far away from the rest of the world that we could not - that does not mean that we didn't love the place - we did, we just couldn't live there. 

 The long and the short of the evening was that I drank rather a lot of Johnny Walker and had an excellent time. I mended some fences with another old friend and as a result went home smiling and also ravenously hungry. The fruit and vegetables were shelved and instead I tucked into some steak - vast quantities of the stuff and frankly I am surprised that my weight has not gone up again overnight. I have also been feeling a little green around the gills as a consequence of my over-indulgence. I am not proud of myself as this was the sort of thing that I have been trying to avoid but nonetheless it was a good evening. Sadly that is all for the day as I must now go and pack for Australia.

The rhythms of life

Day 44 and 106 kilos
Day 45 and 105.5 kilos
Day 46 and 104 kilos
Day 47 and 104 kilos
Day 48 and 104.5 kilos
Day 49 and 105.5 kilos
Day 50 and 106 kilos
Day 51 and 106 kilos
Day 52 and 107 kilos

I grovel in mortification for my absence - for the last couple of days I have had my cousin Gavin staying. He had a stopover on his way to Australia on business. Naturally enough I needed to show him the sights in Singapore, introduce him to some of the local nosebag and, of course, venture forth to some of the watering holes. This precluded any exercise on my part and frankly it would have been both bad-mannered and uncomfortable for him had I not lowered my head to the trough with him. The figures above give a clear indication of what this noble hospitality has wrought upon my body - I'd like to say that my head is hanging in shame but of course it's not because it was a pleasure getting to know this stalwart and long lost cousin. Somehow over the years our paths have crossed on only a couple of occasions but these have never really given either party a good indication of what the other was made of. We have attempted to remedy this and much of the time has been spent in fervent conversation, draining the house's impressive stock of beer, in poses struck both in and by the side of the swimming pool. As the film said "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

In the unaccounted for days prior to his stay, where some of you have been kind enough to say that you have missed my ranting, I was under a very dark cloud and generally feeling sorry for myself. Certainly I didn't want to bore my adoring public with my tales of woe and as some forgotten worthy once said "If you have nothing nice to say - say nothing!" The general problem is that I do not currently have a job and despite some improbable efforts on my part to get one my goal has yet to be reached. The wolf is not actually scratching at the door yet but I can sense the pack closing in. The thing is that the barrel of my life is full of good things and this one rotten apple is beginning to taint it. Probably, like myself, you are wondering how a man of my immense resourcefulness and very evident talents has not been picked  up yet - it is a mystery to all. Nonetheless I am now feeling rather more cheerful after Gavin's visit and have once again reined in my alcohol intake and returned to feeding on vegetable and fruit matter as well as getting back on to the bicycle. The slight hiccough is that our visit to Sydney is looming, rather enticingly, in the very near future. In fact we leave tomorrow evening. Now I'm not looking at this trip as an unrestrained debauch but I am assured that the Aussies make excellent food in a myriad of Sydney restaurants and you already know my thoughts on their wine. My current thought process is much bottlenecked with how I can go there, enjoy the wedding, the food and the wine, which both the chief and I will want to do, and return to Singapore with a less bulging waistline. Much exercise and careful eating seem to be the only answers - woe is me!

It is my intention to restore full service to you but with the aforementioned visit, there might be some disruption to your lives. I have been told that one subscriber likes to read this drivel whilst ensconced (if that's the word that I'm looking for) on the throne and enjoying his morning constitutional. Naturally I am flattered that this daily ritual is no longer the harmonious process that it once was but I will do my utmost to ensure that my little notes arrive in time to allow his daily rhythms to return to normal. However I cannot guarantee full service whilst in Australia.

OMG!

Day 41 and 104 kilos
Day 42 and 106 kilos
Day 43 and 109 kilos

GOD'S HOLY TROUSERS! From Friday morning to Monday morning a rise of six kilos - that's almost a stone for the Brits -  in three days!!! How, you are probably asking, could that happen? Well, very simply, I've been immoderate - three or four bottles of red wine and the addition of bread, potatoes, deep fried chicken, dutch "bitteballen" and pizza. Now I told you that I wouldn't post a daily rota of the things that I have consumed - so I won't but suffice it to say that the chief and I have had a "social" weekend involving dinner together at home on Friday, a visit to the comedy club on Saturday and dinner at a pizza joint on Sunday evening with friends and obviously no exercise whatsoever. Things were so bad last night that I was awoken by heartburn - a very simple warning signal that my stomach is being squeezed by too much food.

I do not feel good this morning and nor am I proud of myself. I'll be on fruit, vegetable juice and consomme for the rest of the week along with a daily bike ride. I cannot believe how my body has reacted to a single weekend of gluttony - I'm horrified by both the weight gain and the heartburn.

Having said all of that - the weekend was very pleasant. I kept myself surprisingly busy - visiting the market down in Geylang to buy the fruit and veg - it's a third of the price of shopping at Cold Storage (our local chain of supermarkets) and better quality but unfortunately the downside is that the market (as is true of most markets in Asia) smells very bad indeed. A mixture of stale fish, stale meat and rotting bits of vegetable and fruit. The chief has banned me from going to these places on my own because I get ripped off so heavily - "ah white man coming - double the prices". The chief of course goes in chatting in Malay with an idiot grin on her face and charms them into giving discounts - although it has to be said that her charm rarely works its magic on the chinese vendors.

We spent Saturday evening at the Dutch club which was hosting the comedy club night and we watched and laughed at / with three excellent comics. Drinking, eating and laughing - it's a difficult combination to beat.

Sunday was spent cooking - thai chicken and coconut soup (it rocks) and a new batch of chicken liver pate which my body is craving for some reason. I was sort of forced to go to the pizza restaurant last night. Obviously it would have been better to go to a healthier type of place but "C" had decided that he wanted one of their fat bastard 21" pizzas. We ended up with two of them between seven of us and despite some heroic efforts on the part of your narrator and Avinash we failed to finish them.

For those of you that are not aware of the fact, my six your old son lives in Spain with his mother. Apart from the annual (sometimes twice annual) visit, I keep in contact with him on Skype every week - a truly fantastic piece of software that usually but not always allows a real time video conversation. Sunday is the designated day and for the first time ever we had a conversation yesterday that included him listening to my questions and then giving answers and also asking me questions. Now his conversational skills have not been that strong on skype (because he is only six and would rather be playing with his cars or picking his nose) but yesterday I felt that we have had a breakthrough and this makes me exceedingly happy. The downside is that he has a newfound subject on which he wishes to converse and learn - football! If there is one topic of conversation in which I have no interest, it is football. But nonetheless in view of his prolonged verbosity I played along and the conversation went back and forth for about 45 minutes - the longest ever by far - it's a good start.  It was a slightly less impressive end however because he decided to finish the call by first standing on the chair, dropping his shorts and mooning his father before turning round and exposing himself at me. The problem of course is that whilst I am obviously a firm disciplinarian, I couldn't help but laugh instead of scolding him. I have laughed quite a lot over the weekend.

I mention all of this because I have started to wonder about the importance of one's state of mind in relation to fitness. The expression "mentally fit" seems to ring a bell and I am wondering if someone would be considered fit if they were unhappy or mentally unfit. Is fitness a holistic concept of both body and mind or is it just the body? This is not really a rhetorical question - I welcome your thoughts.

Oh dear god - one weeend only!

The dance of the hippopotamus

Day 39 and 103 kilos
Day 40 and 103 kilos

The good news is that my weight seems to have settled at 103 kilos for now and despite the fact that I am eating regularly again, it actually seems to have stabilised and there is less fluctuation than when I was on the water fast. My plan is to continue wolfing down vegetables and fruit, the lack of which, I feel fairly sure has been one of the contributing factors of my past weight gains . Well that and the boozing. And the red meat. and the lack of exercise. And the Haagen Daaz.

A couple of people have mentioned that the blog has become a bit foody of late and for that, I apologise. My days are spent looking for a new job and this requires a good deal of focus. I can't really be out spending money and going to the pub (neither of which I particularly want to do at the moment) so when I'm not on the phone or computer I tend to withdraw to my new hobby of cooking.

Once I have a job and have got my knee sorted (assuming that it is sortable), I am toying with another bit of madness - I'm thinking about getting back into Muay Thai boxing. I know from experience that this is the most hardcore form of exercise that I have ever done. Although it will take a couple of months to get up to the required fitness - the good news is that it will get me seriously fit and burn off a lot of fat. The last time that I did it back in 2009 I started doing Muay Thai classes in Phuket when I weighed 118 kilos. The first session that I went to, I had to stop after only 10 minutes of the warm up (the warm up mind you!) to avoid puking. However six weeks later, as others left or got bumped up to the medium skill classes, I was suddenly the fittest guy in the class and I was fit. The problem with Muay Thai, apart from nearly puking with exertion, is that it really hurts. At the end of a session of kicking bags for example my shins feel so sore (you kick with your shins in this sport) and inflamed that you could fry eggs on them ! The real Muay Thai fighters that trained us had been thai boxing since they were five years old. They would invite us to run a forefinger down the front of there shins and the bone was crenellated with calcification from the hundreds of thousands of kicks and blocks that they had done. I have often thought that should I ever get caught in a fight that I might kick my opponents shins which would be agonising  if done to me but try that on a muay thai fighter and he would just smile before kicking you in the head and knocking you out.

As per my brothers suggestion - I looked at doing pilates classes at a couple of places. It's expensive! However here's a write up from one website of the benefits of pilates:

A new YOU awaits you:
- Stronger core, smaller waistline
- Renewed energy, heightened sex life
- Increased flexibility, improved coordination
- Focused mind, new resolve
- Better poise, greater balance
- Toned muscles, disciplined efficiency
- Developed breath control, conditioned strength and endurance
- Redefined body, redistributed weight
- Rid of aches and pains, eased-up stresses
- New-found self-esteem and confidence
- Integrated mind and body
- Your best self

So that all sound quite cool but what is slightly worrying is that it seems to be aimed squarely at women. You are perhaps already aware of the fact that I am slightly self conscious and the idea of me showing up amongst all these toned and delicate asian girls instantly recalls that perennial image of the disney hippo in a leotard. I don't mind taking the piss out of myself but it's a bit different when you invite the inevitable laughter of a studio of women. Anyway, one place that I looked at is offering a starter kit of 3 private sessions for ONLY $200 (it's normally $360). Seems like a lot of money to exercise and when you pair that with the amount of fat to burn off and the abundance of flaccid muscles that I have - it looks like this could get pretty expensive. On the other hand the Evolve Muay Thai gym costs $400 for the month to attend unlimited sessions and classes.

Of course this is all academic until I get an MRI scan on my knee to ascertain what the fundamental problem is. The soreness that I have described in earlier posts has now morphed so that I have the same problem with my right knee that I already have with my left and that is that it feels as though I have floating hard particles in each knee which occaionally, whilst walking or standing up, seem to become trapped in between my tibia and femur. When this happens, the pain hits me like a jolt of electricity and usually elicits a choice oath or a girly scream.

I'm about to go out on the bicycle which seems to be the easiest form of exercise on my knees. It's easier even than swimming in the sense that it seems to cause less twinging. So for now it's this and sit-ups.

The health kick

Day 37 and 104 kilos
Day 38 and 103 kilos

Dare I hope? Has my body adjusted to eating again? Do five (maybe six) smaller meals a day really work better than three larger ones? Has my body realised that it is getting more than it's daily requirement of nutrients and decided to switch off my fat storage facility? Well it's too early to call yet but the above data is looking promising - one kilo lost on each of the last two days - maybe it's too early to celebrate but in the words of that food-loving and over-excitable gourmet Homer Simpson - "WOOHOO!"

Jamie you should avert your eyes here - I don't want you to become sick with worry about my fruit intake and I'm about to give a rundown of yesterday's meals.

1. First breakfast at 8am - Star fruit and watermelon juice - two glasses. I won't be buying the star fruit again.
2. Second breakfast at 11am - a fresh honey mango - orgasmically good
3. First lunch at 1230pm - one cup of beef and chilli consomme
4. Second lunch at 2pm - another cup of beef and chilli consomme
5. Afternoon snack at 5pm - banana, mango and ice cream smoothie - the ultimate meal - words fail me - just heavenly.
6. Dinner at 9pm - I wasn't going to eat anything because I felt so stuffed after the mango smoothie but hunger hit me at 9pm and I enjoyed some of the fruit of my labours yesterday - two small bread rolls and half a ramekin of chicken liver pate and I may have had a small glass of port with it.

Does that or does that not look like a healthy days gorging to you? Net result one kilo lost - happy days. Now, fear not! I have no intention of giving you a running commentary  from here on, where I list out my daily meals but what I do want to do is juxtapose the above with what, on a bad friday, might have been going down my gullet around the middle of last year.

1. First breakfast 8am - 2 large cups of coffee with sweetener or sugar if none was available
2. Second breakfast 830am - 2 nutritious Marlboro lights or 1 cigarillo.
3. Third breakfast 9am - a large cup of sweetened milky coffee.
4. Fourth breakfast 11am - a large cup of sweetened milky coffee and 2 nutritious Marlboro lights or 1 cigarillo.
5. Lunch 1pm - plate of rice and gravy curry with Okra, fried fish, chicken in Oyster sauce and 2 nutritious Marlboro lights or 1 cigarillo (they weren't on the plate obviously).
6. Afternoon snack - a large cup of sweetened milky coffee and 2 nutritious Marlboro lights or 1 cigarillo.
7. Evening snack - 4 pints of Magners (no ice) with 4 shots of butterscotch snaps and half a packet of Marlboro lights.
8. Night time snack - between quarter and half a bottle of vodka with tonic or scotch and water and a full pack of Marlboro lights.
9. Late night meal 1130pm - a pair of Big Macs.

 Now although this would not be a typical day it could almost be a typical friday in days of yore. I need NO admonishments from Joanna in particular or anyone at Puttenham or Bagshot. Anyway the kernel of an idea might be forming in my head about how I managed to get up to 120 kilos.

I told you yesterday that I was going to make more beef and chilli consomme. Before I went to the supermarket I decided to make a few other things as well. It wasn't until I was in the queue and putting my intended purchases on the conveyor belt that I realised how different the contents of my shopping list were compared to say a month and a half ago. My basket was full of fruit and vegetables, pre-made stock, a pot of cream, 3 lean steaks, chicken livers, 1.5 kilos of lean ground beef, canned lychees, packs of unsalted butter and only a single piece of cheddar. It looked unbelievably healthy and when compared to all the processed and unhealthy crap that everyone else was buying I could feel a halo of sanctimonious smugness circling my brow. This sensation is only reinforced when I look in the fridge at the moment - it's rammed full of fruit and vegetables, half a gallon of my chilli and beef consomme (and I think that I've nailed it by the way), four ramekins of chicken liver pate, some of my demi-glace with which I intend to prepare grilled sirloin with Marchand de vin sauce tonight (don't I sound like the pretentious wanker?) and of course Jamie's pots of onion marmalade. This is a very different looking fridge to the one that I have peered into in the past. As mad as it may sound, my new found enthusism for cooking and food has, despite what Joanna has implied, started to ensure that I am now eating far more healthy fare. Not only am I enjoying the food, I'm loving the making of it.

At least most of the making of it. Whilst chopping an onion yesterday, to put in the chicken liver pate, I managed to slice off the skin on the end of my finger - that's chopping wound number 3 in the last couple of weeks. To irritate me even more, I had actually been back to youtube to improve my knife technique and I thought that I was doing it correctly. When I told the chief, who's up in KL, she laughed and reminded me of my preaching about her knife technique - again! Girls seem to have much longer memories than boys and never seem to tire of reminding one of past mistakes. Anyway there was a "spurt of blood" which could account for the nice pink interior of the pate.

I did do a short bike ride yesterday and the knee held up fine and so will be going out again today if this rain stops.

Tangerine dreams man!

Day 36 and 105 kilos

How perverse and sadistic is my wife? Yesterday I wrote that I was trying to keep away from the fats and the carbohydrates. She came home read my blog and then decided that she wanted to enjoy some cooking therapy of her own. What did she make you ask? I'll tell you what she made: CHEDDAR and apple bloody BREAD. Seriously? Come on Asya - a little support please - that's just cruel and unusual. She followed that up with a cinnamon and apple tart and then a chicken and mushroom pie which I have to say looks fantastic and will be our supper tonight. Back on the solids now - my supply of beef and chilli consomme was finished at lunch today but I think I'll make some more but this time with 3 thai chilli padis in my quest for perfection.

I feel that I have been a little remiss by not responding to more of your comments so let me address that. Jamie in response to your worries about the consumption of fruit juice - don't worry we're designed to eat fruit - it doesn't make you fat. Primates (and I'm including humans in this title) have eaten fruit for as long as we have existed. You don't hear stories about people's fruit addictions unless it's part of a comedy sketch and general health guidelines recommend fruit in quantity on a daily basis. We've been eating fruit for many, many thousands of years longer than we have been eating carbohydrates such as wheat, potatoes and corn and there is no doubt in my mind that it is far better for you - whether it is juiced or "au naturel" makes little difference other than the fact that as juice it is even easier for your system to extract the beneficial nutrients. To further set your mind at rest I have not been drinking any citrus juice. Typical juices that I drink are watermelon and apple, pear juice, I did go a bit mad with a mango and banana smoothie the other day and I thought I might really push the boat out with some ripe star fruit juice tomorrow. I know that I'm tempting the fruit gods with my reckless disregard but I honestly feel that there is little reason to worry - therefore you shouldn't either. On the other hand if I was drinking vast quantities of processed fruit juice like sunny delight- there could be cause for worry. Follow this link to see what I mean Sunny delight trauma. On a less serious note you might also find something of interest here: Boy of 9 in dreadful fruit overdose. Nothing to tell you about an office yet but I'll keep you informed.

Linds how are you  - lovely to hear from you - don't like the plug idea since the Mickey Finn episode. I apologise for the base crudeness but to coin a cliche - better out than in. Obviously I'm slightly worried about your comments on not taking  acid? with the fruit- it's an interesting idea and the sort of thing that I might have done when a youngster but to be honest they frown on this sort of thing in Singapore and I don't much fancy being caned - apparently it's very painful. Or did you mean something else?

Anyway as you can probably tell I am in a playful state of mind at the moment and generally feeling excellent. Unless something untoward happens to my knee in the interim, I'm definitely going for a bike ride tomorrow.

An old dog learns new tricks

Day 34 and 105 kilos
Day 35 and 105 kilos

My body seems to be adjusting well now to my new diet of fruit juice, vegetable juice and consomme. I have eaten a little of the cold chicken which was left over from the dinner party broth as well as some avocado with  no ill effects. I feel extremely well. My main purpose now is to start forming some new healthy eating habits. At the top of this list is to drink a combination of fruit and vegetable juice instead of my morning coffees and breakfast. Carrot, celery and apple this morning (one and a half glasses) - seriously good! The addition of the juicer in the kitchen helps enormously as to make my morning juice is quicker than making my morning coffee. Truthfully it sets me up for the day but the downside is that by 11am my stomach demands a second feed - this might cause problems once I'm back in an office again. I'm trying to steer away from carbohydrates other than those found in the juice. Having said that I did have a cup of coffee yesterday afternoon and it was delicious.

I cooked steak last night with a mushroom sauce and caulifower cheese both with recipes from my book and both were delicious. Avinash having guzzled his steak then returned to the pan to empty out the mushroom sauce to wash down a loaf of bread which I took as a bit of a compliment particularly when combined with his remarks about "enjoying your cooking frenzy". Unfortunately I have been asked to stop cooking so much as the chief is complaining that she will become circular. That said, it seems that it doesn't really hurt to prepare and store stock or chutneys. I think that I made clear in a past post that I liked the idea of buying knives - well I actually found a rather efficient knife sharpener buried towards the back of one of the kitchen drawers. So effective in fact that I have managed to cut my fingers fairly savagely on two separate occasions this week. This is particularly humiliating after the grief that I have given Asya for her knife skills which leave much to be desired.

Asya and I visited Sia Huat (the kitchen shop) again yesterday and slowly I'm starting to build up on our store of proper kitchenware - a good fine mesh conical sieve to strain stock, sauces and stews as well as a decent measuring jug and some muslin for spice sachets.

Also for a man whose television diet was limited to films and documentaries, I find that I am suddenly captivated by the Asian Food Channel - in particular, three presenters grab my attention - Laura Calder who specialises in french food, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall a particularly amiable buffoon who seems to specialise in seasonal English fare in a "Good life" sort of set up and Heston Blumenthal who takes a scientific approach to gastronomy but whose imagination and sense of theatre are superb. I found a clip of his on Youtube Heston's Perfect Steak where he creates what he considers to be the perfect steak. If you have 9 minutes to spare then check it out and tell me that his steak does not look epic.

I appreciate that some of you might be wondering how any of this is relevant to the process of me turning my shattered wreck of a body from an amusement park into a temple. Well, on the one hand I seem to be developing a healthy hobby to turn my hand to in my evenings and spare moments rather than shuffling down to the pub to get clattered. On the other hand, the food that I am cooking is generally pretty healthy and I am working on the basis that it is probably better to try and get a grip on what goes in to my body.

As you can see, my weight has crept back up to the 105kg level as I intake food again but I am being careful to keep out the fats and carbs. I think also that I have decided that this whole process of shedding weight has got to be done in phases. The water fast has taken care of phase one with a drop of effectively 11kgs. I think phase 2 is to now try and get from current level down to 94 kgs. I have been pondering on how exactly to do that over the weekend. Clearly exercise must be involved along with some very careful eating. I have mentioned that I am trying to form some new healthy eating and drinking habits. Wisdom dictates that it is better to have five smaller meals throughout the day rather than three bigger meals as apparently this stimulates your metabolism without putting vast quantities into one's stomach which means that your system becomes overworked - ponder for example how sleepy you can feel after pigging out. I have actually been trying to do this of late and so typically I have had a glass and a half of fruit and veg juice for first breakfast before 9am another glass of fruit juice at second breakfast around 11am, two cups of consomme at lunch and either a smoothie or a fruit juice mid afternoon. The plan is to then have protein and vegetables for an evening meal with Asya. This is going to have to be managed with some forethought once I lose the luxury of spare time. Coupled with this, I need to exercise - strangely this does become easier when I start going back to the office because I can cycle to and from work. On that note my knee has twinged a bit too much to risk a bike ride over the weekend and I'd rather have it comfortable than go through that pain again.

Getting a bit more bulgey than it was!