The adventure of the black mamba

Day 22 and 103 kilos

The good Lord, apparently, moves in mysterious ways and so it appears do I. The only comparison I am making here is by borrowing two words from that sentence - "moves" and "mysterious". If you can't guess where I'm going with this then allow me to tell you that, yet again, I will be discussing bowel movements. Therefore I suggest that the more squeamish and easily offended readers look away at this point. I'll tell you when you can look again.

First let us discuss the "moves". After her last visit which, if you will remember, involved an offence of breaking and entering as well as a destruction of property charge, mother nature was promptly arrested and put in jail. I therefore was not expecting her visit and frankly you would have thought that she must have understood that she was now persona non grata. However it appears that the gaoler having locked her up, had forgotten to throw away the key. So imagine my surprise to find at 3am in the morning she had not only escaped from prison but returned yet again to pilfer my goods and chattels. I fear that a soiling of the bed would have been rather a difficult thing to explain to the chief but through sheer effort of will and cat-like reactions on my part, I made it to the safety of the throne without mishap. Talk about a rude awakening! One point that I would like to make is that when fasting it becomes almost essential for a story-teller to mix his proverbs so in this case "when nature calls twice - it does so like lightning". Anyway the usual havoc was caused - much straining, much blood followed by much cleansing, drying, polishing and ointment application.

Now let us discuss the mysterious. Oh and by the way, for those readers currently thinking "Oh my god Ben how can you be discussing such things in public? Really it's too repulsive, you are a grotesque and base animal etc. etc.". Well I have a stats page for my blog and it appears that your favourite of my posts (at least it is the most widely read) was my 9th "A shriek of nature" - also a tale of bowel movements and sore bottoms. Also this is for my more scientific readers and those interested in the effects of a fast.

Anyway - the "mysterious": having strained for a ridiculous amount of time, I turned to inspect and you can imagine my surprise when I found myself face to face with something that looked like a coiled mamba sitting in the bowl. "Where's the mystery in that - I get that all the time?" some of you are probably thinking. Well you don't because thing was jet black and about two foot long - I'm not kidding! And to add further to the mystery I have eaten nothing for 21 days. I will say no more on the subject but I simply cannot believe that nature will be calling again during the next 21 days. Right - those that turned your eyes away can now look again.

So I have passed a major milestone - I am now officially more than half way through my fast. Twenty one (and a bit) days without food - I'm pretty impressed with myself and I think a quick review is in order.
The first twelve days have been the most difficult - the rest has been easy. I hit a major weight loss plateau at 105 kilos on day 12 and ten days later, I am still 103 kilos. What is my body surviving on? Where does it get it's energy? This is truly amazing to me - that I have lived a perfectly normal energised (and slighly more active) life for the last ten days on only 2 kilos of fat, plenty of water and two daily coconut waters (and I'm merely assuming that it is fat). Isn't the body an amazing thing that it can do this? I feel cleaner particularly after last night, I'm certainly fitter and I feel well both in body and mind (apart from my knees which are both quite painful). I have overcome my boredom and my listless TV nights by cooking which I have really enjoyed. As for the next twenty one days - I feel pretty confident although how much benefit I will see or feel is a matter for debate within my own mind - particularly after the strain that I felt I was putting myself under a couple of days ago. By the same token I cannot but feel that I am giving most of my organs an opportunity to get in some well earned R&R and focus on themselves for a bit.

It's an interesting thing to make a Korma - no wonder they make you fat, there was more than half a pint of cream in there. It was decent and the boys enjoyed it, Asya's away on business, but it wasn't the truly great "Romna" Korma that I was hoping for. Anyone got a recipe for a great chicken korma?

The decent Chicken Korma

The pate also got a thumbs up at lunch yesterday and I am delighted to report that Jamie has been obedient to the last and made up plenty more onion marmalade - oh goody!

Jamie's Onion Marmalade - It tastes a lot better than it looks!