Diet Diaries

A few months ago I began a diet and I’ve studiously been keeping a diary using a google documents system. The system is fucking terrible so I’ve moved it slowly here. I don’t mean entirely. I feel that if I misuse past and future tense I can somehow master time travel. Yes, I caught 10 minutes of Doctor Who recently.

I wouldn’t expect coherence (because most was written at work) or even a linear timeline. This is more to do with this being posted late while drinking homemade whiskey and listening to Cypress Hill.

Day Zero

Freedom is a terrible gift on someone without vision or alternatively someone with lots of vision but a vision that is derived from whiskey.

My wife decided I was wasting my freedom and determined a corrective action, a path that would supposedly lead me from the darkness and into some kind of utopian society. Possibly where I become a better person - that wasn’t really clear to me. A diet. A cleansing diet is what I mean.

She claims my participation was optional and this was for herself but she came one step shy of having my initials monogrammed onto the bottle. Yes, there is a bottle. I’m not sure of diets in general but I’m even more concerned about one requiring props. But fine. I’ll do it. But she owes me.

So this is my last night of freedom. Tomorrow there is no more drinking. I look inward and internally there is a party raging, a hedonistic mix of pleasures and debauchery that would make even the ancient Romans shake their heads and tell me to chill out. Tomorrow the party ends. I hope I get to keep something.

My wife said I was being melodramatic.

Day One

This diet involves pills. A lot of pills. Morning for example I had to choke back eight. The more curious person might wonder to themselves what exactly was in these pills but not me. Firstly I trust my wife. Secondly, if I lifted the veil on my curiosity I might find out something that doesn’t sit well with my place as a respected person within the scientific community. If nothing else, the placebo effect would work wonders on my pessimism.

At this point I really can’t fault the diet itself. Its late morning and I don’t feel especially hungry or really feel like any alcohol. On the flip though, I don’t normally drink at this hour anyway but let’s call this a win for the diet system.

Despite an overwhelming bitterness that is a black hole sucking in everything around it, I have entered this implied contract with an open mind. I struggle though. Whiskey is so damn sweet.

Also I am restricting myself to gluten. This isn’t a part of the diet according to my wife but as I am “off the reservation” I refuse to lower the credibility of the diet guru by suggesting they are pro-gluten. As my health-messiah I want them to embody ALL of the crackpot lunacy of the alternative medicine genre. No gluten, no sugar (or aspartame) and we are going to re-enact the birth of the kids and do it NATURALLY - refusing all the lifesaving marvels of modern medicine for no applicable reason.

Day Two

I imagine that I have been captured by extremists. One is my wife, so a hot sexy extremist, but nevertheless someone who has me under guard. I’m using the term extremist in that they extremely want me to get healthier, so in a loose sense and probably an incorrect use of terminology. Struggling for phrase and needless hyperbole is all a symptom of the psychological torture. Anyway, since I (figuratively) have been captured I was wondering when Stockholm Syndrome would set in. If nothing else that would be a decent hook to use for role-play night.

I don’t feel particularly different which is strange because I haven’t had anything to drink for over 24 hours. Considering this, I focused on the multitude of pills I have been taking three times a day. Getting off the gear to get back onto an entirely different gear seems like it defeats the purpose. I wonder if the eggheads who came up with this diet considered that? I further wonder if I can smoke these pills. If I had an ounce more sense and maturity I’d have put a question mark after that last sentence.

Health-wise I’d still grade myself only slightly higher than dead and while this does have a plus side I’d have figured I’d have pushed a little closer to the healthy spectrum. Am I expecting too much from the diet after two days?

Day three

Well, three days in and the diet is officially screwed. I had bread last night which obviously contains gluten. Again my wife said it was OK to have gluten but to those people living on the nutritious side of the health divide gluten is like the worst thing ever. In their terms I had just punched a puppy or something.

Having kyboshed the diet, I went to get a scotch to chase my bread but was barred from this my wife who kept telling me that the diet was fine. She repeated it so many times it sounded like a mantra – which is symbolic for me, this whole thing feels like a cult.

This diet makes absolutely no sense!

Days four-six

Well, I figure my wife wants me dead. Whatever herbal pills and or shakes I am taking are killing me.

Everything hurts and if I wander around for a while I actually feel the earth spinning beneath me. Which was fun the first few times I did it but lost value real fast.

I’m not hungry and I don’t want an alcohol. I suppose then the diet is working but I kind of assumed I would live through the process. You know, achieve some tangible benefits at the end. Firm benefits but all soft in the right places. Sex. I mean sex. I can’t even feel that goal at the moment as my body is slowly dying.

Although maybe my body is reaching out to tell me that the missing ingredient wasn’t love, or confidence or any of that shit, it was just being wasted. Maybe this is my normal state and only drinking whiskey holds this particular darkness at bay. I would continue but typing is making me nauseous.

It is also possible I have the flu.

Day Six Addendum

I suspected this part of the process was going to suck. And it did. Saturday night is normally my night. After finalising family and/or marital commitments I watch movies, play computer games and listen to music until the early morning hours while gracefully swaying to the rhythms of social inebriation. As I like my utopia harsh and gritty I then wander to bed and wake up with a terrible hangover. It’s what I do. Or did.

As I sit and type this at 11pm I’m glaring balefully at a glass of water and wondering right now why the fuck would I stay up until 3am? I have stuff to do tomorrow.

Sober thoughts. On a Saturday night. I really really don’t want to care about tomorrow or rationalise on the little things I need to do. This is my new low, I haven’t had urges all week but right now I really really want a scotch.

Instead, for the next two hours I intend to watch alcohol commercials on YouTube. This is apparently what I do now.

Day Eight

Bright fluorescent urine has always been my body’s way of telling me, ‘Hey, whatever you took. We didn’t need this. We’re doing fine with that stockpile already.’ And I know that whatever vitamin it was did nothing except diminish a bank balance.

At this point though I’m not asking about the cost of this and I’m certainly not asking what was in the six pills I take three times a day. Since I’m not asking questions, my wife also refrains from pointing out how winded I get from walking up the stairs. It’s the little touches that make marriage work.

Now I keep convincing myself that the fluorescence is just concentrated evil being ejected from me. Denial and lies. Wasn’t it like this when I -was- drinking?

I had a delicious fruit smoothie for lunch today but all I could do is stare at it for a while and wander what it would taste like between two bread rolls.

Day Ten? Something like that.

The kids have been helping me make my shakes recently. I stand over the blender tipping in various powders and nut milks and then look over at their expectant faces ‘ We need spices! ‘ I exclaim ‘ Yay ‘ they scream enthusiastically. I shout for various additives and they scurry over to cupboards and pretend to bring things back for me. A sprinkle of remorse, a teaspoon of regret and a dash of shame - never more than a dash. ‘ What happens when we use more than a dash? ‘ I ask them, ‘Daddy starts crying!’ they echo back.

Realistically I -know- none of this ever happened but in my recollection I can almost hear the lightning cracking overhead as I blend my juice of the damned while laughing maniacally. It’s quite possible that whiskey was the only thing actually keeping me on the edge because I’m totally fucking falling right now. Also I’m not even sure right now that I actually -have- children.

Weight loss? None. Sense of wellbeing? Muted from a lower back-ache. Hunger pains? Everything hurts, can’t single that one out so winning. Need to begin self-righteously telling people that I only eat natural ingredients with gesturing at my crotch? Growing.

Day 12 or so

My wife handed me protein bars for snackage at work the other day. I’ve often heard the term ‘tastes like ass’ but could never relate until now. These things taste like ass.

I’m sure I’m missing a message here because there sure as fuck isn’t anyone anxiously waiting until their can gnaw down on their 10am protein-ass. Can’t someone invent a bar that isn’t ass flavoured or are these meant as punishment? That is realistically the only thing that makes sense. They could make one that tastes like a cheeseburger but what would your fat ass learn then?

No, wait. I died didn’t I. This is hell and because of that thing, and the other things and all those things we were doing last night. Ooh, and last Saturday night, didn’t -that- get out of control. Yeah for pretty much all of that and the rest, I’m in hell tasting ass.

I don’t know. Maybe ass isn’t so bad.

Day a few days after the last entry

As much a fan of the show as I am it is hard to say this, but any article that references as fact “…..according to an investigation by A Current Affair.” has lost me as a reader seeking journalistic integrity. Which is problematic as when my wife was giving me the rundown on what was required as a part of this diet I heard her say that phrase at the end of her sentence. She didn’t say it, obviously, but the pseudoscience, the testimonials she provided from world athletes and the overriding need for faith still made that sentence echo in my head.

Now I would consider myself right-wing to the extent that I never let go of the central pole, firmly believe consensual fucking shouldn’t be limited by race or sex boundaries and really want current establishments to burn. While this may not sound very right-wing you have to understand that I don’t have a problem with there being snouts in the trough, I just resent my own snout not currently being one of them. Also, I don’t really understand these left-right conventions anyway – totally hard on the fucking-for-all stance though. Pun intended.

In any case, despite what moral or political persuasions I apparently don’t have, I am firmly grounded in the world of science being awesome. I don’t comprehend much, granted but that is exactly my point; I don’t have to. All I have to do is suckle at the teat of the eggheads. They do the work then put the results out there to be criticised and either accepted or rejected by a world community of eggheads. It seems that these eggheads aren’t a fan of this particular diet methodology.

Having said all that, it’s apparent that my earlier prediction has come true and I’m suffering with Stockholm Syndrome as I found myself defending the system to someone the other day. Now I know nothing about the diet on purpose (so I can deny my own inner critic) so defending it was a simple matter of admitting how much I like milkshakes. Which is true. As far as I know, that is the first stage of Stockholm Syndrome and finalises when we have a threesome with someone from Sweden.

I just clarified this with someone and as it turns out I don’t understand Stockholm Syndrome very well.

Entropy though, I understand that one.

Following clarification with the same person and again, I do not.

Really would like a pie.
Gravy.
Chips.

So hungry.

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