September 14, 2010

• Books… The Diet

  It’s funny how when I look at the list of books I have read in the last two years, they actually coincide with my weight and general fitness.  It sounds strange as we usually think of a bookworm as someone who just sits and reads all day, not getting any exercise at all, but when I joined the gym here, I gave up my two to three times a week trips to Starbucks to get reading done to working out at the gym. 
  
  Still strange?  I’ll explain.  I always read at Starbucks, but I think the hot chocolates and English Breakfast Tea with half steamed milk and a shot of vanilla with a little cinnamon and nutmeg on top may have been helping my wonderful, world famous love handles get bigger.  Now I love to do weights, but I have always been a cardio addict.  The only problem here is they have only Chinese shows and movies on the TVs in the cardio area (go figure).  So, my choice is watch mindless gameshows with trampy little Chinese girls doing stupid stunts (which I enjoy, but not while trying to get a workout… the blood needs to FLOW) or bring a book.  So, I read.  Sure, I sweat on the books, but I read.
  
  This year I hurt my back.  I still don’t know how, but I slipped something in it and couldn’t do much.  After Chinese New Year I got lax on my workouts and gained some weight… about 5kg (nearly 12 pounds for you Imperialist Bastards!) Sorry, been watching too much Bottom lately.  Anyway, when I sit at home, I don’t read as much.  I don’t have a good comfortable reading chair like I did back in Canada, so I watch TV.  Still being entertained, but now by Hong Kong rips of some of the more popular so-called American sitcoms.  I like to be entertained, and if my body is lazy, then my mind can be too (thus my latest addiction to Alias).
  
  So lately I’ve felt like crap, and to my mind (which is now 96% multi-personality free) I look like crap too.  I didn’t think it was that bad, but then we went swimming a few weeks back in the mountains and one of my friends mentioned how I had gained weight.  Of course, I absolutely hate taking my shirt off in public, no matter how good of shape I am in (that would be phobia #2698, right after my irrational fear of female Sea Monkeys), so I knew there had to be something wrong.
  
  For the last year I have been between 88-90kg (figure it out yourselves you lazy sods…) but now I am more like 93-95kg (seriously, do I have to do everything?).  I am lucky and usually gain weight mostly even, but I do have a nice set of love handles that I got when I was about 21 and never could get rid of.  So those white, fleshy globs of Canadian bacon are a wonderful site to see now.
  
  So back to my point (which at this point could be any number of things) I read more when I work out (how the hell did I get back to that?).  now I don’t like feeling, looking and being viewed as fat, so I have to hit the gym more (although I have a heavybag at home so I can hit something without leaving the comfort of my own home) and I have to bring more books with me.  If you look at my reading list, I read about 4 books from February to the beginning of August, where I not only gained weight from being lazy, but also from a trip home where I ate Canadian food again and fueled my manly saddlebags.
  
  Now, mid-September I am at about five books read in a month and a half and down about 3kg (6.6 pounds… GEEZ!).  Of course people tell me I am getting old and I will of course gain weight, but I refuse to belive it or even let that thought into my head (where I know it will burrow itself in and fester like a bad rash always taunting me with M&Ms and taro cakes).  Yeah, I’m turning 36 next month, but that isn’t going to stop me (cue motivational music now).  I think I’ve been in the best shape of my life in my 30′s (hmmmm… maybe when I gave up drinking, soda, coffee and fast food) so I’m not going to fall apart now.  Not on my watch, Chester (mmm… Cheetos!).
  
  I finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Road tonight at the gym, and of course almost passed out doing it since I have the flu and maybe a little bit of the weight loss has been that I haven’t been able to keep solid food down for over a week now (The Parasite Diet, coming to drugstores and water bottles all over Mexico soon!).  My problem isn’t as much how I look, but how I feel about it, and since I was young, I never liked the way I looked.  So it’s time to hit the bookshelves and the gym and maybe get more reading done while I melt away the fat that is forever latching itself to my midsection. 
  
  My point?  I lost that about ten minutes ago with my sense of reality and three crackers I swore I put next to the computer!
  
  Just to prove I’m not crazy (and to further humiliate myself into losing more weight)… MY LOVE HANDLES!!!
  
  Chinese New Year, February 2010… just after hurting my back, but relatively good shape…
  
  

  

  
  

  
  Now, about 7kg heavier…
  
  

  

  
  

  
  Two years ago… what I would like to get back to (this is actually when I didn’t have a gym membership… go figure!)
  
  

  
  

  
  I will probably pull these photos very soon as they just give me the creeps looking at them.  What the hell am I doing?
  
  

  • 11:58 am
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