My belly the blobfish

DAY 54

We're 54 days into 2014, ever so slowly creeping through the shit months of the year where nothing happens except weather. 

Finally it feels like this relentlessly cold, wet, stormy winter could be coming to an end. It's projectiled the worst of it onto our doorsteps and now it's wiping its proverbial mouth and preparing to be a bit more dignified from now on. It's almost time to get excited about the summer again - BBQs, swimming, sunbathing, sunny runs, long walks, weekends away. Except the reality is that I will just sit inside like I am now but with a higher guilt level.

Things have changed! I have work. It's a little unreliable, but it's with a magazine and it's paid so I'm happy. It all happened very quickly. One minute I was enjoying my leisurely job-seeker-allowance-funded unemployed time playing WordHero and other productive things, and the next I was in an office in Brighton sub-editing that week's issue. It's a little challenging, but exciting. Like Devil Wears Prada but without the fashion, glamour, or mean people. It could turn into a permanent position too, so I hope I'm making a good impression. On one day though I did wear the top my mum bought back as a present from New Zealand, and it was only when I got home and looked properly in the full length mirror that it dawned on me that having 'WILD KIWIS' emblazoned across my chest might not have given off the 'she's got her journalistic shit together' look I probably should be going for.  

Aside from the work, I'm still 5:2 dieting and exercising towards that ever-elusive dream of doing a pull up by the end of the year. So far, I have:

• Lost 5lbs in total
• Reduced my body fat percentage by 5%
• Gained 5lbs of muscle (I've got 7stn 9 of pure henchness now) (but can still only do girly press ups)
• Been very hungry every Monday and Thursday
• Felt a little disconcerted by the fact that my belly looks quite a lot like this:

 

It's even got that sad downturned mouth when I sit down.

In case you're interested, a blobfish is essentially a shiny face that lives between 2,000 and 3,900 ft below the surface of the ocean. It spends its days bobbing around just above the seabed, expending as little energy as possible and swallowing anything that happens to float in front of it (mostly little deep sea shrimpy things but I suspect the blobfish is not fussy). I think I may have been a blobfish in a previous life.

Interestingly, Google has provided a visual example of what 5lbs of fat and 5lbs of muscle look like, which is this:

It's satisfying to think I've replaced all that yellow jelly on the left with the muscle on the right. From where, I really don't know. Probably my tits. This also shows that weight isn't necessarily a good indicator of how well your diet/exercise regime is going. Possibly the best thing to do (and I haven't done this) is to measure yourself.

Anyway, I'm boring myself now. Goodbye, thanks for reading.

Love

Romance makes me feel a bit sick. Ever since my first boyfriend in Year 4 demonstrated his affection for me by giving me one of those plastic eggs with gloop and an alien inside, I've been a bit weird about public displays of affection. Don't get me wrong, I liked the gloopy alien very much, I just didn't like the niggling feeling of embarrassment and guilt that plagued me afterwards, as I sat there pondering the meaning of love while squeezing alien gloop between my little 8-year-old fists.

I still feel much the same now. It feels like romance is a performance - a series of actions and symbols that we all act out because we think we should. Giving flowers, candlelight, hearts, the colour red.

During my late teens and early 20s I was single - sometimes out of choice, sometimes not. But during that time, I became very happy with my independence, and very cynical about love. I read a book recently that really resonated with me and that period of my life. It's called 'Essays in Love' by Alain de Botton. In it he dissects the process of 'falling in love'. It's a brutally honest account of love and I like it because it covers the things we don't like to admit to ourselves or each other. The doubts, fears and illusions. The pain of losing something, the confusion of feeling something for someone that you once felt for someone else, the boredom of domesticity. 

The rose-tinted gloss of Valentine's Day hides all of these things, but this is the truth of love. And it's so much more complex than anything we're drip-fed by Hollywood - so much more enjoyable. It's not cynical to acknowledge the dark side of love. In a way it makes it easier to be with someone and forge a relationship that runs deeper than a few gestures or happy memories.

I can't really do the book justice by writing about it, so here are a few passages to give you a taste:

“We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?”  

“It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.”

“.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.”    

  “The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.”  
  

Running in the wind, not like the wind

Blustery run selfie

DAY 43

Today I ran 5 miles to a Chinese buffet. Not because of a sudden uncontrollable carb craving, but because I'd left my purse there on Sunday after meeting old school friends for dinner. If I really did run 5 miles every time I had a sudden food craving, I wouldn't be here banging on about my 5:2 diet and exercise regime. I'd be skinny and rich and shouting abuse at fat people from my window while doing one armed pull ups.    

So I ran to town today because, unlike normal 23-year-olds, I can't drive yet, and I didn't have any change for the bus because my purse was at a Chinese buffet. Thinking about it now, it must have been quite a shock for all the lunchtime diners when a 5ft 11, wind-swept, purple-faced woman(?) crashed through the doors in full running gear demanding her purse back. 

The run was difficult, and in many ways comic. I was facing into the wind the whole way, and the wind was STRONG. It felt like one of those dreams where you're trying to run but you're just not getting anywhere and it's so annoying. It was like someone had put a big sheet up in front of me and I was trying to run through it. Not that I know what that feels like. Pointless activity. I had to lean right over and pump my arms like Tom or Jerry and I could sense the people driving past laughing at me, with their comfortable interiors and heating systems and limitless freedom to go wherever they want without breaking a sweat or looking a bit scary.  

But in the end I got my purse back and got a run in and at least I'm not being an unemployed person cliché. I haven't watched any day-time telly. In fact, I've turned into something of a Californian housewife (without the tan or rich husband), doing all sorts of annoying productive things and exploring my inner creative person. Yoga, painting, website designing, running, writing, cooking. If I wasn't so keen to stop spongeing off my very patient parents, I'd give up the job hunt altogether. I think we all would. I'd be a good lottery winner. Not the 'divorce, tummy tuck, tasteless mansion and bingo addict' type you hear about in the Daily Mail.

It was diet day on Monday and it will be again tomorrow. I took pictures of breakfast and lunch but forgot about dinner. The porridge is supposed to be 25g at 100 calories but it exploded in the microwave again. The lunch was pretty good - half a piece of brown bread with a dippy egg and lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad (200 cals). I have the same very hot chilli stir fry for dinner on every diet day now.

....Which leads me nicely onto my next titbit (good word) - I'm going to see the Red Hot Chilli Peppers play at the Isle of Wight festival in June! Can't WAIT to see Anthony Keidis and his paedo moustache in real life.    



Exploded porridge - 25g, half teaspoon of honey: 100 cal
Might sell this one to Nigella.

Working out like Gerard Butler

DAY 35

If you ignore what a stupid name 'Gerard' is and look past the slightly mental eyes, you'll notice that Gerard Butler is quite fit in a rugged, Scottish sort of way. The best example of this can of course be found in the film 300, where the combination of oily eight-pack, shark tooth necklace, cape, leather budgie smuggler and angry bludgeoning is almost too much for a pervy girl like me to handle.

Before the cast started filming, they had to train hard for four months to get the chiselled physiques you'd expect from an ancient warrior army. The routine Mr Butler and his co-stars followed has become known as the '300 rep Spartan workout' because, as you might expect, it involves doing 300 reps of varying exercises without a break.  

After four months of this, the actor's soft belly had transformed into rock hard abs, his thighs great slabs of bulging muscle and his arms convincingly the big, hairy arms of an angry Spartan King. So I figured I'd give this workout a try.

My boyfriend-turned-personal-trainer designed me a 300 workout I could do in the gym, which looked exactly like this:

10 minute cardio warm up
2 minutes of alternating sit ups and crunches
25x press ups
Start to doubt one's ability to complete another 275 reps
25x box jumps (never forget your sports bra when you attempt these babies. Even if you're a man.)
25x lat pulls
25x low row
2 minutes of sit ups, just as a nice break from the reps
1 minute plank
25x squats
Try to run off, get caught and dragged back
25x shoulder press
25x lat pulls
25x chest press
2 minutes of sit ups
That exercise where you sit on the floor, lean back a bit, lift your feet off the floor, catch a medicine ball and twist to touch it to the floor before throwing it back (don't know what it's called but it hurts.)
25x rope pulls
25x tricep extensions
25x bicep curls
25x press ups
2 minutes of sit ups
IMMINENT DEATH

It sounds difficult, but you can adjust the weights to suit your ability and it's actually quite fun. My arms are getting hairier so I think it's working.