i was watching gem tonight on digital tv and saw a great movie called fat sick and nearly dead which was made by this guy from sydney called joe cross. it's fascinating and for someone like me who's carrying a lot more weight than he should be, it's inspiring. i've already made a bit of a new year's resolution to eat more vegetables and my housemate and i have sworn off all chocolate, mcdonald's (not hard for me there - i haven't eaten maccas in over six years), kfc (much harder for me!!!) and hungry jack's, all for the rest of the year.
some big changes coming and i'm quietly excited by it. as it stands i think i've been eating one or two serves of veggies a day (which is way more than a few serves a week!) through january and i think maybe this is the next step. joe cross talks about how he was suffering from some kind of autoimmune disease, hadn't felt his pelvis in about ten years, and only tucked his shirt in his pants if he was wearing a jacket. that's me.
i haven't been to the quack in years and to be honest i'm not too keen to go. after he made the movie, which was about his detoxing and trying to reverse the processed food diet he'd been on most of his life leading up to his epiphany, he weighed about 300 pounds. after 60 days drinking only juiced fruit and veg, and another 70 days eating only fruit, veg, beans, nuts & seeds, he lost 100 pounds. when i finished high school i weighed about 85 kilos - 187 pounds. i'm much heavier than that now - last time i weighed myself i was about 110kg - 242lb.
of course, it's not just about losing weight. i'm want to build and develop habits for a healthier lifestyle. with everything that's been going on in my life, i'm thinking more and more about the quality of my life, what i'm doing with myself, as if i'm getting some kind of ambition about twenty years after everyone else. i'm thinking about starting a business. trying to get healthy. trying to get rid of stuff in my house i don't need. trying to finish things.
i was reading a blog post by a friend about debt reduction and credit elimination - creating a "debt snowball". the advice seemed counter-intuitive - line up all your debts and pay off a bit of all of them, just a bit, with a lot more on the smallest one until that's eliminated, then use what you were paying on the smallest debt and add it to what you're paying on the next smallest debt, and so on until you're knocking over the bigger ones. you feel like you're kicking goals by paying off the small ones and it helps you budget and get into a planning-ahead mindset - one i know i sorely lack.
there is stuff around the house i want to finish. cataloguing my zines. scanning youth ministry material so i can get rid of the paper. (that's why i bought a scanner after all!) getting rid of the crap i've been schlepping around from house to house over way too many house moves.
i was saying to my boss earlier this year that 2012 is going to be a year of change for me. i'm working on a "change snowball". it may not be a whole new marvel each day but i'm hoping to knock over a few by the end of the year. who knows? maybe by then i'll be ignoring kfc and hungry jack's the way i've been ignoring maccas these last years. that would be nice.
not the chocolate. no way, jose. that's just keeping my hand in with the willpower stakes.
