A lifetime of fat

I've explained quite a lot about STonk and how she ended up doing what she's doing, but I haven't really said much about me.  I'm 39, and an accountant by profession, although I'm currently working as a manager in an IT company.  I despise my job and everybody I work for (although the people I work with are very nice), but that's another story, and shall be told another time.  I'm British - half English, half Scottish - but have lived roughly half my life outside the UK in Hong Kong, Germany (twice) and the Netherlands (twice).  STonk is German and the kids were born and have been raised (thus far) in the Netherlands.  The time I did spend in the UK was pretty piecemeal - a couple of years here, a couple of years there, so really, the only home I have is where I'm currently hanging my hat.  That has advantages and disadvantages, of course, but by and large I don't wish things had been different.

The other thing that you probably should know about me is that I'm fat, and have been pretty much all my life.  There have been times when I've been fatter than I am now, and times when I've been considerably less fat, but I've never, ever been what you might call slim.  Even my teenage years were a constant battle against the bulge.

Honestly, I don't beat myself up about it.  Indeed, since I left school and started work and nobody really gave a shit any more, I've been very comfortable in my own skin.  I did the whole "be funny so that people don't notice you're overweight" thing at school, otherwise I'd have been bullied far more than I was, and I must admit it's a pain to be right at the outside edge of mainstream clothes sizes, but it's never really been a big deal for me.  Well, let's put it this way: if it had been a big deal for me, I'd have done something about it.  And I didn't.  So it wasn't.  I am a singer in a band and an amateur thespian who absolutely loves the limelight, so it hasn't held me back, confidence-wise, that's for sure.

To be fair, my weight is pretty stable.  I weigh the same as I did a year ago, and the same as two years ago, too - although I've been up and down roughly eight kilos in each direction in the meantime.  It's just that my "normal" weight is around twenty-five kilos (fifty-five pounds) higher than it should be, medically speaking.  So far, I've got away with that - although there are some symptoms of obesity for which I'm already taking medication - but I'm aware that, as I approach my fortieth birthday, I probably can't ignore it for too much longer.  It's placing strain on my cardio-vascular system that I will be less and less equipped to deal with as time goes by.  Also, I have two young children now and I'd quite like to a) be able to do stuff with them without getting knackered in five minutes flat and b) be around to see my grandchildren.

So, I agree with STonk that I need to lose weight.  It doesn't worry me nearly as much as it worries her, and I need far less immediate results than she needs, but we're, broadly speaking, facing in the same direction.  That's fine - losing weight is easy.  Eat less, exercise more, watch the pounds drop off.  Ta-daaaaa!

Yeah, I know, it's not that simple, right?  Well, yes and no.  It really does happen like that for me.  I went to Chicago on holiday this year - I'm a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs and have lots of friends in the city, so I sometimes go there for a week by myself and eat, drink and watch baseball.  It's an amazing city filled with - Kuma's Corner, Ann Sather, Hot Doug's, Big & Little's, Portillo's, Pork Shoppe, anybody? - amazing restaurants and friendly bars serving a breathtaking array of American craft beers.  What's not to like?

Well, apart from, you know... putting on around a kilo (2 pounds) a day while I'm there.  Well, that's okay, too because within a week of the end of the holiday I'm back where I started, weight-wise.  It drives STonk up the wall because she has to really beat herself up to lose the odd ounce here and there, but what can I say?  It's easy for me.

Except that simply losing weight isn't enough.  Particularly living here in the Netherlands, where the diet is amongst the worst in the developed World - really, shockingly bad - even eating what a Dutchman would consider "normal" is pretty unhealthy.   Bear in mind that I tend to diet by cutting corners (and meals) rather than, say, eating lots of salad, and the situation gets even worse.

Much of what the Dutch eat is wheat-based, and fried in polyunsaturated fat.  What isn't wheat-based is dairy based, and made with pasteurised milk.  A "broodje gezond" (healthy sandwich) is one made with (very often white) bread;  PUFA-laden, plastic, butter-style "spread";  processed meat;  processed, pasteurised cheese;  and a smattering of non-organic salad for your daily dose of pesticides and fertilisers.  The whole country is one big allergen, and it's incredibly difficult to avoid - partially because they're so blissfully unaware of anything else that the shops have a very poor selection of genuinely healthy food, and partially because so much of their wheat- and dairy-based food is actually really bloody delicious.

So, it's challenging.  I'm trying to lose weight AND get my daily intake of organic meat and vegetables whilst also avoiding gluten at all costs, dairy as much as possible (and pasteurised dairy altogether), too many starchy vegetables or pulses, PUFAs or any heated oil that isn't coconut or animal fat, non-filtered water, processed sugar, and too many other grains (rice, quinoa).  And I have to do ALL this whilst preparing delicious meals that my six-year old son (HTonk) and four-year old daughter (ATonk) will actually want to eat.  Any idea how difficult it is to squeeze child-friendly flavours out of that list of must-nots?

Where am I going with this?  Well, honestly, I'm not really sure except to point out how really, really bloody difficult being really, really healthy is, particularly living where we do.  People look at you like you're crazy.  I guess I just want to have a rant about it, and possibly even convince myself that I really am on the right path.  I am, right?  This makes sense, doesn't it?  I mean, I can hardly enjoy that Kuma's Corner burger once in a while if I'm dead at the age of 45 from a heart attack or colon cancer.  Right?

Right.  This is actually a way of maximising my long-term intake of Ann Sather cinnamon rolls and beer, whilst sacrificing them a little bit in the short- and medium-term.  When you put it that way, it almost seems like it's fun!  Yeah!  Right, I'm off to eat mung beans and seaweed for lunch.  See you tomorrow.

THE HOLISTIC MONSTER

Lifecoaching, it turned out, was the gateway drug to far, far more.  STonk, to her credit, studied long and hard after she quit her job, and within a few months was qualified as a life coach.  Once qualified, she took lots of advice on how to get her business up and running, and almost everybody agreed: niche is the key.  It's no good being a life coach, you actually have to be an "insert name of speciality here" coach.  A marketing coach, for instance.  Or a relationship coach.  Or an executive coach.

Or a health and nutrition coach.

It was only a matter of time really, until STonk's personal interest in all things healthy turned into a vocation.  She trained as a personal trainer, and a nutritionist, and then she found the CHEK Institute: CHEK standing for Corrective Exercise and High-Performance Kiniesiology.  And yes, I did have to look that up, since you ask.  It was founded by a bloke called Paul Chek and was complete catnip for her.

There are two sides to it - a scientific side, based on posture, and anatomy, and nutrition... and a not-so scientific side to it, based on crystals, and energy, and bollocks.  Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it is a HOLISTIC thing and that does mean there's a certain amount of spirituality involved.  WHICH MAKES ME CRINGE.

So, that's what she's doing, now.  She's a CHEK practitioner, having become at least partially qualified in both sides of the CHEK program.  And what I'm doing now is mostly hiding.

I jest.  Ha ha ha.  No, seriously, I'm not actually hiding as such but it would be fair to say that my wife becoming a CHEK practitioner (and all-round health nut) is having some impact on my life.  I mean a lot of it is quite similar to Paleo dietary movement, which maintains that the human body is only designed to digest what our cavemen forefathers could hunt and scavenge.  It means no grains, no pulses, lots of organic lean protein and organic vegetables, and absolutely under no circumstances any booze or processed foodstuffs, especially sugar.  No booze!  No processed foodstuffs!  Sweet Baby Jesus, what did cavemen do on a Friday night?

And it doesn't stop there.  Nope.  No, Sir.  We only cook with coconut oil or animal fat - PUFAs (polyunsaturated fats) are the enemy.  Dairy is largely to be avoided, but what little we have has to be raw and organic.  The kids' sweets are organic and natural, and they basically don't eat anything with gluten in it at all any more.  We have gelatin in absolutely everything - it's a very good anti-inflammatory, apparently - and there are so many jars of supplements and capsules floating around our kitchen it's a wonder that our neighbours haven't fingered us to the authorities for running a meth lab.

And you know what really, really annoys me about all of this?  I can see bloody good reasons for most of it, and I can feel the benefits, too.  I feel better on this stuff.  I work better.  I think better.  I rite good now also.  I'm losing weight.  The kids?  Never sick.  Full of beans and bumptiousness, and they sleep like babies.  Dammit, it's really good for me, and them, and for STonk, too.

But it's no fun.  Not even a tiny little bit.  So, I'll stick with it but this blog is going to be a much-needed outlet for me.  I'm going to write about the day-to-day ups and downs of being a fattypuff who lives with a thinnifer.  Hopefully that will keep me on the sunny side of the street even as I'm being dragged, kicking and screaming to a new and better body and mind.  If you find it interesting, or even better, if you know exactly what I'm talking about, leave a comment and perhaps we can prop each other up in the coming months and years.

I guess I'm planning to be around a long time, after all.

The Ryder Cup

So, anyhoo... I did in fact watch some of the Ryder Cup last night.  You know, after the kids were in bed.  And after I'd been for my ballroom dancing lesson with STonk.  And before I drank my bedtime matula tea for the eradication of gastric helicobacter pylori (motto: "Stress doesn't cause ulcers, I do!").  Yep, my evening was pretty much identical to that of every other red-blooded male who was tuning in, I imagine.

I didn't watch much of it, sadly.  It became clear, shortly after I turned it on, that I wasn't helping proceedings - within minutes Europe had missed several key putts to put their victory almost beyond reach - so I took one for the team, shut my computer down and went to (our 100% organic, 100% natural, natch) bed to read my book.  During the evening, though, one thing became very clear to me:

Our foxtrot needs work.

No, it really does.  I can barely remember the first three steps and even that's three steps more than STonk knows.  That's not why you're reading this blog, though, and I'm nothing if not demand-driven, so I'll (finally) get back to the thread: why my Ryder Cup experience this time is so different to my boozetastic, sausagemungous Ryder Cup experiences of years gone by.

In short, it all comes down to my wife.  She's become a health nut.  Oh, she's always had tendencies in that direction, even when she was filling her face with takeaway pizza and chocolate, but in the past it was all mercifully vague and fleeting, and if I ignored it for long enough, it eventually went away.  I think I was aware, even back then, though, that it was important to her, even if she didn't always actually behave as though it were.  She was always trying new sports or diets in an effort to get fit and healthy and I could see that, despite the immediate gratification that junk food brought her, it was almost immediately replaced by remorse and unhappiness on such a scale that it simply couldn't be ignored any more.  Something had to give.

As it happened, back at the end of 2010, our IT jobs (we worked together) were heading down the pan due to the frighteningly common combination of poor executive decisions and senior management idiocy.  When STonk was offered redundancy it gave her the opportunity to get those executives and senior managers to actually pay her to start up her own business.  So, having weighed up the pros and pros (I'm still stuck in the same company, and can tell you, there are no cons) we decided that she should take the chance to found a life coaching business.

So far, so good, right?  Still a long, long way away from heavy metal detoxification and colonic irrigation, right?  Well, no.  Not really.  Not very far away at all - indeed, around eighteen months away, as you shall see in my next post: "ARRIVAL OF THE HOLISTIC MONSTER."

We need to talk

Or rather, I need to talk.  To you, to anyone.

You see, my life has taken a bit of a turn.  For nearly thirty years, I pretty much pleased myself.  I ate what I liked, drank what I liked, and smoked like... well, like it was going out of fashion.  For nearly thirty years I sat on my fat arse and watched television - for instance, the Ryder Cup (which happens to be on this weekend) from start to finish, with a beer in one hand and a sausage in the other.

And I loved it.  By God, I loved it.  Well-meaning Patchouli-Smoking Hippies will tell you that you should live your life without regrets.  Well, I did.  Hand on heart, I can honestly say that I regretted nothing - except, occasionally, not having bought enough beer to get me through the weekend.

Then I met a girl.  Actually, I met the girl.  At least, she'd better be the girl - we married getting on for eight (? - Note to self: check this) years ago now and we've got two (? - Note to self: check this) kids together, so if she's not the girl there are going to be an awful lot of disappointed people around here.  Let's call her STonk.

Although she's never been much of a drinker, when we met she smoked (the same brand of cigarettes as me - so romantic), and subsisted on a diet of Ferrero Rocher and Balisto.  She was as happy as I was to spend an entire weekend on the sofa, interrupted only by Pizza delivery boys, and occasional angina attacks.  Quite simply, it was a match made in heaven.

Was.  This year, I'm not watching the Ryder Cup from start to finish with a beer in one hand and a sausage in the other.  Indeed, I've checked in with it for a couple of minutes here and there but no more than that.  Now, the fact that I'm the father of two young children clearly has some bearing on that situation, but it's by no means the whole story.  There are other reasons, too.  And that's what I need to talk about.