As I have documented in this blog before, it is very easy to get fat in Abu Dhabi. The fast food is cheaper than fresh food, eating out is cheaper than eating in and McDonalds deliver. Add this to the stress of the job (read as drinking beer from Spinny’s on weeknights) and that the roads are too busy to cycle on, plus the generous holidays that allows teachers to go on 3-week long benders, and you have a recipe to become a fat fucker pretty easily.
I have been fat before, just this time last year actually. I weighed in on the 1st of January 2012 at a staggering 16 stone. (224 pounds or 102kg) So I know that I can lose the weight as in June 2012 I weighed 12stone 11 pounds (179 pounds) but the difference was that I was in England, was in a loving relationship and had support, cycled to work and back, went to the gym 5 times a week and had hired a personal trainer. I also enjoyed tracking my progress and working out had become an addiction.
From August 2012 to now (Jan 16th 2012) I have seen my weight climb because I have lived in a hotel for 2 of those months eating nothing but all-you-can-eat buffet 3 times a day every day as that was all we could eat.
In those months it was too hot to do any exercise outside so that was out, also I was socializing by going out and drinking a lot of beer because, as you know by now, when meeting new people I am very shy for the first month or so unless I have the social lubricant of inebriation. Beer contains calories.
Work is also a pain in the arse because there is no canteen and I don’t have the discipline to make a packed lunch. So I eat bread and biscuits from the tuck shop 5 days a week and basically the only exercise I get is by standing in front of the class.
I am making a lot of excuses here, but as I am now close to my weight (210 pounds) at this time last year I feel that I need to actually do something about it.
I had heard rumblings about a new fad diet that people colloquially call ‘juicing’ and I had thought about it and even discussed with some friends about actually trying it. I then saw a documentary (It is actually more like a feature length infomercial for a juicer that you can conveniently buy on the filmmakers website) called ‘Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead’ on Netflix and decided it was finally time to take the plunge.
I know Fad diets do not work in the long term and I have been against them, sometimes aggressively so, in the past – even ridiculing people that use them to make myself sound smart and clever. I understand that the weight I lose, if any will be little more than ‘water-weight’ and it will be put back on as soon as I stop the fad diet.
Juicing, I should probably explain, is basically fasting on nothing but juice made from vegetable and fruits for a number of days. The juice can be homemade using a juicer or bought ready made by a company. You can drink water and herbal tea but no solid food. Sound dangerous?
I had planned to do the fast for 10 days but then I remembered that I like beer and wanted to go to a brunch on Friday. So I have settled on two days (Wednesday and Thursday) of fasting, followed by a cheat day and then going 5 days with the option to extend it depending on how I feel.
This is not a long term fix, the reason that I am doing the fast is because I do not eat well at all and I want to try and change my lifestyle a bit. I also would welcome the kick start of losing a few pounds as it will be good motivation to keep going on a more standard diet of healthy eating and exercise.
The diet says I should use organic vegetables and fruits in the concoctions. I will not be doing this.
I hate the idea of organic foods, especially in the U.A.E as they are imported from the USA at a huge cost on pockets and, more importantly, on the environment through fuel consumption. It is all a bit pretentious as well, Organic food has the same amount of nutrients than the non-organic kind (Although I do have to concede that I think the point is that is has no pesticides or genetic mutations – which are not proven to be bad for you by the way) and you can get much more out of a single crop than you can with organic food. Organic foods are not sustainable at all and are a huge drain on water and space. The world is struggling to feed the 6 billion people we have and the population is expected to be around 9 billion by 2042. Genetically modified foods are the only way to feed us.
I know I am on a bit of a tangent here, but the fact that some people will not eat GM foods on grounds of principal really irritates me. There are people in the world that are starving and would kill for the technology to make food as efficient as we can do with GM crops.
People buy into organic produce (and they are buying, poor people cant afford the extra) just so they sound hip, organic and part of the in-crowd to their middle-middle class friends. Just so they can ask at restaurants, in a loud voice, if the tomatoes in the sauce of their gourmet, spinach and feta cheese stone-baked thin crust are organic. Or even worse, setting up a parent pressure group to ensure that their children’s school meals are organic. Or even lecture their less well-off acquaintances that it is worth the extra money. Fuck off!
Anyway – I am on a raw veg juice diet, another thing that gripes me (I will write about why elsewhere) to try and lose a few pounds. It is day 1 at 11.41am and, as you can probably tell, I am grouchy. All that has passed my lips today is a cup of juice, made with tomatoes (non-organic), carrots, orange, spinach, apples and pear. It was OK but I was craving my usual Snickers.
It is now 8pm and I am still hungry after drinking 2 more cups of juice. I have heard it gets easier, but all I can say is roll on Friday Brunch.
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