The Good Life

This post was written yesterday whilst I was in office limbo and not online

Hello all, it’s great to be alive after cycling to work again for the second day! How is that for commitment to my new healthy living lifestyle? Ok I still have the headache but I am putting that down to the amount of blood that has either drained away from my brain during the uphill burns or the rush of blood around my system, due to the exercise, is purging all the poisons out of my grey matter.

My aged legs also seem to have managed the two days of cycling and are not aching too much, plus they have had to cope with the three flights of stairs that take me to my new office. (I am currently writing this in an empty room on the windowsill as I am in moving limbo, none of my furniture, books, desks etc have arrived yet. I am not holding my breath because although it is only a move of a few hundred yards from building to building, knowing my luck my office will end up in a room on the campus of the University of Portsmouth!)

But I digress back to my healthy lifestyle. Yesterday, being the first day of the rest of my life, I had cottage cheese and rice cakes for lunch. What marvellous inventions these rice cakes are, not only are they nutritious and low in calories, but I have often seen them used as ceiling tiles and other forms of insulation and sound proofing. I bet the Chinese invented them; they seem to invent all the good and interesting things like paper and gunpowder! And isn’t Cottage Cheese yummy? I can’t believe that they make it by putting sour milk into ladies tights and hanging it for weeks. I hope they wash the tights first.

By the by on a similar note I was once told by a post graduate student doing ‘Food Culture’ or something that one of the preservatives that go into frozen pizzas is synthesised from Asian peoples hair, he also told me something about Nun’s piss but I can’t remember what it was used for – I am sure if it was in something I ate or drank I would have remembered! (PS Why do you think Red Bull is called Red Bull? Because the Taurine (root of the word is Taurus – the Bull) the active ingredient, is synthesised from Bulls Piss – I think it would give me more than wings - probably some sort of projectile vomiting. Anyway I am now beyond frozen pizza so it doesn’t worry me. See I told you the Chinese were inventive.

For me chocolate is just a distant memory as is cheese and although I still have a case of 20 bottles of Stella at home I didn’t even go near them last night and the fridge is packed with exotic cheese we bought for Christmas but nobody likes. Fortunately I ate all the chocolate off the Christmas tree last week as I sat trying to find something to watch on the freeview channels – no wonder its free no one in their right mind would pay for it – ok nitpickers I bought the box!

Shortly I will be off down town to wander the health food stores to check out the choices there and then perhaps off to Tesco’s to check out the salad bar. You might have thought that with me being a vegetarian and all that I would stand as slim as…er…a slim thing all beardy with sandals. But no dear readers I would be hard pressed to stand as a proud example of healthy living and vegetarianism. Whilst ne’er a morsel of animal fat has past my lips for the past 30 years or so I have had my fill of veggie curry, pizza (extra cheese please) chips, Linda McCartneys’ 100% fat thingys, all sorts of pasta shaped things smothered with cheese and so on. I know I know think of your veins young man. Think of that nasty white gunk filling them up. Well I can take the high ground on this. After my dad had a heart attack I was checked, the cholesterols were a bit high but by changing my diet and using something called Guggul an Ayervedic treatment and flax oil (linseed) I got them down to below the national average. This is one of my current goals because I do think I have back slipped a little.

(wowee first office window bonus – breaking news, just seen my first naked torso (waist up) in the windows across the road, unfortunately it was a man, but this proves that the theory works in principle, roll on the start of term!)

I only had fruit for breakfast today so I am a little peckish, I am going to try and stay away from bread, apart from the bread I make myself. I do have a bread maker and this is a wonderful boy’s toy which is practical as one can make bread that’s not full of white flour, sugar, salt, double yeast and one can also fill your bread with useful things like oats and flax seeds. But the sandwich shop on the campus makes a great Eastern quorn (curried quorn) French stick and of course just before Christmas I discovered Subway! O how weak ones will is when it comes to affaires of the stomach! But I will remember that old adage – one second on the lips, a lifetime on the hips! Or in my case middle aged mans stomach!

Yes today is the first day of the rest of my life, and I shall start as I mean go on pure in mind and body. My body will become a temple of good, low calorie, low fat things, things that will make me glow from inside. People will comment on my pure radiance and contemplate my shining visage and not whisper together wondering if I have slathered myself in lard or the vegetarian equivalent. My belt size will drop to match the age I wish I was (sort of low thirties if you must ask) and my libido will soar to an unmatched peak so that my wife will wonder if I am having an affair such will be my passion.

Yes this is the good life…