Tag: Gluttony

Under The Knife

Food & Drink

I remember the day I quit exercising.

I was thirty years old, in really good shape, and while visiting my mother I went for my regular morning jog.  At the time, she lived in Umhlanga Rocks, a little seaside resort town just north of Durban, and to say that the Indian Ocean coast has a tropical climate is to understate the thing.  It’s not only hot, it’s humid — so humid that I, a Joburg boy, actually had trouble breathing the thick, moist air (Johannesburg is 6,000ft above sea level).

But I had to stay in shape, and I liked the way I looked, so off I went.  I kept the jog short, maybe two or three miles up the coast road, and then I turned around and went back, taking a little detour along the concrete boardwalk that runs past the luxury hotels and separates them from the beach.

By now, I was deeply uncomfortable and miserable:  the sweat was pouring off me, I was tired and more than a little sunburned because while I usually jogged without a shirt up in Johannesburg, it was not an issue there — but down here, in the blazing tropical sun, my fair skin was going extra-crispy, and fast.

I was coming up to the last leg of the trip, where I could make the turn and head back to my mother’s house.  At that point, one of the hotels had a patio cafe right on the boardwalk, and sitting at a table under a large Cinzano umbrella were two rather pretty younger women.  As I ran past, one whistled and called out in Afrikaans, “Nice bod!”

I waved over my back at her, ran about a dozen more yards, and stopped dead in my tracks, chest heaving and my breath wheezing like a beached whale as the epiphany struck me.  I was doing all this — the tiredness, the sweatiness, the sunburn, the aching muscles — just so a stranger could compliment me on my “mooi lyfie” ?

I walked back to my Mom’s house, and never jogged again.

All this came back to me when I read the story of how Ozzy Osbourne’s daughter Kelly has had gastric sleeve surgery and thus lost over 80lbs.

Now I’m not going to go into some stupid amateur psycho-analysis as to why she would want to do this.  She was always a plump little thing, and clearly she didn’t like the way she looked (hence all the tattoos she had inflicted on herself, tattoos which she is now having removed — draw your own conclusions).  And she looks quite fetching now (see the link above)… but that just leads me to my earlier conclusion:  why would she undergo so radical a surgery, just so a stranger like me could think she was “quite fetching”?

I know several women who have had gastric sleeve surgery, and every single one has told me that had they known what the consequences were going to be (other than the massive weight loss), they would never have done it.  You see, the weight loss may be all very well, but what the gastric sleeve does is make eating food a profoundly uncomfortable experience:  nausea, pain, discomfort and a general malaise all follow if you eat so much as a single forkful of food too many, and after a while you begin to hate the sight of food.  Any food.

And what happens next is that some of the joy goes out of your life.  Eating is such a wonderful and enjoyable experience, really:  nothing quite compares to the feeling of satisfaction, of well-being and happiness that a good meal gives you.  It’s one of life’s simple, and paradoxically one of life’s greatest pleasures.  And with gastric sleeve surgery (which is irreversible), it’s gone forever.

So while everyone — and every one a stranger — is complimenting Kelly Osbourne on how great she looks, know too that her previous unhappiness at being overweight has been replaced with a much greater one.

And frankly, I never thought she was that fat to begin with.

Let Them Eat Cake

Food & Drink

Via email, Alert Reader Mike L sends me this news:

Subway bread isn’t legally bread, according to Ireland’s highest court.

Not having eaten anything from Subway in over twenty years, my memory may be a little cloudy on this topic;  but I do know that the reason for that has to do with the taste of their bread, which always prompted the question:  “What have I just put into my mouth?”  [as the actress said to the bishop]

It’s foul, and I know that when driving in strange areas of the country looking for something to eat, Subway is never an option.  Ghastly stuff.

Indecision

Food & Drink

I have been informed that for Father’s Day this year, I am allowed to choose what breakfast to be served.  My choices are English, or American:

I know:  First World Problems.

More Chinkvirus Casualties

Food & Drink, Travels

Under First World Problems, add this situation to the list:

GREGGS fans say they’re “heartbroken” as the bakery chain has reopened today but with a limited menu that doesn’t include favourites such as corned beef bakes. Others can’t believe Belgian buns are off the menu, as are regional delicacies including stotties.

For those just coming into this here corner of the Intarwebz (i.e. my back porch), some explanation of a personal nature may be necessary.

Greggs is the premier fast-food chain in Britishland (much bigger than McDonalds), and my home away from home.  Every time I fly into Heathrow, I jump on the train to London (unless Mr. Free Market has sent Baillie the chauffeur to pick me up), and get off at Earl’s Court.  Literally across the street from the station entrance is a Greggs, and I sit there, suitcases and all, and enjoy a sausage roll and cup of tea.  Only then do I feel strong enough to go to the hotel or whatever.

This applies when I’ve had a morning arrival, of course;  evening flights will find me doing the same, only at The Blackbird, a block down, where the sausage roll and tea are replaced by fish & chips and a pint of Fuller’s London Pride, respectively.

Getting back to the original topic:  I see that the “reduced” menu mercifully includes my favorites, the aforementioned sausage rolls, and my other, the steak bake pie.  So I’m alright, Jack.

That said, I quite understand the frustration that others may feel to find their favorites MIA from the menu.  Were that to happen to me, well… I don’t want to say I’d go full jihad  on Greggs with bombs etc.;  but there could well be murders.

Ain’t Gonna Happen

Health

Of all the do-gooder organizations out there, the American Cancer Society ranks up near the top on my personal Pain-In-The-Ass Scale — and I say this as someone who has lost one wife to cancer, and am currently married to a cancer survivor.

The problem is that the ACS is always quick to warn (i.e. scold) people about the risks of getting cancer, when as any fule kno, Joe Jackson had it right:  Everything Gives You Cancer.  It’s the likelihood thereof that needs to be judged if one needs to modify one’s behavior.

So bullshit like this doesn’t help the cause at all:

New guidelines on cancer prevention recommend cutting out alcohol completely

Wait, what?  But the details can be found somewhat further down the page:

In the United States, the ACS estimates that alcohol use accounts for about 6 percent of all cancers and 4 percent of all cancer deaths.

Right;  so I have to give up something which gives me untold pleasure, makes good times with friends even better, and dulls the pain of everyday life — because there’s a 4% chance it may cause me to die from cancer:  me, with no family history of cancer, who has never smoked nor worked with cancer-bearing substances of any kind?

And it gets worse:

“Alcohol use is one of the most important preventable risk factors for cancer, along with tobacco use and excess body weight,” according to the ACS.
Other significant changes included more physical activity and eating less processed and red meat — although the ACS also now recommends completely cutting processed and red meat from one’s diet, as well as sugar-sweetened beverages and “highly processed foods and refined grain products.”

Cut out biltong too?  For a 4% risk?

As Glenn Reynolds says:  I’ll take my chances.  Or as Oliver Reed once said:

Bloat

Food & Drink

In this case, I’m not talking about government bloat, but my own.  This fucking pointless lockdown caused by the Chinkvirus has quite enfattened me, not so much because of what I’ve been eating — okay, not that much — but because our gym has been closed for the past three months by our timorous apartment management.

I hate strolling, unless to a pub — but as the pubs have been closed as well, even that has been denied me.  AND we’re starting to approach the annual Texas Broil a.k.a. summer, so the desire to walk outside is lessened yet more.  Which means that New Wife has put her foot down and decreed that we will now be entering a period of No Sugar And Only Healthy Foods.  Fuck.

My coffee tastes like hot, rancid bilgewater and I can only imagine what weeks of salads and such are going to do to my already-tenuous control of my temper.  And I know, I know:

Me too.

I think I’ll just have to spend a lot more time at the range.  Which reminds me, I need to lay in a little more ammo, because reasons.