#108.21 - Almost end of holidays

The majority of ads around weight loss and exercise are about cheating - well I assume they are about cheating because I never watch them, but they try and hook you by saying things like 'when celebrities (yah, like I care?) need to buff up fast they...' at this point I would have skipped the ad. The visual will be some person I have never seen before or know about nor recognise at some machine looking like an idiot because they are completely made up and working out - who does this shit? put on make up to sweat - it is so bad for you and your pores for a start secondly you will look like a maniac at the end of it - in leggings or without a shirt on and clearly the ad is about selling some kind of short cut to looking good. It could be weight loss, but right now it is getting fit. Presumably because some machine is reading this blog and thinks that ads - especially inane ones - work on me. This is why AI will never work.

Anyway, the whole point of exercising is not to look good stoopid. The whole point of exercising is to feel better and how are you supposed to feel better and be more healthy if you are cheating. It is the body builders. Anyone can tell that they have stored up enormous problems for themselves when they turn 50 or 60. I'm assuming they are planning to live for at least that long. Look at them and their weird fake tan that is the colour of brown stain and their weird teeny tiny outfits and their weird striations which make them look more like trees than humans. I mean I love trees but would I want to LOOK like one? I don't think so.

This means that if you cut down the exercise you will not get the main benefits of it. Cheating - which never works - is pointless. And say if you wanted to cheat, there are better ways of cheating - the best way is to go outside and spend the entire day walking to the next town and back again. Cover 30 km a day everyday for two weeks and don't eat and you will have the weight you want to be. However if you go back to regular life, you will end up putting on all that weight again. And you'd have fucked your joints in the meantime.

Cheating never works. 

It is mental and these are what these ads want to sell me. I have never ever taken short cuts - I did once accidentally when I was in Harapan and went swimming in a lake I was told was safe and in ended up with a week of the squirts. I did drop several kgs in a month. Also having controlled eating times was very helpful - I was never so hungry and lost as much weight between the bloody diarrhea and strict rationing. That was when I discovered that we in the West overate. We overate by as much as two thirds on a regular basis. i.e. one meal a day was all we needed - instead we were eating three times our rations in a single day. No wonder we were all overweight.

Also I discovered how quickly it was to lose all the extra weight gained. So when people tell me, oh it is not about diet, oh I try an diet and it doesn't work I am complete skeptical. Unless you have a very serious genetic disorder I cannot believe that the usual formula which is food = energy and energy should be used or it turns to fat does not count/work.

The magical ingredient is time and time requires the most difficult quality of all - the WILL. The Will is a the laziest part of our bodies. The tendency to inertia and atrophy is very high. There are a few ways to wake up the Will. One is habit. Habit overrides Will. If you cultivate good habits when you are young it makes life easier. You then operate on autopilot and the Will just goes along with it. Habits can be formed but they are difficult - apparently it takes 3 weeks to form a habit. Once it is formed then you have it. Between the formation of that habit and start of it willpower is the only thing which is going to get you changing. Either that or environment - like being stuck in the rainforest with only coffee and nothing else between meals. This is why retreats and detox centres work - because they help you develop your will. However, once out, you are back into real life and the habit life of that regular life just forms again.

So the key is the cultivation of the Will. THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS. NONE. Life can be made easier, like washing machines and tumble dryers and cars can help us. But when it comes to our body we are STUCK with it. OK yes plastic surgery, but I have not yet seen any plastic surgery which is painless or successful. Not risk free. How desperate must you be, how empty must your life be in order to risk that? Is looking good and only looking good that important to you?

Also there is something weirdly unattractive about people who re overly obsessed with their looks. I mean take care of the skin you are in, because you are going to need it, but to end up plastering yourself with all kinds of potions and unguents in the hope that your 50 years on the planet can completely eradicated? That is mad. 

Why would you want that anyway? I wear my stretch marks with pride. I love them - they indicate that I had children. I love the white in my hair - it shows my age. I earned every single one of those badges. I am proud of myself. The things I have collected. 

Anyway, I should talk. Rabbiting on about the Will. I am the world's biggest hypocrite because i keep saying I will do this and that and do I? Hell, I do not.

I tell myself I am enjoying the rest but the truth is that I probably spend a lot less time than say my poor sister who works every hour that god gives her. I can blame it on the coronavirus, but the truth is apart from my encounter with Peter, my life has been pretty good. I suppose Peter balanced it out. I have been given everything and more. But also, the path to here wasn't always so clear. When I think of where I was 10 years ago... but still, still... I am here now and here is very good.

Also, yes it is true that the benefits of not drinking wine and running and eating well are mostly hidden but the external results are very pleasing indeed. And it is a combination of how i look and feel which contributes to my own sense of positivity in the world. But dear AI i am not interested in achieving these things they way you try and selling it to me. Sorry. 

Listening to Enya... Can't believe I not only live in the land of Enya but am also learning Irish. God I don't know if I will run. Yeah. I will. Just I have the diarrhea and that is a bit risky. Right. If I don't run i will clean the shed and garden at the very least which means I will end up running...

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I am literally unable to eat. I have no appetite. I have no idea what's going on there. And I am postponing the inevitable. By watching The Protector a super silly TV series based in Istanbul but it is such a wonderful city. The characters in it are very annoying and I keep googling things and fast forwarding it. I don't know what's wrong with me there. 

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The stomach has taken its toll on me today. Just lay down and did not a lot. Well that's not true. I did complete the Easter branch. It is v nice now. There are 16 eggs on it. It is very pretty and I used the colours blue for this year. I plan to add a few more each year. I honestly don't understand how anyone uses all these colours in one year. Do they make 400 eggs?

But it was a melancholic day. For the first time I didn't go for my run and I ate bits and bobs. Mostly any leftovers from yesterday. For dinner I'm doing egg fried rice and miso soup with gyoza. I can't be bothered to do anything else.

Well that's the end of this entry. Oh I also did my Irish. I will do some of the autism work I have been doing this evening. That's the end of the holidays for me. I'm back in school /at school tomorrow.