A personal message... and conclusion...ish?

I hope in the recent posts that I have at least hinted to the fact that I believe that through personal choice we can change the current path we are on through simple yet hard lifestyle changes. 

This is a funny video of my hero Peter Griffin... lol Random... anyways... in fact it conveys perfectly what I want to say in this post... denial of the facts just won't solve the problem (shouting yeah when you are doomed to fail regardless of what you think the science is showing you or not) doesn't change the course you are on and the destination you will finish at.... deep I know right? :D)

Believe me, I can appreciate how hard it is to drastically change your consumption habits.

Today is my 21st birthday!!! YAY ME! Thanks to all the messages... wait... this isn't facebook... anywho, unsurprisingly, this time last year I had just turned 20....

*FLASHBACKS*.... 

Oh wait... I can't do a flashback, well I guess I have been watching far too much family guy, and not enough time working hard!

On my 20th Birthday I realised on thing that dawned on me... I was consuming far too much; not just for someone my age (a nearly fully grown man) but for a human in general. I was an obese child, and I only grew larger with time. When I am talking about obese, I mean, hey, I'm not on the biggest loser because I was too big!

So, like I said, I turned 20, and weighed so much I couldn't even get on a Wii fit *product placement*... yes that's right, I got on the scale and it literally said one at a time... FAIL.

Just to give you an idea, the maximum weight was 150 kg (23.6 stone). I know I weighed a lot more than that, 24 stone or about 152 kg. I am honestly not lying.

So as you can see, from an obese child to a morbidly obese young man it didn't look to well for me... I mean, I weighed more stone than years to my life!

I was a large child, I weighed 70 kg (11 stone) at the age of 11. That is a full grown man's weight if not more.

So I said to myself: "In 10 years I have more than doubled in weight. What about the next 10? Will I be 300kg (47 stone)? Or will I gain another 70 kg, coming up to 220 kg (34 stone)?"

The point is, was I really going to continue on this unsustainable trajectory; a poor life of pain and misery and death. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, too many obesity related diseases to mention.

I said no... not this time, so I made a choice, a simple yet hard choice to lose weight. It was simple in the sense that all I needed to do was reduce the amount I eat and be more active. However, breaking an eating habit that I have had all my life is not easy. I have always loved pasta, nutella, chocolate, sugar, bread, anything fatty/starchy/sweet I would eat, and  a large amount as well!

Changing my consumption habits was not easy, but day by day I learned to not add sugar in my tea, drink sugar free drinks, give up pasta and white bread and diversify my diet (Pasta is my favourite food... I would have literally killed for a plate a year ago lol!).

I began to watch what I ate, calorie counting thanks to labels; watching sugar in my diet, never exceeding the recommended daily calorie intake of 2500 for a man my age (although for someone my size it was more than double, 4-5000 just because I was SOO BIG!).

Spoonful by spoonful, meal by meal, day by day and month by month I stuck to (not my diet) my lifestyle change. Not eating after 6 pm. No added sugar in anything. Reduced salt in my foods. No pasta. No bread. No chocolate. No sweets. 

Instead, lovely vegetable soups, eggs and oily fish, occasional lean meat (I know!! I ate far less than I did before though!!!) in sauces and stews, cous cous and rice. I know love Chinese, Singaporean and Indian foods (albeit slowly slowly lol!). Italian: gnocci and polenta; Moroccan: tagines and harira. I diversified my consumption, I became healthier and over time I shed my weight.

I know exercise a bit, I like to walk...(hey one step at a time I am still no Olympian!) and move around as much as possible.

So the other day I weighed myself... and from 24 stone, I now weigh 15 (I got down to 14 stone 13 lbs but gained 1 pound over 4 days!! dammit! lol). 

Over the course of one year I have lost 9 stone exactly. I like to think I look better than I did, I sure feel do. 

I have never in my life weighed so little, I just wished my wardrobe shrunk too... I have tents for t-shirts and sleeping bags for trouser legs. I can fit into a 36 inch waist... not incredibly comfortably, but zip up and button the trousers nonetheless, just wouldn't go out in them at the moment! I only used to be able to wear jogging bottoms, now I can wear jeans!!! I am sorry but when you have never been able to, throughout your late teenage life, it is amazing to finally wear them!

The reason I am embarrassing myself by telling you I used to be really big is to show you that it may be hard but fundamentally, if it is unsustainable, it will be the eventual death of us all unless we do something about it. I know it is difficult and so easy to pass the buck but if we all just made little choices, we could make a massive difference. I had to change my unsustainable consumption because it finally dawned on me that I was on the wrong track; I am no better than any one else on this planet for that, but by trying to make a difference, sure I am no Brad Pitt, I am sure as hell healthier than I was before.

If I can do it, then anyone else can because as cheesy as it sounds, I have hopefully shown that it can be done. Seeing is believing and if we do take care of ourselves, and we do become aware of the impact that our actions are having on the planet, then we will begin to change our ways, innovate out of it or change our consumption patterns. Whatever we do, the replacement has to be sustainable. Being selfish and not changing consumption patterns would result in a poor quality environment for our kids to grow up in, or in my case no life at all.

Everything you could ever want to know is just a click away. There is no excuse and I am one to make up excuses I tell YOU!!!

All the best and keep watching the posts... maybe? :D

Replying to comments!....AGAIN and AGAIN!!

This is what Wei wrote:

It's so difficult even trying to read this post not because it's dull (it's actually quite funny) but because I really really really really don't want to stop eating meat :( I mean, I can go without meat for maybe a day or two (I love veg) but not my entire life! And I think I'm not alone in my reluctance to change. Love of meat is what's stopping many people who do know that their meat-eating lifestyle produces much more greenhouse gases to just eating veg. 

What then would you suggest to help persuade more people to stop eating meat (or eat significantly less meat)? 

Well Wei I hope this blog has tried to help persuade people of the environmental cost of meat at least, even though to be honest it was originally created just to investigate the role livestock agriculture and in particular the poo and pee aspect of it all has on our planet. I don't think I can go without meat forever, but as I am to emphasise everything in moderation is acceptable. The amount of meat we eat is purely unsustainable, not individually but as a collective; if we all individually reduce our consumption, the collective will reduce aptly. This video really got to me, but it is mostly focused on the animal cruelty side (it has some very disturbing images so please only watch if you are not easily offended, it is called 'If slaughterhouses had glass walls' by PETA.... the environmental aspect is admittedly small, but as we can see from not just this blog, but every other on the 'anthropocene' it is all interlinked.

On a much lighter note! Food is delicious, rice, pasta, pizza are all non-meat based foods (just because meat can be eaten with them, it does not mean it has to be eaten with them). Like Yulia has suggested pulses are a great source of protein like tofu, even though it fails in comparison to east asian tofu! 

Buying meat from a sustainable farm, the practicalities are hard, but it is a possibility. The cheapest way to make a difference is to probably lobby policy makers (and I said cheap lol!). Again this is not easy in london, but if there is market, a product will soon fill it!

And these three are from Yulia:

Thanks for your reply! So depressing about the battery hens! However, from my life as a student and from being aware of the lifestyle of the rural poor in Russia (compared to whom the British poor are ‘wealthy’, which is why they can afford meat), I don't agree with you that meat is the cheapest source of protein: pulses like chickpeas are cheaper (if you buy the dry ones and then boil). Now we don't theoretically have an excuse for unsustainable consumption! THEORETICALLY! I really hope your blog can convince more of us to change our habits. Though the way it is going, it seems that the 'innovative technology' will have to be the answer. Please check out my blog for innovative land sources, which I will post soon! 

Firstly poverty is relative... there isn't a competition about who is poorer, but I will gladly cede the win to you. Anything is possible, it's hard but one less sausage a day or the vegetarian option at lunch is a step in the right direction. Fruit is a healthy snack alternative... but not really great for meat? vegetable soups are great for this time of year, and minestrone soup is perfect!

No Meat!

Your posts really make me laugh, DanDan! And you are actually starting to convince me to want to eat less meat. 

Nonetheless, I do have the same question as Wei, though: I tried becoming a vegetarian before and as soon as I made that decision, I realized that I can't live without meat! It seems many environmentally-conscious consumers are in the same boat. What do we do? Would getting recipes for the delicious vegetarian Moroccan dishes I once tried help? DanDan? 

As I said in a comment on my blog, you may find this relevant to using biofuels and bacteria to simultaneously tackle eutrophication:

http://www.oilgae.com/energy/nn/b/2009/06/microbial-process-turns-urban-waste.html 

Thanks for this link! It is really relevant to poo! I hope whoever reads this post directs their attention to the link provided above!!

I hope I have answered all the questions... if not MYBAD!!

All the best! :D

Moroccan Vegetarian Recipe!!! Kul!!!

Mmmmmm Who said vegetarianism is boring.... it doesn't matter... yummy Moroccan food!!!!

I actually smuggled a tagine into the country... a massive tagine, only £3... the shop was full of them!


Now I know this recipe is tasty, in Morocco it is a very popular and in fact more of a staple dish. Please follow and enjoy!


I am beginning to think that this blog is going to be taken over as a cooking show...