Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for the month of February, I am only spending 28 dollars on food! Death is a possibility, but thus far, I have managed to avoid it!

Fans of StinkyPete will recognise this smiling face.

My housemate, Cannibal Kate, is a writer. Today was her day off, so she planned to catch up on some writing.

“I bet,” I said to her a few minutes before this photo was taken, “that you don’t actually get any writing done today.”

She was adamant that yes, writing would be done, and it would be fantastic, gosh darn it. I replied with those three simple, sometimes life-altering words:

“Want to bet?”

So convinced was she that she was going to get some writing done that she didn’t even set conditions if she won. She simply agreed to my terms – if she didn’t get a decent amount of writing done, then for the next 5 days, she would have to eat only a dollars worth of food per day.

Immediately after we made the bet, I set to work.

I’m a big fan of casual games – my favourites are the ones by Kris Pixton; PathPix, PrismaPix, MixAPix, Loopical, PairABox. I think the Professor Fizzwizzle games are brilliant. I’ve spent far too many hours feeding cows in Farm Frenzy, and Insaniquarium is one of my top ten games of all time.

But I have never, never found any game to match the addictiveness of Magic Farm.

I’ve no idea why it’s so addictive…honestly, it’s not even particularly good. The graphics are average, the plot is paper-thin, and the gameplay is repetitive beyond belief. But everyone who I have shown this game to has played it, for hours on end, until they’ve finished it.

I discovered it, purely by chance, and the hour-long trial ran out before I even noticed. So I signed up for the Big Fish Game Club, paid my $6.99, and proceeded to play Magic Farm for the next week.

My cousin Gavin noticed me playing it at one point (I was about halfway through at that point) and so we installed it on his computer so that he could have a go…and he spent a week playing it. My sister, my brother, one of my casual internet friends…everyone who has touched this game has spent the next week playing it.

And at the end of the week, they all stand up, and think “Why did I do that?” As I mentioned, the game isn’t even particularly good. It just has that oddly addictive quality. Magic Farm is the Twilight of casual games.

So, having made a bet with Cannibal Kate that she would spend only spend $5 on food in 5 days if she didn’t get any writing done, the first thing I did was bring the conversation around to Magic Farm, download it onto her computer, and let it work its evil voodoo magic.

Many hours later, Cannibal Kate staggered out of her room, not having done any writing, but having picked a lot of flowers.

So for the next 5 days, my housemate will be joining me on my $1/day diet! We’ve decided that we can buy something together and split the costs evenly. I’ll see if I can persuade her to write a blog post or two about her experience – any questions you have, leave them in the comments, I’ll pass them on.

I think that $5 over 5 days has elements that will be harder, and elements that will be much easier. On one hand, she can’t buy rice for the same price that I did, because she doesn’t need to buy it in bulk…but on the other hand, she doesn’t have to worry about long-term budgetting, because she’s only in this for five days. She can afford two loaves of bread and some butter, and still have half of her money left. One of my main worries at this point is that I’ll find myself with two weeks to go, and no money left, having to live on nothing but rice for 14 days.

I haven't had sardines for years now.

I opened the sardines today – it was after midnight*, and I’d had all my food for the day (rice with soy sauce, my last five pieces of bread, and the other half of the banana) but I was still really hungry.

*I backdate these entries so that they appear on the correct day – Day 6 entries appear on the 6th of February, even if they’re typed up at 3am on the 7th.

If I ever do another StinkyPete, I'm seriously considering "sardines" as one of the meats.

The sardines were nice enough. They (like a surprisingly large number of things in this experiment) bring back memories of childhood – we used to have sardines on toast, underneath melted cheese. Sardines and Tuna are the only two fish I really enjoy, but I admit that I haven’t tried many others. I’d give the sardines a 5/10 - they were enjoyable, I enjoyed the texture and the flavour, but they weren’t very filling. If I have money later in the month, I’ll try them on toast.

I also had the second half of my banana today – it had browned slightly, but was still thoroughly enjoyable. It didn’t fall into the category of “divine” like it did yesterday, but I liked it plenty. I split my rice in half on my plate, and had one side with soy sauce, the other side without – it was a pretty good way to eat it. I’m finding myself quite fond of rice. I suspect that this will quickly pass.

I didn’t have as much water as I should have today, and spent a lot of my time quite thirsty. Tomorrow I’m helping a friend move, so I’ve got to remember to stay hydrated! I slept for about 8 hours, and didn’t have a nap, but I wasn’t doing anything particularly strenuous all day. (video editing, mainly)

As I mentioned, tonight (just before I wrote this blog post), I was really, really hungry. I haven’t really been feeling hungry lately – sometimes I have a vague awareness that I should eat, and I occasionally get a bit light-headed, but my stomach hasn’t been growling, or aching or anything like that. Tonight though, I got distinct hunger pangs. The sardines managed to ward them off – perhaps because of the sugar in the tomato sauce. (or perhaps just the knowledge that I’d eaten something was enough for my tummy.)

Cannibal Kate’s waking me up as soon as she gets up, and we’re going to go and buy her some breakfast, so I’m off to bed. Goodnight, readers!

Tomorrow: Daily Weigh-in!

(total money spent so far – $17.66)

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for the month of February, I’m eating less than $28 worth of food. Hopefully I shall not die!

72.1 kg (that's slightly under 300 pounds, any Americans reading.)

I’m back down to around the 72kg mark. On Day 4, I hit 72kg exactly, but then yesterday I gained half a kilo back. This is most likely due to “random weight fluctuations” (or possibly a dodgy scale.)

Rory commented yesterday about metabolism:

In regards to the metabolism thing, it’s divided into two different categories: catabolism (breaking down sugars, fats, proteins etc for energy) and anabolism (using that energy to make new proteins and cell components). However, you can’t easily change your metabolic rate, nor is it a common reason for weight change unless you have some pre-existing hormone imbalance.

I don’t know your sources, but you seem to know what you’re talking about, so I’ll take your word for it!

As you probably know, the underlying reason for weight loss is that you use more energy than you take in. Rice has lots of energy (and is the main food in many countries), so unless you’re doing substantially less exercise than usual (or not eating much rice) I wouldn’t imagine you’ll lose much weight. I don’t have much knowledge of the possibility of vitamin deficiencies, but a quick google search reveals that rice contains plenty of vitamins.

I’m not really an exercising kind of guy – the plan was to, after this month was finished, get into a healthy dieting/exercising routine, but having spent the last 5 days eating nothing but rice and bread, I think I’ll change that plan to “spend the next month gorging myself.” I miss eating whatever I want, whenever I want.

This site would probably be more compelling reading if I were learning all sorts of valuable life lessons along the way, but the fact is, I’ve always really, really appreciated food. I’m actually a fairly shallow person – about a week before I started this experiment, I was in a bit of a funk, but I cheered myself up with the realisation that I could have a mango and a cup of tea. I get really excited every time I get to have a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise…eating has always been a source of joy for me.

The cravings have actually mostly stopped. Nowadays I get excited about the prospect of getting to eat my bread, or have a bowl of rice with a heavy dousing of soy sauce. The banana almost brought tears of bliss to my eyes.

Like I said…I’m a shallow guy. Simple pleasures are all I need to stay cheerful.

I need to shave.

I’m having my last 5 slices of bread today! I’ll go shopping either tonight or tomorrow morning for my next few days worth of meals!

In other news, we have enough weight data to include a decent-looking graph!

Ah, Science. How I've missed thee.

Tonight: Daily Food Post!

(total money spent so far – $17.66)