Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for the month of February, I am only eating food that has been sitting on a plate in my back yard for a month. I hope I do not die!

The camera returns! Now the photos of me on scales can be badly taken, rather than than badly photo-shopped!

68.8kg (151.67 pounds) is 0.4kg less than yesterday. I wouldn’t have been surprised to have gained a kilo today, based on the recent fluctuations:

I've lost exactly 4.5kg since Day 2, for an average of 1.5kg/week.

 I went to a party tonight; it was my friend’s housewarming. I am normally quite a talkative fellow at parties, I enjoy meeting new people, and chatting to strangers isn’t something that worries me.

Despite the fact that I’d had a lovely bowl of rice that morning, and a few slices of bread right before the party, I was still low on energy, and extremely quiet. The few times I tried to be funny, they were resounding failures – a little bit of wit isn’t normally something I have to think about, I can just pick a topic and say something vaguely amusing. Not tonight; if I didn’t mentally check everything that came out of my mouth three or four times, it ended up either horribly unamusing, or sort of creepy.

I found myself being the quiet creepy guy at the party. It was rather unsettling.

I’ve been doing this for 20 days now, and the instinct to reach out and grab some food has almost completely left me, but when I entered the room, the first thing I did was go straight for the table of food:

They even had my current favourite meal, white bread and butter!

Perhaps it’s an instinctual party habit; go straight for the food. Socialisation and food seem to be quite closely linked.

I’ve been thinking, as you might expect, about food quite a lot this month. When I was young, my family didn’t have a lot of money, so the “big treats” was stuff like chocolate that was a bit past its expiration date – chocolate that had white edges, and was a little bit crumbly. Chocolate bars with honeycomb that had started to crystalise.

I didn’t even realise that honeycomb wasn’t meant to be soft and slightly bitter until I was a teenager.

When I hit my teens, we got a bit more money, and suddenly chocolate and other treats were a regular occurance. I moved out when I was 18, and I made enough money to keep going the same way – I’d have a chocolate bar every couple of days, and I’ve always loved the combination of biscuits and tea, so I always had a packet or two of cheap chocolate-chip biscuits in the house.

Last year some time, I realised that my diet consisted almost entirely of meat and biscuits – I was eating chops, sausages, steak, spaghetti bolognaise, and a lot of biscuits, and essentially nothing else. I had started to gain weight in a noticeable way, so I cut biscuits out of my diet (the fact that my income had significantly dropped helped a lot) and started eating a lot more greens.

I’m not saying I was a paragon of health, but biscuits and chocolate dropped off the shopping list entirely.

It wasn’t hard to do – I just didn’t buy them. I wondered, perhaps a bit self-righteously at the time, why Dad was always buying chocolate and biscuits, when he knew that they weren’t good for him or us – he’s a nurse, after all.

Having gone through this month, I can completely understand where he was coming from. I’ve been living on rice and bread and very, very little else, and next month I’m going to be buying chocolate bars and biscuits and everything else that’s delicious and unhealthy. I’m still aware of the unhealthiness, but god damn, you only live once, and I want life to have a bit of flavour.

In related news, I’ve decided to postpone next month’s experiment. More on that tomorrow!

Tomorrow: Daily Post!

(total money spent so far – $24.46. Remainder – $3.54 - enough for three loaves of bread, with 27 cents left over!)

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for the month of February, I am only spending twenty-eight dollars on food. Death is looking like a distinct possibility, but hopefully it won’t come to that.

Disc of Crispy Rice.

The first time I made rice on the rice cooker, my housemates got annoyed at me because I didn’t pour water in afterwards. I didn’t understand what the problem was, but I was about to make my daily rice anyway, so I went and cleaned it out.

I haven’t forgotten to pour water in since. Dried rice is a real bugger to get rid of.

The rice cooker has two lights – one for “cook”, and one for “warm”. You put the rice and the water in, and then you press the button down, and it turns onto “cook”. Once it’s finished, it goes back onto “warm”. It’s hardly rocket science.

The only problem is that there’s no “off” setting – it’s either cooking rice or it’s warming rice, or it’s unplugged.

The second time I made rice on the rice cooker, I remembered to pour water in afterwards, but I forgot to unplug it. I went in an hour or two later to wash it out properly, and I discovered the disc of rice in the picture above. The water all evaporates, but somehow the rice all sticks together. It’s a bit weird and a bit cool, and makes the machine very easy to clean.

You get that story because I forgot to take any photos today, and so had to find a photo to put at the top of the post.

I forgot because I felt like absolute shit, all day. I had about 8 or 9 hours of sleep, but from the moment I woke up I felt exhausted, and towards the end of the day I had a headache as well. I suspect that this is because of the diet – if the feeling continues tomorrow, I’m going to take the advice of many commenters, and go and see a doctor.

Even now, my right shoulder aches and it’s making my head hurt. I don’t even know how that works.

I woke up today, took the daily photos, and then had a bowl of spaghetti for breakfast/lunch. No sauce, just the spaghetti – it was much more enjoyable that way. I do love my spaghetti.

I got absolutely no work done today. Every time I tried to, I couldn’t focus. I lay down and tried to have a sleep at lunch time, hoping that would clear my head, but no luck; an annoying tic in my left leg meant that I couldn’t clear my mind enough to sleep, and so I ended up just getting back up and mucking around online for a few hours.

Just before I went to the pub to watch some impro (I wasn’t really feeling up to it, but I’d already announced that I was going, and a few mates were expecting me) I cooked up my rice (remembering to put water in the cooker afterwards, of course) and put it in a travel-container. I don’t know what the policy is of eating rice at a pub, but the lady clearing tables didn’t seem to notice/care.

The show cheered me up a fair bit (I thoroughly enjoy watching live impro) and during the break, I got to eat my rice. I did feel slightly less socially able than usual – if someone interrupted me, I would completely lose my train of thought, and it would take me a few minutes to get back on track again.

Physically, I feel fine – I’m not giddy or woozy or falling over. It’s just (as commenter Dan Beeston predicted quite early on in the piece) my brain doesn’t feel like it’s up to scratch. I feel slightly slowed down, and can’t concentrate.

I had plenty of water today, but not a lot of sleep. I’ve also (as my housemates will attest) been a lot more snappy lately. It’s not good.

Is there a specific type of food that my diet is lacking, or is it just because I’m not eating enough energy?

As I said, I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, and we’ll go from there.

From the comments:

“geegee” knows more about rice than I ever will:

The rice you bought isn’t the same as sushi rice. It’s thai glutinous rice. I noticed further along in your records that you’ve gotten sick of it… I wonder if you’re preparing it correctly? You’re meant to soak it overnight and then steam it and it has a much nicer consistency!

I’m not sick of it any more. My daily bowl of rice has become like a little treat for me. I don’t know anything about rice though, so I couldn’t tell you whether or not I’m preparing it incorrectly…I cook it in the rice cooker, and I get quite a pleasant meal out of it, so I’ll probably keep on eating it this way.

Also I’m not really sure what steaming it entails. I’ve been into a steam room before, but I didn’t notice anywhere to put the rice. I don’t believe I own an actual steamer, though we do have a steam iron.

“Hejira” asks:

Why do all your projects have something to do with food?

Well, I have two or three projects planned that are completely unrelated to food. I did StinkyPete first, because I myself wanted to see what would happen, and then when I came up with the name for “28 Days, 28 Dollars”, I knew I had to do this experiment straight after. (30 Days, 30 Dollars just doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

Next month’s project being about food isn’t at all a coincidence – it’s come directly out of this project. After eating nothing but rice for a month, I really want to experience a much wider range of foods, as soon as possible.

I’ve already had a few dinner invitations – the most interesting offer I’ve had is “haggis”. Remember, if you can cook a weird or exotic food, email me, tell me what it is, where (roughly) you live, and whether you want to have me by myself, or my two housemates as well. It’s okay if you don’t!

“RIUM+” comments:

It’s been interesting to watch the development of your facial hair over time.

I never even thought of that.

You know, I won’t shave. I’ll see how long my facial hair can grow. I suspect it won’t be much longer than this, but let’s find out!

“Chrissie” has insider knowledge about supermarkets:

Yes, staff at Coles/Bilo have to pay for their chickens like everyone else, and we don’t even get them reduced further after closing time. I bought two chickens last week for $3 each after we closed, and one half-chicken for $2.

That’s over a week’s worth of chicken! (by my budget.)

I don’t think the Coles staff were even allowed to buy it, though I could have been wrong. Any Coles employees know the full scoop?

Lastly, I was talking to my father on the phone this morning, and this project came up. He’s a nurse, and started telling me about “glycogen”, which is apparently responsible for the initial loss of weight when you start to diet. I thought it was really interesting, and asked if he could email it through.

What he emailed through was much more broad, and much more interesting, and so I reproduce it here for you:

Dear Peter
It is my understanding that once you start to diet ( in your case just not eat properly) then the first kilogram you lose is glycogen, stored in your liver. 

When food is digested it’s absorbed into the blood stream from the small intestines. Alcohol is absorbed as is, and can be absorbed from the stomach. Fat is also absorbed as is. It is emulsified (made soluble in water) by bile. Bile is the stuff that gives you gallstones. Bile also makes your poh brown and deodourises it. 

When you eat any carbohydrate, it breaks down into glucose. In the good old days we ate very coarse grained flour and the biscuits were as hard as anything. When you ate those biscuits they took all day to digest, and people were thin but not as hungry. They are now called “low GI foods”. Brown rice will take twice as long to cook and take much longer to digest.

The reason we have an epodemic of obesity and diabetics is that we eat virtually nothing but sugar. White bread is so finely milled that eating a slice of white bread now is almost like eating straight sugar. Normal coca cola has 9 sugar cubes in every can of the stuff. McDonalds buns are high in sugar so they will brown more quickly.

Kids these days are on virtually a sugar diet.

Insulin is the stuff that carries sugar over the cell wall so we can burn the glucose. Today we produce twice the amount of insulin that was produiced 100 years ago. Diabetics are not able to produce insulin and have to inject the stuff into themselves 3 times a day. This is type 1 diabeties. Type 2 is where you produce so little insulin that you have to regulate your diet, and take oral medication to booste insulin production

Diabetics must measure their blood glucose levels 3 times daily. If you have too much insulin then you get low blood sugar and will go into a coma. Too high a blood sugar level and you may also go into a coma, but if a diabetic is in an unconscious state then you give them glucose, sweets or any sweet thing you have on you.

Now we have a thing called sugar addiction. We simply get addicted to sugar. We eat a sweet thing, say a bun. Then a couple of hours later we crave food. Why? It is that the short sharp burst of pure sugar, it gets the old insulin pumping. But when the sugar runs out we want more food as our insulin is streaming so we eat more overprocessed food and the whole cycle starts again. In contrast, the humble potato is almost pure high GI carbohydrates. If we were all to eat not junk food, but fast home cooked foods we would all be better off.

Many Dietitians disagree, but food studies are usually sponsored by the produces of flour etc. As a result, there is no publicity.

Your generation will be the first generation to live shorter life spans than their parents. 
Fast foods and an almost complete lack of fiber and vegetables is a big concern. It’s something that Jamie Oliver has been working on.

So that is that
Love Dad

I don’t know how much of that is true, but he’s my Dad, so I’m inclined to trust him, and he’s been a nurse for 40 years now, so I’d be inclined to believe that he knows his stuff. Either way, it’s interesting reading.

I think that must be what’s missing from my diet at the moment – sugars. I’m feeling like I have really low blood sugar this very second – I’m getting the shakes, and that desperate craving for food in my stomach that isn’t quite hunger.

I’m going to go and have some tomato soup (I didn’t have it on the spaghetti, so I can have it as a separate meal today.) and see if that makes me feel any better.

At the pub, someone told me that he definitely believes that I have the willpower to finish this month out, no matter how sick I get, but that rationally, I’d have to drop it. I can’t really afford to spend the next three weeks not working.

I’m going to see how I feel tomorrow – if I still feel like crap, I’m going to go and buy a loaf of bread, I seemed to be fine when I was eating that. (perhaps because of all the sugar?) If that doesn’t work, I’ll consult a GP, and if he seriously recommends it, I might have to drop the whole project.

How disappointing. I’m confident that bread will be the solution (isn’t it the solution to everything?) and that I’ll be able to finish the month out, though! Either way, you’ll get at least one more day of updates!

I am also going to buy a banana tomorrow, to treat myself. I need it, after the shitty day I’ve had today.

Tomorrow: Daily Weigh-in.

(total money spent so far – $19.22)

A particularly terrible photo of my parents, with a child who is not me.

In lieu of an update today, (I’m having the weekend off StinkyPete) here’s some correspondence I’ve recently had with my parents:

An email I received from my father today:

Dear Son
You project should be called “Load of Rot”. I think it  is time you gave up all this nonsense and got a real job.”

Did you like that? Now I feel like a real father!

Sorry I did not say that…now stop all this rot  get married and have kids and buy a house and work for the government ! There is no future in all this nonsense. 

Your Father.

Also, I was also on google chat with my mother earlier (andthis is completely unrelated to StinkyPete) when she started complaining about the fact that google has different smileys to the eBay forums:

Mum: B)

B-)

:-/

Testing the ebay codes

Whats vomit smiley?

<3

Me: There isn’t one.

Mum: And there’s no vomit or blushing smiley

 No wanking smiley either

Me: But you can change their shape.

 You can make them circles and things. Crazy!

 Mum: There are more on eBay

I was sending a lovely beehive to all my friends as my sig…until someone told me it was a turd surrounded by flies

Me: lol!

Dad: I am trying to write a sensitive letter and Mum has just put a beehive in it