Over the last few years, I have amassed a scarily huge amount of possessions. Nine years ago, I
came to this country with one suitcase. Now, I have masses and masses of stuff. My one-bedroom
flat feels tiny, due to being cluttered with… junk? treasures? I am not sure what to call it but
one thing is certain — every surface is junked up by stuff. Every cupboard, every
wardrobe, every shelf, every single drawer is full, ready and willing to burst at any point.
I believe this is due to several factors — I am a hoarder by nature, having watched my mum
collect all sorts of stuff that ‘may come in handy one day’, such as boxes, wrapping,
random bits of stationery, those paper bags you get in large department stores instead of plastic
carrier bags, oh and, among other crap things, I mustn’t forget the… drumroll please…
Washing Machine Door (WMD). The WMD incident was quite possibly the most epic fail of my mum’s
hoarding career. The one and only time I attempted to use my mum’s washing machine, the door
came off and remained safely in my hand as I tried to close it. Mum had it replaced but the
engineer wouldn’t take the old WMD away as he couldn’t recycle it. He reassured mum it is okay
to throw the WMD away, as there honestly is no use under the sun for it. However, my mum being my
mum, kept the WMD for several years in the closet — she was hoping that, one day, someone may be
in need of some amazing object to save the day, and she would then magically fish it out and
nonchalantly present it to the person in need, and it would be exactly what they needed, and they
would be grateful to my mum till their dying day… and they lived happily ever after. So for
years, the WMD lived in mum’s closet, was in the way, had to be moved every time mum tried to
get to the things she actually was using. One day, mum was doing a spring clean (no mean
feat when you are a hoarder), and decided to throw the WMD. She took it to the bin but was later
overcome with remorse and regret, and returned to the bin to — you guessed it —
retrieve it (under the cloak of night, so neighbours wouldn’t see her). The WMD lived
in the closet for a few more weeks, until mum got angry at herself and eventually chucked it
(!!!). She was so chuffed with herself for not going back for it that she phoned me and we had a
little de-brief and an over-the-phone pat on the back. Two months later, she came to see me and we
visited the Chelsea Flower Show, where there was a display of weird garden sculptures made
entirely of WMDs. No, I don’t think she would like to make a sculpture with the WMD but the
sheer rage at finding a use for it must have smarted quite a bit. I think mum feels the pang of
regret over chucking it to this day — but I am not sure, as the WMD is strictly off-topic. As it
must never be mentioned again, I shall never know for sure.
On top of being a natural hoarder, I also have good reasons to be in possession of so many things.
As I have gone from size 12 to size 22+, I have clothes that vary in size — actually, I am
lying. I have wardrobes full of every size between 12 and 22. And cupboards. And
dressers. And chests of drawers. And storage boxes. :|
The next nine days will be spent decluttering, organising, tidying up, cleaning and sprucing up
the place so it looks more like a home and less like a charity shop. A 5-foot Christmas tree and
200 baubles, anyone? Yes, I know it’s July. But Christmas in December is so mainstream.
On top of collecting stuff, I have also collected a lot of unwanted pounds — something
I have already explained in one of my previous posts. What I haven’t really explained is my vast
knowledge about nutrition. It is a bit of a hobby, as most fat people (sorry, I really don’t
want to call us overweight — we are fat, end of story, no need to pretty it up) will
readily agree. Some of us know the exact calorie content of every food under the sun, others will
know everything there is to know about digestion. I don’t believe in calories — never have.
But I do find the human body fascinating, both how it works, how it gets ill, and how it fuels up
through foodstuffs. Isn’t it amazing how God created all these foods for us which give us
optimum nutrition and are a perfect, clean, energy source? Even more amazing how we as humans go
and corrupt these, process them into something rather different, and then get addicted to it, and
as a bonus ensure that everyone around us does, too. But that’s a different story altogether.
Don’t let me go on a food-rant! EVER!
I am going to take bits of what I know about food, nutrition, and exercise from different
approaches and paste these into something that loosely resembles an ecclectic action plan. I will
be describing this in more depth, later, and will be posting updates of how my plan is being
implemented and whether it is working etc, as I go.
There are a few ways to lose weight safely, and I have tried and tested these before (among all
the myriads of ways that are either dangerous, or don’t work, or both). I will be looking for
the common ground and will be using this as the basis of my nutrition. The approaches I will be
hand-picking from will be juicing, alkaline diet, the 90-day food combining diet, and common
sense.