I had a dream the other night that I looked like the fat guy in Fight Club. I’m getting close I think – just give myself another few months and my ever expanding gut and chest will compete with the best of them.
I have reached the age it seems where I have to make a conscious effort to look after myself. It’s amazing to approach middle age (i’ve got a few years) and realise that nothing will come easy any more – I gotta work to just be normal.
Getting on the scales and realising that I have gained about 4 kilos these past 7 months was both disheartening and heartening. Heartening in that I haven’t gained more and disheartening in that I worked hard at one time to bring myself down to normality. Normality is really normal but on the Canadian east coast it would be considered malnourished. Too many drive through ‘restaurants’ and factory processed foods high in soy – salt – and artificial flavour and low in the good things.
Between the monster sized security personal in Vancouver and the super sized eaters at home I felt like a little guy travelling to Canada this past Chinese New Year. This despite being 184cm tall and 82kilo in weight. It’s good to live there. It makes you feel good about yourself. In fact I think people back home totally have everything backwards about what is so great about the place. All the emphasis on instant oral satisfaction – they forgo sexual kind (at least in the media) – and eat any new kind of processed food with amounts that indicate obsession. Consume consume. It’s no wonder there is a ‘war on drugs’ and an obsession with keeping sexual pleasure out of the public consciousness (you can’t even show a woman’s nipple in the US). If people smoke dope and feel free to explore their sexuality, will that fulfil them to the point that corporations lose money? People seek pleasure. Corporations want them to get that from a Big Mac (or 3) or a Mars bar.
I don’t feel this same pressure in Asia primarily because of the life I have created here. The markets are great here as well – fresh fruit is abundant. But the one thing which is difficult and that people back home seem to neglect in favour of a visit to McDonald’s is leading an active lifestyle. All the options that are available to me when I lived in Canada simply can’t be had here. There is no way I am riding a mountain bike to work everyday here, nor is there an abundance of places to walk and enjoy the outdoors. There are many weekend getaways where you can enjoy nature and get some exercise. Unfortunately, there will be so many people that you may not see the forest for the trees, so to speak.
So it’s off to the track at the local junior high school. Around and around and around. People back home don’t know how good they have it.