Week 1 - Day 5

Week 1 - Day 5 = 0.6kgs

Total sponsorship $35/kg

It's a rather inconclusive amount considering the scales can vary up to a kilogram over the course of one day. I'm a bit disheartened and disappointed in this reluctant metabolism of mine.

I've been aware this week, more than usual, of all the weight-related media that's around at the moment. There was the recent study of Australian kids that found they still don't eat their veggies and spend too much time in front of the tv. Fast food companies have signed a pledge that they will advertise responsibly to children. Then of course, there is the ongoing debate over how much funding to give to lapband surgery to fight the obesity-related drain on our health care system. Fat seems to be the ultimate expression of the mythological hydra because it's not the existance of fast food or sweets that's making people fat. It's not a cycle of depression based on skinny models and freudian first pleasures. It's not even really western hedonism or complacency. It's no singular thing. Nearly everything about the way day-to-day society operates encourages poor food consumption and little exercise.

Just about everything (primary foods excluded) you buy from the shops is bad for you in some way. Even products marketed as healthy are misleading. Shops themselves are designed to encourage you to eat badly. The FoodWorks at the Metro, for example, makes you run a junk-food gauntlet before you can get to the checkout. You are literally forced to walk between two metre-long stands of impulse buys just to get your carrots and celery out of the store. They're a business. They care about incrementally adding to their profit margin. They care nothing about incrementally adding to my ar$e.

"The corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money..." (Tim Robbins - Team America)

Next week, the Xena Project really kicks off with a vengence. I start bootcamp first thing in the freezing Monday morning dark and will be training 3x a week for the next month. This reluctant body can't fail but respond to THAT!

Stay tuned for groans and whimpers :-)