From Fags to Fitness

It was an ordinary slothful Sunday afternoon and there I was, in my usual way, lying dormant upon the hearthrug, a copy of the collected works of Lord Byron in one hand, and a mug of last night’s Chateau Shoreditch in the other. This is what we English grads like to call romanticism. In truth, I was lying in a pit of my own despair. My mind’s eye flitting between shame (last night’s revelry) and anxiety over my future (English degree = so what?). I had put on weight and my smoking was getting severely out of hand.

So there I lay wallowing, the copy of Byron serving as a mere prop: a distraction from the incessant twitter of a tormented mind. And the plonk? An aid to pacify the intense dislike I had for myself. It was at this moment that the Gods decided to heighten the drama of this woeful tragedy. Cue lighting!

A sharp edge of sunlight cut through the gap in the curtains and perforated the pigsty that for three years, I had come to call home. My life had become characterised by indolence and disarray. The room was suddenly aglow and
mercilessly spotlighted were the myriad of pizza boxes, kebab cartons and empty wine bottles that had littered my life for so long. I saw, for perhaps the first time, the fug of stale smoke lingering motionlessly mid-air, and with this; the dawning realisation that my lifestyle had reached crisis point.

Now whether it takes a piercing metaphorical sunlight to bring about such a painstakingly obvious realisation is ultimately by the bye. The fact remains that at some point in a student’s life it dawns upon us that we never really intended for heady nights of booze and vice to become complicit to our lifestyles. Yet, like a wrong seed planted unwittingly at the beginning of our university lives, we allow it to continue to grow, nurturing it, until its threat to overpower us is so strong that we feel we have little choice but to yield to it. Why is this? The answer, in my case, was brainwashing.

There exists an undeniable obsession in Western culture to glorify ‘Rock n Roll’ lifestyles where self-destructive artists are hailed as Gods. Kudos is given in abundance for those hell-bent on ruining themselves on booze,
drugs and nicotine. This translates itself into a society where revellers who insist on stupefying themselves with drink become ‘legends’ or, for the male contingent, ‘true lads.’ Literary history too is chockfull of the intelligent and
perceptive, jaded and world-weary, mysterious and charismatic figures who lived ceaselessly smoking, thinking, and drinking. I was duped by the seeming allure of such a bohemian lifestyle.

It’s only Rock n Roll, man! Yeah, cheers Keef.

If this lifestyle is so appealing, why was it that I was waking up, even after ten hours sleep, feeling tired and miserable? Sometimes lying in bed until I could muster enough energy to drag the sheets back and face the rigours of another day.

In short, I had reached a juncture. I couldn’t remember the last time I woke up completely rested after seven hours sleep, bursting with energy, and looking forward to another exciting day on the planet. I was a smokaholic and was facing a lifetime of deprivation in terms of health, money, courage, confidence, freedom and selfrespect.

At first I thought I’d have to turn off my phone, delete my Facebook, lock the door and undergo extreme diet in imposed solitude. I felt I would crack at the slightest whiff of peer pressure. Coming down the pub? Just for one? ‘Just for one’ I knew would inevitably end up as a two day binge and I was certain I wouldn’t stand the feelings of intense guilt and self-loathing in the aftermath of such an event. However, I was trying to regain my life , not shut myself off from it. I realised that I needed to make drastic changes to my lifestyle but do so without neglecting my friends and risk hermititus.

Where to begin?

I began mentally taking stock of my behaviour when it came to exercise and eating. When I felt hungry my mind would immediately say ‘get something quick and easy.’ When I felt I should take some exercise my mind would say ‘oh just take a walk to the shop’. A walk to Dominoes Pizza, therefore, covered both bases.

I felt that if I was ever going to turn my life around I needed to alter these addictive patterns of behaviour. My solution? Whenever these thoughts would occur I swore that instead of yielding to them, as I always did, I would in fact try to do the exact opposite. For instance, when I thought, as American parlance would have it, I would ‘grab a bite,’ I in fact chose not to ‘grab,’ rather, as the British might say, I would ‘prepare’ a meal. Similarly, when my mind said ‘just have a stroll,’ I retorted by going for a run. The more opposite behaviour to what my body was used to I employed, the easier it was to bring about real change. In retrospect, it is clear that I was advocating a system of resistance; whenever I felt myself slipping back into old patterns of behaviour I would resist by behaving in the opposite way.

You would be forgiven for assuming that such a system is doomed to failure. Living in a perpetual state of resistance is as unhealthy as eating grease in a bap after twelve rounds of pub golf.

However, what can be perceived as unhealthy resistance, I came to understand as living in a healthy state of choice. So when lapses did occur, which they inevitably did, I chose to counter them. So having chosen to meet friends and drink and savour those 3am donner shavings. I then put into action the same method of choice to join a gym and, when hungover, I actively chose to get up and run for forty minutes on a treadmill.

By doing this I was able to rid myself of those feelings of guilt and self-deprecation. More importantly still, was that, in the long-term, I was creating an equilibrium between ‘socialising’ (getting rip-roaringly inebriated) and taking the care to eat well and exercise regularly.

The more I pursued the notion of lifestyle choice, the more I was working towards sustaining an ‘everything in moderation’ approach to life.

In short, I felt more fulfi lled and rewarded for doing so.

After the fi rst month having made the conscious decision to become a healthier, happier person, I upped the ante. I went from someone who rarely cooked to someone who prepared three square meals a day. I could feel a real sense of distance emerging from my old patterns of behaviour. However if I was really to make my former lethargic, smokaholic ‘bohemian’ self a thing of the past, I needed to take my regime a step further. How did I do this? Simple.

I did something I would never have thought to have done.

I joined a cookery course.

Naturally I had to put up with being jeered at by all my acquaintance for the best part of a month, but, the important point was, I could genuinely feel that former self fading into background. A cynic might say that I’ve undergone a transition from Byronic hero to domesticated pioneer of the pinafore. However, to my mind, I had a simple choice to make. You can continue to let your intake be dominated by foods and drugs which will lead to obesity, lethargy, guilt and depression or you can allow your life to be dominated by foods which come without such a heavy tax.

My advice, choose a lifestyle which will provide you with an abundance of health, energy, and joie de vivre, and the best part is…everything tastes better for it. I now fi nally appreciate the poet’s meaning, when he writes ‘… wisdom, love, and power were mine and health and youth possessed me.’