*NEW YEAR NEW ME!*

Not that I think there's anything particularly terrible about the OLD me, but it's always fun to have a nice new year to kick off some good old fashioned self-improvement. This year is all about having more fun and less stress, and of course, I have plans to bust some serious lard off the bod. I weighed myself this morning to assess the damage of the xmas/new year festivities and was pleased to see that I've maintained my weight, even though I felt like I was doing some wild indulging. Apart from christmas eve, which went rather seriously AWOL in the 'moderation' stakes, I managed to keep the 'between parties' eating relatively clean - even while on holiday in lovely Motueka, which is where I have been for the last week. So, having not 'negatively achieved' over the most dangerous time of year, I feel ready to crack on with my TT challenge and today I got up, yawned, stretched, hit the 'get me going baby' button on my espresso machine, got into my workout gear and powered through the first workout of the '2K3' four week TT program, which ends with 20 mins HIIT cardio.

Kicking back and getting some study done in Mapua

I just got home from the movies, but right before I headed out the door, whilst simultaneously eating dinner, doing some stretches and watching CNN, I learned that America has a bigger problem than terrorism. The American health system is in imminent danger of bankruptcy under the strain of national obesity. There was an interview with a 27 year old woman that weighs 35 stone (that's over 200kg). She said that although she knows that her lifestyle is unhealthy, the fact that she is obese and dependant on diabetes meds 'does not affect her daily life'. Then the camera followed her as she walked from her sofa to the front door and had to stop for a little sit down. She said that pies and cakes are her 'greatest pleasure in life'. This played on my mind all through the movie, especially during the scary bits when I did NOT want to be looking at any scary virus ridden zombies (and so had my eyes closed..everyone does that, right?). I think that breaking the 'food is my only fun' mentality is the part of change your lifestyle that is hardest and is also the biggest reason for failure. It's not just about giving up the junkfood and moving a bit more. What if, honestly, pies and cakes are the most fun thing in life? What if they are the only fun thing in life? The more I get into the actual practicalities of living a healthy life, the more I realise that the term 'obesogenic society' does not only refer to the food and tv habits in the developed and developing world. We have forgotten how to have fun, meaningful and interesting lives. Life is so often stressful and unsatisfying. In my case this became only more pronounced once I took away the escape of eating sugar in mood-altering quantities. It's taken a long time to learn how to live healthy all the time and that's not because I needed to learn more about nutrition or exercise, but because I needed to find non-food ways to amuse, distract, direct, entertain and pacify myself. Maybe the best thing the government could do for the obesity problem is build adult-sized playgrounds and make everybody chase each other around for 1 hour a day and introduce finger-painting as a compulsory after-work activity. That's what I'd do.