I completely lost my shit at the kids on Saturday. We were in the car and they were being loud and boisterous, like kids are, and I blew my stack big time. I’m so ashamed of myself. I know that every parent has lost their shit at their kids at some stage and probably felt terrible about it afterwards, but I really overreacted. They did nothing wrong, they were just being loud (loudness is in their DNA). I was just hungry. Hangry. I was rostered on air from 6am – 12pm that day and in my reptilian haste I forgot to take my egg and Metformin pill with me to eat in the morning. What a rookie error. It was 20 past 5 in the morning, however. Prior to this job, I didn’t even know there was a 20 past 5 in the morning…….. I had no money to buy anything for breakfast and if I did, what was I going to buy? I am avoiding bakeries and café’s like the plague in a bid to cut out shit food from my diet. I was so disappointed in myself. I usually have a great memory. I remember everything. Here are some of my friends’ pin numbers. 2742, 8696, 5590, 8699, 0151, 2302, 1430 & 6937. Never forget a pin number, especially when it is given to you in a pub. We were on our way to Silverdale for a family lunch and we were running late. I had made a gangster Cajun chicken salad that I was taking with me because I knew that there was going to be very little that I would be able to eat once we arrived at our destination. Our hosts were amazing and as predicted, there was SWEET FUCK ALL by way of low carb options available for their triple XL guest. The last time I had eaten was Friday evening at 5:30pm. This was getting stupid. I had to endure the 10 minutes of ‘how are you’s’ and ’what’s new’s’ before I felt comfortable tucking into my first meal of the day. I like to have a straight back when I eat so I ate my salad at the table. The same table where the bewildering array of delicious food that I can no longer eat was begging me to get stuck in. Much like how Russel Crowe has to ignore his hallucinations in the film ‘A Beautiful Mind’ I had to tell the little jam and cream pikelets, mini savoury pies and the macaroons that I can no longer indulge in their company. That there is no room in my life for them anymore. Then came the ‘left hook’ from our host. “Can I get you something to drink, lee? Beer? Bourbon, Wine?” Right then I had a moment of clarity and came to the realisation that not only was I battling diabetes and trying to lose weight, but I was also tackling a 15 year drinking problem, too. I have never admitted this out loud before (and technically, I’m not doing that by writing this) but I was an alcoholic. A functioning alcoholic, at that. The whole ‘no drinking’ is what is really going to kill me. I’m not used to it. It has been such a big part of my adult life for so long. It was my release. I need to replace it with something. Maybe I’ll replace it with tattoos. There are zero calories in tattoos. There are also zero calories in pingers, but I don’t think that an A Class drug habit is the answer. Kicking the booze is the worst part of this whole ordeal. To be honest, it was probably also a contributing factor in my mid car meltdown at the kiddies. My poor family, they’re the ones that’ll get it the worst. It’s always the ones closest to you that get it the worst. I politely declined the drink and said that I was happy with my bottle of water. I’m not looking forward to social functions with my friends, in fact; I’m just waiting for my mates to drop the line “The old Lee wouldn’t say no to a beer”. Well guess what? The old Lee isn’t here anymore. He’s been booted out of the car on the northern motorway for losing his shit at his kids. He’s been thrown out in the recycling bin, with all the empty Lion Red bottles and half-filled, flat bottles of Coke. That prick is gone, and he isn’t coming back. Fucking deal with it! When we got home I decided that I would have my cheat meal for the week. I wanted a KFC double down. Shit the bed did I want a KFC Double Down. Why did they have to bring them back now? NOW OF ALL TIMES?! It’s almost as if fast food establishments don’t care about my current state of health. Just watching the commercial for the Double Down fills my entire mouth with saliva. I ended up grabbing Chinese from the best Chinese takeaways on the westside – Golden Palace on Bruce McLaren Road. Seriously – if you’re ever on the west side of Auckland there are two things you need to do.
I decided to get Chinese because in the big scheme of things, isn’t the worst cheat meal there is. I went for chicken. Chicken Chow Mein. Loaded with broccoli, cauliflower, carrot and Onion, with the crispy noodles that get all soggy and delicious like. I also had 5 or 6 pieces of sweet and sour chicken, which are deep fried and full of sugar but, fuck you! What you gonna do about it? I’ll fight you! The portions were smaller, and it felt great eating something that I WANTED to eat, not something that I HAD TO eat. My brother grabbed me a drink to go with dinner, too. A 2.25 litre L&P. 2.25 litres!!!!!! Even when I was smashing fizzy drinks, there is no way I could do a 2.25 litre bottle of L&P. Unless it was used as a mixer. He said, and this is a direct quote from the little bro ~ “Seeing as you can’t have much sugar anymore I thought I’d buy you a drink that doesn’t have as much sugar in it as the others” …………...Honestly? Jesus……. The thought was there, just not the logic. My brother is also the same genius who once said that Ice Cream was a healthy option as a dessert because it is made up mostly of air (oxygen). Dinner was fantastic. I didn’t feel weird or like I had let myself down for eating takeaways. Baby steps after all. Everyone is giving me dieting tips and success stories of people they know, which I am grateful for, but please, let me figure this out on my own. I don’t want to go too hard too soon. At the moment I am focussing on two things
Chur. L
0 Comments
First – Thank you for the support. I actually had to turn my notifications from Facebook off last night because they were doing my head in. What I failed to mention in my previous piece is that I am going to start a LCHF diet very soon. Sadly, I did not find out about this until after shopping day. My sister in law Shannon (who I have always called Yanny (not Laurel) ………Don’t ask - long story………O. K well I used to call her Yannon when she was about 11 or 12 and then it just got shortened to Yanny. I give people ridiculous nicknames, it’s kind of my thing. Take my sister Gary for example. Her real name is Carol-Anne. About 10 years ago when my wife and I were out drinking with my brother and his ex-wife (such a shame that that ended) we met a Scottish girl called ‘Ang-Harrod’. I know, right!? Poor kid. ANG fucking HARRAD! When I next saw Carol-Anne I started to call her ‘Harrod-Anne which then got shortened to ‘Harry’ then from ‘Harry’ to ‘Gary’ and she’s been that ever since. It’s not weird to anyone that knows us and when I introduce her to friends/colleagues of mine for the first time I say “Hey, this is my sister Gary” they look at her as if to say, ‘poor kid’ then they smile and say, “nice to meet you”. She is also known as
She is my sister and without a doubt my favourite sibling, so she deserves every bit of shit she gets. Shit – what a tangent! Anyway – Yanny told me about this KETO LCHF diet that she has been on and it sounds amazing so I’m going to be smashing that out real soon. This Extra ‘Lemon/Lime’ chewing gum loses its flavour really fast. Did anyone else’s parents tell them that the way to get chewing gum its flavour back was to put it in the freezer in a glass of water and a teaspoon of sugar? Man, parents can talk some utter shit! What a load of bollox. Sort your shit out EXTRA, seriously – flavour gone in about 24 chews. Look at me - Apparently beggars can be choosers. At least it’s sugar free ‘Excess consumption may have laxative effect’ good to know. In America instead of that little phrase on their sugar free products it says “WARNING – May cause anal leakage’………………ANAL. LEAKAGE. That’s terrible. Almost as bad as ‘Morbidly Obese’. I remember when I was a child I stole a massive bag of my mum’s diabetic lollies (OH FUCK THAT’S RIGHT – MUM HAD TYPE 2 DIABETES TOO) I failed to mention that in my previous blog. I took the whole bag down to the school at the end of the road and just had a massive bender on them. Mum asked at dinner where her lollies went and if I had taken them she said something like “you won’t get in trouble, I just want to know if you took them because I can’t remember if I left them at work or not”. I lied. I wasn’t going to get stitched up and smacked for taking those. Parents are notorious liars. When they say, “you’re not going to get in trouble” and you do, it’s like those people that start a sentence with “I’m not racist, but” ……….and then they go on to spout the most racist thing you have ever heard……She later found out that I did steal them because I had some pretty severe ‘Anal Leakage’. I’m talking a serious shit storm, a poo-nami, a chocolate waterfall, bum wees. You get the gist. Maybe consider making Bacon flavoured sugar free gum, EXTRA? I went to a concert last night. Sober. Free tickets from work – WHAT A JOB PERK! The first time in quite some time actually and I had a blast. Steven Adler the original drummer from Guns N Roses played the PowerStation with his band ‘Adler’s Appetite’. Before this though, he had a Q&A session on stage with his mum Deanna, hosted by Bryce Casey (who I work with at The Rock) who is also one of my broadcasting heroes. The gig was billed in two parts. The Q&A at 8:45 and then his band playing ‘Appetite for Destruction’ in its entirety. His band was actually pretty fucking good. It featured former American Idol contestant ‘Constantine someone or rather’ on lead vocals and ‘Sons of Anarchy’ actor and fill in motorcycle man, ‘Sean McNabb’ who fucked shit up on the bass!.............The Q&A was kind of weird. It was an obvious opportunity for his mother Deanna (who is 76 and would still totally get it) to plug her book and talk about her now ‘New York Times’ bestseller ‘Sweet Child of Mine – How I Lost My Son to Guns N Roses’. The Adler’s swapped stories from Steven’s previous life with the band and Bryce did an amazing job to keep Steven from going on tangents (He was a junkie for about 40 years and has recently had a heart attack and a stroke so the dude’s totally out the gate). At one point Adler said “When this guy (Bryce) shuts the fuck up we can play some fucking Rock n Roll” to which Bryce replied “Hey Look, Steven I’m getting paid to be here – If you want to play then you can play” or something to that effect, I can’t remember I was drun…………. NO. WAIT I WASN’T! That’s the whole point of this blog piece. I WENT TO A GIG AND DIDN’T HAVE A SINGLE DROP OF ALCOHOL. I did however, sneak a few sniffs of my date Josh’s Jack Daniels premix (which he caught me doing and looked slightly grossed out by) and I may or may not have been around people that were smoking the devil’s lettuce and some of the second-hand smoke may or may not have found its way into my body and mellowed me out a little…………MAYBE. As soon as the band started this lovely looking lass approached me with three beers and said, “Do you want these”? I politely declined. She grabbed me by the scruff and pulled me in close to her. Not gonna lie – I did think that maybe she could tell that I had been eating healthily for the past 4 days and could notice a change in me and that she wanted some of this ‘hot pumpkin ass’. She didn’t. She pulled me in to tell me that the drinks were her husbands and that he wasn’t ‘allowed’ any more drinks. Enter Husband. You should have seen the state of this cunt! He sat, no. He fell down on the couch next to me with a full beer and it shot up out of the glass and absolutely soaked my pants. Prick. I pushed him aside nicely and he looked up at me with eyes that seemed to have all signs of life drained out of them and were stuck in a silent scream. “Baaaahhhrghhh Smallarrghhh Schmorryyyyy” he muttered. We’ve all been there, pal. Slug some water and find your happy place. By song #3 in the set – he was out. What an absolute ringworm. You could tell that GnR was his favourite band and that he was just so fucking excited to be seeing one of the original members live that he went way too hard and peaked way too early. Rookie mistake. Slow and steady wins the race, mate. As I watched his wife fend off people who were trying to kick and humiliate her poor coma’d out little bitch of a husband, Steven Adler started slapping out a wicked little drum solo. My phone just beeped ‘New Health Records Received’. Shit I love this ‘Manage My Health’ App. KIDNEYS ARE FINE! NO protein in them (apparently that’s bad). I’m trying to avoid going on Google with my new-found diagnosis. They might as well call Google ‘Everything’s Cancer’. I tend to stay off the internet for that reason, it’s so negative. I mean you go on the internet and people hate ‘Forrest Gump’ That’s the BEST MOVIE EVER. Drum solo over. I’d been at the gig for about 90 minutes and I needed a drink. Thank god for free water stations at bars. It wasn’t Ice water, but it did the trick. I even brought a glass back for little Mr. ‘Can’t hack the piss’. That’s not fair actually. I’m sure he had had close to 7 peppermint schnapps. It was an amazing gig, really! I got to see an original member of GnR play an album that he helped write and record and toured extensively on, live! After the gig I bumped into my two bosses at The Rock near where I was sitting, Brad and Reagan. They both came over to me and were genuinely concerned about the state of my health. Reagan’s like some sort of wizard in the kitchen, seriously! Dude can cook! He offered to send me some recepies that are low in carbs and sugar and really easy and tasty to make. Brad offered me some solid support, too. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here. “Lee, I’m a little fucked up, but I read your blog earlier today. You got this, bro! It’s not going to be easy, but YOU FUCKING GOT THIS. We’re all behind you”. It’s was nice to hear that from those guys. They really do care about their staff and I felt validated and appreciated not only as an employee but as their friend, which is a rare find in a boss; a friendship. My first gig with no alcohol was a huge success. I managed to weasel my way backstage for the meet and greet after the show, too. Kane, the promoter (who must be fuckkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnngggg sick of me by now) let me go upstairs with my friend Josh and get my album signed. Afterwards as I was leaving, he came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said…. “Lee you have to stop fucking coming to my shows. I’m sick of you and your bloody signatures” ……. He sounded serious. I hope he was joking, because that dude puts on some seriously fucking rad shows. I’m not gonna stop going to ‘em. NEVER! Kane if you’re reading this – I have a bottle of Jack here with your name on it, mate. I am so appreciative of all that you’ve swung for me in the past months. You’re a good cunt and you dress incredibly well. He then laughed and invited me back to the Ding Dong Lounge for a drink. I told him ‘maybe’, it wasn’t really the time or the place for the whole “I’m not drinking anymore because I’m now a diabetic” etc…. Shit. I’m a diabetic. Steven Adler was a trip to meet. I gave him a hug (well he hugged me. I’m not special, he was hugging everyone) and he signed my ‘Appetite’ LP with the gold paint pen I brought with me. He looked at the paint pen and said in a Californian stoner type of accent… “That’s gonna smudge, mannnnn. Don’t let it smudge” I assured him that I wouldn’t let it smudge. I then met his mother Deanna and thanked her for her time – She smiled and said, “you’re welcome”. Driving home from the gig I was filled with an incredible sense of pride and accomplishment. Normally that kinda night was a ‘bottle of Jack’ kinda night. When actually a ‘250ml of H20’ night sufficed. I only had two glasses of water the whole night, didn’t go to the pisser once and didn’t nick out the back for a cheeky dart (I’ve been off the darts since October 13, 2017). I didn’t miss any of the gig due to excessive alcohol consumption. I didn’t miss any of my favourite songs due to cueing up for the toilet and then getting stage fright at the urinal and ‘pretending’ that I’ve gone wees, only to have to go and line up again and wait for a cubicle. Most importantly, Last night I had fun…. Now – Off to Morepork for a Salad and some Insta-goodness. Love you, all thanks for the continued support, Lee or Diabet-lee………… (Nah. That’s a shit nickname). A week ago, I changed doctors. After having the same GP for the past 29 years, he decided to sell up his practice (Ranui Medical Centre) to the big boys at East Tamaki Healthcare……….EAST TAMAKI in RANUI?!. What absolute bullshit. This meant that no longer could I book an appointment with a regular doctor – They have adopted an ‘emergency room’ type of system, where you just walk in and get seen…………………eventually.
My very first appointment at my new medical centre was last Tuesday (15th May). I went in and informed my new GP that I wanted to get a colonoscopy as bowel cancer runs in my family. I know what you're thinking - I've seen the size of you, lee - No one runs in your family......... Anyway, 8 years ago, I lost my mother to bowel cancer and since then have had several aunties diagnosed with that bitch! He was very informative and told me that since I had had a first-degree relative die from bowel cancer under the age of 55 (she was 51) that he could refer me right away to a specialist and that it would be free. RESULT. He also thought he’d better have a poke around inside me and check my prostate while I was there. I’d only just met this guy and within ten minutes he was already three knuckles deep inside the border line having a wee feel of me prostate gland – All clear, nothing to worry about. You know what?! It actually wasn’t that bad………..Wait…..Strike that. It was in NO way enjoyable, but for something that was relatively pain free and over in a matter of seconds, it was actually O.K. Making eye contact with him afterwards was surprisingly easy, too. He has such beautiful eyes. With my sphincter still in shock, my new doctor then asked me when I last had my bloods done, and I stopped to think; I couldn’t think of any time in my adult life (since I was 18) EVER having blood tests done. That’s how shit my old doctors were. Maybe it’s down to me. Maybe I should have asked for them? Surely during my previous appointments over the past 14 years, my doctor should have sent me for blood tests……..Nope. So, I went to get a full set of bloods done two days later (Thursday). I’m covered in tattoos so needles don’t really bother me. It was over in a matter of minutes (like me in the bedroom) and I left in a relatively good mood as I was heading into my favourite place in the world – Morepork BBQ (the restaurant where I work as a social media specialist) for a spot of lunch (I smashed back a fried chicken sandwich and some collard greens - So fucking good)! and I whacked out a quick Instagram story. The next day (Friday) I was at Morepork again (working, not eating this time) I missed a call from an 09 833 number. I thought this was my sons day-care calling to tell me that he needed to be picked up (he had had a little cough that my wife and I thought may escalate while he was at day-care). It wasn’t. It was my new medical centre informing me that my new doctor would like to see me to talk about my blood tests on Monday……..Shit. This can’t be good. And it wasn’t. Type 2 Diabetes. FUCK! The first thing that went through my mind was that I was going to have to stop drinking (this is where most of my sugar intake comes from). In fact, when I changed doctors I had to fill out a form indicating my weekly intake of alcohol and I put 10 – 12 beers a week. I only did this as there was no space to write “on a usual night out I’ll start with a 12 box of Reds and then smash a 1L bottle of Jack Daniels when I’ve had enough of beer”. I have been drinking (to excess) every weekend (bar my year off the piss in 2013) since I was 15/16 years old. That’s a fuck tonne of sugar and carbs……. Never really bothered me, though. Even when my weight started to creep up I just thought “all bought and paid for, innit”? I took pride in the fact that I could put away as much as I could and fuck me running I could put it away. One year at a work function I had a 42 can wizard stick (I could hold it over my works balcony and it touched the ground floor)! I once drank 15 beers during the first half of an All Blacks game. But my claim to fame was the way I poured my glasses of Jack & Coke. “Lee mixes” they were known as. One particular night before a concert I did a bottle of Jack in 6 mixes. So, the notion that I could no longer drink like that truly sucked! Safe to say I had a pretty heavy drinking problem…….I wouldn’t touch a drop during the week but when the weekend came along – it was all on! My wife said, ‘you can still have one or two beers every now and then’ to which I replied – ‘I’m not drinking for the taste - What’s the point’?! Anyway, back to the DIABETE’S. FUCK! My doctor told me that it’s not the worst thing in the world and that it is 100% curable by weight loss. I AM UNDER NO ILLUSION THAT THIS DIAGNOSIS IS THE RESULT OF ME BEING SUCH A FAT FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. It’s all on me! I own it and I’m gonna change it! So, the action plan is simple – Stop being such a fat piece of shit. Kick the booze, eat better/less, exercise more and lose some fucking weight! I should mention that now that I am with my new doctor I have this app on my phone called ‘Manage My Health’ and it allows me to see ALL of my doctor’s records dating back to like, 1993. Every diagnosis is there for me to view, every prescription, all test results from every test I have ever had! It turns out that in 2014 I was diagnosed as being ‘Morbidly Obese’…WHAT THE FUCK?! No one told me that news. Why did I not get this information?! Had someone told me in 2014 that I was morbidly obese I’d have sorted that shit out, pronto! I mean, I always knew that I was Fat but I never knew that I was morbidly obese. I thought those cunts were the kind of ‘Jerry Springer show contestant’ fat. I’m not as bad as the diabetics that have to prick their fingers with needles and measure their blood sugars every day and shit, which is good. I am however, on medication called Metformin. “Metformin is used with a proper diet and exercise program and possibly with other medications to control high blood sugar. It is used in patients with type 2 diabetes. Controlling high blood sugar helps prevent kidney damage, blindness, nerve problems, loss of limbs, and sexual function problems” Loss of limbs? FUCK NO. NO THANK YOU. The first step in my new lifestyle is the eating. I’d fucking eat, man! I didn’t eat too badly, but the portions in which I would eat were fucking mental. I know what you’re thinking “working for an American BBQ restaurant is really gonna help with the eating healthy” – Well Morepork do salads, too. So, fuck you! I have cut out all carbs and sugar out of my diet. I am on day 4 of eating salads with 100g of chicken for lunch and 100grams of lean meat/fish and salad/veges for dinner. It doesn’t suck too much but I can see it starting to blow big time, real soon. REAL SOON. I am looking into healthy zero carb/sugar meal ideas and man, there are some gangster feeds out there I can smash out. I also don’t eat anything after 6pm (which is the hardest part) snacking was huge for me. A box of Pizza Shapes would go down like a sack of assholes after dinner. Either that or I’d smash back the left overs from dinner. Sometimes I’d eat and then go to bed. Well done, Lee. Well done. SO basically my daily meals are as follows Breakfast 8:00am – One Egg – Poached Lunch – 12pm on the dot – A salad with either 100g of Tuna or Chicken Dinner – 5:30pm – 100g chicken/fish/lean beef and salad or broccoli Then I don’t eat until my egg the next morning. (I chew a lot of gum and drink a lot of water and every now and then I find myself having the odd herbal tea). Next is exercise. I’d joke to myself all the time and think that walking 50 meters to take my daughter to her classroom from a car park, was exercise. The truth is, that was the only exercise I was getting (if you can call that exercise, which you can’t). I’d decline going on family walks with the dog because I was ‘in the middle of cooking dinner’ or because my clubbed foot was sore. I do have a clubbed foot and I have no ankle movement in my left ankle due to it being fused when I was 10 years old. It is literally only there to be stood on and it is having to carry ALL my weight as I alternate steps. I have no rotation, nor do I have any planter flexion etc. So, in my defence (slightly) walking and running as a form of exercise is not ideal and is very painful for me. Bike riding and swimming/water walking aren’t, though. Re introducing my body to regular exercise is the first step. I have been taking small steps in the right direction, like parking a street over from where my daughter’s school is and not parking right in front of the offices. Taking the dog on daily walks of about 1.5 k’s and while on those walks running up the hills that on the route. I have an appointment in early June to get a ‘green prescription’ which gives me cheap gym membership at my local gym West Wave. This gives me access to both the gym and the pools/spa/sauna. SO, water walking ang exercycles are waiting for me in the not too distant future. Good times. I will be writing a blog as often as I feel lead to. Sometimes they may be long pieces of writing and other times they may just be the ramblings of a cunt who is sick of eating fucking salads and cottage cheese. I’m not writing this to get sympathy – As I said, I know that this is my fault and I own that completely. I just thought this would be an easy way to let my friends know that the reason that I’m not going out for drinks with them or that I’m not keen on Sals or KFC for dinner anymore isn’t because I don’t like them anymore, but because I just can’t. For me. For my family. I just can’t. Time to get healthy. |
Details
AuthorLee Weir - Radio Announcer, Marriage Celebrant and Guinness World Record Holder. Archives
January 2024
Categories |