looking back
It's easy for us to see only the bad in our current situation. I feel we're conditioned to that. We live in a first-world country, one in which we are constantly looking forward to the next big thing. Perhaps to finishing university, getting the degree you've worked for, landing your first "real" job, getting promoted; or maybe it's just the thought of your next pay cheque that's keeping you going. Whatever Object A might be, we are often filled with a frantic desire to get it, as if it is comparable to the innate human need for food, water, shelter and oxygen.
Advertising and social media play right into this part of us, re-enforcing within us that we are incomplete until we reach an arbitrary goal. But then, once we get the thing, oftentimes we realise that it was never the answer to all our problems like we once thought it was, yet we never question that. Rather than asking ourselves why, we simply shift our attention to the next Object A and we start to pursue that instead, giving chase to the uncatchable mouse rather than addressing the elephant in the room.
Nobody is immune to that. I fill my spare time writing about it, yet even I can't always find it within me to resist the hunt. The hunt for more, for better, for the best. It's the hunter-gatherer mentality within us, a mentality that is all but redundant in todays world. I often worry, panic even, that I should be further on in life. Daft as it may sound, what with my starting full time work at 17, buying a car by 18 and a flat at 21. That was the norm for Boomers or Gen X perhaps, but for a Gen Z I'm arguably ahead of the curve - and yet I of all people still worry that I'm not progressing fast enough.
I regularly estimate my career progression and earning potential, often up to 10 years into the future, running numbers based on completely uncertain estimations of my future circumstances. Perhaps I'll have moved house by then, maybe to a flat in the city, or a house in suburbia. Or maybe, for one reason or another, I'll still be in the same place. My mind runs away with itself, sweeping me up as a hostage along for the ride as I spiral deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of uncertainty and insecurity.
These episodes can be daily and are always hard to break from. The solution to this is one I'm still working on. I've even tried blocking Zoopla, RightMove and OnTheMarket on my home router. A great idea in theory (if I do say so myself) but when I'm working from home I connect to a VPN, which bypasses these blocks. Plus, if I really want to browse the housing market, I'd just disconnect from the Wi-Fi and use 4G instead. So even with so much resistance in my way, I still find it hard to resist the urge to seek out more.
The issue is that the problem is intangible, hard to measure or quantify, but mindful moments help. Simple things like washing the dishes or hanging up laundry are a welcomed break from glaring screens and over thinking. There's something about the simplicity of it that's aesthetically pleasing to me. It's in these moments that I allow myself permission to breathe, to reflect and reassure myself that everything will be okay.
I think that's important. In a world of busy people, not only do we get caught up in the chase but when we stop, often we feel guilty for not doing anything. Giving yourself that permission to just fucking stop for a moment is vital.
So I've been making an effort with this recently, standing by the sink or the clothes horse, just breathing and keeping my hands busy. Meditation teachers talk about how meditation isn't about clearing the mind, but more about becoming at ease with the thoughts that do occur. But when I'm stood in the kitchen in my own little world, I feel it's a combination of both.
Since March last year, COVID has been quite the emotional rollercoaster for millions. Not quite as tasking perhaps as the challenges faced by those who have (or are) living through war, famine, disease, all the things those passive-aggressive Facebook posts ramble about. Whilst it's hardly the end of the world, most people in western civilisation have never seen the likes, so I think it's fair to say that normality is a pipe dream. We won't be getting back to what life was like pre-COVID for a long while yet, the fall-out of this pandemic will be far-reaching, inflicting scars which may take years to heal. We can't discredit that, regardless of how much the Facebook warriors may want us to.
Yet despite all the challenges of the past year, I am thankful for and privileged to say that I've come a long way since February 2020. I have had plenty of time to take daily walks and mindful moments by the sink with the Marigold's on. Rather than stress over all the goal posts I still need to hit, or all the ones I've missed, I've instead reflected on all of the ones I've actually reached in the last 12 months and found myself surprised, to say the least!
Last year, I had a sub-par emergency fund. That was down to the boiler breaking in the winter of the previous year, so I scooped £1,700 from the emergency fund to pay for a new one. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, after all it's what the fund is there for. However, my first priority after the fact should have been to recoup the money taken from this fund - but instead I overlooked and quickly forgot about it. In fact it wasn't until months later that I remembered to do this.
I received a pay rise after an annual review, so checked my emergency fund account. This is a best-practice I was used to by this point. Since my emergency fund is three-times my monthly base take-home pay, I needed to check how much I had to add to the fund to make sure I still had enough put away just in case. I was horrified when I realised how much was missing, initially thinking the money had been stolen somehow. It took a few minutes for me to realise what I'd done, or rather, not done!
In fact, in February 2020 I had very little savings of any description. As you know, I travelled for a month in the summer of the previous year, spending frivolously the most amount of money I'd ever had. I then drained my Christmas fund over the course of December for gift-giving. So in the space of six months I'd spent more than £4,000 of my savings, leaving only £200 or so for the home insurance premium - that was it. So my regular savings account was looking grim too! The anxiety! I started questioning at this point whether I'd made the right decision to move out so young, to put so much pressure on myself at just 21 years old. Plus, I was still a recovering credit cardoholic. I wasn't carrying a huge balance any more, but I'd still occasionally find myself out of cash in the pub and whip out the credit card rather than heading for the train. The worst part was that I had a plan, I knew the ditch I was in and what I needed to do to get out of it - but I struggled with the execution, insisting on climbing from the proverbial ditch with one hand tied behind my back.
And lastly, I was in debt. Not just with a mortgage (which is a whole other conversation) but I still had car finance. The same car finance I took out on my first car when I was 18, the car that now spends most of it's days parked on the driveway, barely used. The final payment of £3,900 was due in March and I had no idea where I was going to get that kind of money from. You can read all about that on my post about cars.
I wasn't living a hand-to-mouth existence by any means, I was thankfully able to make ends meet, but I felt I'd always be caught in the same old cycle, without hope of an end.
But then the big man upstairs, or the YouTube algorithm, or both, took pity on me and presented me with a new video and 22 minutes later, I had a new sense of direction. The video is called How to Retire Early and was the source material of my post about FIRE, which details the plan I created to reach early retirement. It gave me a direction to shoot in and the steps I could follow to help me build my own plan. It gave me an idea of what I should prioritise, enabling me to rebuild my emergency fund, pay off my car debt, build a sinking fun and start working toward mortgage freedom - all within a year. I feel like I say this a lot, but it was a game changer!
Like any plan, it's subject to change, but it's always better to have a plan that can change than to not have one at all. Even if retirement doesn't come as early as I'd have liked, I should still reach retirement age confident that I'll be able to live comfortably.
But money matters aside, I was generally discontent. I was stressed out with work, mentally drained and stuffocated. I felt physically unwell, was overeating, docile and in the BMI red zone - the most unfit I'd been in my adult life so far. And that was before Coronavirus! Now working from home, some days not even leaving the house at all, has played havoc with my social skills and body image alike. It's only been in the recent weeks in fact that I've started to work on this again, casting my mind back to my travels throughout 2018 and 2019.
My relationship to food changes when I'm away. Be it in London, Kandersteg or throughout Europe - simple but fulfilling meals, very little snacking and daily, sometimes strenuous exercise, means that I usually find myself coming back home to a nice surprise from the bathroom scales! This was very much the case while we were Interrailling. In fact, we inadvertently adopted a routine of eating just twice per day, with perhaps a coffee break in between. Now obviously that was almost entirely down to our late night partying, so breakfast ended up being more of a brunch. Nowhere was this more-so the case than Budapest. We were at Sziget, a crazy-big festival hosted on an island in the middle of the Danube.
We'd spend all night going to the sets, then would meander around the island, sampling different party tents and necking Vodka Fanta cocktails. We'd surface at around 11, disturbed by the bands on the main stage directly behind our tent doing their early-morning sound check. We'd take turns at taking the 5-minute walk to the coffee cart out on the "main road" - a wide, dusty path scorched by the daily 40-degree heat. If you've ever been to a stereotypical "lads holiday" destination, this main straight was to us what the strip is to the normies! We'd grab two lattes and two croissants that we'd consume cross-legged outside the tent. Then after a quick Glasgow shower, we'd head down to the beach to alternate between basking in the sunlight and bathing in the cooling shoreline waters. I'd lie there in a blurred world, my non-prescription sunnies perched on my nose and a Lucky Strike between my lips, imagining I was Troye Sivan as I drifted in and out of hangover naps, allowing the world to pass me by. I had no idea how long we'd spend on the beach. For a guy that doesn't even like beaches, that feels like a strange thing to say! All I do know is that we'd eventually decide we were hungry. I'd pull a tee over my head, still wearing my damp swim shorts and by the time we reached the food village they'd be practically dry.
There was a whole area of the food village that exclusively sold vegan fast food, the kind that is suspiciously realistic. I'd peruse the expansive menu every day, knowing fine well I was going to get the same burger I'd had for days now. This would be around 4 PM, an early dinner by any standards, but realistically we wouldn't leave there until around 5. By this point it would be time for shower-taking and outfit-making in time for a quick golden hour photo-op, before the main stage set that would kick-off the night. By day two, we had this routine down to a fine art. What I never acknowledged until now was that we were, in essence, practicing elements of intermittent fasting - save of course the vodka!
We were inadvertently following the most basic of diet plans - eat less, move more. Sure, a burger a day keeps a doctor in pay, but it was virtually all we ate. They consume most of your daily calories in one meal, but we were walking several miles per day and dancing all night. I never understood until now how it was physically possible to return from a month of sheer indulgence with no waistline consequences. The only stories of the likes I'd ever heard were in the case of athletes, whom are already conditioned to being very careful about what they eat. Some will even take a morning run on the beach. So as a result its' not uncommon for them to arrive back home slimmer than when they left. In truth, I was always jealous of them, yet I never tried to emulate them.
So this year I'm making an attempt to replicate my holiday lifestyle in a healthier way. So now, I have teamed 3 HIIT sessions per week with a 16-8 intermittent fasting program, meaning I fast for sixteen hours and eat for eight.
From 8 PM till 12 PM I can consume only water, black coffee or tea with a splash of cold water. Then from 12 PM till 8 PM I eat as normal, or at least my proximation of normal. I'm very nearly vegan, but not quite. Eggs for breakfast, the occasional chocolate bar and products that "may contain" milk and eggs being the exception. I get the argument for vegan-ism, I really do. If people were to adopt a more plant-based diet, even cutting out meat and dairy for a day a week, would literally make a world of difference. But at the same time, I've come to the conclusion that life is too short to be too strict with yourself on the foods you eat, unless of course you have no choice. So as the clock strikes 12 I'll have a small breakfast, cereal, eggs or porridge, before starting my online HIIT class. I'll leave it an hour or so and have lunch. When I've been fasting for 16 hours, I find that something small fills me up initially but soon my stomach demands more. So breakfast and lunch aren't very far apart at all. Lunch is usually a wholemeal wrap with some Quorn, spinach, kale and maybe a dollop of vegan mayo, with a handful of cashews and some crisps on the side. Sometimes I'll have some soup with it, but that's about as sexy as it gets. Since I'm trying to follow a 'no coffee after lunch' rule, I'll follow this up with tea and a splash of oat milk. This does a good job at keeping me full till dinner time rolls around.
Come 6 PM, it's time for a plant-based dinner. It's always vegan, to save us making two separate meals, but beyond that it varies wildly in its' content. Sometimes it's a plant-dense curry, other times it's a creamy carbonara, anything goes really. Like I say, I eat to my proximation of normal outwith fasting hours. I'll even have a drink or three at weekends! What I've found is that eating normally I'm able to avoid snacking between meals and sticking to my fast. Not to mention I have something to look forward to at 12 PM every day! It's not a diet of compromise, at least within reason. It's a diet that relies on your body's ability to process the food you give it. So long as you are feeding yourself enough of the right foods I don't see anything wrong with some controlled indulgence.
By 8 PM, the fast begins anew. This is the biggest change for me really. I've seen us sitting down to dinner at 10 PM some nights, or if it's not a main meal it's a tub of ice cream (yes a tub!) or a share pack of crisps. Really there was never anything wrong with my main meals, in my opinion anyway, but my snacking was out of control. So now, rather than sitting in front of the same old telly shows eating the same old pack of Chilli Heatwave crisps (as good as they are), I sit blogging and drinking black tea and water.
By day two of this, curiosity got the better of me, so I took an early weigh-in. I'd lost 1.5 Kg already. Like, what? 1.5 Kg in two days! That might not sound like a lot to some of you, but for a guy that's struggled to loose weight all his life, that's a great feeling.
Since the start of the month, my weight has been reducing gradually. I've fucked-up a few times, of course. Accidentally having dinner slightly later than I should, or deliberately eating earlier than I'm supposed to, either through stress or pure hunger. And truth be told, I have had plenty late-night drinks on Zoom too! Yet despite this, I'm still closing out February 2021 a whole 2.2 Kg lighter than I started it. Again, doesn't sound like a lot. But for my whole life, any time I've tried to loose weight I've been unsuccessful, so this feels like a big step in the right direction. At this rate, hopefully another 5-6 months of slow-growth and I'll be slap-bang in the middle of my recommended weight for my height and age, which is roughly 70 Kg.
All from a simple redefinition to myself over what hungry means to me. It no longer means "yeah, I could eat," but instead, "does the tank need more fuel?" My hope really is that it doesn't develop into an obsession, because loosing weight can be a slippery slope. If I can get myself to a stage where I'm intermittent fasting down to 70Kg, then living normally until 75Kg and then repeat, I'll be a happy bunny.
That's my hope for my next lookback at least! The world is big and busy, full of promises of success, freedom and ephemeral pleasures that you can spend your whole life chasing. But if you look back over the past year or so, you might just find that you're in exactly the place that a younger version of you wanted to be in. Lockdown has been a shit-show, I'm not discrediting that for a moment. I'd even go as far as to say that I don't think I'll come back to normality the same person as I left it. But I think the changes to my life have been value-add changes. So I'd encourage anyone to try it, reflect on the last year or so of your life. You might even surprise yourself!
~ Aedan.
*Yes, I know, black tea has a small amount of caffeine in it too. But I've been drinking strong black coffee from a french press since I was 12, so black tea barely touches the sides!