Day 188: I think I have to be a vegan.

You may have noticed by now that I'm a tiny bit susceptible to diet and health fads. I remember when I was a kid, my Dad was always going through different crazes - usually around sports or exercise, like the marathon phase, the cycling phase, the windsurfing phase, the canoeing phase, the camping phase etc. - and it's kind of like I do that too, only with things like pilates, different types of yoga, running, gyming, and diets. I have before, found myself in the situation of having read so many different and conflicting reports on what constitutes the optimum diet, that I have felt unable to eat a single thing in case I break one of the myriad rules swimming about in my overstuffed mind. I got over that by dropping rules altogether and eating whatever I felt like, until the next latest awesome thing came along. Now, of late, because I've felt restricted enough with the not drinking, I have been eating pretty much freestyle. And much to my horror (but not exactly surprise) I have found that allowing myself ice creams and lollies and chocolate whenever I goshdarn feel like it has seen the glorious kgs I shed in the first stage of not drinking, slowly creeping back on. This will not do. Apart from the fast approaching North American bikini season I am about to embrace, there's the fact that if I get fat when I'm not drinking, getting back on the piss could be truly diabolical. Now I know I'm an appalling fat-bore. And I really do apologise for going on about stupid crap like this with such alarming regularity, but please humour me one more time. To kick myself into healthy gear, I went and purchased another book. (I know...) It's called Skinny Bitch and has been around for ages. Anyway, it's quite a fun read in the most part, except for the bit where they tell you about how the animals we eat are treated in the slaughterhouses. That bit, or the things it described, was absolutely, devastatingly awful and completely and utterly wrong. It really affected me. And now I think I might have to be a vegan. It also helps that the book says being vegan will make you skinny, but it can't hurt not to torture and brutalise a whole bunch of perfectly peaceful and defenseless animals along the way. Can I do it along with everything else? I have no freakin idea. But the least I can do is give it a bloody good try.

P.S. Happy Birthday to my Nanna, who turns 92 today, and to my flatmate James who turned 27? 28? He's a pipsqueak anyway (although rather tall).