House

You are actually looking at a row of four houses here, the first door is my house. Well, a 8’x12’ room to be more precise. No kitchen and communal washroom and toilets. Not acceptable, but will have to do until at least end of January.

I received a complaint about my series of diet articles. Well, more a point of concern than a complaint, but rightly, it has given me a lot to think about, whether to continue or not and to think more about what I am writing.

With the view that information is better than no information, I have decided to continue:

Obsession

As blippers, we are all a bit on the obsessive side, it is all a part of blipping. Personally, I am obsessive about everything I do. I know this because people are always telling me. Playing pool is a prime example. People tell me not to take it so serious, relax and enjoy the game. My response is, “I am”! I love the game, I don’t throw tantrums and throw my stick around, I don’t spend all day over every shot, I just concentrate very hard, this is my enjoyment.

But obsession may be the wrong word for the meaning that we normally imply. A truer definition of obsession would probably be a preoccupation with an activity to the detriment of everything and everyone else, a compulsion to do something with no logical sense or reason. This goes beyond the actual activity in question and is a mental problem. Anyone suffering such a problem needs urgent help, but such a person cannot recognize that they are in trouble, as far as they are concerned, everything is under control. Such sufferers, without caring family and friends to recognize the problem, are in grave danger.

The activity of dieting is a major cause of such mental disorders; anorexia, bolemia and a whole host of over-eating problems as well. Anyone considering starting a regime of weight loss, has a whole bag of reading to do, not just about protein, fats, cholesterol, vitamins, calories, quotas, targets and all the rest of it. Space in the reading should be made to read up on the problems that can result from dieting. You just don’t know if you are going to be one of those people who are adversely affected by the whole thing.

Dieting requires honesty, I am not talking about with others, but yourself. What is the point of convincing yourself that the egg that you pork fat fried for breakfast was a medium and cholesterol free, when you know deep down that it was full of ostrich genes and contained so much cholesterol that your red cells need wellies to wade through it all. But thinking that you can self monitor an obsession is out of the question, the nature of the compulsive beast by definition means that this impossible.

Possibly a very good idea to talk to your family and friends, tell them your plans and give them permission to drag you screaming to the doctors or hospital, if they discover that you have gone too far and are in self denial. This is a very serious issue and the last thing that I need is an anorexic blipper knocking at my door.

Dave