If a person is unable or, more likely, unwilling to drop from three to two meals a day, they might be able to try moving the evening meal to an earlier time or at least, try downsizing.

Isn’t that the great unattainable of this modern world though; everything(body) has become so big yet efforts to downsize are usually in vain?

It’s a fact that most humans eat more than they need to survive, therefore, for most, ‘eating less’ is more the adjusting of a routine than it is embarking on the abnormal; also, I guess, in order to move from three to two meals per day, one needs to first start eating ‘meals’ rather than just ‘whatever-crap-I-can-shove-in-my-mouth-whenever-I-can-manage, because my life is so busy’ (come on, we went there last time; I feel I have adequately pointed out that, generally, this perceived ‘business’, is largely silliness). In fact, what would be genuinely interesting to discover is, of all these ‘hectic’ Kiwi lives, if there is actually anything more being achieved, or if we have just developed markedly improved Facebook response times…?

While we sleep, our bodies repair damage done throughout the day; understandably, our bodies burn significantly fewer calories (energy) while we sleep as opposed to our waking hours. The issue is that when a person goes and fills their stomach with food before sending it to bed for slumber, suddenly, instead of that body’s nightly repair-job, it is now having to fulfil the task that has taken priority – digesting, processing then neatly packing away a stomach-full of food before morning.

To those people who are accustomed to waking with sinuses full of mucus, this is generally the cause; your body has spent all night processing a stomach-load of food thus the increased body-heat generated by an overworked digestive system has caused your body to experience mild hyperventilation which has resulted in irritated airways hence the appearance of the body’s natural lubricant, mucus.

The added benefit of sleeping on a less-than-full stomach is that when you wake, generally, you will feel like eating; by breaking the nightly fast each morning a person can be sure of a more energetic body and clearer-thinking mind.

If eating earlier/eating less on bedtime is a possible life adjustment, I assure you, it is a worthwhile one; the benefits are more than I can be bothered documenting today.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Slim Lyne

Photography by Ways Lyne

 

I am sick of fully functional people, with the help of 21^st century medical science, being afforded liberties to make their lives more desirable.

 

Cosmetic surgery to allow the desperately self-conscious among us to be happy.

More cosmetic surgery because the way that nature grew us just isn’t satisfactory.

Antidepressants for those people who find themselves having a bad day.

More antidepressants because life continues to present difficult situations.

Diet pills for those who have allowed themselves to become larger than they would like.

Gastric bypasses for when they become so big they need a new knee to carry themselves.

 

I am sick of New Zealand’s Socialist Government spending a lot of money on people who, ultimately, don’t deserve anyone’s help.

 

Convicts continuously enlisting legal aid because they want to make changes.

Other inmates with nothing else to do but lobby for increased standards of living.

Facial reconstruction for idiots who explode their kitchens while cooking meth.

Prosthetic limb for the one who crashed their car and lost a leg trying to outrun Police.

Medical attention for the youth bleeding out after the dairy owner defended himself.

All other medical attention for injuries sustained while committing serious criminal acts.

 

I am sick of shitheads, I am sick of their arrogance, I am sick of their entitlement, I am sick of their discourtesy, I am sick of their over-confidence, I am sick of their commanding natures; I am sick of their bumptious attitudes which seem to preclude any fear of consequence should they one day decide to pull in their heads and take responsibility for their lives thereby appreciating the emotional destruction caused by their callous actions.

 

Sometimes life is difficult.

Sometimes people make it harder.

Sometimes life is unfortunate.

Sometimes people make it better.

Sometimes life doesn’t deliver what we want.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes life is not worth living.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes life is unfair.

Sometimes life is just life.

Sometimes we need to take responsibility for our lives.

Sometimes we need to make changes within our lives.

Sometimes we need to learn to live with the vicissitudes of life.

Sometimes we need to realise that simply, life wasn’t put here for us – we were put here for life.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Devi Staten

Photography by E Motions

 

 

Who, in this aspiring cashless society where electronic transactions have become practically mindless, still makes payments using cheques?

To assume that every New Zealander is totally onboard the Internet bandwagon though, with its expeditious and electronically pervasive methods of transacting finances, simply, is short-sighted; indeed, there are still some people who appreciate the convenience of writing their own money, then passing off their pseudo banknotes as legal tender.

Why, if technology has increased to the point where a monetary transaction can be executed in the space of a few seconds, do banks still claim that it takes ‘three to five working days’ to clear a cheque?

How, when a bank’s computer system can display the value of a cheque in the recipient’s account within hours of it leaving the teller’s hands then instantaneously deduct that same amount from the account of the cheque distributor, can banks still claim those funds to be ‘Not Accessible’?

What, when banks now possess the technology to transfer any form of monetary figure to anywhere in the world within 24 hours, are banks doing with the value of your cheque for ‘three to five working days’?

Where, I think it would be interesting to discover, and moreover into what short-term investment accounts, does the value of all cheque-payments – because they assuredly do still exist – go for ‘three to five working days’?

Just like the way New Zealand Telcos endeavour to exploit those of us unwilling to embrace Email, Facebook, or Skype’s free messaging service by charging telephone users ridiculously exorbitant ‘International Roaming’ fees to use their services abroad, it is my belief that banks are endeavouring to capitalise on the terribly antiquated payment method that is the writing of a cheque.

If, for example, 100 New Zealanders, on any given day, write/deposit/pay using cheques (with an adult population of well over a million citizens, this is tantamount to around 1 in 10,000 Kiwi adults who still use cheques, so it is feasible), and on average, if each of those cheques is worth $1000 (cheque use is typically reserved for larger payments), that’s $100,000, theoretically, each day, that NZ banks are taking in cheque payments.

Alright. Let’s do this over a year, to keep it real. Approximate daily takings of $100,000 equals $36,500,000 that New Zealand Banking Institutions are hypothetically, theoretically, annually, taking from chequers; that’s 36 and a half million which, even for ‘three to five working days’ at a time, if one was clever (which bankers often are), could be earning someone a great deal of illicit income.

Given banks’ ability to electronically confirm the existence of funds’ availability within seconds, and given also the way that the corresponding numbers dis/appear from/in respective accounts within hours of the cheque being seen, in the 21^st century, there is no reason for banks to deliberate over cheques for any longer than any other payment method.

This prolonged chequing clearance has always been the way banks have worked and thus, I have always accepted it. In recent years, however, I have realised that it should no longer be the way. There is no reason, no excuse for it; something decidedly underhanded is occurring within financial institutions and it doesn’t appear to have ever been questioned.

In no other situation would it be acceptable for a third-party corporation to hold funds while in escrow for no valid reason; let alone for three to five working days.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Al Esset

Photography by Chan Sac Chun

 

 

 

It’s a simple formula; for a body to remain slim, said body must ingest fewer calories than is needed by that body for basic function.

The alternative is to ingest more than is needed and have the remaining calories (energy) converted to fat by the body then stored under the body’s skin in case of sudden famine.

Of course, every body’s sustenance/energy/calorie requirements are different; metabolic rate, body size, genes et cetera, all come into the equation, yet, taking in account a few variables, the above formula remains the same.

Working alongside one of those ‘variables’, few years ago, inadvertently, I discovered the key to superior fat burning.

Please understand, this was somewhat of an unwelcome revelation as, at that time, with 183 centimetres and barely 72 kilograms to my name, I was already closer to ‘underweight’ than I was ‘overweight’.

Thing about that, few years prior to my ‘revelation’, I recall witnessing the rapid transformation of British comedian, Jimmy Carr, as he went from a massive presence in every way to, only a brief time later, standing still as a hugely tall character but without the accompanying corpulence; also lost, arguably, in the months surrounding his downsizing, was a sizable portion of his ebullience but then, Jimmy Carr’s waning comedic ability of years gone by was not my concern.

Indeed, today’s concern relates to the modern-day penchant for compulsive or, over–eating. “But we’re so busy, you know,” some might contest, “we have no time to eat properly, like, we just have to take what we can get, you know, like a quick snack on the go or you know … We’re just so busy…”

Really? How busy are we? So busy we must eat more, or do less? I mean, really. Are we actually any busier than we were ten years ago, or have we just allowed our lives, our minds to become so terribly occupied by a modern-day technological scourge, that for most of us, we feel there is not-a-moment-to-lose, lest we miss out on the next update or like or comment or validation or request or, other highly-pressing-but-ultimately-pointless, notification? Yes, occupancy may have increased but likely, productivity has remained steady.

Jimmy Carr, all those years back, was interrogated by many notable characters; all asked basically the same question – “So what diet did you do?” – as if there was no way in the world he might just have started an exercise regime.

As I recall, Jimmy Carr, all those years ago, replied simply, “No, no diet, I just cut down to two meals a day.”

This strategy, at least this principle, as verified by my own experience some years later, is worth noting; remember, if your body doesn’t use the energy (calories) you have provided it, that energy (calories) will be converted to fat and stored under the body’s skin for later.

When I (unwittingly) discovered the technique that (lamentably) caused me to, an already slim being with (perceptibly) not a lot to lose, in the space of twelve months, somehow, drop from 72 to 68 kilograms, I was aghast; yet I felt I understood.

My routine for years has remained unchanged: I start the day with a gargantuan breakfast which I consume at my desk over the following hours then, sometime later, at around 2 p.m., I work my way through a similarly sizeable lunch, again at my desk, in preparation for a 6 p.m. sporting engagement (I realise exerting strenuously for the best part of two hours over four nights of the week, to many people, isn’t realistic but that’s fine, please, bear with; like I said, focus on the principle here). I return home around 8, ravenous, grab a banana, a few handfuls of nuts and an apple to wash it all down, before showering and going to bed.

Maintaining this schedule, as a 33-year-old man with no ostensible excess, I dropped a horrifying 4 kilograms; my target weight was, and still is, 75 kilograms yet here I am, to this day, languishing on 68. The principle, like Jimmy’s regime, cut out that evening meal or at least, make it more of an evening snack.

Do have breakfast and do not think that if you go to bed with a full stomach you can skip breakfast the next day, ‘Because you know, it’s like, basically the same thing’. It’s not the same thing. Your body has already taken all the leftover calories from that unnecessarily large evening meal and converted them to fat as you’ve slept. By skipping breakfast that next morning all you’ve effectively done is not announce to your metabolism that it’s time to wake; of course, your body will use some of the fat stores it accumulated the previous night but because you’re still biologically half asleep, because your metabolism has yet to properly awaken, your body won’t allow you to use nearly the amount of energy (calories) you might have after sustenance.

Alternatively, if consuming a sizable evening meal is more important to you than being slim, alright, but how about having it earlier – instead of 9 try 6 p.m. – give your body time to digest and more to the point, to metabolise what you’ve ingested.

Again, this earlier mealtime thing won’t be realistic to some but still, the principle remains the same; endeavour to go to bed empty, rather than full.

You’ll feel better, you’ll look better because of it.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Isla Orway Eatwell

Photography by Fatboy Slim