There are tons of self-help and self-improvement and self-you-name-it books out there about being positive.

And not for nothing either, because being positive has a major impact on one’s life.  It goes beyond a happy mindset, being friendly, cheerful and all those other attractive qualities.  Being positive impacts on health, it boosts the immune system, lowers stress and, with it, cholesterol levels; to name but a few that I have personal experience of.

There’s plenty of positive reasons to be positive about being positive. But I haven’t been all that positive recently.

The Slippery Slope Of Mental Depression

I caught myself recently, over the last few days especially, being rather negative.  Something I usually don’t dabble in, because I know it’s a pointless, de-constructive waste of energy.  But I’ve been criticising much, finding fault and wallowing in a generally depressed mood.

I swear depression is in the colon, because it’s a really shit place to be.  I associate depression with the colour and smell of dark, red-wine induced faeces; something I certainly want to get away from as soon as possible.

My emotional elevator doesn’t go down to the depression level all that often and when it does, it usually sinks to the basement only briefly, opens the door for a rapid glimpse at exactly why it doesn’t go down there, and then quickly closes rising back up to the happy, bright place of optimism and positive outlooks.

However, the emotional spiral staircase that leads down to the stinky, dank level of depression, is long and slippery.  Once you start down this staircase of despair it’s not so quick and easy to get out.  On the way down you will slip, slide down quick and once you’re knee-deep in that gooey, cold emotional excrement, it’s alarming how soon you can lose your way, get used to it, and worse, start feeling comfortable in it.

There’s two ways out.  Good friends who come down, pinch their noses and extract you from the stickiness of your emotional sewerage, or an image from your memory banks as a profound reminder why you should get out.

Image Initiated Depression Ejection

A miscarriage.

Hating so much you become depressed.  Emotional stress. Impact on your system so great, you eject new life.  Or the new life aborts by itself, not willing to face a world that invoke such emotions.

I’m male. Obviously I can’t ever experience a miscarriage.  Or hate, and not that much, for that matter.

But this is the imagine that forces me to eject from the septic tank that is my depression level.  The image hangs on the wall down there.  It’s the reminder of why I don’t want to be depressed, or why I don’t want to spend any energy on hating, loathing, plotting revenge or dabble in negativity or pessimism.

Nothing good can come from it.

Depression, along with all these other soot-covered emotional states and thoughts, is the inefficient combustion engine of the the mind.  You have to burn so much energy to use it, and all you really can show for it is emotional pollution.

Why bother? It’s not the way I want to live my life. It’s hardly living at all.

Positive Energy

Optimism, on the other hand, is the mind’s perpetual motion machine.

Optimism and a positive outlook seemingly draws energy from the ether. From other people. From your surroundings.  As if by being positive, seeing the good in life, being optimistic, you are somehow connected to the universal power-grid

Positive people have more energy. Positive people live longer.  Positive people are more popular, have less stress, get better service, slice through traffic, stand in the fastest queue, see turtles in the TAR marine park, are healthier, happier and find luck often.

People who claim to be on top of the world, are.  They are on the top of their world.  I know that the top few floors of my mind are the optimism floors.  When I’m there, I’m standing tall, looking out ceiling-to-floor windows with a wide balcony, looking over the landscape and seeing everything that is good.

It smells like freshly brewed coffee, warm bread hot out of the oven.  It’s cool in summer and warm in winter and there’s always fresh air coming through the window.

I like being positive.

I’m a glass half full kind of guy, the one who makes lemon meringue pie when life gives me lemons, I see the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel, the bright side, through permanent rose-coloured inlays, with the wind at my back in the sun in my face, already standing on the greener grass.

I may have been on one knee in the shit you created.

But you won’t get me down.

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It’s one thing to think to yourself that you’ve picked up some weight, but when the third person in a week says “oh, picked up some weight, have you?”, then it’s undeniably time to lose weight.

The past festive season is still haunting me with the delicious goodness that it lavished me with. In laymen terms, I gorged, and now I’m fat. ‘Just desserts’ is the applicable, ironic pun.

Flabby Gut is no stranger to this blog, he has featured many times. In fact, he could possibly start up his own blog. He’s larger than life, carries a lot of weight, has a prominent position in society and frequently stretches the limit. Flabby Gut has to be evicted.

The festive season started very early, late November in fact. A slew of birthday parties, house warming parties and parties for seemingly no reason preceded the usual gluttony of Christmas. Naturally, popular activities included the consumption of beer, party food, more beer, and not much exercise at all.

Now, it takes no physical health expert or mathematician, for that matter, to realise that an increase in calorie consumption and a decrease in activity causes the clothing in your cupboard to shrink. It’s true. Another unwanted, visual side-effect of the above equation is Flabby Gut.

And after having to smile, as if they complimented me, at my colleagues at work who insists on point out my weight gain, I realise that perhaps I am a little fatter than I wanted to admit. And fat denial, for me, is a dangerous hobby.

I have an annoyingly sensitive cholesterol level and I know, that when I eat the wrong stuff and don’t do enough exercise, my levels are probably beyond safe. And, have studies shown, there’s no love in love handles, because that’s where all the nasty fat goes. So, when I look in the mirror and see that my love handles have turned into safety railings capable of supporting a cripple elephant, there’s no hiding for the fact that I need to tend to my weight and health.

Luckily, the road to recovery is easily implement. The basic principle is really simple: burn more calories than what you consume. We all know what we should do, we just choose not to do it, which is why we turn into fat, sedentary, cholesterol sufferers. So here’s the plan of action I’m following to evict Flabby Gut, lose some weight and fit into my clothes again:

• Hourly walks, I’m a computer person, so every hour I take a short 5 minute walk;
• Core clenches. Whilst I walk, I clench those core muscles, the secret key to fab-abs;
• At least two apples a day; or any fruit for that matter, as many portions as possible (5 is optimal);
• Drink less beer. 1 beer is equal in calories to 6 slices of white bread. Less beer!;
• Eat less fried food!! No brainer, not just fattening, but unhealthy for various reasons;
• 1 Teaspoon of Olive Oil per day. Chock full of antioxidants and actually increases good cholesterol;
• Run! I’ve started with a 5km routine, it’s a great calorie burner;
• Butt clenches!! My spiteful body picks up weight first in the gut, but loses it first in the ass. I like my round ass, so drastic measures has to be taken to prevent it from disappearing;

I started this routine on Tuesday, and already it’s paying dividends. I had to shave my hairy torso to assess the situation properly. Hard to see the extent of Flabby Gut when he’s hiding under so much fur, and it actually looks much bigger without the fur.

Anyway, when I’ve chissled away a six-pack from all the flab that’s covering them now, perhaps I’ll post a pic. In the meantime, here’s to good health (raising glass of mineral water).

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