Gav’s Blog - Gavin Hudson’s Blog

Hey All,

My last post seemed to be very popular with the ladies on Facebook - lots of comments!  Thanks for that - if you’d like to actually comment on my real blog - then even better.  It even puts a little flag next to the country where you’re posting from, I haven’t seen a Dutch one yet… *cough*

It’s fair to say reactions to me doing this diet have been mixed, 99% are negative and telling me it’s the worst thing I could do.  But the support from others is much appreciated.  Basically I know there must be more ideal and less faddy diets to do, but I think that what I’m doing is better than the alternative, it’s got a set of clear rules and it’s easy to follow, and keeps me focused.  There are no looking at labels, weighing stuff or complicated rules to follow.  There’s no temptation to fall off the wagon - I can’t even have one beer, and I’m liking it.  Here’s an example for the last couple of days, with what I would’ve had to eat/drink and what I actually did….

Friday - Old Reigime

Bacon Butty morning - so bacon and egg sarnie.  Cups of tea, quite possibly a mocha from Massimo’s. Probably a bit of fruit mid-morning, then over to the pub for lunch - probably 2 beers and as we went to the Harlequin in Pyrmont which serves wicked Thai food, so probably a Thai red curry.  In the afternoon there are always sweets and biscuits coming round the office, then we have the TGIF meeting, which would have been accompanied by 2 beers.  Then, back to mine, more beers, probably about another 4, and as Linnea came round for tea, maybe some pasta concoction before going out and drinking more beer with Ruth and Ashley and a 2am McDonalds.

Friday - What actually happened

2 Eggs for breakfast, a few herbal teas throughout the day.  Lunch - grilled chicken and green salad, no sauces but a bit of mayo.  No snacking, no beer.  Tea - Steak with loads of tenderstem broccoli and mushrooms.  Had a couple of gin and slimline tonics to get me in the mood, then out where all I drank was a couple of vodka and soda’s with a slice of fresh lime (naughty!).  Then sat down and watched everyone else eat a Maccy D’s at 2am and tell me my diet was a bad idea and wasn’t good for me.

So which of the above seems like a healthier alternative?

Today I had a jog around the park, then read my book and did a bit of sunbathing on the balcony.  It’s fair to say that mid-winters day here was better than midsummer’s back home by all accounts!  Not a cloud in the sky, and a lovely temperature.  Tuna salad for brunch, with, yes - a bit of cheese, and balsamic vinegar, then lunch I went to the fantastic Sydney Fishmarket (pictured) where I got some fresh sashimi sushi made for me - sliced off the freshest salmon and tuna fillets.  I got more than enough for lunch for just $10, and I must say it was great - just don’t let the seagulls steal it when you sit outside!  Just a shame I couldn’t have a glass of wine to go with it.  I bought loads of nice fish and meat - I’ve promised to cook steamed mussels for Annika tomorrow - I’m even becoming a decent cook!  I went out to meet a couple of mates and watch England get thrashed by the All Blacks at rugby, but no beer, I did have a vodka and tonic, but mostly water.  Then tea was a BBQ’d pork chop, with some veggies.

The main issue I’m finding is with breakfast, and the fact I can’t have any desserts!  Also you can’t have any snacks (unless you’re some sort of wierdo that eats ham for a snack - I know only one person that does this! ) but I guess that could kind of be the point!  You have to stick to meals, your mind is concentrated on what you need to do, and you invariably end up eating healthily.

Anyway, I am sort of enjoying it - the Atkins diet is making me plan my meals, eat more healthily and while you spend more on food, at least I’m cooking it myself rather than eating out.  I haven’t weighed myself yet, I’m not sure whether I should or not?  I know roughly what I was at the start, so I might just do it after a couple of weeks or a month - we’ll see.  What do you think?  Oh, and if anyone has any ideas for carb-free breakfasts or snacks - let me know!

OK, i’ve finally got round to starting a diet.

I’m doing the Atkins diet, or at least having a guess as to what it’s all about.  Basically going to eat no carbs for the next couple of weeks - I’ll try and get some stats and measurements so I can really publicly humiliate myself!  I need to get weighed actually - about 105kg I think.

Any hints or tips anyone?

OK, no beer for at least 2 weeks - wish me luck!  I’m not going to post the before photo just yet…  I’ll wait ’til the end.

Hello people!

It’s Firefox day today.  Thanks to Matt for reminding me.

So - get downloading the new version of Firefox - Firefox 3.0.  It’s faster and better than the last one - I like the ability to search from within the address bar and the way it autofills.  The ability to drag and drop nearly anything from a web page is useful too.

Click here to get it!

Hello again,

God I keep meaning to write stuff, but never seem to get round to it.  Lame, I know.

So, what’s been happening?  Not an awful lot, truth be known - work seems to be going pretty well, the new iPhone 3g is launching soon, so that’s kept me busy with the Apple.com account (even though now it seems they’re not selling it through the site.).

For some reason I don’t seem to have had a single night to myself lately, which isn’t a bad thing really.  I always seem to have someone round, or are going round to someone else’s house.  I’ve even been leaving work on time at 5.30pm so I can go and watch the Euro2008 highlights.  The live games are on at the rather awkward times of 2am and 4.45am here - so not conducive to watching and living a normal life…  One game I’m glad I did watch was the France Vs Netherlands game the other day.  I tipped the Dutch to win the tournament, and with the 3-0 win over the Italians and then the 4-1 crushing of the French yesterday, who’d bet against them?  They seem to be playing the sort of total voetbal that everyone has always imagined the Dutch play - even if the reality hasn’t always been that close to the myth since 1988!

I’ve always been a big fan of all things Dutch really!  The Dutch and the English always seem to get on with each other (some cynic suggested that it’s because we all don’t like the Germans - a bit harsh!), and I seem to get on with them when I meet them, as you do tend to quite a lot when travelling!  At the Euro’s I think there were 125,000 Dutch fans in Bern for the latest game (the only other team I can think of that would take such numbers aren’t in this tournament, despite being ranked 9th in the world, as opposed to Austria who are 90th!) and they always look resplendent in their swathes of Orange, and look like they’re having great fun.  They certainly give their team the confidence to play like this.  In spite of the impression I get that he’s a bit of a cock, I’ve always been impressed by Robin Van Persie, Arjen Robben is indisputedly talented and Cruyff, Van Basten, Davids, Bergkamp (so long as it’s not an away game) and Ruud Gullit are some of my favourite ever players.

Anyway, enough proselytising about the Dutch - I’ve got Portugal in the sweepstake at work - but I still hope the bastards lose!

OK - that will do for now, I hope everyone got their Dads a nice fathers’ day present - mine got a Turtley Amazing t-shirt.  Oh yeah.

Oh, and I missed Gorton’s wedding of the year - congratulations to Mr and Mrs Burrell!

1. Elisha Cuthbert
2. Scarlett johansson
3. Cheryl Tweedy (If you can delete Ashley Cole from ever having existed)
4. Beyonce
5. Charlotte Church

That will do for now!

For all you Fiver readers out there (all 1,057 of us!), I hope that you’re not epistemophobics, or that you don’t suffer from epistemophobia, which is a fear of knowledge!

So chuffed that I’m at the top of google for that! Whumph!

While I’m here - if you’ve not bought the new album by The Whip - X Marks Destination, then you’re rubbish.  They’re the best thing to come out of Manchester since Noel Gallagher quit his job in the McVites factory in Burnage.  (He used to make the very finest Jaffa Cakes, don’t you know?).  By the way, while I’m here, a Jaffa Cake is a cake (for tax reasons) as when it goes off it goes hard (like a cake) wheras biscuits go soft when they go off.  Now you know.

Hey hey kids!

Hope you’re all well - would be good to hear from you, tell me what you’re up to?

Well, what have I been doing?  More of the same - it’s been pretty nice weather out here, even though winter is on it’s way (allegedly) and we’ve had something like the driest May on record for Sydney.  Well, what were they going to do about it to ease the plight of the poor farmers in drought?  It seems my bit of Manchester charm wore off with the 13 days of rain we had in April (the most consecutive days since 1931, the poor dears!  I hardly noticed, it was just a few showers!) so they needed import some new rain gods from the home of drizzle, Manchester.

Electro Indie Dance Music rain gods to be precise.  Called The Whip.

For anyone who haven’t seen The Whip yet, you’d be well advised to check out their vids on YouTube - the video from D:Percussion last year should give you a good feeling for it.  I can highly recommend the album to - X Marks Destination, with the singles Muzzle #1, Blackout, Sister Siam and the song everyone has been singing - Trash.  I wanna be Trash!

I started the day off with a raging hangover thanks to the party the night before, but soon cracked on and got over to the Manly Food and Wine festival (Manly being a place, rather then “not effeminate”). Met up with Ruth there and also John from my work and his missus, Nicky. We had a thoroughly pleasant afternoon drinking good fizzy wine in the sunshine and eating cheese. Fact of the day goes to Nicky - she’s got a Diploma in Cheese! Which I thought was pretty special. Apparently only Gorgonzola naturally goes blue, other cheeses need something doing to them. I dunno.

Anyway, then onto Mosman rugby club, narrowly avoiding a slumber party hosted by a bunch of 17 year old girls. I said I’d be back next year. Then down to the Oxford Arts Factory in Darlinghurst for the gig. They weren’t on until about midnight, but it was a real good gig - The Whip are a bit like Hot Chip I suppose, but they do a good set with plenty of energy. And they’ve got a chick on the drums, which always helps.

Being a fellow Manc, we had a bit of a chat afterwards, apparently I made mates with some dude who used to be in Hollyoaks but is now in Emmerdale - can’t say I remember thought! I do remember being rather impressed by the artistic installation in the bar (indeed the bar itself too - I’d definitely go there again) which consisted of a load of electronic puppies with blood round their mouths, after eating the whelp of the pack. Sounded a bit mental, but looked good!

I had a real good night, and will shortly be getting the pics up here somewhere, they’re on Facebook at the moment!

To be fair I didn’t feel to clever yesterday, with a hangover the size of a planet, and couldn’t eat my rather nice Sunday roast that we went for.

Oh, and to top it all off - yes, it’s been raining for 2 days!