Turning hamster on wheel...ravages from the extreme economy

 

Fortune often takes a twisty turn. At one moment you are the ruler and emperor of your own ( sometimes with your clothes on) world, and zapped at the other end...you are just struggling to stretch your last dollar or pound sterling the farthest. 

That's the ravages of cost of living and the extreme economy for someone who isn't an earning member, but a mere student, denied to even supplement the meagre take homes from part time work.

The cost of denial for a supposedly gleaming future, proving too precarious tightrope walking in the immediate present.

Unwittingly, the biggest toll is on health.You are denied any meal catering service, nor can you hire a ready help if cooking is not your forte or driven by the paucity of time.Fast prepared food is a fast recipe for an overload of preservatives, carbohydrates and fibreless wishy washy, consumed as convenience food. In fact, a recipe for disaster that begins to creep unconsciously in your otherwise sound system. 

The cans of ultra cheap baked beans, the frozen salad trays, the refined baked bread, high 'energy'  ( high sugary) chocolate bars and the trashy pate became my staple filling food.I just need to gorge on something to satisfy my often surging hunger pangs after a hard day of academic lectures, workshops and presentations, aggravated by walking 3 to 5 miles to the business school and back home. All the while, I kept on thinking that the physicals of walk and the other activities would significantly nullify my carbohydrates overload. Sadly, I was grossly mistaken. 

It didn't strike my subconsciousness that zero fibre, trash is not the real food but junk in any lexicon. And I was consuming junk not food.This is how you live bootstrapped on a woefully shoestring budget.This is the extreme economy and its magnitude of devastation.

Research by research have endorsed the affects of these economic extremities:

https://www.seacaa.org/post/the-link-between-poverty-and-obesity#:~:text=In%20a%20general%2C%20people%20living,also%20play%20a%20significant%20role.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/91/5/1520S/4597467

I began to add flaps of flesh to my articulate frame, gradually but certainly. I didn't stand anywhere on the weight scale, but I could feel the fleshy part creeping up on my face, belly, dorsal, chest etc. The only physical area where the layers of flab couldn't roll over were my legs.However, the damage had been done. 

On a detour to Dubai, I now had additional luxury of consuming rich food at affordable restaurants and takeaways.

Now more flab was added even though I continued doing standard pushups, squats and some aerobics. What good are these teenie weenie bits of physicals against a deluge of carbohydrate laden mounds of 'goodies'?

Finally, returning to a homecoming and into my wedding, everyone was dazed to see me in an additional frame of at least 10kgs plus!

Especially gobsmacked was my significant half-to-be. Is this the same tall, handsome fella who enthralled me with his demeanor and lithe bodily frame? Am I being shortchanged? However, lets accept the fate, maybe I can kiss the frog to turn him into his handsome self...so, she took the leap of faith.

And a mighty leap of faith that unleashed several myraid aspirations, unhinged by the damning reality of being an international student who lost the battle against the extreme economy. HOWEVER, the WAR was still to be won!

Watch for more, as we take out another layer in the seesawing between fat and fitness.

https://ko-fi.com/shariqthedolphin