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One of my dearest friends Jo Stutley has a business called Darlin Dal which to my knowledge is the very first Dal bar in Australia. She creates the most exquisite Dal you’ll ever wrap your mouth around.

“But… What the hell is Dal?” I hear you all ask. 

Well, Dal refers to… “dried, split pulses, including lentils, peas, and beans, that are a staple ingredient in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. The term is also used for various soups prepared from these pulses.”

It’s much more than just lentils believe you me.

Anyway, while I was hanging out with Jo one day I had this idea of a Dal eating experiment similar to what a guy named Jared Fogle had done with Subway. In the experiment, Jared would eat a Subway six inch salad sub every day and track his weight loss progress from just doing that.

(NB: Jared Fogle was later found out to be a child sex predator who was actually using his position as a Subway spokesperson to groom children. He is now currently serving time in prison and this of course had nothing to do with Subway nor the experiment undertaken.)

I thought that if I did a similar thing with Jo’s Dal and documented the health benefits plus the resulting weight loss from it, both Jo and I would benefit by…

  • Jo having an ongoing testimonial demonstrating how good her Dal is
  • Jo having more content for her website and her socials
  • Me getting healthier and losing much needed weight
  • Me being able to help a dear friend grow her business

As mentioned in my previous post, I will be incorporating the Dal as part of my “KetoVore” (a mixture of ketogenic and carnivore diets) eating plan using the OMAD (one meal a day) intermittent fasting protocol.

What I’ll be eating tonight… YUM!

Jo even had a spare chest freezer thrown in as part of the deal 🙂

This should keep me going for a little while

I’ve started today Monday, September 16th with a starting weight of 161.4kgs (yes, I’m now unfortunately heavier than what I was in my last post) so wish me luck and watch this space.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

PS: If you want to try Jo’s Dal yourself the first thing you need to do is go to her website and check out the types of Dal’s that she has available. You won’t regret it.

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As you would be aware from my recent posts, I have been converting a 6m x 9m shed out the back of my house into a recording studio and a multi-modal content creation space. 

Now, this is one of the many changes that I have implemented in my life where I am attempting to reinvent and transform myself from where I was just after Mara’s passing to where I want to be in the near future

I mean, after living with Mum and Dad in Goolwa for nine months I finally ended up in Yankalilla which for me is far enough away from the hustle and bustle of Adelaide but not too far away to stay connected with the parts of my life that I still want to be connected with. 

I’ve manufactured a life where I can work from home and give myself the best chance to create and maintain the work/life balance that I have been craving for and the soon to be completed studio/content creation space will become another integral part of this manufactured life.

But right now I am about to embark on the latest and probably the hardest and most painful part of my transformation. I’m finally addressing the “elephant in the room…” My physical health.

Pretty soon it will be four years since Mara passed away and in that time I have been doing all of the necessary steps to navigate the grief, pain, anger and other associated feelings that come with a circumstance such as this.

With the exception of taking antidepressants for about nine months due to me hitting rock bottom and needing the extra headspace to sort my shit out, I think I’ve done pretty well considering (I’ve been off the antidepressants for about four months now).

All lf this change has been essential for my mental well-being so all that is left now is my physical health and let me tell you… It needs a lot of work.

I weighed myself this morning and the scales said 160.3kgs. 

160.3kgs… I was not surprised by the fact that I had put on weight, I could feel it in my overall body and this is what time on antidepressants will do to you but 160.3kgs.

WTF!

This is the heaviest I’ve ever been and straight away I felt that insidious blanket of shame cover me. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a man who was the result of taking care of everything else in one’s life except for the most important thing. Himself. 

This has got to change.

“Man, I have really let myself go” I said to the mirror knowing full well that the only person that can make any real changes in my life is ME. 

I know exactly what I need to do, it’s just a matter of taking action and doing what I know I should do. I have made these positive changes about my health in the past and I’m currently making positive changes with every other aspect of my life so why not my physical health NOW? 

I suppose how I got to this stage involves the most deeply ingrained habits that I participate in. These habits go to the very heart of my relationship with food and the reasons I consume what I consume and in the quantities I consume it and as the old saying goes…

“Old habits are hard to break.”

Which all leads me to this point in the post where I now publicly re-commit myself to four major activities…

  1. Recommence Intermittent Fasting

I have written about this concept before but essentially Intermittent Fasting gives you a window of time in a 24 hour period where you eat your allotted caloric intake and for the rest of the time you don’t eat but you can drink black tea/coffee (no milk or sugar/honey) and water.

A typical Intermittent Fasting protocol would consist of an eating window of eight hours and a fasting window of sixteen hours. This is called the 16:8 protocol but the protocol that I am going to be following is something called…

  1. OMAD Protocol

OMAD stands for One Meal A Day and it’s a little bit more of an extreme Intermittent Fasting protocol where my eating window is restricted to the time it takes to eat one meal which is typically between 1 and 2 hours meaning my fasting window is between 22 and 23 hours. 

I will allow myself to vary the eating window depending on the circumstance (out for dinner, at a gig etc) however, if I’m at home, I’ll be pretty strict with this.

  1. Recommence Ketogenic/Carnivore Diet

Essentially I will be adhering to a high protein and low (to no) carb eating regimen but in doing this the biggest thing I’m going to have to conquer is my massive sweet tooth especially ice cream which is one of my biggest downfalls.

Incorporating into this eating regimen is my side experiment of eating Dal (sourced and created by my great friend Jo Stutley and her “Darlin Dal” business) into every meal that I consume. 

How I came to the decision to embark on this Dal eating experiment will be the source for another post in the near future but it’s safe to say that doing this will make the task of sticking to OMAD much, much easier.

  1. Daily Exercise

Yes, this is the most important part of my reinvention/transformation but it’s the part that I will try to resist and make excuses for not doing the most… EXERCISE!

The initial activity will be walking and using a recumbent bike that is sitting out the back doing nothing. I’m going to start off slow and small so I can gradually build up my activity and hopefully the momentum will enable me to develop a habit that I’ll integrate into my daily routine.

Well, there you go, the next phase in my transformation or reinvention. I’m not going to go overboard and give everyone a blow by blow account of “my journey” but I’ll check in with you from time to time as it’s a good way for me to be accountable for my actions.

My main reason for this revisit however is that with Spring arriving, it was about time that I took some stock of what I have already achieved and to get real about the aspects of my life that I conveniently distracted myself from managing (neglect would be the better word) for the sake of other less important parts of my life.

Anyways, i’ll stop beating myself up now and put down the stick to get on with the task at hand. Finally sorting out my mental and physical shit.

Wish me luck and watch this space.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

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It’s been two months since the last update and yes, things have been a little quiet on the SongMachine Studio front but still, there has been activity, just the progress has been very, very slow.

After the ceiling was completed the only things left to do were the construction of all the doors which were four in total (two for the control room and one each for the front and side entrances) as the spaces left as doorways in the floating wall framework were not of standard size plus the installation of two panes of glass for the control room window.

At this very moment, one of the panes of glass has been installed and the two control doors have been constructed and put into place but in doing so we came across some bad news.

The door frames for the control room wall are not perfectly square meaning that fitting two opposing doors which are meant to seal together was and still is going to be more of a challenge than first anticipated.

Add to that the fact that both Sandy and I can only get together once a week (on a Wednesday) to work on the studio build in which Sandy was sick for the last two weeks.

Well, things have ground slowly to a halt for the time being.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you all know that once Sandy is well again (he is on the mend and should be back by next Wednesday September 11th) we’ll recommence the studio build and (fingers crossed) have everything done by the end of September.

I can see the switch that I need to flick to get everything working but I just can’t reach it. It’s so very frustrating but I’m looking at this as an opportunity to practise my tolerance, patience and humility.

There are a number of people who are waiting very patiently for SongMachine to be finished and my message to them is “We’re almost there, not long to go now”

I guarantee you that I am not going to be beaten by four doors and a window pane. As soon as it’s all systems go you’ll all be the first to know. In the meantime I am going to use this time to practise my patience and tolerance to unforeseen circumstances which will only benefit my development as a human being.

At the moment it’s certainly the gift that keeps on giving.

As always, watch this space…

Peace,

Corey 🙂