This is something I find particularly difficult.
My job is to entertain people. Itās a very privileged thing to be able to do and itās even more amazing that I do nothing else in order to pay my rent. I donāt have to have aĀ āregularā job. Entertaining is my only gig.
Because I live in a small town in North Wales in order to make my living I have to travel. Sometimes only an hour or two, but often times Iāll be driving for five or six-hours. I also get the odd job here and there where I get to fly to somewhere hot and exotic. These are serious perks of being a full-time performer.
Perks that is until you become fat and then decide to no longer be fat.
The reason (or one of the reasons) I got as fat as I did was due to fast food eaten whilst living on the road. Iād stop at motorway services and get enticed to eat greasy burgers, fries and other delicious fatty poisons that were working to put me in an early grave.
The other reason (or should I say another reason) that Iām fat is because a lot of my shows happen at outdoor events. I work festivals, steam rallies, country fairs and other amazing outdoor events. I get to spend my time living outside in a field and getting paid for it. I literally live the hippy juggler dream.
But most of the food available at these places are burgers, hot dogs, fries, doughnuts, and other really yummy things that are absolutely fine to eat when youāre at the one or two festivals you might visit through the summer. But when you basically live at a festival for the entire summer, and have a weakness for fried food, you start to pile on the pounds.
To put it another way, Iām fat because I spend my entire summer eating fast food whilst I drive to a gig. Once at the gig I eat more fast food. Then, when I leave that gig to go to the next one I eat even more fast food. And then once at the next gig, yep you guessed it, I eat even more fast food.
My entire summer is basically spent eating grease and fat. When Iām not doing that Iām doing a show. But my show lasts an average of 30-minutes and I do three of those per day. So for 1.5 hours a day Iām workingĀ and the rest of the time Iām eating junk. Oh, that is unless Iām drinking beer. Thereās also lots of beer drinking at festivals. And again, if you only do one or two festivals throughout the summer drinking to excess isnāt going to cause you too much harm (I should remind you all that Iām a jester and that you really shouldnāt take weight loss advice from me, for all I know drinking any amount of alcohol could be bad), but Iām at an outdoor event surrounded by beer and delicious fatty foods for the majority of the summer season.
My first port of call (as readers of my blog will know) is to grab a Huel shake. Itās not ideal and I know there are many who disagree with its use. But Iām pretty certain itās not going to do any more damage to me than a burger and fries will. And I recon that itāll do me more good. Maybe not as good as a salad or plate of veg, but certainly more good than something thatās been pulled out of a fryer.
I also try to take stuff with me. Iāve discovered I really like cold potatoes. So I take a box full of those with me where I can. Theyāre really quite delicious. As are cold sweet potatoes. You can eat them easily on-the-hoof and you donāt look out of place munching them down in the middle of a field.
The final option if neither of the first two are available is to simply not eat.
I can hear some of you out there going nuts. But itās true. As long as Iāve got plenty of water I can go two or three days without food before it becomes a real issue. Which is long enough to cover most weekend-long events. Eat big before I leave and then fast throughout the event and then eat again once I get home.
In fact, I regularly go 16-hours without food anyway. At the time of writing Iām on about 20-hours since my last meal and Iāve done a couple of shows at my residency plus the usual errands. And no, before you ask, Iām not hungry. Not in the slightest. If my stomach starts to grumble I drink a pint of water. If I feel a little lethargic Iāll drink a black coffee. But as time goes by Iām getting used to it and my coffee intake is going down. I now drink less coffee than I did before I started losing weight, which is great.
So thatās how Iām managing my weight loss program whilst on the road. So far it does seem to be working.