Hannah Borno

After four festival days and nights I have palpated my liver and discovered it to be the consistency of foie gras so I’m going cold turkey on alcohol. Halves of lager in the muddy sunshine, a bottle of vintage port in front of Jimmy Cliff, squirts of red wine from a 5 litre box as I danced to the Proclaimers. But enough. Not a drop shall pass my lips for at least a week, in fact I’m thinking of giving it up for three months - apparently the time it takes for a new liver to reconfigure itself and to be fully cleansed. Lately, I’ve got into the habit of drinking every day - maybe just a couple of beers before dinner, or two or three glasses of wine with dinner… the odd bottle of prosecco in the park. Whisky by the bed. But alcohol makes me gloomy, and I suspect it’s making me fat. It stops me sleeping… There are so many reasons to give up alcohol I can’t belive I haven’t done it sooner! Hurrah for my new teetotal lifestyle! Only two months, thirty and a half days to go! I can almost see the finish line.

Day one of my new alcohol free lifestyle was easy - I was asleep.

Today is day two - luckily I’m staying in and working. I do like a nice laptop beer though at 8ish… (8 in the evening, that is).

NB. I don’t keep a bottle of whisky by the bed. That was a joke. I keep it in my sock drawer.

Back in Bethnal Green after hanging out in the middle of the Atlantic where I pined for company.

Our tiny flat is full of unpacked boxes, the flat shakes when trains go past, and the main road is incredibly loud but I’m so pleased to be back. Just looking out of the window and seeing people gives me a mood lift. Going into the office is better than prozac. Maybe the novelty of urban life will wear off in a month or so, but just existing in a city is recharging me. I don’t even need to speak to the people around me - I just need to see them. Extroverts shouldn’t seek out rural isolation; we need the life-affirming presence of others around us.

Too lazy to unpack the saucepans, we’ve been out for pizza three nights in a row. Following the dictates of Mindless Eating I’ve ordered a salad alongside so I’ve eaten exactly the same amount of veg as carb.

Other Mindless Eating restaurant rules…

Follow the ‘two out of four’ rule - out of alcoholic drink, pudding, bread and starter- just choose two (I chose two alcoholic drinks of course.)

Make sure you’re the last person to start eating (tried this and the waiter asked me if something was wrong with my food).

All meal have so far been after 10pm - last time I looked late night refined carb isn’t perfect for weight loss. But at least I had that salad…

Right. Today I’m really going to meditate. This time I don’t sit in the warm relaxing sun but sit in a cool room.. I’m sticking to the ‘mindfulness of breathing’ method (where you notice the flow of the breath), rather than the delightful Metta meditation (where you beam love to the world).

But it’s so hard to focus. I know I should be concentrating solely on my breath, but actually I’m thinking about a million other things: my split ends, Horatio Caine’s peculiar stoop in CSI Miami, the fact I forgot to ring my mum last night, the puzzling GI of pumpkin. Then as my mind wanders, the anxiety kicks in - I have deadlines left unmet, my mortgage is spiralling out of control (my weight likewise), I’ve got terrible split ends. Then I remember the breath…. I return to it gratefully. It’s like pure oxygen. The anxiety evaporates. After a couple of minutes I am calmed by its rhythm. And I feel peace for the first time in weeks. My mind feels like an empty blue sky - it’s delightful. Then the rug starts itching, I get pins and needles and I need to go to the loo.

Meditation is a beautiful thing. It lowers blood pressure and decreases the stress, depression and anxiety. If you meditate regularly there is decreased activity in the area in the brain which is associated with fear. Research shows even ten minutes of meditation gives massive psychological benefits. If meditation could make a decent cup of tea, I’d marry it.

After my recent stress-fest it’s time for me to start my new relaxed life. It’s a sunny day so I take a rug out to the garden and sit cross-legged under a pine tree. I stare at the blue sky, and monitor my breath as it slowly flows in and out of my nose. The bees are humming, the birds are singing, the sun is warm on my back. I am at one with the air and the sky. The bees are singing, the birds are humming…. I’m feeling sleepy. Maybe I can meditate lying down? Oh that’s better. So warm and comfy. And I can still notice my breath as it flows in and out. In and out. In and…

I wake up an hour later with a spider up my nose and sunburn. It wasn’t exactly meditation, I suppose, but it was so terribly relaxing. I think I’ll do it again sometime. And bring a pillow.

Cook roast pumpkin (one of the three non-rotten ones), with goats cheese, plus greens and turnips from the garden. Leave the tray on the table – a Mindless Eating sin - but it’s only vegetables tonight so it doesn’t matter?

Discover online that pumpkin has a Glycemic Index from 75 to 107! Whereas boiled potatoes would be around 60. Am shocked and appalled. It’s some relief to find out then that - if you have a serving of around 80g - pumpkin has a Glycemic load of 3. It sounds promising, although I have absolutely no idea what it means.

I ate the pumpkin from a small plate though, but then mindlessly ate some chocolate in front of the TV. I needed a treat. There are ants in the bedroom, a stray cat in the laundry room and a desiccated bat hanging from the kitchen ceiling.

It’s good to be back.

We’re in the Azores for a fortnight to recover from the move. Some time ago we used our savings to buy a tiny tumbledown cottage here. Our aim is to move here full time and turn it into a lovely, peaceful commune where we can write and be healthy. We arrived yesterday at midnight and Gary and Pia our Swedish friends greeted us with our little white dog, Smudge. The house seems relatively dry – and though ten of the pumpkins we left behind us have rotted; three are ok.

We get up exhausted and lie in a field all day. Then go to the vegetable patch to find something to eat. We’re in luck, it’s full of turnips and greens. So that’s dinner then. Luckily on our last visit we left a cupboard full of red wine. Though the gardener has sneakily drunk the half bottle of single malt we had stashed there before we left.

I’ve popped my crystals in a bowl of salt water to cleanse them as instructed by Sandra. I’m absolutely determined to spend the next two weeks living healthily, meditating, de-stressing and, most importantly, losing weight.

My new cast-iron Mindless Eating rules:

Only eat from a small plate.

Eat what you want but each plate needs to be half-filled with vegetables and salad first.

Only eat chocolate and other snacks at the kitchen table.

Drink alcohol from flutes (note – buy some flutes).

Serve food from the stove, not the table.

Eat until 80% full.

Today is my birthday. I had coffee at Columbia Road Flower market followed by a mixed parillada lunch at Buen Ayre grill house. Sitting in front of several pounds of meat - black pudding, Argentinean sausage, sweetbreads and steak - for an hour or so was not exactly perfect Mindless Eating practice but surely I’m allowed a day off on my birthday? Later, drinking Prosecco, I discover a stack of hula hoops at 93 Feet East, hoop for half an hour (good for core body strength, bad if you’re full of steak and sweetbreads) then finish with a bar crawl taking in The Big Chill, Corbett Place and The Gun. You know an evening’s going badly if you end up drinking bitter at The Gun. I have a massive argument with Charlie and end up lying in the back garden for fresh air before sullenly coming back in to wrap crockery in newspaper all night.

NEXT DAY

I get up early to pack the van and do shuttles to new flat. After eight car loads, four van loads and ten taxi loads, the flat is now filled from wall to wall with boxes and black bags. The Brazilians have already rung to tell me that neither the shower nor oven works in the Shoreditch flat. Great.

Returning the van I experience terrible chest pains on the A12. I’m trying not to let it worry me and we stop off at the Welcome Break for KFC (last time I ate this was a decade ago). I’m also so hung-over I could cry. So I cry. Why am I living my life at this fever pitch of anxiety, cortisol coursing through my veins? My amethyst crystals sit unused in my handbag.

My mind and body seem to be in crisis. Since my wedding last October I’ve put on a stone, closely followed by another stone after working in an office for three months - alongside some delightful colleagues who were all very fond of cake. I was even fonder of cake, so cake consumption turned into a daily social ritual. Throw in a couple of beers at the pub on the way home every evening for guaranteed weight gain. Added to that – I’m more stressed than I’ve ever been. I’ve decided - something’s got to change and I’m going back on the Mindless Eating wagon for good. (Though irritatingly I have left the Mindless Eating book back in London in one of the many black bags.) I’m also considering giving up alcohol - but as anyone who is recently married will tell you, combine weight gain with an alcohol ban and you’ll need to broadcast to the world some sign that you’re not pregnant.

Back in London I’m starting to feel the pinch of the credit crunch as well as my waist band. Seems the bad luck sees no signs of abating and I curse the amount of money I spent in NY on crystals and macchiatos. Our mortgage has gone up (hasn’t everyone’s?), and it’s taking forever to get a new one. If I’d had my third eye open sooner I might have seen this coming! As it is, we’re being forced to rent our Shoreditch flat to some Brazilians and are going to rent something much cheaper in a boring area with no bars, bad restaurants, wedged behind rattling railway lines.

The stress of packing and mortgage negotiations is all too much and yesterday I found myself in a street behind Liverpool street station doubled over having a panic attack – or possible heart attack – I’m not sure which. This is no way to live. Every night Charlie and I are eat takeaways from Tas Firin and go for hurried wheat beers at The Redchurch to write lists. The only Mindless Eating dictate I’m sticking to these days is eating from tiny plates - but when you’re eating lamb shish wraps and piles of baklava it doesn’t really work. (Maybe it wasn’t a panic attack, maybe it was simply indigestion…)

Today I’m still feeling a bit weird after my visit to Marie the psychic, plus my hangover is making me paranoid so I pop into another psychic booth round the corner from my hotel. Sandra tells me that on a scale of 1 to 10 my depleted aura is at level 4. She says my third eye is clammed shut, and I need to meditate every day whilst using an amethyst crystal. She sells me one for 30 dollars.

Later I find the exact same crystal in Chinatown for 6 dollars so buy another three, plus two quartz crystals for good luck. In the next few days I’ve decided I’m going to open my third eye chakra and cast out this bad luck - come what may!

Feeling a bit low and a bit anxious (could be due to mortgage trouble back home in London – but probably more to do with the five macchiatos), at 4.45 I walk past a psychic booth. The sign on the door says ‘Open’. It’s a sign.

Now generally, I’m of the opinion that going to see a psychic is like going to see a therapist. You pay them a few quid and you get to talk about yourself for an hour. If you’re lucky you glean a few insights and enjoy the chat, and if you’re not, you come away feeling faintly unsatisfied, but with no real harm done. If you’re super lucky the psychic tells you something you didn’t know, and gives you a lovely plausible message from your Grandmother.

So when I step into Marie’s booth I’m expecting a nice, cosy chat at the very least. Not so. Marie tells me I only have one year to realise my creative potential otherwise it will be too late! She says I need to live near water to be happy and then she looks piercingly into my eyes and tells me I’m an old soul with negative karma from a previous life which is now giving me bad luck! Marie suggests that I’ll never be successful until she takes me through a cleansing process to change my luck. Afterwards, I need another macchiato to ponder her psychic observations and by this time I’m feeling so edgy that there’s nothing else to do but go back and confront her.

‘I was just about to shut up shop’ she says. ‘It’s meant to be that you came back to find me.’

I ask her if she really believes that I have bad luck, or if it’s just a sales tactic to sell me the cleansing?

‘Come back when you’re ready,’ she says, smiling beatifically so I apologise and ask her to tell me more about the cleansing. One should never antagonise a woman who holds your future in her well- manicured hands.

She stares at me with those piercing blue eyes again and says emphatically ‘you have bad’ pause ‘luck. You work hard and you never get anywhere because of your bad’ pause ‘luck. But I can go into a trance and find out where and when you got the bad luck, and teach you how to get rid of it, whether by meditation or by crystals’!

I ask how much this process will cost. ‘300 dollars’ she tells me.

I make my excuses and leave feeling more than faintly dissatisfied, in fact I’m downright rattled.

Later that night I find an awful lot of asparagus risotto comforting in gluten free heaven.