Dr Frank’s health tips

Bad Health is Cocaine, and I’m Robert Downey Jr.

I’m So Sick of Being an Unhealthy Bastard

Frank T Bird
The Bad Influence
Published in
5 min readDec 13, 2021

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Ho ho ho, ‘tis the season for profound food abuse followed by deep self-loathing.

It’s 12.40 pm and here is a list of what I have eaten:

  • Almost Full English breakfast (bacon, eggs, hash brown, baked beans etc)
  • Two cups of tea
  • One cup of coffee
  • Two ‘fun size’ Snickers
  • Three chocolate digestive biscuits
  • Two glasses of champagne

But, look, it ain’t no typical day, okay?

I’m on holiday you bastards, so of course, that gives me the right to throw down whatever death-inducing foods I like.

There’s always some reason to eat like a twat, and the new health ‘regime’ always starts tomorrow.

One thing that pisses me off about our sick money-hungry society is how we allow companies to market to people's addictions like god damn parasites.

Take the fun-size Snickers, for example. It’s a tiny mouthful of Snickers, but let’s be honest, what the fuck is fun about it?

Sure, you get the hit of warm oily chocolate, smokey nougat and roasted peanuts. But, you swallow it, and you’re done. Is it delicious, yes, but fun?

Source: Yarn

Especially when, like me, you are constantly comparing the number of fun-size Snickers you have had to the percentage of an actual bar. If you are less than five, it’s okay because it’s ‘not even one proper Snickers’.

Bacon is another death-inducing food that the hipsters have deified.

Is it delicious? Again, yes, it is, but lest we forget that it is jammed with sodium nitrates that harden the arteries.

What is worse is that it’s the body part of some poor bastard pig. So, once it’s done, there is no fun — just a nice stomach ache with the added bonus of a head full of guilt.

Sure, if you’re a twenty-year-old with a curly moustache in a tweed suit riding a penny-farthing, bacon is fine.

To an old bastard like me, I might as well be shooting heroin into my eyeballs.

Fucking Bacon (Source: Polina Tankilevitch)

To make matters worse, I don't fucking move.

In terms of exercise, my daily routine is:

  1. Wake up
  2. Don’t exercise

That’s it.

There’s always an excuse to skip exercise. Usually, I am too tired from working (sitting at the computer) too much. I’ll often watch those dumb motivation videos where there is dramatic music and some voice-over guy is saying things like:

Keep showing up. No one else is gonna put on your lycra for you, you fat bastard. No one is gonna swing your kettlebell and drink yer protein shake you lazy prick.

Once, I nearly put on my compression pants. Those videos are bloody darn effective.

What an absolute cockend (Image: Anush Gorak)

The effect of not exercising because you are too tired is feeling even more tired.

If you combine this with eating death-inducing foods, you end up feeling like Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s — a corpse being dragged around by two friends — Willy, the will to live and Freddy, the need to access things like fridge and toilet.

I never used to be like this.

And no, I’m not gonna blame lockdown like a lot of you other lazy smegheads.

Did lockdown make me sit around like a lizard eating whatever I could lay my hands on?

Yes. But there is a more important question here:

How is that any different to what was happening before lockdown?

Isn’t lockdown just another convenient excuse for the lazy routines we get ourselves into?

(Image:Anna Shvets)

The worst thing about all this?

Creativity — or, lack thereof.

There, I said it. It’s not the spectre of death or the lack of energy.

Writer’s block for me is two things:

  1. Your writing engine ain’t warm, or
  2. You are unhealthy (Your engine has problems).

I have written every day for the last forty days. That’s how I know that my engine is warm Motherfucker. I know this time it’s a mechanical issue. My brain needs a fucking service.

I am 45 and married so I have no need for Zac Efron abs.

I’m not gonna be one of those knobs that runs a marathon at fifty then writes a book:

How I went from old fat twat to old thin twat in less than sixty hours.

At this age, I just want to creatively write without my brain going,

‘Sorry, you can’t write, you boring bastard.’

Also, I want to do the dishes without being out of breath.

Is that too much to ask?

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