“Now, how do I go about reintroducing foods without ballsing up all of my hard abstinence?” I pondered between mouthfuls of freshly baked banana bread - the first anything I’d consumed, other than poultry, seafood, meat, salt, black coffee and water, for the last 21 days.  My bloodstream greedily gobbles up these made-foreign carbohydrates and sugars. The sensation evoking an immediate sense of déjà vu.

My first too-deep drag of a Dunhill Blue in the pouring rain, behind a school portable?

The kind of crescendo only ever unveiled at a heaving Drum and Bass rave?

Sins of the flesh?!

To give the gravity of this result some context; this (result) wasn't achieved in the several years prior of modern medical professional consultations, experimentations and exasperations.

“Wow, Mike. That’s some ShamWow sh*t!”

Yes it is, dear reader. I find it hard to comprehend myself.

On the flip-side; I’d learned that living on such a restrictive diet wasn’t sustainable.

Or rather it wasn’t sustainable for me.

I’d discovered a fringe diet that had resolved my enduring gut and skin issues within a week, when medical professionals had pegged me as a low-grade-medicator for life.

I was a modern-day Archimedes!

The Sir Francis Drake of dietary tinkering!

Now, 21 days into the Carnivore/Nose-to-tail diet, I was about to tap out. The sirens scent of my mum's just-baked cinnamon banana bread calling me to my ruin. I was about to reinvite ailments that had driven me to extreme frustration, for the best part of 3 years, because of baked goods?!

Q: What would drive a man to this seeming act of masochism?

“On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behaviour becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact.” – this, according to Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit. The findings? The simpler the habit; the quicker it can be ingrained. The shortest timeframe is typically around 21 days.

I sure as shooting didn't have 21 days to dial in my carnivore diet.

Please keep in mind that I wasn’t sponsored by a mail order meat company. There were no shady handouts from powerful farming lobby groups in dark alleys - I would have loved that!

Nope.

Just some dude trying to find a sustainable solution to his gut and skin issues whilst also trying to build a profitable, purpose-led start-up and training Muay Thai several times a week and working part-time in ad-hoc jobs to… make ends... meat.

Plagued for several years by late onset gut and skin issues, that were affecting my Muay Thai training, my sleep and my confidence, I was going in search of my Holy Grail: a non-medicinal resolution.

The final straw that initiated my quest? I missed the bat mitzvah of a respected friend and colleagues’ son because I looked like I had freakin scurvy.

‘Something is wrong with this mountain bike.’

‘Everything looks right but something doesn’t feel right. ‘

These thoughts occur to me as I’m whipping between Red Gums at break neck pace during a light Autumn rain shower.

The only thing between me and grievous bodily harm; around 2 squared centimetres of rubber.

I’m feeling alive.

In various contexts I’ve been (and been witness to) a professional acting like an amateur and an amateur acting like a professional.

Acting like an amateur: sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. It could go either way…

Acting like a professional: it almost always works out.

You don’t have to be a professional to reap the rewards of acting like one.

Any time, any thing goes awry, I can pinpoint it back to my loss of confidence:

I found myself starting on the bench mid-season.

Whilst presenting I lost my breath mid-sentence and thought I’d pass out.

I second guessed addressing you by your first name, even though I’ve known you for months…

I got heaped with too much work because I didn’t have the confidence to push back.

It’s super easy to be self-critical in retrospect - everybody does it do some degree.

It’s a waste of time.

A glitch in the human condition.

Gumboots in the shower kind of useful.

Perched upon our boards out the back of the surf break. Practicing our wolf howls on a perfect, slightly off-shore, Easter Sunday morning swell.

In the early 90’s, John Britten and his small team did the sort of bat-shit-crazy-epic-batting-above-weight-thing that New Zealanders are renowned for: they built a world-beating motorbike, from scratch.

This motorbike aka ‘Britten V1000’ went on to win world titles like Battle of the Twins, Daytona, USA and the hearts and minds of a generation. Mine included.

Next to me a circa 8-year-old boy and his doppelganger bro bounced up and down in their seats throughout the entire performance. Uncomfortable in their high-collared traditional ceremonial Vietnamese threads and frustrated by the lack of viewability inherently afforded to junior burgers, they were fidgety throughout the entire performance. Pants on fire fidgety.