It’s only the end of Day 2, but I’m hungry. We started the day with a bowl of rice and kidney beans after I weighed in at 58.8kg. Sean threw a dash of sugar on the bowl, which, even though it was a tiny quantity, was very noticeable, especially with the natural sweetness of kidney beans. As a kid I hated kidney beans and would pull every one of them out of the chilli my mom would make. I love them now (especially compared to the sardines for lunch). I have an incredible aversion to sardines. Everything about them – the look, the taste, the smell (especially the smell!) – makes me gag. I managed a bite, but left the rest of my half of the tin in the fridge for a day when I’m stronger. Or hungrier.

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Breakfast of Champions! Refugees

Despite the sardine fiasco, fundraising is going well – Sean reached another milestone on his page, so we have the distinct luxury of buying 170g of vegetable (after much consideration, we’ve decided on the lightest-weight veggie we can think of: spinach).

Outside of our mealtimes, life is going as usual – we went swimming down at Clovelly yesterday, yoga today. Sean even did his sprint training in the afternoon. He’s feeling great – he’s been eating his sardines. Me on the other hand, I’m a bit tired and definitely hungry. I’m increasingly grateful that this is my reality for only a week, and that during that week I have constant shelter, a warm bed, and my partner beside me. We even have a Spotify account. The consistency and safety of my everyday life is unquantifiable.

At the moment I’m quite happy (it’s dinnertime!). I’m sat at my desk with a partial thermos of rice and lentils, covered with hot water to give it a soupy consistency which fools my stomach into thinking there’s more food than there is. I’m off to my Vipassana meditation group shortly where I’ll use the time to work on overcoming aversion to sardines and discarding craving for calories.

Until tomorrow…

https://my.rationchallenge.org.au/daryl-hiebert
https://my.rationchallenge.org.au/sean-barker