On a New South Wales highway, cool wind in my hair
Fading traces of fuel dumps, can be seen in the air
Just a bit past Fighterworld, I saw a shimmering light
My heart grew lighter from excitement within
This was my stop for the night
Said hi to security;
And asked if he was well
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be heaven or this could be hell'
Then he fired up the car and he showed me the way
There were voices on the radio, I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to RAAF Base Williamtown
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely base
Plenty of room at RAAF Base Williamtown
Any time of year, you can find it here
The room is kinda lacklustre, it could drive me round the bend
No block common room, so hard to make or find a friend
But they smoke on the balcony, or cross paths in the toilet
Some faces I remember, some I want to forget
One night it got too loud
Mentally I began to whine
There has been asbestos in the ceilings since nineteen sixty nine
And still that music keeps thumping from far away
Wakes me up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the RAAF Base Williamtown
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely base
I'm livin' it up at RAAF Base Williamtown
Hornets in the skies, what a nice surprise
Strange marks on the ceiling,
Rattling window pane - nice
Someone said, 'We are all just servicemen here, of our own device'
And in the Airmen's Mess,
We all gather to feast
Cooks still have to pay for their food
RAAF just can't make ends meet
Last thing I remember, I was
Looking for the form
I had to find the application
To live once more like a norm
'Relax,' said the CO,
'It's a simple five step process I believe
We can evict you any time you like,
But you can never leave!'
Sunday, May 25
Tuesday, May 20
this mess we're in
It's strange coming back from a week of leave and feeling like everything's all new and strange again. There have been some courses coming through base, which has meant a slightly increased tempo for the Airmen's Mess - catering speak for busy-ness, I guess. Some of the crew from the other messes have been jumping in to help us out, but I think I'm lucky to have missed a whole week of hotboxing three meals a day.
One would think that once you get to the stage of cooking for two hundred people, it isn't too much trouble to cook for a hundred more. It should be like when you cook a decent spaghetti bolognese or stew - you can always stretch it out to feed a few more people. Sadly, it doesn't work that way when it comes to doing what is essentially a
takeaway service on top of the regular eat-in meals. For one, the hotboxing takes place in between the regular meal times, which means not only extra prep time that you have to squeeze in somewhere or somehow, but also a chunk of the time you'd be spending getting normal dinner ready, is actually spent cooking and putting a whole other set of dinners out.
After doing back-to-back early to late shift, and having to hotbox meals for dinner and the following breakfast, I'm already over the novelty of it all. I actually did think it was fun to hotbox meals out field - it feels like you're actually doing something remotely tactical, and closer to the glorified version of feeding the troops. Still, it gets tiring being part of a process line, even if you do get the end job of slamming all the foil box seals shut!
I'm just into my eighth week here, which means that quite soon, I should start getting things signed off in my comp log. Unfortunately, I'm still technically lacking a mentor, as I'm about to be shifted over to the Sergeant's Mess starting next month, which means there isn't much point assigning me another Corporal. The one that I thought I was losing to a potential deployment is staying here, and I've found out
that nobody's going to Pitch Black after all.
I've spent a couple days catching up on medical appointments, training, and the biggest pile of emails in the universe. Why is it that so much appears to have happened in the mere five days I had off? Anyway, as much as I wanted to just get back into the swing of things, I haven't quite been able to, due to having to jump in and out of the kitchen. Next week I've been rostered on sweets as well, which is definitely out of my comfort zone - I'm hoping there'll be someone to guide me, otherwise it could all end in tears! I'm wondering if it's a fitting send-off from the Airmen's Mess... just when I thought I'd learned a thing or two since the start of April, I'm going to leave here feeling possibly more clueless than when I started!
I'm not sure how long my adventures out of the Airmen's Mess will last, considering one of the guys that just moved from here to the Sergeant's is coming back when I go over there. It's like some mixed up exchange student program, or something. However, I will be definitely seeing my Sergeant and Flight Sergeant again in the future, as I've signed up to be a participant in the Willytown team for Relay for Life. It's an
overnight run somewhere local, where I think the idea is to have a team of 10-15 people that clock up as many laps as possible, to raise funds for the NSW Cancer Council's various support networks. Should be interesting... oh yeah, and fun!
Speaking of fun runs, the Mother's Day Classic in Brisbane went without too many hitches. I got warmed up by about the halfway point (4km) before my right leg started to feel sore along my ITB, then the side of my knee, then my ankle, then I got a little paranoid of injuring myself whilst on leave (free medical is kinda useless when you have to hobble your way to it?) and took it easy for a stretch. I finished okay, but I think I could have done better. I like 8km as a distance - I can finish the race and still feel motivated enough to walk around for the rest of the day, as opposed to the usual post-race feeling of needing to eat half a chicken and take a nap until dinner.
I'm still leading in my age group for the 5km fun runs on base... however, this isn't too much to get excited about as I only have one competitor so far, even though the numbers for the runs have been on the climb. Fortunately, it seems that females in my age group are either few and far between, or have better/other things to do than run on Friday mornings! Not to get too cocky and wonder about what the prize might be, but I know I'm running faster than the existing competition. Gotta love being ahead by default!
One would think that once you get to the stage of cooking for two hundred people, it isn't too much trouble to cook for a hundred more. It should be like when you cook a decent spaghetti bolognese or stew - you can always stretch it out to feed a few more people. Sadly, it doesn't work that way when it comes to doing what is essentially a
takeaway service on top of the regular eat-in meals. For one, the hotboxing takes place in between the regular meal times, which means not only extra prep time that you have to squeeze in somewhere or somehow, but also a chunk of the time you'd be spending getting normal dinner ready, is actually spent cooking and putting a whole other set of dinners out.
After doing back-to-back early to late shift, and having to hotbox meals for dinner and the following breakfast, I'm already over the novelty of it all. I actually did think it was fun to hotbox meals out field - it feels like you're actually doing something remotely tactical, and closer to the glorified version of feeding the troops. Still, it gets tiring being part of a process line, even if you do get the end job of slamming all the foil box seals shut!
I'm just into my eighth week here, which means that quite soon, I should start getting things signed off in my comp log. Unfortunately, I'm still technically lacking a mentor, as I'm about to be shifted over to the Sergeant's Mess starting next month, which means there isn't much point assigning me another Corporal. The one that I thought I was losing to a potential deployment is staying here, and I've found out
that nobody's going to Pitch Black after all.
I've spent a couple days catching up on medical appointments, training, and the biggest pile of emails in the universe. Why is it that so much appears to have happened in the mere five days I had off? Anyway, as much as I wanted to just get back into the swing of things, I haven't quite been able to, due to having to jump in and out of the kitchen. Next week I've been rostered on sweets as well, which is definitely out of my comfort zone - I'm hoping there'll be someone to guide me, otherwise it could all end in tears! I'm wondering if it's a fitting send-off from the Airmen's Mess... just when I thought I'd learned a thing or two since the start of April, I'm going to leave here feeling possibly more clueless than when I started!
I'm not sure how long my adventures out of the Airmen's Mess will last, considering one of the guys that just moved from here to the Sergeant's is coming back when I go over there. It's like some mixed up exchange student program, or something. However, I will be definitely seeing my Sergeant and Flight Sergeant again in the future, as I've signed up to be a participant in the Willytown team for Relay for Life. It's an
overnight run somewhere local, where I think the idea is to have a team of 10-15 people that clock up as many laps as possible, to raise funds for the NSW Cancer Council's various support networks. Should be interesting... oh yeah, and fun!
Speaking of fun runs, the Mother's Day Classic in Brisbane went without too many hitches. I got warmed up by about the halfway point (4km) before my right leg started to feel sore along my ITB, then the side of my knee, then my ankle, then I got a little paranoid of injuring myself whilst on leave (free medical is kinda useless when you have to hobble your way to it?) and took it easy for a stretch. I finished okay, but I think I could have done better. I like 8km as a distance - I can finish the race and still feel motivated enough to walk around for the rest of the day, as opposed to the usual post-race feeling of needing to eat half a chicken and take a nap until dinner.
I'm still leading in my age group for the 5km fun runs on base... however, this isn't too much to get excited about as I only have one competitor so far, even though the numbers for the runs have been on the climb. Fortunately, it seems that females in my age group are either few and far between, or have better/other things to do than run on Friday mornings! Not to get too cocky and wonder about what the prize might be, but I know I'm running faster than the existing competition. Gotta love being ahead by default!
Saturday, May 10
flights and field kitchens
Here's a new one, even for me. I should be cleaning my room, sorting out clothes, and packing for my flight to Brisbane this afternoon. However, my chosen mode of procrastination is hunting down cheap flights to Melbourne!
I'm mildly concerned at making the check-in time for Tiger flights, which I'm assuming is saying two hours prior to flying in the instance of international as opposed to domestic flights. Otherwise my genius plan of scooting out of early shift and jumping onto a plane probably won't work out so well... it helps if they're willing to let you onto the plane. Anyway, if boot was good for anything, it has taught me a sense of urgency and also how to get changed from one uniform to another within six to eight minutes. I hope I can make it.
This could be one of many semi-impulse flight purchases. I say semi, because there was some minor consultation with the voices inside and outside of my head, and I did have to sleep on the decision (because I didn't have my credit card on hand to buy straight away!) so there was some thought involved. I'll see how I go with Tiger, seeing as I
haven't flown them before, and it seems like their rates are as competitive as Jetstar's despite departing the airport at odd times of day.
So if this random foray into Melbourne at the end of the month doesn't work, I know I'll definitely be back in town on the weekend of 13 June. I even have the travel requisition and pile of cab charges to prove it! Turns out that my Next of Kin travel did get approved, even though I didn't hear anything about it directly from my Sergeant or Flight Sergeant - the first I knew of it was getting an email from Customer Service saying that there was a Travel Order ready for me to pick up.
Hooray for adequate communication channels.
I haven't been in any Hornets yet, but I've come to the realisation that there's probably going to be a heck of a lot of flying around in my life for the next few years. Since I've been enlisted (last July) I've been on eight flights, including international to Thailand. In the next month (including today), I'll be taking five more flights. Shame that not all of these flights will be clocking up frequent flyer points!
I think I'll try to ground myself a little more after I get back from NoK travel. The sooner I settle in here, the sooner I can con other people into grabbing a cheap flight up to come and see me! It's hard to resist a $40 fare though, considering I usually have to spend at least that much in order to get into town, let alone out.
It's been a good but tough six weeks so far. I can remember getting to this point in recruits and feeling good about getting through so much without dropping out or completely losing my marbles. Week six was all about getting through field exercise Tarakan Dawn, more commonly known as Murray Fridge, five days of learning, fighting, and freezing our collective nads off. But it seemed like the home run after that point, seeing as exercise Tommy Irvine was only three days in comparison.
My room feels like a good place to be - now that I've set myself up with computer, Nintendo, TV/DVD, plenty of books, and a subscription to Quickflix which means I have movies and TV shows on tap (although with a base library full of war porn and Ramsay on the telly three nights a week, I've got it pretty sweet). I think I've got enough going on that I can amuse myself for as long as it takes to save up for transport, a
house, and some furniture essentials.
Work is going pretty well - it hasn't been too extreme a learning curve, and I'll be moving to the Sergeant's Mess next month, a month earlier than I expected to be escaping the Airmen's. Not that there's anything wrong with this Mess in particular, I've just found it annoying to have to work in it for most of the days of the week, and then come back to it for all my other meals in my time off.
Field training was quite interesting, considering I had no real idea how Gucci some of the Air Force equipment was, compared to the stuff we were hauling around at Latchford. I'm not sure if the Army just doesn't have the budget, or they've worked out somehow that they can afford to get grunts to move around all the equipment with sheer brute strength instead of using forklifts and containers like we do. I couldn't
believe how easy we had it - all we had to do was set up camouflage nets and a few tents, lay some tarps down... while a handy supplier used a forklift to drop containers with stovetop/oven, deep fryers, tables, and other essentials into place.
Don't get me wrong, there was still some dirty work left to do with just the set-up of the field kitchen. And we didn't have our time sucked away over the two days by having to cook anything. We still got our share of dust, of hurry up and wait, of being stuffed around by people who didn't know what they were doing. But considering what we had to accomplish amongst a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing (it was a training exercise after all), we managed to do it within two days.
There's a big RAAF exercise coming up called Pitch Black (I wonder why our training exercises get cooler names than the real ones, such as Operation Popewatch), in June. I doubt I'll be involved in it because I'm too new here, and knowing my luck, my leave is probably going to happen smack bang in the middle of it. But I'm actually looking forward to going bush with RAAFies and cooking the real deal. It was really tough going for me out at Latchford because I was quite out of my comfort zone, but the more I see and help make things happen in a field kitchen environment, it doesn't seem too far removed from working in a proper kitchen.
I'm mildly concerned at making the check-in time for Tiger flights, which I'm assuming is saying two hours prior to flying in the instance of international as opposed to domestic flights. Otherwise my genius plan of scooting out of early shift and jumping onto a plane probably won't work out so well... it helps if they're willing to let you onto the plane. Anyway, if boot was good for anything, it has taught me a sense of urgency and also how to get changed from one uniform to another within six to eight minutes. I hope I can make it.
This could be one of many semi-impulse flight purchases. I say semi, because there was some minor consultation with the voices inside and outside of my head, and I did have to sleep on the decision (because I didn't have my credit card on hand to buy straight away!) so there was some thought involved. I'll see how I go with Tiger, seeing as I
haven't flown them before, and it seems like their rates are as competitive as Jetstar's despite departing the airport at odd times of day.
So if this random foray into Melbourne at the end of the month doesn't work, I know I'll definitely be back in town on the weekend of 13 June. I even have the travel requisition and pile of cab charges to prove it! Turns out that my Next of Kin travel did get approved, even though I didn't hear anything about it directly from my Sergeant or Flight Sergeant - the first I knew of it was getting an email from Customer Service saying that there was a Travel Order ready for me to pick up.
Hooray for adequate communication channels.
I haven't been in any Hornets yet, but I've come to the realisation that there's probably going to be a heck of a lot of flying around in my life for the next few years. Since I've been enlisted (last July) I've been on eight flights, including international to Thailand. In the next month (including today), I'll be taking five more flights. Shame that not all of these flights will be clocking up frequent flyer points!
I think I'll try to ground myself a little more after I get back from NoK travel. The sooner I settle in here, the sooner I can con other people into grabbing a cheap flight up to come and see me! It's hard to resist a $40 fare though, considering I usually have to spend at least that much in order to get into town, let alone out.
It's been a good but tough six weeks so far. I can remember getting to this point in recruits and feeling good about getting through so much without dropping out or completely losing my marbles. Week six was all about getting through field exercise Tarakan Dawn, more commonly known as Murray Fridge, five days of learning, fighting, and freezing our collective nads off. But it seemed like the home run after that point, seeing as exercise Tommy Irvine was only three days in comparison.
My room feels like a good place to be - now that I've set myself up with computer, Nintendo, TV/DVD, plenty of books, and a subscription to Quickflix which means I have movies and TV shows on tap (although with a base library full of war porn and Ramsay on the telly three nights a week, I've got it pretty sweet). I think I've got enough going on that I can amuse myself for as long as it takes to save up for transport, a
house, and some furniture essentials.
Work is going pretty well - it hasn't been too extreme a learning curve, and I'll be moving to the Sergeant's Mess next month, a month earlier than I expected to be escaping the Airmen's. Not that there's anything wrong with this Mess in particular, I've just found it annoying to have to work in it for most of the days of the week, and then come back to it for all my other meals in my time off.
Field training was quite interesting, considering I had no real idea how Gucci some of the Air Force equipment was, compared to the stuff we were hauling around at Latchford. I'm not sure if the Army just doesn't have the budget, or they've worked out somehow that they can afford to get grunts to move around all the equipment with sheer brute strength instead of using forklifts and containers like we do. I couldn't
believe how easy we had it - all we had to do was set up camouflage nets and a few tents, lay some tarps down... while a handy supplier used a forklift to drop containers with stovetop/oven, deep fryers, tables, and other essentials into place.
Don't get me wrong, there was still some dirty work left to do with just the set-up of the field kitchen. And we didn't have our time sucked away over the two days by having to cook anything. We still got our share of dust, of hurry up and wait, of being stuffed around by people who didn't know what they were doing. But considering what we had to accomplish amongst a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing (it was a training exercise after all), we managed to do it within two days.
There's a big RAAF exercise coming up called Pitch Black (I wonder why our training exercises get cooler names than the real ones, such as Operation Popewatch), in June. I doubt I'll be involved in it because I'm too new here, and knowing my luck, my leave is probably going to happen smack bang in the middle of it. But I'm actually looking forward to going bush with RAAFies and cooking the real deal. It was really tough going for me out at Latchford because I was quite out of my comfort zone, but the more I see and help make things happen in a field kitchen environment, it doesn't seem too far removed from working in a proper kitchen.
Tuesday, May 6
military junk mail example
Top this for a speeding ticket......
Two Hunter traffic patrol officers from Newcastle LAC (Local Area Command) were involved in an unusual incident while checking for speeding motorists on the F3 Freeway. One of the officers used a hand-held radar device to check the speed of a vehicle approaching over the crest of a hill, and was surprised when the speed was recorded at over 300 kph. Their radar suddenly stopped working and the officers were
not able to reset it.
Just then a deafening roar over the treetops revealed that the radar had in fact latched on to a Williamtown Hornet fighter jet which was engaged in a low-flying exercise over Wyong, approaching from the Ocean.
Back at police headquarters the Local Area Commander fired off a stiff complaint to the RAAF Liaison officer at Williamtown.
Back came the reply in true laconic RAAF style:
"Thank you for your message, which allows us to complete the file on this incident. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Hornet had detected the presence of, and subsequently locked onto, your hostile radar equipment and automatically sent a jamming signal back to it.
Furthermore, an air- to-ground missile aboard the fully-armed aircraft had also automatically locked onto your equipment.
Fortunately the pilot flying the Hornet recognized the situation for what it was, quickly responded to the missile systems alert status, and was able to override the automated defence system before the missile was launched and your hostile radar installation was destroyed.
Thank you for your enquiry."
Two Hunter traffic patrol officers from Newcastle LAC (Local Area Command) were involved in an unusual incident while checking for speeding motorists on the F3 Freeway. One of the officers used a hand-held radar device to check the speed of a vehicle approaching over the crest of a hill, and was surprised when the speed was recorded at over 300 kph. Their radar suddenly stopped working and the officers were
not able to reset it.
Just then a deafening roar over the treetops revealed that the radar had in fact latched on to a Williamtown Hornet fighter jet which was engaged in a low-flying exercise over Wyong, approaching from the Ocean.
Back at police headquarters the Local Area Commander fired off a stiff complaint to the RAAF Liaison officer at Williamtown.
Back came the reply in true laconic RAAF style:
"Thank you for your message, which allows us to complete the file on this incident. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Hornet had detected the presence of, and subsequently locked onto, your hostile radar equipment and automatically sent a jamming signal back to it.
Furthermore, an air- to-ground missile aboard the fully-armed aircraft had also automatically locked onto your equipment.
Fortunately the pilot flying the Hornet recognized the situation for what it was, quickly responded to the missile systems alert status, and was able to override the automated defence system before the missile was launched and your hostile radar installation was destroyed.
Thank you for your enquiry."
Monday, May 5
you're fat - I'd sugarcoat it for you, but you'd probably eat that too
There's nothing more sobering than having to do a military medical checkup. Part of being in the service is being deployable, and the umbrella of requirements that enable an Airman/woman to be of such status is called Individual Readiness.
This morning I was due to chase up an Annual Health Assessment, which apparently has now been changed to a five yearly check, as long as things are on track and nothing has to be monitored during periods shorter than that time. I like to think of myself as being relatively in shape (I can always improve, but I'm definitely feeling healthier and fitter than I was back in Cerberon), and generally in good nick,
healthwise.
However, there is one sure thing to get me down about military health checks, and it comes down to three letters of doom: BMI. For those not in the know, the Body Mass Index is meant to be a rough guide to how much physical space one takes up, compared to how much one probably should. You figure it out by getting your weight and dividing it by your height squared. Then you look up whatever number you get on a specified chart, and hope that you've got the winning number.
Now, I realise that BMI isn't the be all and end all of whether someone's not within a healthy weight range, because it doesn't account for body types, muscle mass, particularly short or tall people, etc. But it still embarrasses me to be an active human in the RAAF (supposedly some of the fittest people in the country?!) and still
register as obese or overweight according to BMI. Even when I was at my lightest, just after finishing boot, I still would have been classed as overweight. Fortunately, there were other measurements that could be taken of me in order to get enlisted, and for BMI not to be a life sentence or anything like that.
However, something that struck me this morning, was answering the question which was one of the indicators for further discussion with the medical officer - 'Have you experienced any significant change in weight?' And I realised that I have gained almost 10kg in the six or seven months since recruit training. On one hand, I was bound to regain some weight lost from boot because I was eating so little and doing so
much compared to normal, but on the other hand, I haven't been eating that much puff pastry since I left Edinburgh.
I told the medical officer that I was changing over my contraception method to see if it's just a bad case of wacky hormones, seeing as I haven't had major weight gain/loss problems when taking oral contraceptives. I've also lost some weight since posting in here, probably because I'm eating proper meals whenever possible, snacking less, and a decent distance from junk food. I know I've been more active here than at Cerberon, but I haven't been anywhere near as hardcore as I was during boot, so who knows.
Apparently on base there is a weight clinic, where I guess it's like a ghetto Weight Watchers, having to weigh in regularly and get advice on weight loss and maintenance. Considering I used to work for WW and I know that being accountable for food intake and energy expenditure, as well as having the support from something other than yourself and non-interactive resources, all helps you get to where you want, but
still. It hasn't been that long since I accepted the body I'm living in - I'm not sure I'm ready to get really angry with it again.
See, I'm not one of those people that can detach the psychological bent from food and weight. I guess I'll always have these food demons within me festering away somewhere beneath the surface, but for the most part, I try to not let food control me. I can let myself get stuck into exercise to any point of obsession, but when it comes to food, I could never be one of those eat to live people. I just enjoy it too much. I
think there's nothing better to take the fun out of food than by counting calories, keeping food diaries, and being completely anal about what goes into my mouth.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that an awareness of what one eats is as essential as knowing what physical training to do. Treating food like a numbers game just bothers me. Almost as much as technically not being fit enough to do my job (wherein I am employed to be deployable). I can still remember the sinking feeling in my gut when at my pre-enlistment medical, despite being measured up to be acceptable for entry, the nurse tut tutted and said that I could get in the RAAF, but I should still work at losing some weight.
The paradox for me is that the more I try to concentrate on losing weight, the more emphasis I place on what the numbers on the scales say, the worse I seem to be at actually shaking it off. The times in my life when I have lost the most weight successfully have been when I was busy doing other things - like the first time I juggled two hospitality jobs and literally worked my butt off waiting tables most of the week, or the more recent example of boot camp where I was more focused on keeping my weapon and boots clean than what size my pants were.
So I'm kind of conflicted. I don't know whether to bite the bullet and get as much help on hand as possible to get rid of this weight once and for all. Or to do what I'm doing (I've been on a losing streak since I got here), hope that hormones had some part to play in it, and see how I go over the next couple of months. I know so much of this is a pride thing, but I'm no longer in denial about the situation.
I was telling the medical officer about everything I've been doing, and even on paper it seemed to her like I wasn't doing anything obviously detrimental to my health or weight loss plans. I think I'm headed in the right direction, but I'm not sure that I can handle anyone else giving me advice that I've already heard (and given myself!) before.
This morning I was due to chase up an Annual Health Assessment, which apparently has now been changed to a five yearly check, as long as things are on track and nothing has to be monitored during periods shorter than that time. I like to think of myself as being relatively in shape (I can always improve, but I'm definitely feeling healthier and fitter than I was back in Cerberon), and generally in good nick,
healthwise.
However, there is one sure thing to get me down about military health checks, and it comes down to three letters of doom: BMI. For those not in the know, the Body Mass Index is meant to be a rough guide to how much physical space one takes up, compared to how much one probably should. You figure it out by getting your weight and dividing it by your height squared. Then you look up whatever number you get on a specified chart, and hope that you've got the winning number.
Now, I realise that BMI isn't the be all and end all of whether someone's not within a healthy weight range, because it doesn't account for body types, muscle mass, particularly short or tall people, etc. But it still embarrasses me to be an active human in the RAAF (supposedly some of the fittest people in the country?!) and still
register as obese or overweight according to BMI. Even when I was at my lightest, just after finishing boot, I still would have been classed as overweight. Fortunately, there were other measurements that could be taken of me in order to get enlisted, and for BMI not to be a life sentence or anything like that.
However, something that struck me this morning, was answering the question which was one of the indicators for further discussion with the medical officer - 'Have you experienced any significant change in weight?' And I realised that I have gained almost 10kg in the six or seven months since recruit training. On one hand, I was bound to regain some weight lost from boot because I was eating so little and doing so
much compared to normal, but on the other hand, I haven't been eating that much puff pastry since I left Edinburgh.
I told the medical officer that I was changing over my contraception method to see if it's just a bad case of wacky hormones, seeing as I haven't had major weight gain/loss problems when taking oral contraceptives. I've also lost some weight since posting in here, probably because I'm eating proper meals whenever possible, snacking less, and a decent distance from junk food. I know I've been more active here than at Cerberon, but I haven't been anywhere near as hardcore as I was during boot, so who knows.
Apparently on base there is a weight clinic, where I guess it's like a ghetto Weight Watchers, having to weigh in regularly and get advice on weight loss and maintenance. Considering I used to work for WW and I know that being accountable for food intake and energy expenditure, as well as having the support from something other than yourself and non-interactive resources, all helps you get to where you want, but
still. It hasn't been that long since I accepted the body I'm living in - I'm not sure I'm ready to get really angry with it again.
See, I'm not one of those people that can detach the psychological bent from food and weight. I guess I'll always have these food demons within me festering away somewhere beneath the surface, but for the most part, I try to not let food control me. I can let myself get stuck into exercise to any point of obsession, but when it comes to food, I could never be one of those eat to live people. I just enjoy it too much. I
think there's nothing better to take the fun out of food than by counting calories, keeping food diaries, and being completely anal about what goes into my mouth.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that an awareness of what one eats is as essential as knowing what physical training to do. Treating food like a numbers game just bothers me. Almost as much as technically not being fit enough to do my job (wherein I am employed to be deployable). I can still remember the sinking feeling in my gut when at my pre-enlistment medical, despite being measured up to be acceptable for entry, the nurse tut tutted and said that I could get in the RAAF, but I should still work at losing some weight.
The paradox for me is that the more I try to concentrate on losing weight, the more emphasis I place on what the numbers on the scales say, the worse I seem to be at actually shaking it off. The times in my life when I have lost the most weight successfully have been when I was busy doing other things - like the first time I juggled two hospitality jobs and literally worked my butt off waiting tables most of the week, or the more recent example of boot camp where I was more focused on keeping my weapon and boots clean than what size my pants were.
So I'm kind of conflicted. I don't know whether to bite the bullet and get as much help on hand as possible to get rid of this weight once and for all. Or to do what I'm doing (I've been on a losing streak since I got here), hope that hormones had some part to play in it, and see how I go over the next couple of months. I know so much of this is a pride thing, but I'm no longer in denial about the situation.
I was telling the medical officer about everything I've been doing, and even on paper it seemed to her like I wasn't doing anything obviously detrimental to my health or weight loss plans. I think I'm headed in the right direction, but I'm not sure that I can handle anyone else giving me advice that I've already heard (and given myself!) before.
Friday, May 2
soup of (future possible) champions
This morning was the first of hopefully many weekly 5km fun runs (use of the word 'fun' is totally the PTIs' fault) on base, which I've been able to go to. Apparently we get to collect points towards an age group championship - thankfully you get 1 for turning up, 1 for finishing, and then 3, 2, 1 for finishing first, second, and third respectively. Fortunately, because I'm the only female in my age group, and therefore
technically only competing with myself until more people join up, I may be the winner in my division by default! Or at least come third, if only two other chicks start coming along, heh.
Anyway, it didn't go too badly, and I only finished last by a couple minutes (behind one of the other cooks!) in 33 minutes. Today was basically meant to be benchmarking day, seeing as I've barely done any running since I got here, so hopefully things will be on the improve as the weeks go on. It was rough going on some parts of the track that were lumpy bits of grass on the oval, but I guess it's hard to clear a path along the roads of the base just for a bunch of pesky runners. The tracks might change over time, so we'll see what happens.
I came back from a lightning quick shower, to dive into making the best soup ever. It seriously eats like a meal, and even though I was just asked to come up with a soup to use up some leftover chicken bits, I gave myself the challenge of making something that I actually would like to eat (as opposed to whatever's on the cyclic menu, or whatever other people want me to make up). I knew I'd be running this morning, so I
took my inspiration from Survival For The Fittest, The Australian Institute of Sport's cookbook. I was also a little cheeky because we don't have to pay for soup if we have it for lunch (or a snack if it's ready by morning break time), and it's just as good as a full breakfast, it has that much stuff packed into it!
The Sergeant saw me in the midst of making it, and said he was going to grab some for his lunch; he loved it. Awesome. I'm giving him a copy of the recipe, with notes of my bastardisations. I think if I keep on successfully muntifying other people's recipes based on the supplies available, I could probably write a little ghetto cookbook of my own. Sometimes when stocks are down, it's like the inverse Iron Chef - the secret ingredient is just whatever's left in the pantry/fridge, and we're called upon to do as much as possible with it!
Here's the recipe I yoinked:
Hearty Vegetable Soup (serves 4-6)
Ingredients:
Spray of canola or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
300g peeled and chopped pumpkin
1 large zucchini (courgette), chopped
1 litre (4 cups) MAGGI® Vegetable Stock 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup macaroni
300g can butter beans, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Method:
Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion over medium heat for 3 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the carrot, celery, pumpkin and zucchini and stir into the onion mixture. Add the stock, tomatoes and oregano, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 10 minutes. Add the pasta and cook a further 10 minutes or until the pasta and vegetables are tender. Stir in the butter beans and heat through. Just before serving, stir in the parsley.
Here's what I did with/to it:
Hardcore Chicken and Vegetable Soup (serves 60+, I'm not kidding!)
Ingredients:
Lashings of vegetable oil to get the party started
7 large onions, diced
1 bulb of garlic, finely chopped
20 smallish carrots, diced (our last vegie delivery didn't include the typical mutant sized carrots from Mars we usually get)
4 stalks celery, chopped (we were down to our last two bunches)
3kg roughly diced pumpkin (the chunks get small and soft by the time the soup's done)
7 large zucchini, cut into half-moons
14 litres (approximately) water
400g(?) leftover roma tomatoes (helped myself from the fridge!)
500g(?) tomato paste (again, it was an impulse steal)
50g(?) white sugar
1kg small spiral pasta
800g four bean mix, drained
1/2 bunch chopped fresh parsley
2kg(?) leftover chicken tenderloins and bits, cut into small pieces
Masterfoods Tuscan Spice mix (which I think is just salt, pepper, parsley and rosemary)
Method:
Acquire the biggest pot in the universe - we cook with these things called squarebashers; I think they can fit about 25 litres in them. Heat the oil and get the garlic and onion happening. Add all the other vegetables and stir whilst panicking about how large the soup is going to become. Deduce that most of the vegetables are what would be used to make a vegetable stock anyway, and seeing as AC/Ws aren't meant to be using boosters or stock powders, I might as well use water and see what happens. Pour in the water, bung in the tomatoes and tomato paste, chuck in the sugar and oregano for good measure. Leave it to do its magic and hopefully turn into a ghetto vegetable stock of its own! Meanwhile, toss the chicken bits through with some of the Tuscan Spice mix and stir fry so they are ready to add to the soup towards the end.
Throw in the pasta after the soup has had some time to boil, turn the heat down and let the bad boy settle. Add the chicken and beans once the pasta has cooked; garnish with parsley before serving. Eat for life.
technically only competing with myself until more people join up, I may be the winner in my division by default! Or at least come third, if only two other chicks start coming along, heh.
Anyway, it didn't go too badly, and I only finished last by a couple minutes (behind one of the other cooks!) in 33 minutes. Today was basically meant to be benchmarking day, seeing as I've barely done any running since I got here, so hopefully things will be on the improve as the weeks go on. It was rough going on some parts of the track that were lumpy bits of grass on the oval, but I guess it's hard to clear a path along the roads of the base just for a bunch of pesky runners. The tracks might change over time, so we'll see what happens.
I came back from a lightning quick shower, to dive into making the best soup ever. It seriously eats like a meal, and even though I was just asked to come up with a soup to use up some leftover chicken bits, I gave myself the challenge of making something that I actually would like to eat (as opposed to whatever's on the cyclic menu, or whatever other people want me to make up). I knew I'd be running this morning, so I
took my inspiration from Survival For The Fittest, The Australian Institute of Sport's cookbook. I was also a little cheeky because we don't have to pay for soup if we have it for lunch (or a snack if it's ready by morning break time), and it's just as good as a full breakfast, it has that much stuff packed into it!
The Sergeant saw me in the midst of making it, and said he was going to grab some for his lunch; he loved it. Awesome. I'm giving him a copy of the recipe, with notes of my bastardisations. I think if I keep on successfully muntifying other people's recipes based on the supplies available, I could probably write a little ghetto cookbook of my own. Sometimes when stocks are down, it's like the inverse Iron Chef - the secret ingredient is just whatever's left in the pantry/fridge, and we're called upon to do as much as possible with it!
Here's the recipe I yoinked:
Hearty Vegetable Soup (serves 4-6)
Ingredients:
Spray of canola or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
300g peeled and chopped pumpkin
1 large zucchini (courgette), chopped
1 litre (4 cups) MAGGI® Vegetable Stock 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup macaroni
300g can butter beans, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Method:
Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion over medium heat for 3 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the carrot, celery, pumpkin and zucchini and stir into the onion mixture. Add the stock, tomatoes and oregano, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 10 minutes. Add the pasta and cook a further 10 minutes or until the pasta and vegetables are tender. Stir in the butter beans and heat through. Just before serving, stir in the parsley.
Here's what I did with/to it:
Hardcore Chicken and Vegetable Soup (serves 60+, I'm not kidding!)
Ingredients:
Lashings of vegetable oil to get the party started
7 large onions, diced
1 bulb of garlic, finely chopped
20 smallish carrots, diced (our last vegie delivery didn't include the typical mutant sized carrots from Mars we usually get)
4 stalks celery, chopped (we were down to our last two bunches)
3kg roughly diced pumpkin (the chunks get small and soft by the time the soup's done)
7 large zucchini, cut into half-moons
14 litres (approximately) water
400g(?) leftover roma tomatoes (helped myself from the fridge!)
500g(?) tomato paste (again, it was an impulse steal)
50g(?) white sugar
1kg small spiral pasta
800g four bean mix, drained
1/2 bunch chopped fresh parsley
2kg(?) leftover chicken tenderloins and bits, cut into small pieces
Masterfoods Tuscan Spice mix (which I think is just salt, pepper, parsley and rosemary)
Method:
Acquire the biggest pot in the universe - we cook with these things called squarebashers; I think they can fit about 25 litres in them. Heat the oil and get the garlic and onion happening. Add all the other vegetables and stir whilst panicking about how large the soup is going to become. Deduce that most of the vegetables are what would be used to make a vegetable stock anyway, and seeing as AC/Ws aren't meant to be using boosters or stock powders, I might as well use water and see what happens. Pour in the water, bung in the tomatoes and tomato paste, chuck in the sugar and oregano for good measure. Leave it to do its magic and hopefully turn into a ghetto vegetable stock of its own! Meanwhile, toss the chicken bits through with some of the Tuscan Spice mix and stir fry so they are ready to add to the soup towards the end.
Throw in the pasta after the soup has had some time to boil, turn the heat down and let the bad boy settle. Add the chicken and beans once the pasta has cooked; garnish with parsley before serving. Eat for life.
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