Raw food diet

Today I am listless and lethargic with all the energy of a dead dog. I have lines under my eyes and I shuffle round the house with a lumbering, unsteady gait, trying distractedly to find something to do.

It's not flu. It's not a hangover. The reason for this is that I have just begun something known as a 'raw food diet', which I will be on continuously for the next three weeks. I can eat only fruit, salad and nuts, plus certain specific meat and dairy produce. Caffeine and alcohol are both horrifyingly off-limits.

I have to eat specific foods, in a specific order, at specific times throughout the day. The life of monk-like asceticism and self-denial is mine. All I need now is a robe, a manky length of rope to flagellate myself with and a religion that makes absolutely no sense.

It’s extraordinary how much you can come to rely on food. Food is there to prop you up when you feel low; to console you when all is wrong with the world; to replenish you when you are tired and weary; to waste your time when you've nothing better to do but exquisitely stimulate your taste buds with some wondrous foodstuff. Eating defines so much about our lives. Remove this comfort and you are left staring at the bare bones of your own existence.

And what is it that has sent me on this solitary outwards path into the nether regions of the soul? Why could I possibly do something so stupid? Well, over the next few weeks I am participating in a ground-breaking personal development course here in Perth that requires a heightened level of mental clarity and focus for a sustained period of time. A level of brain performance that would not be possible eating normally. A heavenly parabola of thought that will breed fresh and astonishing insights into my life, or so I'm led to believe.

As the old adage goes, you are what you eat. We all know caffeine gives you a boost in the mornings then takes it back with interest later in the day (‘first it giveth, then it taketh away,’ as the Queens of the Stone Age sang, though they were talking about drugs). Well other foodstuffs have this effect on the brain, in subtle, far-reaching and incalculable ways. Processed foods serve to muddy the waters of the mind and distract its focus away from the path it wishes to follow.

As such the course requires I must shun them, and the only things that can pass my lips from now on are the Lord’s own vegetables, grown in his holy nourishing Soil; and the feta cheese, skinless chicken breasts and boiled eggs that are his children. We are all one, connected and hard-wired into the universe, humans, animals and vegetables all. By eating life you regurgitate life through your thoughts and deeds, or so the theory goes.

It's taken a hell of a lot of self-discipline to get this far, but a whole lot more is needed to see this through. Once the detritus of everyday living and everyday eating has cleared itself out, my mind will be clear to soar and swoop like the mighty hummingbird. Many folk never dare to tread that far, and I won’t be practicing the elimination diet for any longer than the prescribed three weeks. If you eat this way for too long there comes a point where malnourishment kicks in and you get sick.

My mouth salivates at the prospect of the finish. As a doughnut-loving sugar fiend, I plan to be back among my everyday thoughts, happily gorging on my everyday crappy, over-processed, mind-numbingly delicious foods once the period is over. And through doing the course I will hopefully take home some enlightenment in a doggy-bag, to remind me of the strange and hallowed spiritual turf on which I once trod.

I’ve already lost a prodigious amount of weight over the last few months, through tons of exercise and cutting out a lot of the crap I used to eat (compulsive cheese sandwich-eating being the main and surprising culprit). My previously rotund frame is now much more thinner; but this diet will take it a step further and give me protruding ribs that could double up as a mid-range xylophone. I plan to continue going to the gym in the midst of this - I figure the exercise won't swallow up too much of my meagre energy and will burn off more fat.

And yet there are two more gaping holes newly rendered in my life; with caffeine and alcohol off the list, I find my general enjoyment of things massively restricted. I’ve lost all appetite for going to the pub and socialising - it just isn't the same when all you can drink is tapwater. Soft drinks can no longer be purchased and consumed, depriving me of the associated cool that aligning my thirst aims with these quality brands would provide. How can I cut it with the cool kids now!

Wisely I chose to quit tea and coffee several weeks ago, so that's one battle less to face. But it's still not a pleasant task to write this as the delicious smells of toasting bread and fresh coffee waft up from my housemates' unencumbered breakfasting orgy in the kitchen. The bloody bastards.

I don’t even have a job now the Christian fee-paying school I was temping at (oh yes) no longer requires my services for proof-reading school reports. I've got nothing to occupy me until the course starts in earnest next weekend.

I can only sit at home, listening to the sounds of nature and the street; absolutely certain in the knowledge that somewhere, someone is having more fun than me.