Dani 40 days later
Day 40 96.6 kg Day 0 110.2 kg
I've had serious issues with Dani in the past few weeks, and it's no coincidence that his weekly summaries haven't been coming in regularly. After the Day 15 summary, Dani got sick for 2 weeks, during which he didn't train as much as Dr. Torgyán did as president of the Smallholders' Party, but he did stick to his diet, at least according to him. The skeptical tone is no coincidence, because no matter how I look at it, Dani had an act that I still can't place. I've known Dani for years; we meet weekly thanks to an established poker group, so what I would easily do with a stranger, which is to tell him to go to hell, I can't do with him. We agreed that if he took on the program, there would be certain implications. What happened was that Dani simply disappeared, and no matter how many times I called or texted him, he didn't answer calls or messages. I called the other poker guys to call him too, maybe he just wasn't answering my calls, but he didn't answer theirs either. Now, I really freaked out a bit here, because if something had happened to Dani, I would be in real, real trouble. My parents, outdoing the psyche of mass murderers, have been overprotective of me since I was 0 years old, but I'm afraid this anxious embrace can no longer be explained by me being their only son, because, for example, they still have a stroke if I venture into the deeper waters of Lake Balaton beyond the buoys. Years ago, my father's best friend drowned in the Pilisvörösvár quarry lake, and if you add that my mother is also a hypochondriac, then you can imagine the mental circumstances I grew up in, the result of which is this blog, and all my emotional projections in it....
The point is, remembering my parents' house and the fears successfully instilled in me, I was just about to call the central office of the National Ambulance Service to ask if they had admitted a patient named Dániel Takács to any hospital when I received a text message with the following text: "I've fallen ill and am starting to run a fever, but otherwise I'm fine. I've passed the first month. Dani…" Great. After this SMS, my blood pressure went below 200, but to this day I don't understand why he couldn't call back for days. By this time, we were already at day 30, and I thought, okay, he got sick, that's part of the program, I got sick too, but I told Dani that training was out of the question for now, but he should stick to his diet as much as he could.
Two days pass, and I was invited to the third day of the pálinka festival. Before that, I talked to Dani on the phone, asking how he was, if he was feeling better. He said yes, but he was still sick, lying at home, wanting to rest. "Alright, rest up, let me know when you're better, and we'll continue the program, which will be delayed by a few weeks." Let me take this opportunity, because I can't be grateful enough to the pálinka festival organizers for their messed-up top-up system. What kind of system makes me queue for 40 minutes just to be able to queue for pálinka? After 8 shots past 11 pm, it was actually quite tolerable. The company I was with were massive FTC supporters, who by midnight were in such a state in front of the Nobilis Pálinkaház pavilions that they started singing continuous anthems. I don't know exactly if the visibly dwindling crowd was due to this, or if people would have been heading home anyway, but it's likely the former, because after the sixth "the whores are crying, the peasants are crying, the queers and pedophiles are crying…" Ujpest-abusing chant, I also took my now ex-girlfriend's hand, and we headed towards the side of the Castle to pretend romance while sightseeing.
We're walking towards the exit, and suddenly, who do I see in front of the Pannonhalmi Pálinkárium stand at 1 AM? Who? Well, of course, Mr. Dániel, with whom I had supposedly agreed that afternoon that he was sick at home and resting. I love these "in flagrante" moments because everything is written on your face. You should have seen mine, but I think Dani's would have been worth a snapshot too. As I later found out, he couldn't stay at home because he absolutely had to be at this gathering. And I thought Petra would screw me over. (67 kg). Anyway, I thought to myself, I'll write Dani's weekly summary because he's lost over 10 kilos already, and then we'll continue the program in a few days, but first, I'll write the article that's been in my head for days about the whores of Budapest universities…
Dani continued his training, and in a report he sent me, he proudly announced that for the first time in 9 years, he was under 100kg again. Awesome, but then the blog exploded, so let's wait a bit with this, because first I'll post Petra. A few days pass, I'm sitting at home watching Family Guy or porn, I don't remember exactly, when suddenly my phone rings, Dani calls, saying there's a huge problem because he just coughed up blood… what the hell. He goes to the doctor, then comes over to tell me what's up, let's meet and talk about how to proceed depending on what the doctor says. Dani is scared, because he's been heavily smoking since he was 15, and you don't just cough up blood for no reason. The diagnosis is viral tonsillitis and the blood is coming up from all the coughing, well, who the hell knows, but that's what it is. I say let's be happy about that, knowing the professional level of the GPs still remaining in Hungary, that the doctor didn't prescribe Neocitran for coughing up blood.
So Dani's program lost 25 days, as far as training is concerned, because he stuck to his diet, and yesterday he already ran 2km. Tomorrow we'll rethink this whole program, discuss a few things, and talk about how to proceed. I believe Dani got sick, but it's just like when I took sick leave and didn't go to work because I had a weekly pass for Sziget. Did I get caught? As expected. Did I get fired for it? Unfortunately not, but I had a few unpleasant moments because of it. I won't ramble on here, because Dani is really my friend and a good kid, but there's no point in us wasting each other's time and having such pálinka festival encounters.
To use a World War II saying, "let's see what's left," meaning what changes Dani underwent despite all this. I always emphasize that I will notice anyone who's slacking off, and quite easily at that. If there's no change, if the kilos aren't dropping, then there's slacking involved, because my programs are designed to expose that immediately. There's a baseline calorie intake, which we consistently go below, plus workouts. If there's no result, either the workout is botched, or the diet, or in the worst case, both. We've discussed the workout; adhering to the diet is what will be revealed now. The silver lining is that Dani at least adhered to the diet properly, resulting in a -13.6 kg loss. Comrade Dániel became an average of 7-8 cm slimmer, and this is when those 25 lost days truly hurt, because what results we could have achieved by now if it weren't for this messing around. I think we would easily be under 90 kg by now.
Anyway, "the show must go on" principle, so Dani and I are moving forward, and we'll see how things turn out, but I hope no more foolishness, blood, or illness will intervene. Dani proudly told me that he was invited to a wedding where he was looked at like a complete idiot because he drank only plain water and ate two plates of soup during the entire wedding feast. Under normal circumstances, I would now burst into tears of happiness and pride, but it would look so silly after what happened, as if we had thanked Gyurcsány in 2009, saying, "Ferenc, thanks, you didn't completely ruin the country." That was really nice of you…
