Well, last night went really well! Not only was the Leaves Eyes gig awesome (though I have to say support band Stream of Passion were a load of shite) but I’ve now been in a fully metal situation with my new lifestyle, and it wasn’t hard!

Smoking was pretty much the hardest thing, and I did find myself wanting a cigarette, but that was completely outweighed by my wanting to stay healthy. Not drinking was actually way easier than I’d thought! I told a friend of mine I bumped into about my new lifestyle at the gig. Typical first reaction - ‘WHY?!’ - was followed by him saying ‘I just assumed there was JD in your diet coke!’ and that he’s trying to cut down on beer as well! Cool!

The friend I went with just seemed quite impressed at my scheme. She said she’d been trying to do something similar herself, and had recently bought a veggie cookbook in the hopes that it will get her eating more vegetables and cooking healthier stuff at home. Excellent! Seems like there might just be a metal support network out there!

I’ll be in a pub again today. Another friend of mine’s father passed away on Monday - a wonderful man, bags of personality, and my friend is obviously very upset. His wife invited me out to the pub with them today, so I’m not quite sure what the mood will be - whether they’ll be drowning their sorrows or just trying to have a night forgetting about it. Either way, I’ll be there for them, just not drinking beer!

Now, time to get up, do my house work and get my healthy shopping in for the coming week. Viva la healthy revolucion!

Well, tonight is slightly proof-of-the-pudding time as I’ll be at a gig for the first time in ages! Well, ok, not ages. I went to Heidenfest last week (Finntroll, Turisas, Alestorm, Skalmold, GET IN!) but got absolutely trashed after drinking infinity beers and then started this blog the following day, hungover as all hell. Hee.

Anyway, an awesome pal of mine is getting me a plus-one to see Leaves Eyes tonight. In case anyone is unaware of them, they’re female-fronted symphonic metal of the most toothsome kind, see here:

While I’m really looking forward to it, I’ll definitely have to be careful. Once I get into the delightful scudginess of the Underworld, I know I’ll be really tempted to drink a hundred beers, smoke a hundred fags and eat take-away from the place next door.

I won’t though! I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’m ready to party on diet coke, not join my pal for her fag breaks and I’ve got my healthy dinner already prepared to take with me. All will be well! It’s probably a good thing tonight’s symphonic stuff as well, as it’ll be a slightly gothier crowd than some gigs and shouldn’t be quite so beer-heavy. At last week’s viking metal you couldn’t move for all the pint glasses strewn around!

In other news, I listened to the album After by Ihsahn for the first time on my way in this morning and realised that what metal needs more of is SAXOPHONES.

My friends and I made up a game on the way back from Sonisphere this year when we were hungover and stinking on the train home.  It’s called ‘Metal or Not Metal?’. The premise is very simple: you name a random thing and decide whether it’s metal or not metal. For example:

Gravel - Metal

Shoe racks - Not Metal

Glue sticks - Not Metal

PVA glue in a pot - Metal

Cats - Metal

Microwaves - Totally Lame and Not Metal

Toastie Makers - Metal

Cheese graters - METAL AS ALL FUCK

See? Easy. The game can extend to food and drink too, which is where it gets a bit iffy if - like me - you want to get healthier.

The thing is, most metal types when faced with, say, a feta salad and a KFC meal would class the KFC as Metal and the salad as Not Metal.  Beer is, of course, Metal As Fuck and water is… well, take a guess. Greasy, salty fast food, fags and booze are somehow just Metal and healthy stuff is seen as Not Metal, so any attempt to not partake in the burgers-and-pints lifestyle - or even to profess a preference for healthy living - is often greeted with suspicion or even ridicule.

When you think about it, however, fast food, smoking and non-stop boozing in many ways exemplify everything metal stands against. Metal for many people (certainly for me) is partly about standing out, about not accepting blandness and authority. Fast food companies make a living from turning people into addicts, hooked on fat, sugar and salt-laden food and making them feel shit about themselves in the process. Tobacco companies do the same without even fulfilling a basic need in the process. Beer, while it can be lovely to drink at a gig, in excess makes you forget all about the awesome gig and gives you a giant belly in the process.

Shite.

With this in mind, I’d like to make the following addition to my Metal or Not Metal list:

Being under the thumb of corporations who don’t give a shit about your well-being - Totally Lame and Not Metal

Now bring me my feta salad!

Right, I’ve been saying I’m going to get healthy for ages and I think it’s high time I proved it to myself.

I’m a 28 year-old female metalhead currently living in London, and I very much fit all the cliches that go along with that.  So I listen to a lot of Iron Maiden, I wear a lot of black, I go to a lot of gigs, I headbang, I fist-pump and I will defend thrash until the day I die.  It also means I drink a lot of beer, I eat a lot of junk food, I smoke a lot and - while I’m not obese, I am by no means a healthy person.

I thought I would use this blog as a tool to motivate myself to make better choices in life.  I need to learn to say ‘Nah, I don’t need another pint’ instead of listening to the little metal devil who sits on my shoulder going ‘Of course you want another beer!  Beer is METAL!’

I generally think of myself as quite a strong-willed person, so it really irritates me that I am so easily persuaded to do things I don’t particularly want to by outside influences.  Instead of allowing myself to be dictated to by advertising, people around me and that most nebulous of concepts ‘the metal lifestyle’, I thought I’d set myself a challenge to prove how determined I am.

For the next month, I hereby promise I will not drink, I will give up smoking and I will only eat healthy, balanced meals that I have prepared from fresh ingredients, with no junk food and no snacking. I am fully prepared for this to turn me into a hideous beast, oozing nicotine cravings and desperate for a pint.  I do not expect to enjoy this, but hey-ho, we’ll see.

The other challenge I have set myself is to exercise every day.  My current exercise regime consists of walking to the station (2 minutes), getting the train into work, walking from the station to work, sitting on my arse all day, then repeating this process to go home. Boom.  How fit am I?! Instead of this, I will walk to work (which will take about 2 hours) so it’s up early for me!

I’m starting to regret this already.  Nevermind, I’ve made my promise and I intend to keep it.  No more couch-potato metalhead.

Wish me luck!