Hard to know what advice to follow, they were banning lerts on here last week but now the UK is advising you to be one. Scotland disagrees, Lerts are the cause of all their squabbles with UK Royalty through history.
I seek your advice, and I’m not being daft, people on here have given me loads of good advice and often other people know things that I don’t (most things). Tried and tested things that work for you is what I’m after.
I put on weight a bit during lockdown. I used to work full time in farming and gardening but disability makes that impossible now, and during lockdown I have only been going out about two days a week to do site clearance work but struggling to even do that. and the rest of the time I am doing too much writing and staying too static apart from short breaks to do the garden here.
I can’t walk far and bikes for exercise were banned but I will be back on the bike tomorrow, yay! I don’t think the leisure centre will be open for swimming for a while, and I can’t do much by way of burpees or press-ups, forbidden in fact as I have a broken spine etc etc , anyone got any good exercises or online resources?
Also recipes and good healthy eating tips, things that work for you, you don’t need to tell me about sugar and butter, being bad for me, I’ve got that bit covered, but any really good recipes or simple low fat tasty meals?
Thanks.
Sugar is a far bigger problem than fat, you need fat, you don’t need sugar. Butter is fine as long as you dont burn it or eat it by the pound in one sitting, certainly a lot better an ersatz like than satan’s snot, margarine.
Ditching sugar is an easy and painless way to eat healthily. Anything processed is likely to be fairly unhealthy too, usually full of sugar in various guises, so something else to avoid.
Healthy eating is just eating normal meals, lots of crudités, wholegrain cereals if any and never snacking. Nobody needs to eat crisps or biscuits etc.
Thanks. I don’t eat crisps very often at all, and biscuits, just a few Breton Biscuits with tea if I’m lucky, I don’t go out of my way to buy either. Totally agree about margerine, wouldn’t touch it, but what about the other spreads like Proactive? I usually use a French version of that. Omega 3 type spread.
My meals are usually quite simple, wholegrain toast, goats cheese with salad and bread; meat and potatoes, that kind of thing. I do wonder if drinking a lot of tea with milk isn’t helping me. It’s hard as a writer, to stop chain drinking tea.
I love fresh fruit and veg, but I can’t o/d on them as I can’t digest them as well as some people can and so lots causes me other problems. If I had my way I would live on carrots, maybe I would turn orange like Donald Trump. Tell me more about ‘transit rate’ is that to do with absorbtion?
Is chocolate a vegetable?
I changed my diet many years back for health reasons, quite successfully. The main change I made was to stop eating processed foods (or heavily processed foods as I still eat cheese for example). Sounds simple but actually promotes a whole new way of eating while not depriving yourself of anything - as you just make it from basic materials. And on top of that moved away from too fatty and sugary foods and towards plants and fish. We have the luxury of having the time to make whatever we want, and a veg garden to source things from.
For exercise I do pilates for core strength and had just started a cardiac rehabilitation programme with my physio when lock down hit. So have replaced this with 60 minute fast walks (I can’t run or jog) up steep slopes/hills which can keep my heart between 70 and 80% of max rate for the necessary 30+ minutes. Not quite the same as monitored interval training on a bike, but after 8 weeks of it I think I’m starting to see/feel a difference.
Try different teas, as you might find one you like better without milk. I struggle in UK now as have completely lost the taste for milk in tea.
That’s all helpful, I am pretty much eating unprocessed food, certainly not a readymeal person. I certainly should be eating more fish, the local supermarket is small and fish there is expensive so during lockdown I haven’t had fish. Tea with sugar and semi cream milk is one of my big problems.
I can’t do fast walks but I look forward to biking again. Do you know any good online pilates resources? I hear it helps with core muscle strength.
I tried some teas, I got hooked on caramel tea but after a while it gets too much, I think I may like lemon tea, I was making such progress and the stress at the start of lockdown threw it all.
You would turn orange, at least I did. I developed a great liking for raw carrots and could sometimes eat a pound a day as they are quite filling, very crunchy and sweet too. I don’t know how much sucrose they contain.
But I did become noticeably carrot-coloured and, when this was pointed out by people concerned for my health, I stopped rabbiting them down. I still like them, straight from the earth, and I just wipe them on my overalls before munching, I like the gritty taste of garden soil.
Before anyone warns me off, I’ve possibly eaten about 0, 25 metric tonne of earth over the last 80 years or so, and it’s done me good I reckon.
I remember reading, many years ago, about a man who decided to eat only carrots. In that account it did turn him orange and there was another interesting side effect - he died!
Have you got a local Thiriet or Picard? They do good unmuckedaboutwith frozen fish and also frozen vegetables - very handy for if you haven’t been shopping and can’t face going or it is Sunday etc. Bung some vegetables in a steamer, add a fillet of fish, eat with a bit of salt and some olive oil or melted butter and voilà convenience food.
Processed food isn’t just ready meals…I cut out packet cereal, industrial bread, biscuits, filled pasta, crisps and aperitif things, cakes, ready made up things like accra, patés, processed meats (which are bad for you in so many ways), basically anything that only comes in a packet (apart from chocolate!).
Yes, packet food, ugh. My children were horrified when they were small and went to see their paternal grandmother because she had ready-made vinaigrette and mayonnaise from a shop. Luckily they were tactful.
Now lockdown is eased, I look forward to going to Picard again, it doesn’t count as a nearest supermarket during lockdown. That sounds like a good quick meal idea, thank you.
First bike ride without the gendarmes lurking. Wonderful but a bit breathless, the strong wind takes away what little air I can get into my lungs, trees and branches down everywhere from the storm but a wonderful sense of freedom.
