Good Stuff, Bad Stuff, Emotional Stuff

Gotta get rid of that lawn !!! The drummer goes under the alias of gardenwiseguy. He writes in magazines and blogs over in the US..Hails from San Deigo ...A very talented Landscape Architect with a larger than life personality ... Google him - some great reading









The linked article is from the scientific american Scientific Magazine - and can you imagine the amount of roundup weedkiller thats been sold world wide !!!!



www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm So if it can do that to human cells what has it done to our soil structures !!! Our horticultural famland soils are dead from these chemicals .....



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Meanwhile, back at the ranch

The last 2 days of work turned out OK …Monday I was taken out to a very pretentious restaurant by our main vendor.. They gave me a present (!!!) of garden centre gift vouchers and a signed leaving card from all the vendor team on the Ministry account … I was quite taken aback by it :O)











Then in the afternoon I had the ministry IT team leaving drinks and nibbles with a nice speech from the Chief technology officer (my manager)…I had to laugh when he said one of the lasting memories of my time working with him was my openness and that whenever he gave a direction that I disagreed with I would take him aside and tell him direct !! :O) I told him it rarely changed anything :O )











Yesterday I had our fortnightly breakfast with the Vendors. They ordered glasses of bucks fizz for everyone :O)











I Then did the rounds saying good bye to the wider team members .. then lunch with my team (Indian banquet) … That got all emotional !! They did a little speech each as to why they were grateful to me and that they only worked at the Ministry because of me :o\ The girls cried !!! I told them to lighten it up a bit before I started as well …. It was all very nice and from the heart … but a little uncomfortable for me … They had even written it all down in the leaving card !! ... Bless em ...



And that was the end of my time at that Ministry - Ever... So no firmly focussed on the now and future :O)

Anyway – today I’m not doing much .. but feeling like I’ve taken a sick day when feeling fine ……

Photos from my archives

did you know?

A one cup of trim milk has 7.7 grams less fat than thestandard milk. If you consume one cup every day with coffee or cereal changinging to trim milk would remoce 2.8kg of fat or 25000 calories from your diet over a year. for an average persons needs that the equivalent of removing 10 days of extra eating from your year

Removing just 1 teaspoon ofsugar everyday from your diet will remove1.825kilos of sugar or 7000 calories from your year. Which equates to removing two to three days of eating ......

Combination Foods

A recent article in Medical News Today Talked about combining good foods that contain polyphenols such as in wine, fruit and vegetables when eating high fat foods may reduce the health affects of these high fat foods .... I can believe it ..But would still question to what exent these actually help. There must be plenty of overweight people suffering the usual illnesses associated with being overweight who have also eaten a diet rich in fruit and vegetables ?? Surely ...

As to Deep fried mars bars being very tasty (as mentioned in the article) ...I can leave them .... and certainly will fior the next 12 months at least

Fast Food and Exercise

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We are getting our exercise at the moment in the garden ... An old lawn at the front is now being converted into a pebble-stone walkway. A large circular border in the centre of the lawn has been created and planted with Dahlia , Fuscia and annuals. 2 1/2 cubic metres of medium sized pebbles are now being Listed from mound into barrow by spade and then moved to the lawn area for spreading over week matting ... Good honest back breaking work ...

The gym has been re-joined for another year. McD had agreed to join me in moring training sessions before work ... The idea being we get it out of the way for the day ratehr than wanting to be doing anything but gym work in these glorious summer evenings we are experiencing now and hopefully for the next 3 or 4 moths into 2008. this starts as a trial run on Friday moning and in earnest come the start of next week ... The 7th will be a big day..Weigh-in, Gym and Work all start then ......

I'm surprised at the quality of the healthy recipes these days. . The recipe below while taking some pre-planning as it requires marinating the meat is cokked very quickly and only around 350 Cals for a serving ... Add salad or cooked vegetables and the meal is complete ....

Miso-Marinated Beef Medallions

2 350gram Fillets cut into medallions

1 Cup Dark Red Miso

1 Tbs ginger, minced

1 tsp Chilli flakes

Drop of Sake or water

Mixed salad greens

Combine the miso, ginger and chilli in a large bowl and thin it with some sake or water until the mixture is pasty. Spread the paste onto the meat and refridgerate for several hours. on a pre heated grill cook for 3 or 4 minutes on each side. Serve on a bed of mixed salad or cooked green vegetables ..

Mushrooms

I've always been a big Mushroom fan .. As a child living in rural england the seasonal field mushroom was something to look forward to and the harvest eaten with great relish. Although back in those days worrying about my weight etc was of no concern ... I was a skinny as a rake and fit as a fiddle working on the farms etc doing odd jobs for pocket money...and so having mushroom fried in butter or mushroom with cream added to have on toast wasn't thought of as being bad or a problem ..

The nutritional aspects of mushrooms are well known ... Research by the Tufts university in the US believe that mushroom also help your immune system fight off those viruses and even cancers...

I'm happy to eat them cause they taste good and cooked properly they are a dieters friend ....

The Ideal Diet

In my Trolling around the internet I came across the The North American Association for the Study of Obesity

An abstract from an article written from their studies on hundreds of dieters who have successfully loast weight and kept that weight off contained the following

Still, only a minority consumes a low-carbohydrate diet. Despite changes in the diet over time, the variables associated with long-term maintenance of weight loss were the same: continued consumption of a low-calorie diet with moderate fat intake, limited fast food, and high levels of physical activity.

Now that was a surprise to me considering the uptake of the low carb diets such as Atkins and South Beach ... A recent TV programme put the success of the Atkins diet to the increase of protein which trigger the bodies "I'm full" response much earlier.. It also meant that your body stayed in the full state longer ....

Taking that a little further then having foods that are Low Glycemic(1) ,which also assists in you feeling fuller longer, along with a good intake of protein must be a good approach to longer term weight loss.... Complex carbs are not the enemy. Simple carbs like the sugars and processed flours we see so much of in our foods are .. That and our natural propensity towards such food stuffs....

(1)Not all carbohydrate foods are created equal, in fact they behave quite differently in our bodies. The glycemic index or glycemic index or GI describes this difference by ranking carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels. Choosing low GI carbs - the ones that produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels -

Fitness Blues

I'm worried about my fitness. While the main reason for my recent weight loss has been my undertaking a re-haul of the 1/2 acre garden I have, I do not see any great increase in cardiovascular fitness. This weekend we grabbed our cameras and headed for the Orongorongas. A protected native forrest area that we love to walk though ...Native orchids flower there and our native Tui birds and bell Birds were out on mass beside the carpark feeding off the native flax bushes in flower and full of nectar there.

Now while we did eat a hastily made up picnic (as in not so healthy but it aint the 3rd Jan yet) prior to walking, by we had walked 10 minutes or so of gentle hill I was already tired and panting. McDinzie was happily bouncing around like a mountain goat and she's definately not a slim girl...the difference between us was very apparrent.

I think part of the problem was the fact that we've done little in the way of exercise this past week ...The weather turned on us in cruel but accurate timing meaning our first weeks holiday weather was pretty much rain every day.. And of course Christmas and visitors added to the problem of lack of exercise... So my poor old body was not ready for an exercise start...

I set the alarm this morning. Not for the usual 5:45 work day alarm but for a more friendly 7am alarm... At least this morning I was up at 7 (ish) instead of the 9:30-10 ish the past week.. I dragged poor mcdinzie out of bed as well and we walked the dogs which is always a good start to the day ... But that is by far not enough to build up my cardiovascular endurance....Longer faster hillier walks are needed at the least ...

So in the next day or so I must work on my overall exercise plan and goals and get serious with it....Weight training, Cardio, and stretching all need to be worked on ...