Okay, I don't actually have astonishing news, but I did watch a pretty standard video that blew my socks off.
What's Cooking? with Jamie Oliver (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jamie Oliver is a British chef who grew up as the son of a landlord, near where I grew up, in Essex (yay!), England. 'Pub grub' is common fare in the UK, always nice for a spot of Sunday lunch or for a family meal midweek. but Jamie has always tried to make it healthier.
Part of that change is from the 'carrot' of having good healthy food and thus, over a period of time, being fitter, happier people.
The 'stick' part of his process is to show just what is in the food you are currently eating. Mix the two aspects together and you have a food revolution.
Or do you?
Quite scary how they have literally seen what goes into their food and still choose what they did.
My baby boy, Jack In fact it was this afternoon in the local mall that I had an epiphany. Actually, it was backache but I'll call it an epiphany for now.
Mrs J and I had a late breakfast / early lunch at the mall whilst waiting to meet up with the Sister-in-law. I decided to go and see my friend and barber Moody who works on the same floor as the cafe we were eating in. To give Mrs J a bit of time to eat her breakfast I said I'd take Jack along with me.
So far very simple. Taking a 10 month old baby to see my friend 150 meters away. When I got there I was knackered (or cream-crackered if your from Essex). I'm used to working in a warehouse moving heavy boxes around but this was just pain-pain-pain!
As I struggled back to Mrs J with Jack on my shoulder I realized what my issue was. Its not that I'm overweight, which I am, or that I am unfit, which I really am, but rather that I now understood physically what my body was feeling already being at least 10kg overweight.
Carrying Jack had instantly added the 10kg in one go to the 10kg I have slowly been adding to my body over the last few years.
I finally understood what I was putting my joints, my heart and my muscles through every time I started doing something.
Normally at this point I'd just use it as an excuse to never leave the couch but I feel now that I really have to either turn this blubber into muscle or get rid of it.
From now on I'm going to try harder, push further and really try to lose the weight. I'm starting with trying to get 10,000 paces every day. You can follow my alleged progress on the Walker Tracker widget near the top of the blog.
All words of encouragement warmly welcomed as are any hints and tips you may have.
As kids, whenever someone attacked either of us we would back each other to the hilt. When there was no-one else to battle we fought amongst ourselves, also, in a very energetic way. Its only my sister and I, although we did have a dog for a good many years, we are very close and there are many similarities between us (my sister and I, not the dog and I).
In fact when my sister and I chat to each other, even in front of our parents, we speak so fast and in such an Essex accent that no-one can understand us.
We also have something else in common - obesity. I haven't seen my sister in a few months but I do know that we are both on the heavy side.
She has 7 kids and a husband to clean up after, runs a community center and helps out at a variety of charities as often as she can. This leaves her very little time to look after herself.
Me? I like eating chocolate and have an aversion to sport.
Back in April I started using my trusty pedometer, in fact its the Omron Walking Style II (below) and I recommend it to everyone. A pedometer measures the amount of steps you take whilst wearing it. Different health organisations agree that taking over 10,000 steps a day is highly beneficial to your health. My sister has yet to purchase a pedometer but hopefully after this little blog she will do so.
Mrs. Jumblerant recently bought a pedometer, exactly the same as mine, and challenged me to an interesting competition. Whoever has the most paces at the end of each day gets to stay in bed in the morning when our 8 month old baby boy wakes up! My kind of challenge.
In the last 3 days I have beaten her 3 times.
To add to the fun I also picked up on a challenge by fellow blogger Treppenwitz to his readers to log their steps, for free, at Walker Tracker. I have a rather green widget near the top of this blog if you want to go there and have a look.
Anyway, its a no frills competition normally. I even started 2 competitions this month in an effort to get back into walking myself thin. The winner gets bragging rights or something of an equal value, but it means that there are people out there helping you to walk more paces, push a bit harder and get a little bit healthier each day.
