I just thought I would record here my recent health (!) discovery and what I'm doing about it...
I have recently been told that I am diabetic (type 2). I have fairly regular blood tests because I have an underactive thyroid, and had one back in June which showed that my blood glucose was high-ish. Not a huge amount compared with some I'm sure, but what annoyed me was that I have been told in the past that my bg was on the high side of normal, and also my cholesterol as a matter or fact, but no one had suggested doing anything about it...so I didn't. Wish I had now! I had a blood test back in about Oct/Now 09 too which apparently had come back showing the my bg was high but the doctor who had looked at it hadn't followed it up. Unfortunately I didn't ask for the figures (I will next time I go), but I'm guessing that they weren't as high in 09 as they were this time!
Anyway, luckily my result wasn't so high that I have to go on any medication as yet, but I have been told to lose weight and basically to stay away from sugary drinks and a couple of other useless bits of information! (well probably not useless, but things that I will need to know some time down the line, not very helpful at the outset) The only good thing to come out of this was that I was given a little blood glucose monitor by the surgery. So off I went to do some research on what I should eat to reduce my bg.
That was on Friday Jun 18th (almost 5 weeks to the day) I have to confess I had a final fling (as it were) that weekend, and ate everything in sight! But went shopping still without any clear idea as to what I should eat and not having had access to the internet to look anything up as yet. I had a vague notion about avoiding bread and potatoes (starchy carbs generally) as well as sugar, so I bought loads of veg and some fruit, plus obviously a protein element for my meals (all of which I normally eat anyway, by the way).
After being able to do some research I have decided that I should go the low carb route, as I've done low carb in the past and it has worked for me. I would stress here that I am not a die hard Atkins fan....I don't agree with the very strict induction period that they advocate, and what I usually do is cut out starchy carbs and sugars, but I still eat fruit (couldn't live without it especially at this time of year!) So for the first week I lived on salads as it was extremely hot and there was no way I was cooking veggies when I got home from work. But I've gradually learnt more and more and I now occasionally have about 3 ryvita crackers with some pate or cheese, and once a week I've been having a few new potatoes. I have had a couple of slips....usually when I go out to lunch with friends at work or see friends at the weekend, but if I have carby meal or afternoon (if it involves tea and cakes!) I try not to eat anymore carb laden items that day and that seems to be working, but I'm aware that that can only be on an occasional basis.
The upshot of all this is that I have lost 7lbs in weight, as of today, which I'm pleased about, even though I'm sure it won't be enough for the quack next time I see him. I haven't even actually tried to lose weight as yet, the main thing I was thinking about was eating to lower my bg, and the weight loss is a side effect of that....I haven't been buying low fat yogurt or half fat cheese or mayo or anyting like that....I always dislike the idea of what they put into products when they take out the fat element, I'd rather eat smaller amounts of the real thing, if you know what I mean. A real life saver has been Total Greek Yoghurt, mixed with some chopped up fruit which I crush a little bit to release the juices and a little artificial sweetener (my only concession to chemicals!).
I won't say I haven't had cravings, for bread and butter particularly.....my lunches in the past have generally consisted of a bought sandwich and a bar of chocolate (not everyday!) or a salad bought in M&S on my way to work (which by the way all have pasta, or rice, or cous cous in them, unless you buy a bog standard green salad which doesn't have any protein in it!)
Well this turned out longer than I anticipated, but if you're still with me.....Congratulations! and thanks for reading!
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Do you know what suddenly popped into my head today....?
A Coke Float!
Hands up who remembers them! Does anyone still have them?/buy them?/make them?
I can remember my first....it was about 1964, and although we weren't rich, we weren't badly off... and I was on holiday in Italy with my mum and dad. Looking back I know that was very luxurious in those days....considering up to then the only holidays I remember were to Butlins in Clacton. Now that's bringing back memories too....to me and to you I'm guessing...mmm, now I'm going to have to go home and dig out the old photos!
Anyway, I digress. There we were in Italy, in a cafe, mum and dad were having coffee....and at about 12 years old and not very worldly I didn't know what I wanted. The very nice lady in the cafe asked if I liked Coca Cola.....I'm not sure now if I even knew what Coca Cola was. We didn't really have fizzy drinks or go out as a family to the sorts of places where you would have been able to buy them. Anyway the very nice lady said she would make me a special drink, and presented me with a Coke Float.....gosh it was gorgeous! All that frothy coke which froths even more when you mix in the ice cream....and I'm sure that Italian ice cream must have been good even on it's own. In a tall glass with a long spoon I was in heaven! Of course, I insisted on having one every time we went into that cafe, and even made my mum make them when we got home!
Monday, 26 April 2010
Urban birdsong
I live in a very built up area of East London, and although I am on the outskirts of the borough it isn't very far to the edge of Epping Forest. I have cats, so don't often see birds in my little garden, but there is alway the twittering of the dawn chorus....even as early at 3.30 in the morning...a time when, for some unknown reason I often wake up and can't go back to sleep, so I wander downstairs and sometimes have a cup of tea.
The dawn chorus round here always sounds the same, but this year I've noticed a different little twittering, so I've been on the web to see if I can identify it. I found this great web site from the BBC where you can listen to all our different bird songs. (I can't get a clickable link to show up, but this is the address if you want to copy and paste http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/birdsong.shtml )
Well I think the only one that sounds remotely like it is the Bullfinch. Not a bird I would associate with east London!
Pretty isn't he!?
The dawn chorus round here always sounds the same, but this year I've noticed a different little twittering, so I've been on the web to see if I can identify it. I found this great web site from the BBC where you can listen to all our different bird songs. (I can't get a clickable link to show up, but this is the address if you want to copy and paste http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/birdsong.shtml )
Well I think the only one that sounds remotely like it is the Bullfinch. Not a bird I would associate with east London!
Pretty isn't he!?
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
So now you know.....
Why one HobNob just
isn’t enough!
Why is it so hard to stop eating just
one biscuit and so easy to finish off
the packet? Speaking to the Daily
Mail, Dr Carel Le Roux (Medicine) says
that fructose,
which is a sugar derived
from fruit, may be to blame. Fructose
is mixed with corn syrup and used in
processed
foods such as fizzy drinks
and biscuits to make
them sweet and last
longer. Fructose gives
us confused messages
about satiety,
explained Dr Le Roux:
“When we eat sugar,
our body releases
insulin
which tells the
brain that we have had enough to eat.
High insulin levels are one of the factors
that dampen the appetite.” He said:
“However, fructose doesn’t trigger
as
much of an insulin response as regular
sugar, so the brain doesn’t get the message
that you are full.”
I've copied this from our staff newsletter (you may or may not know that I work in a university) The quote is from one of our research staff. And there was me thinking that Fructose was "better" than refined sugar. Obviously not! Especially if you have no will power (like me!)
isn’t enough!
Why is it so hard to stop eating just
one biscuit and so easy to finish off
the packet? Speaking to the Daily
Mail, Dr Carel Le Roux (Medicine) says
that fructose,
which is a sugar derived
from fruit, may be to blame. Fructose
is mixed with corn syrup and used in
processed
foods such as fizzy drinks
and biscuits to make
them sweet and last
longer. Fructose gives
us confused messages
about satiety,
explained Dr Le Roux:
“When we eat sugar,
our body releases
insulin
which tells the
brain that we have had enough to eat.
High insulin levels are one of the factors
that dampen the appetite.” He said:
“However, fructose doesn’t trigger
as
much of an insulin response as regular
sugar, so the brain doesn’t get the message
that you are full.”
I've copied this from our staff newsletter (you may or may not know that I work in a university) The quote is from one of our research staff. And there was me thinking that Fructose was "better" than refined sugar. Obviously not! Especially if you have no will power (like me!)
Monday, 1 March 2010
I know I haven't posted in an age.....
but I am prompted today by the weekend that I've had. Some of it was good and some of it was bad....it's sort of a tale about people I don't see very often, but who I love very much...I'll start with the good...
On Saturday I met up with a friend that I don't see very often....still had her Christmas present to give her! We went to Olympia for the "Who Do You Think You Are" show. Now bearing in mind that both of us work full time, and have other things going on in our lives neither of us devotes much time to Genealogy....in fact I don't think I've done anything on mine since we went to the show last year! I probably had a spurt of energy when I returned and then it went by the board again. I guess this could be considered another one of my UFOs although it's an ongoing thing as you acquire more information.
Anyway, we had a lovely day...as we don't see each other very often, and she lives in Berkshire and I live in London, it's a good excuse to meet up and chat, have coffee, chat, have lunch, chat, have more coffee....are you getting the picture? But we also gleaned some more information about our ancestors, my friend in particular was looking for great grandfather who wasn't appearing on the census for a particular year, she knew he was a soldier, but couldn't figure out why he wasn't on the census even so. She found out that he was in the Gordon Highlanders and now knows where to look for more information. She has traced some of her tree back to the 1700s, but mine is a little more problematic as my family were immigrants around the turn of the 20th Century, and I don't have very much information about where they originated other the country. Much of the problems stemming from the spelling of their surnames. For example I have four documents with 4 different spellings, none of which give me very much information when I search for them. However I also managed to find some info on where to search that I hadn't thought of before so that's another avenue to explore.
Quite a long day...hard on the feet, and all talked out when we left!
Then yesterday, I had to go to the funeral of my favourite cousin. Such a shame, she was 2 years younger than me and had breast cancer about 5 years ago, had a double mastectomy and had been getting on really well then about 6 or 8 months ago it came back elsewhere in her body and last week she lost the fight. So I just wanted to say a few words about the lovely person....she studied and trained as a civil engineer back in the 70s when as you can imagine there were very few women in that industry. She took a lot of stick from builders on the sites that she worked on, but this always turned to admiration. She had a thirst for knowledge, and spoke several languages fluently, and we had something in common in that she was into arts and crafts in a big way. When she took an early retirement from engineering and surveying she really came into her own. She studed interior design, did mosaics among other things and evetually came to stained glass. First at evening classes and then most recently she did a years diploma course at Central St Martins (a very prestigious art college) in Glass and Architecture.
She was also someone I didn't see very often, but at family gatherings she was always the one I was most pleased to see arrive. and she would always make a point to let me know what she was getting up to or to visit any exhibition where there was some of her work showing. The last of these was the end of year show at St Martins last sumnmer.
RIP Jacquie Harris....I shall miss you very much>
On Saturday I met up with a friend that I don't see very often....still had her Christmas present to give her! We went to Olympia for the "Who Do You Think You Are" show. Now bearing in mind that both of us work full time, and have other things going on in our lives neither of us devotes much time to Genealogy....in fact I don't think I've done anything on mine since we went to the show last year! I probably had a spurt of energy when I returned and then it went by the board again. I guess this could be considered another one of my UFOs although it's an ongoing thing as you acquire more information.
Anyway, we had a lovely day...as we don't see each other very often, and she lives in Berkshire and I live in London, it's a good excuse to meet up and chat, have coffee, chat, have lunch, chat, have more coffee....are you getting the picture? But we also gleaned some more information about our ancestors, my friend in particular was looking for great grandfather who wasn't appearing on the census for a particular year, she knew he was a soldier, but couldn't figure out why he wasn't on the census even so. She found out that he was in the Gordon Highlanders and now knows where to look for more information. She has traced some of her tree back to the 1700s, but mine is a little more problematic as my family were immigrants around the turn of the 20th Century, and I don't have very much information about where they originated other the country. Much of the problems stemming from the spelling of their surnames. For example I have four documents with 4 different spellings, none of which give me very much information when I search for them. However I also managed to find some info on where to search that I hadn't thought of before so that's another avenue to explore.
Quite a long day...hard on the feet, and all talked out when we left!
Then yesterday, I had to go to the funeral of my favourite cousin. Such a shame, she was 2 years younger than me and had breast cancer about 5 years ago, had a double mastectomy and had been getting on really well then about 6 or 8 months ago it came back elsewhere in her body and last week she lost the fight. So I just wanted to say a few words about the lovely person....she studied and trained as a civil engineer back in the 70s when as you can imagine there were very few women in that industry. She took a lot of stick from builders on the sites that she worked on, but this always turned to admiration. She had a thirst for knowledge, and spoke several languages fluently, and we had something in common in that she was into arts and crafts in a big way. When she took an early retirement from engineering and surveying she really came into her own. She studed interior design, did mosaics among other things and evetually came to stained glass. First at evening classes and then most recently she did a years diploma course at Central St Martins (a very prestigious art college) in Glass and Architecture.
She was also someone I didn't see very often, but at family gatherings she was always the one I was most pleased to see arrive. and she would always make a point to let me know what she was getting up to or to visit any exhibition where there was some of her work showing. The last of these was the end of year show at St Martins last sumnmer.
RIP Jacquie Harris....I shall miss you very much>
Monday, 2 November 2009
A Day At The Races....
No, not a review of the Marx Brothers film! On Saturday I took my brother out for the day for a treat. It was his 60th birthday last week, and didn't want any fuss or parties, so I thought we should go out for the day. I'd asked him where he wanted to go and he didn't really know, but where we live is very handy for the M11, so we thought we would have a day out in Cambridge and look at the colleges there as we both like old buildings and stuff like that. Come Saturday morning though, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to go to Cambridge, so we were discussing where else was easy to get to up the M11! "Newmarket" he says....then, "not much goes on there though".
"What about the races?" I said. So we looked in the paper and discovered that there was a meeting that day, and it was the last one of the season....so off we went.
Neither of us had been horse racing before, so had no idea what to expect. However I had worked some years ago at a greyhound racing track and it wasn't dissimilar so didn't take long to get in the swing. I thought it was quite expensive to get in though at £10-£16 each, even with his newly acquired OAP concession! But the parking was free!
I really loved it! We soon got in the routine of watching the horses parade in the paddock before deciding which one we wanted to bet on...placing our bets and then going across to the track to wait for the start of the race. You could barely see the starting gate off in the distance, but there was a huge screen by the side of the track so you watch easily until they were coming up to the grandstand. You knew when they were within sight without even seeing them yourself as the cheering started on the far side of the grandstand and washed across the enclosure gradually getting louder and building to a crescendas the horses rushed towards the winning post.
I did my best Eliza Doolittle impersonation "Come on ....come on ....COME ON DOVER MOVE YOUR BLOOMIN ARSE!" If you've never seen it, watch it here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rxtbOVWmTM
it's quite long so wizz it along to about 7minutes in if you don't want to wait!
Anyway...we were certainly on a beginners luck winning streak, we had a win or a place on all of the first five races (there were 8 altogether) and then we lost on a couple. so decided to call it a day and left after the seventh to avoid a big crush when the last race had finished. But the only money we laid out for betting was on the first race, and we played with the winnings after that. There was still a bit in the kitty when we left which I gave to my brother.
A thoroughly enjoyable day, the weather was kind to us, and unless it's against your religion or something I would recommend it for a day out, as long as you're not likely to get carried away with the betting you don't have to spend a fortune.
"What about the races?" I said. So we looked in the paper and discovered that there was a meeting that day, and it was the last one of the season....so off we went.
Neither of us had been horse racing before, so had no idea what to expect. However I had worked some years ago at a greyhound racing track and it wasn't dissimilar so didn't take long to get in the swing. I thought it was quite expensive to get in though at £10-£16 each, even with his newly acquired OAP concession! But the parking was free!
I really loved it! We soon got in the routine of watching the horses parade in the paddock before deciding which one we wanted to bet on...placing our bets and then going across to the track to wait for the start of the race. You could barely see the starting gate off in the distance, but there was a huge screen by the side of the track so you watch easily until they were coming up to the grandstand. You knew when they were within sight without even seeing them yourself as the cheering started on the far side of the grandstand and washed across the enclosure gradually getting louder and building to a crescendas the horses rushed towards the winning post.
I did my best Eliza Doolittle impersonation "Come on ....come on ....COME ON DOVER MOVE YOUR BLOOMIN ARSE!" If you've never seen it, watch it here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rxtbOVWmTM
it's quite long so wizz it along to about 7minutes in if you don't want to wait!
Anyway...we were certainly on a beginners luck winning streak, we had a win or a place on all of the first five races (there were 8 altogether) and then we lost on a couple. so decided to call it a day and left after the seventh to avoid a big crush when the last race had finished. But the only money we laid out for betting was on the first race, and we played with the winnings after that. There was still a bit in the kitty when we left which I gave to my brother.
A thoroughly enjoyable day, the weather was kind to us, and unless it's against your religion or something I would recommend it for a day out, as long as you're not likely to get carried away with the betting you don't have to spend a fortune.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
More about my holiday
I've put some (well quite a lot) of my pictures in a webshots album here... http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/574823110PhSlDK?vhost=outdoors Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to get a slideshow on here even though webshots very kindly provide a code that you can copy! (duh!) I seem to have taken a rather large amount of pictures of flowers...even though I've had my digital camera for about 2 years now (or it might even be 3), I'm still fascinated by the fact that you get such good close ups of things like flowers and insects.
Talking about how long I've had my camera reminds me of an incident that happened while I was away....there was me standing on the end of the Cobb on Lyme Regis, when I decided to have my photo taken.....anyone who knows me will know that I absolutely hate to have my picture taken so this was a red letter day! So I gave the camera to my friend to take the picture. She faffed about for a while and complained that she couldn't tell it had actually taken the picture as there was no indication. Well it turned out that she had kept her finger on the button so long that there wasn't one picture of me but NINE!! Something I had no idea that the camera did was that if you keep your finger on the button it just keeps shooting.....Two years I've had that bloomin camera and how many times have I tried to take a picture of bird taking off or a bee on flower and been moaning to myself that by the time you take the second picture it's too late! You should have seen us....standing on the end of the Cobb with nothing but the sea around us, and we were just creased up with laughter at these nine photos of someone who never has her picture taken....ever! And wanting to go back in time to try for all those great shots that you wanted, but never could get!
also on the subject of my not being a very good photographer.....you'll notice that there is a video clip in amongst the pictures....no idea how that happened to get in there.....I do know that my camera will take short videos, but I didn't know at the time that that was switched on...don't know why it was switched on either as I'm pretty sure that I hadn't intended to take any videos. It only looks pretty good, because I took a picture of the swan (thus starting the video (?)) and kept him in my view waiting for him to do something else that might be worthy of a picture (that's why it goes off a bit wonky at the end!) Ah well, one of these days I'll take Geek lessons!#
Talking about how long I've had my camera reminds me of an incident that happened while I was away....there was me standing on the end of the Cobb on Lyme Regis, when I decided to have my photo taken.....anyone who knows me will know that I absolutely hate to have my picture taken so this was a red letter day! So I gave the camera to my friend to take the picture. She faffed about for a while and complained that she couldn't tell it had actually taken the picture as there was no indication. Well it turned out that she had kept her finger on the button so long that there wasn't one picture of me but NINE!! Something I had no idea that the camera did was that if you keep your finger on the button it just keeps shooting.....Two years I've had that bloomin camera and how many times have I tried to take a picture of bird taking off or a bee on flower and been moaning to myself that by the time you take the second picture it's too late! You should have seen us....standing on the end of the Cobb with nothing but the sea around us, and we were just creased up with laughter at these nine photos of someone who never has her picture taken....ever! And wanting to go back in time to try for all those great shots that you wanted, but never could get!
also on the subject of my not being a very good photographer.....you'll notice that there is a video clip in amongst the pictures....no idea how that happened to get in there.....I do know that my camera will take short videos, but I didn't know at the time that that was switched on...don't know why it was switched on either as I'm pretty sure that I hadn't intended to take any videos. It only looks pretty good, because I took a picture of the swan (thus starting the video (?)) and kept him in my view waiting for him to do something else that might be worthy of a picture (that's why it goes off a bit wonky at the end!) Ah well, one of these days I'll take Geek lessons!#
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