Walking campaign

Started my new walking campaign today. Kept up a reasonably good pace for 58 minutes and feeling quite pleased with myself. Feet feel a bit sore but not as much as they used to. I think all this walking that I have been doing lately is toughening them up and making them healthier too.

Let's see how well I can progress over the coming months.

The evils of food

Just shows you how bad what we eat is for you. Last weeks loss was only 0.5Kg (1.1lbs) due to eating those damn chocolate brazils. No more! Determined that this week's weight loss will be more than 1Kg (2.2lbs).

Fit the fat way

I'm still losing weight but can't quite believe how. Yesterday, for instance, I ate 4 boiled eggs for breakfast then ate 3/4 of a whole chicken for lunch (had the rest for breakfast this morning) with a pack/wedge of President Brie later in the day. Doesn't sound healthy? Well I feel better than I have in years and am about to voluntarily walk into Clydebank.

Travelling light

Decided that carrying my Canon EOS 20D around with me while on these country walks is not ideal. It's quite heavy and not ideal for taking "snaps" with. I've brought my first digital camera out of retirement, a Fujifilm Finepix S304 as it is lighter, smaller and more suited to journal type photos. Might event start taking it with me everywhere to capture everyday events.

It's not the greatest camera on the planet but I always say that it doesn't matter what you take pictures with it's the moment that counts. One of my favourite pictures (not taken by me by the way) was taken on a throw away camera. Any budding photographers out there take note: you don't need to bust your budget to get good results.


Camera phones (although I don't agree with the concept) give good results too and are very unobtrusive.

Keeping track

Another satisfying weigh-in this morning with another 1.72Kg (3.8lbs) lost. Feeling good about myself at the moment.

5 weeks worth

This all during a week where we thought we had strayed off the path when we bought some chocolate covered Brazil nuts. It took me a few days to finish them all as I only ate two at time and there were about 17 in the box (OK I ate six on the last day over a period of 4 hours).

At this rate I'll need to start looking at getting some new clothes as everything will begin to look baggy on me.  Whoopee!

Sutton Hoo

We spent a few hours yesterday in Sutton Hoo. They have an excellent visitor centre and some fine examples of what was found, shame the really good stuff is at the British Museum in London though. The visit started off with an eight minute video outlining the history of the site and it's fortuitous excavation. After that we toured the exhibits and read the story behind the burial mounds and how they had been investigated.

Belt buckle

Some of the jewellery was truly astounding. Something as simple as a belt buckle was a masterpiece. This may look like just some fancy design work engraved onto the surface but there is a hidden mechanism to unlock and open the buckle. Considering when this was made I was gobsmacked. I'm not sure if we can reproduce this quality today.

An easier walk

Ha! Today's chosen walk was through Roslin Glen Country Park. While longer than last week's it was down as easier in our minds. Three hours walking along the banks of a river, how cool is that?

Wrong!! 4 hours of hard slog over twisting muddy tracks, scrambling over rocky ledges and squirming under fallen trees. We loved every minute of it. Took a lot out of me half way round so had to keep stopping as I was feeling light-headed. I think this regime (including the exercise) is having a positive effect on my high blood pressure so the light-headedness could be my overall BP dropping. Whoo hoo if it is!

Before we began we had a few home made biscuits made from crushed nuts, lard and sultanas washed down with some good coffee. This would help give us some needed energy for the walk. The walk started off well until the trail we were on ended up right on the water's edge. Then it got a bit tricky scrambling over the rocks. Loved every second of this, probably my favourite part of the whole walk.

The ledge begins

In some parts the rocky ledge was only just wide enough and we had to jump from a high part to a low ledge on a couple of occasions. Not something you'd want to do if it had been raining, thankfully today was dry.

The picture here shows the ledge near the beginning. What is hard to see is the near vertical wall of rock and vegetation on the left.

The scenery was fantastic though and I was snapping away with my camera a lot in the first half of the walk. My camera went into my rucksack for the second part as I was getting tired and it is quite a heavy beast.

Lush surroundings

The wealth of plant-life was amazing. Everything was a lush green and filled your vision wherever you looked. We followed the river for the first half of the walk, always keeping it to our right and within hearing distance.

The trail weaved inland quite often and up and over quite steep hills. In places, where small streams fed their way down the river, it was quite muddy and navigation was a bit tricky, but always fun. We seemed to relish these small obstacles and found inventive ways of circumnavigating them.

At the point where the trail started to head back it disappeared in an open space under some trees and we struggled a bit to find it again. Off we marched confident that we had done so. We noticed some old camp fires which had presumably been used by some local anglers and a blue tent amongst the trees. On we went keeping close to the river as we knew Polton, the next town, was ahead. Up over an ancient sand dune (which was huge) and on through the trees we struggled. The trail was becoming impassable so now we knew we hadn't picked it up correctly earlier so we headed back a bit and headed in-land and up another ancient sand dune.

After asking the chap living in the blue tent for directions we eventually found ourselves on the right path and were rewarded with a superb view across towards Edinburgh. By this time my camera was packed away and I was too tired to want to get it out. The path back to Roslin was an old railway line (I think). There are a number of them in the area, the most famous of which is the Innocent Railway, and they are all quite narrow for railway lines as they hauled mostly coal and were pulled by ponies.

Back at the car we tucked into lunch, although the fact that lunch time was long gone did not stop us enjoying it. Home made ham in a nice salad, followed by blackberries and raspberries. Washed down with the remainder of the biscuits and the coffee and we were ready to head off back home.

Dinner for me was a whole chicken and a nice salad. What a way to lose weight! Another 1.5Kg (3.3lbs) lost in the last week and without really trying. That's 6.14Kg (13.4lbs) since we started!

Old favourite

Home for dinner tonight and what was awaiting me? My old favourite, lambs liver. With a mixed leaf salad, sliced radish, watercress, raw broccoli and avocado slices in a balsamic vinegar and avocado oil dressing who could ask for more? To make it even sweeter lambs liver is probably one of the cheapest meats available at the moment. Our pack, which fed two of us, cost less than £1.00 and was truly delicious.

I'm looking forward to another liver dish next week. I'm glad this Palaeolithic regime has such great tasting food, I don't miss the things I used to love to eat, like apples and chocolate, apples most of all.

Breakfast was a slice of home made Quiche Lorraine (with the base made with nuts instead of wheat) and lunch was a salmon slice with mixed salad leaves, sliced radish, pomodorinos, a boiled egg and green olives. When I felt peckish during the morning ate a boiled egg and nibbled on some nuts and seeds. Feeling very satisfied.

It works!

Not that I doubted it for a minute but this Palaeolithic way of living does make you lose weight. Up until now I've not been doing much in the way of exercise and I lost 1.82Kg (4lbs) this week. I don't think that I'll be keeping up the same rate for long but even a kilogram a week would be good.

Looking forward to the next weigh-in.

Breaking me in gently

We decided that Saturday would be the day when we introduced short country walks into my regime.  We studied some available on the Visit Scotland website and choose the Limekilns moderate walk as a good starting point.  Wasn't too difficult to find the wee bridge that marked the starting point and we were soon ready to go.

Off we went for about 10 minutes along a wide track that you could easily drive a tractor up when we decided to check the route instructions. Doh! We'd missed the first instruction that said to take the first right after crossing the bridge. OK so we backtracked until we found the route and off we went - uphill and on a trail that was one person wide for most of the route.

Uphill and uphill we continued eventually making it onto the edge of the crags. Further and further with my energy draining fast. We checked the route again and decided that we had somehow gotten onto the hardest trail. No wonder I was knackered.

Not being one for turning back we continued on up the trail when eventually we reached a broad forest track. After a bit of consulting the route again we decided to head uphill again on this track.  About 200 metres later we started going downhill again. Oh joy! Gravity was my friend again.

2 and a half hours from start to finish we relished the home made apple and blackberry pies that we brought with us.

Finished the day off with a beautifully cooked and rare sirloin steak with salad leaves. Mmm mmm.

Lotus Yellow Day approaching

With Lotus Yellow Day only five days away (11th August 2010 as I write) I think I should have a personal motto to commemorate the day (slightly toungue in cheek though).  I'll let you work out what it says (bear in mind that my Latin is not good and it is approximate).

Superstes in moral altus humus tribuo meus finxi ut Microsoft

Salve Loti!

Snack attack

I'm allowed some snacks as part of this regime but they aren't what you might expect. I have a couple of sticks of celery cut into three pieces, some mixed nuts (brazil, almonds, hazlenut & walnut/pecan) and some seeds (sunflower and pumpkin), although in moderation. The surprising thing is home made jerky. It's absolutely delicious and easy to make. This first attempt was with some good lean beef but look out tum 'cause venison, water buffalo and kangaroo are on the list for future versions!

Making the jerky is fairly easy too, slice the meat fairly thin (best if you stick it in the freezer for a bit to firm it up) and then it is marinated for at least 4 hours in our own recipe (secret of course). The meat is then patted dry with paper towels and placed on baking foil and placed in an oven on a very low heat with the oven door ever so slightly ajar (to let the water vapour escape) for 12 hours or so until the meat is dehydrated and not quite brittle. I thought it tasted very similar to a brand I had bought before out of the supermarket but without any nasty additives.

Check out the best way to do it though before you try/die.

Salivating at the thought of it all.

Keeping a level head

Turns out that the floor in the bathroom (where the scales are) isn't ideal for weighing yourself due to the cork flooring we have installed, so my sneaky weigh-ins haven't been as accurate as I first thought.  The more solid kitchen floor gave a truer result, if less lost and will be the place to manage the weigh-ins in future.  Lost a total of 2.82Kg (6.2lbs), still not bad for 2 weeks but I feel a bit deflated as I thought I had lost more.

That's what I get for sneakily checking my weight.