Wishful Shrinking

Today I embark upon the final leg of my personal 'get well' campaign.

In 2016 I weighed nearly 21st (290lbs or 130kg). I was an unhealthy and grumpy old man. My cholesterol was out of control and I was prescribed statins. I therefore embarked on a series of faddy diets - Atkins, Paleo ... you name it, I've done it. My weight began to yo-yo as I drifted back into bad eating habits once I got bored of ricecakes and raw nuts.

Then I signed up for one of those extreme weight loss programmes, a thing called LighterLife where you live on protein shakes, soups and bars. To its credit, it works. I quickly shed weight and, by February 2017 I was down to 18st. But Lighter Life was expensive and monotonous. And if you're a foodie like me, that was an issue. I soon found myself cheating by scoffing a sneaky pork pie or Mars Bar. Even worse, I started hiding my secret eating from people around me.

Then, at my regular annual 'Well Man' clinic in Autumn 2018, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. My fault compeletely - the years of obesity had finally caught up with me. And I had high blood pressure. So I was suddenly on more medication - eight tablets a day for various ailments. 

So  then I joined the local Weight Watchers group and they were great. Sensible meals and the weekly 'walk of shame' to get publicly weighed kept me on track and I started to slowly lose weight. By mid 2019 I was down another stone. But pressures of work, erratic mealtimes, junk foods, beer, a lot of travelling and staying in hotels as I toured talks around the country started to take their toll. I stopped attending Weight Watchers and started to balloon again.

In March 2020 we entered the first Covid lockdown. Restaurants and pubs shut. Takeaway outlets shut. We were confined to where we lived. And, I suddenly realised, that this was an opportunity rarely offered. With all of those temptations off limits I had a good chance to sort my weight out. I'm a reasonable cook (I worked as a chef in my late teens) and I understand food combinations and flavours. I'd also been reading a number of books which gave me a greater understanding of just how damaging processed food can be. Firstly, it's all about profit, not the health of the consuimer. To quote Chris Van Tulleken in Ultra Processed People:

'The idea that the purpose of a food could be important barely registered the first time I encountered [it], and yet it began to crystalise a cloud of ideas that had been floating around in my head for many years. I could understand that at least in theory physical and chemical processes might affect how the food interacts with the body. But to include, as part of the definition the purpose for the processing – ‘to create highly profitable products’ – was completely new. Considerations about whether traditional food might have a different purpose from substances made by transnational corporations with hundreds of billions in revenue had been almost entirely absent from scientific and policy discussions of food and nutrition. It wasn’t a big mental leap to imagine that products that subvert the body’s evolved mechanisms that signal when to stop eating might survive better in the marketplace.'

Secondly, Tulleken made me realise that my obesity hadn't all been my fault. These OPF (ultra processed foods) are designed to make us eat more and a lot of things sold as 'fat-free' or 'low calorie' have little nutritional value:

'Every discussion of weight gain, whether in the press or in our own heads, is suppurating with blame, which is always directed at the people who live with it. The idea that they are to blame has survived scientific and moral scrutiny because it is simplistic to the point of transparency. It’s based on there being some failure of willpower – a failure to move more or to eat less. This idea doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, as I will show repeatedly. For example, since 1960, the US National Health surveys have recorded an accurate picture of the nation’s weight. They show that – in White, Black and Hispanic men and women of all ages – there was a dramatic increase in obesity, beginning in the 1970s. The idea that there has been a simultaneous collapse in personal responsibility in both men and women across age and ethnic groups is not plausible. If you’re living with obesity, it isn’t due to a lack of willpower; it isn’t your fault. In fact, we’re a lot less responsible for our weight than a skier is for breaking their leg, a footballer for injuring their knee, or a bat scientist for getting a fungal lung infection from working in caves. Diet-related diseases come from the collision of some ancient genes with a new food ecosystem that is engineered to drive excess consumption and that we currently seem unable, or perhaps unwilling, to improve.'

That was an eye-opener.

I also read Morgan Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book, Rob Percival's The Meat Paradox, Florence Williamns' The Nature Fix and a host of other books on physical and mental wellbeing (without the woo woo). And I formulated a plan.

I embarked on a new way of looking at food. I would avoid processed foods as much as possible. For example, butter contains two ingredients - butter and salt. Many margarines contain highly processed (heated, neutralised, deodorised, hydrogenated and de-waxed) plant oils along with flavouring agents, emulsifiers and preservatives. So butter it was - but in sensible amounts. 

Here's another example: Mayonnaise (always best if you make your own) should contain no more than eggs, oil, vinegar and mustard. But low fat mayo replaces the oil with gums and starches - including xantham gum which is a mucus produced by a bacterial culture grown in a lab. Yum.

The basic rule I would adhere to is ... if a food contains ingredients you wouldn't have at home, avoid them.

I also educated myself about bad carbs and their ubiquitous use in processed foods (I wrote about it here). I also substantially reduced my meat consumption by only eating free range (and preferably organic) locally-sourced produce. That meant it was more expensive but that encouraged me to eat less (I wrote about meat here). I upped my consumption of veggies and fruit (local wherever possible) and things like bread, chocolate, cake, beer etc. became treats rather than staples. I could have them but less often and in smaller quantities.

And so lockdown went on.

I had no hunger. I had no cravings (apart from a few days at the start of my change of diet). I enjoyed delicious and often inexpensive meals that were satisfying and filling. And the weight fell off. 

By Christmas 2021 I had shed 4st. My diabetes went into remission, my cholesterol was at a healthy level and my blood pressure was normal. 

I then maintained my weight by sticking with my new lifestyle diet and daily walks with the dog. I have the occasional beer or bar of chocolate. I even have the odd takeaway. But all in moderation.

Treats not staples! 

And now it's time to embark on the second phase of my weight loss journey. I'm now setting out to lose a final 3st to reach an ideal weight - 13st - for my height and body shape.

Wish me luck!

Rush Bearing

Lymm in Cheshire is one of the few locations in which the once-common custom of rush bearing still takes place. 

Back in the days when churches had cold earth floors, the annual renewal of rushes on the floor for cleanliness and warmth became an occasion for celebration. Most of the surviving customs are in the northwestern corner of England and some involve rushcarts and flower covered bearings. 

At Lymm, as well as the Thelwall Morris Dancers in their incarnation as Lymm Morris, resplendent in their flower bedecked hats, you can expect to see a procession including local WI members, councillors and civic officials and members of the Youth Club all carrying rushes and garlands to the church, where a special service follows with appropriate and well-known hymns. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary, so the festival is held near her feast-day in August - this year, that's today the 13th of August.. 

Before the procession you can catch the dancers performing at locations around the village centre.

Hip Hip Hooray! It's the Burryman's Day!

Yesterday was my birthday. But it was also the Burryman's Day. 

The Burryman or Burry Man is the central figure in an annual ceremony or ritual, the Burryman's Parade, that takes place in the town of South Queensferry, near Edinburgh on the south bank of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, on the second Friday of August. 

I wrote about it in detail a year ago (click here to read it) but here's a video of this year's festrival:

   

Another year ...

When I was a young lad anyone over 60 was old. At least, that's how I saw them. Now, it must be said that people worked harder back then - longer hours and a lot more physical effort - so maybe that wore people's bodies out more quickly. 

I mention this because I'm 62 today and most of the 60+ people I know are sprightly, healthy and look a damned sight younger than my grandparents did at 60. Here are my maternal grandparents at 60 (with my brother Andy who was in the Coldstream Guards).

And here are my paternal grandparents at the same age.

Maybe it's the fashions. Or the hairstyles. Or maybe it's the fact that they had lived through a war. All I know is that they seemed old to me. 

So does that mean that I seem old to young people now? 

Of course it does. 

One of Nature's cruellest tricks is to make our bodies old while our minds stay young. In my head I'm still in my twenties.

Sigh.

Still, I am thankful for what I have. My Dad died when he was just 51 and never saw his 62nd birthday.  And life expectancy now is a far cry from what it was even 100 years ago when it was 67 for men and 74 for women.

Treasure every day.

I do.

And happy birthday to anyone else who shares my birthday today. x

Double Whammy Vloggage!

It' a double whammy! 

A Miscellaneous Meander AND a Crafting Video! 

You're welcome.

 

Meyboom

August 9th is, bizarrely, the day Brussels celebrates the planting of a May Tree. 

 The Meyboom ('May Tree') plantation is the oldest tradition in Brussels, going all the way back to 1308. It is held every year on 9th August, the eve of St Lawrence's Day, and consists mainly in planting a beech at the intersection of the Rue des Sables/Zandstraat and the Rue du Marais/Broekstraat in the City of Brussels' Marais–Jacqmain District. It is accompanied by processions and various folk activities during the day. 

According to tradition, the celebration commemorates a victory of Brussels over the nearby Flemish town of Leuven in 1213. The Companions of St Lawrence, a city guild, came to the aid of Brussels' inhabitants and vigorously repelled the aggressor. Grateful, the Duke of Brabant at the time (Henri I of Brabant), granted the status of corporation to the guild and gave it the right to plant henceforth a tree of joy or Meyboom. In honour of the new corporation, the date of the plantation was fixed to 9th August, the eve of St Lawrence's Day, the guild's patron saint. 

In spite of Brussels' tortuous history, including the 20th-century demolition of most of the Marais–Jacqmain District, the Meyboom tradition has been maintained throughout the centuries. An incident happened, however, in 1974, when a group of men from Leuven, called The Men Of 1929, managed to find out which tree Brussels had earmarked as their Meyboom. During the night of 8th August, they cut down the tree and transported it to Leuven, where they planted it in front of the city hall. Brussels chose to ignore what had happened and cut down another tree. Ever since, the two cities have been involved in a friendly rivalry to decide who has the 'real' Meyboom. 

The tree is designated by the city's Plantation Department and 'chosen' by the Companions of St Lawrence in the Sonian Forest, in the outskirts of Brussels. According to tradition, it must weigh at least 600 kg (1,300 lb), measure 12–13 metres (39–43 ft) in height and be leafy. It is cut and then transported by Bûûmdroegers ('tree bearers') through the municipalities of Schaerbeek, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode and the City of Brussels. The procession is accompanied by a marching band, Poepedroegers ('giant puppet bearers'), the Wheel of Fortune, Kêrstoempers ("cart pushers"), Meybloemekes ("flower-handing women"), as well as Gardevils ('city guards') since 2001.

At 1 pm, a tribute is paid to the deceased Companions. The procession then forms at the corner of the Rue du Marais/Broekstraat and the Rue des Comédiens/Komediantenstraat and sets off along a fixed route. Along the way, small branches of the tree are distributed, supposed to bring good fortune for the year to come. The culmination is the plantation itself, which must take place before 5pm to avoid a victory from the Louvanistes (i.e. Leuven's inhabitants). The tree is in fact not really planted but stuck in the ground and removed the next day.

I love stuff like this.

It's not written in the stars

I have never believed in astrology. I wrote about the subject in a previous post here. 

That said, I'm a true sceptic and critical thinker and I'm not dogmatic. Where evidence presents itself, I'm happy to acknowledge that I might be wrong. 

My problem with astrology is the lack of any evidence. 

Take zodiacal constellations as an example. The very idea of a constellation is entirely arbitrary. It’s simple pattern-forming using bright stars and, in non-Western cultures, they have very different interpretations from ours. The Plough, for example, is also known as the Great Bear (Ursa Major) or the Big Dipper (and yes, I know that it's technically an asterism rather than a constellation). Other cultures call it the Saucepan (la Casserole in France), Charles's Wain, the Caribou, the Big Rudder, the Ladle, the Big Wagon, the Bucket, Pucwan Tārā (the crustaceans), the Wheels of Perkūnas or Fávdna's bow.

The other thing is that those seven stars are too distant from us - and from each other - to possibly affect us in any way.

I'm a Leo. 

The brightest star in Leo is Regulus, which is 77.5 light-years from Earth (and it’s a binary-star). The second brightest is Denebola, which is 36 light-years from Earth. Third is Algieba, another binary star 126 light-years from Earth, and the fourth is Zosma, which is 58 light-years from Earth. The light, and any energy, from those stars takes a long time to get here. Algeiba is furthest out so we are seeing it as it was 126 years ago – it’s taken that long for the light to reach us, even though it is travelling at 186,000 miles per second. When we look at the night sky, we are looking into the past. Algeiba could have been destroyed 100 years ago but we won’t see it happen until 26 years from now. So how could a star that distant possibly impact upon life on Earth? The 'closest' Leo star to it is Denebola but it would still take 90 years for light from Algeiba to reach there.

The other big question is ... what are all the other stars doing? When we look into a clear sky, we can see around 3000 stars with the naked eye. But there are around 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone. And there are 100 billion galaxies in the known universe. Why don’t all of them have the same effect upon us as those in the constellations are supposed to do? 

Now, I appreciate that horoscopy and astrology is more about the passage of bodies in our solar system as they move through the various constellations. So it's the position of the planets when we are born that supposedly dicatate what sort of person we'll be. And astrologers ascribe certain personality traits to the influence of those planets and stars. 

As a Leo I’m apparently a little bit vain, have a big personality and want to stand out in a crowd. I am interested in luxury and exude warmth and creativity. The ideal careers for me are singer, B-list actor, motivational speaker, autobiographical author, or style icon. Famous Leos include Usain Bolt, Coco Chanel, Kate Bush, Whitney Houston and Marcel Duchamp. It would be easy for me to say that this is accurate because I am a bit of an extrovert and yes, I sing, write and am regularly engaged as a speaker. However, that’s simple cherry-picking. Style icon? I’m a scruffy and oddly-shaped 61 year old with a dated wardrobe and absolutely zero interest in fashion. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people who share my birthsign that don't want to stand out in the crowd. Kate Bush is notoriously private and rarely gives interviews. 

Meanwhile, if I had born just a few days later I’d have been a Virgo. Virgos are described as judgmental, but with good intentions. They need to feel useful, have a quick fix for everything, have exceptional spatial awareness and have lots of ideas. Ideal careers are librarian, walking encyclopaedia (is that a job?), or any job where they will feel as if they have worth. Famous Virgos include Agatha Christie, Mary Shelley, and D H Lawrence. Actually that’s a pretty good description of me too. Walking encyclopaedia? I got selected to be a researcher and writer for the TV show QI because I know so many facts. 

And as for personal charts ... 

In 1979 French psychologist and writer Dr Michel Gauquelin asked an astrologer to create a chart for him based on his place and time of birth. The chart he received was very flattering, pointing out that he was a Virgo with ‘instinctive warmth allied with intellect and wit’ and that he was, ‘endowed with a moral sense which is comforting - that of a worthy, right-thinking citizen ... [whose] life finds expression in total devotion to others ...’  However, the data Gauquelin had supplied was not his own but that of Marcel Petiot, a notorious doctor who robbed and killed 27 people as they sought shelter from the Nazis during the war. Gauquelin then went one step further. He placed an advertisement in the Ici-Paris newspaper offering free personal horoscopes. The successful applicants sent him their date, time and place of birth and he sent them back a personalised astrological chart in return. When he then asked for feedback, 94% of the respondents rated their charts as accurate. Unfortunately, the horoscope they’d been sent was the same one that Gauquelin had received – that of the mass murdering Dr Petiot.

However, I do accept that the nearer planetary bodies may exert some influence on us. In 2007, scientists involved in the Ulysses space probe programme announced that sounds are generated deep deep inside the Sun that cause the Earth to shake and vibrate in sympathy. They have found that these  distinct, isolated tones,can be found everywhere - Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, and even voltages induced on ocean cables, are all taking part in this cosmic sing-along. The motions of the geomagnetic field produce small, but easily detectable, responses as Earth, with many of its technological systems, moves to the rhythm of the Sun. 

It also bathes us in various forms of energy including visible, ultraviolet and infrared light, x-rays, radio waves, microwaves, and various forms of radiation. It is such a massive object that its gravity affects our tides, although not quite as much as our Moon does. We can feel its effects upon us because, in astronomical terms, the Sun is very close to the Earth. It’s only 93 million miles away – a tiny distance in astronomical terms - and all of that energy takes just a few minutes to reach us. Sunlight powers photosynthesis in plants, which creates the oxygen we need to breathe. It also powers trees to release chemicals into the air that help to form the clouds that contribute to our weather and water cycles. Exposure to sunlight helps our bodies to create the chemicals necessary for normal human function, such as the production of Vitamin D and hormones like serotonin, melatonin and beta-endorphins. Over 50 years of data shows that viewing sunlight every day for 10 minutes within a few hours of waking (even through cloud cover), will improve your mood and your sleep patterns. Our eyes are complex structures that contain several different forms of photoreceptor cells. Not all of these are involved in image-forming. Some - believed to be the most ancient photoreceptor types - are involved in setting our circadian rhythms and sleep/wake patterns. The visible part of the spectrum also regulates daily and seasonal rhythms in animals and reproductive cycles. 

An interesting experiment conducted in 2017 by Professor Kenneth Wright involved taking a group of students on a camping trip to the Colorado mountains for a week. All of them had been chosen because they had erratic sleep patterns. However, after a couple of days, the students began going to sleep earlier and sleeping longer. Measurements showed they had been exposed to 13 times more sunlight than they usually got during the day at home. The result was that their biological clocks had naturally realigned with the natural cycles of day and night. And the effects stayed with the students long after the week of camping was over. Professor Andrew Huberman from the Stanford University School of Medicine describes this as a ‘zero-cost tool for mental and physical health.’ Therefore, we can categorically state that the Sun does have a direct influence over our lives. 

The Moon also exerts influence on our planet and the things that live on it. In Lyle Watson’s influential 1973 book Supernature, he tells the story of researcher Frank Brown who, while studying the behaviour of oysters, noted that they regularly opened just before high tide in order to feed. Then they closed to avoid drying out once the tide had fallen. He took some specimens home with him to a suburb of Chicago for further study and noted that they continued to follow this rhythmic pattern of tidal gaping even when they were in a tank and far away from the sea. However, the time of day that the oysters opened started to get later and later and they eventually settled into a new regular time-slot. A little bit of calculation revealed that the oysters had ‘worked out’ when high tide would be if the sea reached inland as far as Brown’s house, some 1000 miles from the nearest coast and 580 feet above sea level. Following a series of experiments to rule out various possible influences, Brown concluded that the oysters must be sensitive to tiny changes in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon – the same pull that creates the tides. If the Sun and Moon can affect our planet like this, it’s not impossible that they might exert some influence on us as we are forming in the womb. 

However, there are many other things that are far more likely to impact our development. Our mother’s diet for example. A lack of certain minerals during pregnancy will almost certainly have an effect. And women who are carrying during warm summer months often eat a very different diet to those with winter pregnancies. Salads provide a very different mix and concentration of nutrients than found in stews. Then there’s the time of year to consider. My birthday is in the first half of August. Because of the way that school terms are organised in the UK, I was one of the youngest in my year. Some of the kids in my class were very close to a year older than me. It meant that some boys got taller and stronger sooner than I did. It wasn’t my star sign or the movements of stars or planets that gave me that disadvantage - it was simply the school calendar. That said, we should note that school terms were originally arranged to accommodate the harvest and were therefore, in some small way, dictated by the Sun and the seasons. We can’t deny that the stars did once guide our lives to some degree. They helped us to navigate and, because certain stars and constellations are always in certain positions at particular times of the year, our ancestors could use them as a form of calendar. Many aspects of the natural world are cyclic like this. 

Even our lives are cyclic if you view it from the atomic level. All of the atoms in your body were created shortly after the Big Bang or inside the hearts of stars that reached the end of their life cycles and then exploded as violent supernovae - as Carl Sagan once said, ‘We are made of star stuff’. In the billions of years since, they’ve been component parts of many trillions of things. You contain atoms that were once part of a tree, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a lump of granite, a plague virus, a raindrop, or even a creature from another planet. There are so many atoms in your body that at least some of them were exhaled as part of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt’s last breath. It’s true - every breath contains around 25 sextillion (25 followed by 21 zeroes) molecules. Each molecule contains atoms (e.g. one molecule of carbon dioxide contains one carbon and two oxygen atoms). If you divide the (approximate) number of molecules of air in the Earth’s atmosphere - around 1.04 × 1044 - by the number of molecules in one breath, you’ll find that it’s likely that each of us inhales around 40 atoms from Cleopatra’s last gasp with every breath we take. And, when we die, all of those atoms will be recycled into endless new things. And this will go on and on and on for as long as the universe exists. We’re all part of a grand cosmic cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. Meanwhile, the arrangement of atoms that makes you an individual have never, and will never again, be assembled in precisely the same way. 

You are utterly unique in the whole of Creation. That makes you incredibly special. And that’s science fact, not faith or belief. 

It’s only been in the last century that we’ve really started to understand how the universe is put together. But humans are smart. Even before real science began we had already figured out the gist of it all. We might have misunderstood the causes of events but we could observe and learn from the effects. And so we invented astrology and horoscopes to explain things.

But we have outgrown them now.