The busiest time of year for me is May – early July. Why? Because the summer is arriving and shortly people are going to have to lose those carefully cut clothes they wear in order to disguise the blab beneath.
So, I find, people work hard to reduce the blubber and indeed do look an awful lot better for it by the time they are deposited a frazzled heap by Ryanair in a nice hot place.
And then what on earth happens??????!!
They Eat. And Eat. And Eat. And, of course, Drink.. Well, they are on holiday, you say to me disbelievingly. What else are holidays for? It is utterly amazing. So all that hard work they put in goes for absolutely nothing. They generally re-gain any blab lost plus a bit more. They arrive back in Blighty like pink porpoises and wobble their way back to work, depressed and lethargic. Never mind, winter is coming and it all gets carefully hidden again.
I suppose it shows the unhealthy relationship people have with food. Cakes, Jammy dodgers and Ice Creams are all known to turn you into a fatty so are eaten with a degree of guilt. But, when on holiday, people wolf these forbidden foods down in order to relax.
So perhaps on your next holiday, if this sounds a little familiar, you could go there thinking of other ways to de-stress. This will involve doing something nice for yourself – you know, the usual stuff. Something that you don’t do at home because there isn’t time – or, even better, it seems a waste of time. Reading a good book, having a nice massage, taking a nap in the afternoon, going for a long walk, having a bit of sex. Food is meant to be enjoyed – and were we all lean, then I wouldn’t be ranting. What isn’t realised is that life is made of choices - discipline doesn’t come into it. When we make poor food choices there is always something driving that choice – and it isn’t lack of will power.
Friday 27 August 2010
Sunday 8 August 2010
Children's Lunch Boxes
See Jammy Dodgers blog 1st for the implications of high blood sugar. Read, remember and concentrate as much as your carb/wheat addled brains will.
Ok, so first there was the Glycemic Index. The carbohydrates you eat raise your blood sugar – and this index worked out by how much, by using white bread as a marker. Because there were problems with this system, it’s been replaced by a newer one called the Glycemic Load. This is an improvement because it takes into account both the fibre in the food and the realistic amounts of the food you eat. In the GI, carrots rate worse than pasta at raising blood sugar. This is patently rubbish, and indeed, under Glycemic Load, to raise blood sugar with carrots as much as you do with the average portion of pasta (5oz), you have to eat 7 full sized carrots at one sitting. Must be Eeyore’s birthday, I think.
On the Glycemic Load system, it’s recommended to eat foods that score under 100 in order to avoid excessively high blood sugar. Here are some lunch box numbers to get you into the GL picture:
1 slice of white bread has a load of 107. This is just one slice, so half a sandwich.
1 small bag crisps: 62
1 medium banana: 85
Peanut M&Ms – snack size pack: 43
Snickers Bar: 218
Carton of Orange Juice: 119
Coca-cola 12oz can: 218
1 rounded teaspoon white sugar: 28.
Remember, on the G Load system, it is recommended to eat foods that score under 100. Children have smaller bodies than we do. Therefore whatever they eat has more impact upon them than it does on us. So let’s just think about this. Does someone weighing 2 stones have less body mass than someone weighing 9 stone? So 1 teaspoon of sugar will have far more impact upon a child than it does upon an adult won’t it?
Breakfast:
Muesli 1oz: 95
Shredded Wheat 1 oz: 142
Puffed wheat 1 oz: 151
Instant oatmeal (cooked) 8oz: 154
Cornflakes 1oz: 199
If we eat a pile of sugar, our blood sugar soars and we feel as high as a kite for a little while. Then the blood sugar drops (apparently this happens over 4 hours) and we feel very hungry, frequently grumpy and quite unable to concentrate upon anything other than needing something to eat. It’s likely that all those around us feel the same. And at school, our children are constantly trying to learn new things – this is what school is all about, after all. Quite a task, really. Of course, if the child is too difficult, there is always Ritalin. So much easier than reducing the sugar load on the child.
It is a wonder that children can learn anything at all. So, if your child is rather difficult – or won’t go to bed at night, maybe you may have some ideas as to where to start. And it isn’t Ritalin.
Maybe the much villified Jamie Oliver was right on the money. Children should have a good school dinner. Don’t plant your addiction to starch onto them. Do you think there may be a blog on the way on this subject??
Ok, so first there was the Glycemic Index. The carbohydrates you eat raise your blood sugar – and this index worked out by how much, by using white bread as a marker. Because there were problems with this system, it’s been replaced by a newer one called the Glycemic Load. This is an improvement because it takes into account both the fibre in the food and the realistic amounts of the food you eat. In the GI, carrots rate worse than pasta at raising blood sugar. This is patently rubbish, and indeed, under Glycemic Load, to raise blood sugar with carrots as much as you do with the average portion of pasta (5oz), you have to eat 7 full sized carrots at one sitting. Must be Eeyore’s birthday, I think.
On the Glycemic Load system, it’s recommended to eat foods that score under 100 in order to avoid excessively high blood sugar. Here are some lunch box numbers to get you into the GL picture:
1 slice of white bread has a load of 107. This is just one slice, so half a sandwich.
1 small bag crisps: 62
1 medium banana: 85
Peanut M&Ms – snack size pack: 43
Snickers Bar: 218
Carton of Orange Juice: 119
Coca-cola 12oz can: 218
1 rounded teaspoon white sugar: 28.
Remember, on the G Load system, it is recommended to eat foods that score under 100. Children have smaller bodies than we do. Therefore whatever they eat has more impact upon them than it does on us. So let’s just think about this. Does someone weighing 2 stones have less body mass than someone weighing 9 stone? So 1 teaspoon of sugar will have far more impact upon a child than it does upon an adult won’t it?
Breakfast:
Muesli 1oz: 95
Shredded Wheat 1 oz: 142
Puffed wheat 1 oz: 151
Instant oatmeal (cooked) 8oz: 154
Cornflakes 1oz: 199
If we eat a pile of sugar, our blood sugar soars and we feel as high as a kite for a little while. Then the blood sugar drops (apparently this happens over 4 hours) and we feel very hungry, frequently grumpy and quite unable to concentrate upon anything other than needing something to eat. It’s likely that all those around us feel the same. And at school, our children are constantly trying to learn new things – this is what school is all about, after all. Quite a task, really. Of course, if the child is too difficult, there is always Ritalin. So much easier than reducing the sugar load on the child.
It is a wonder that children can learn anything at all. So, if your child is rather difficult – or won’t go to bed at night, maybe you may have some ideas as to where to start. And it isn’t Ritalin.
Maybe the much villified Jamie Oliver was right on the money. Children should have a good school dinner. Don’t plant your addiction to starch onto them. Do you think there may be a blog on the way on this subject??
Public Gyms
Public gyms for me are always variations on a horror theme. There is the bloke whizzing up and down looking like a funny little monkey on the chinning bar –all curled up. Then there is the hysterically funny female hanging on on the treadmill. Why do I say hanging on???? Well these females (I have to say I have never seen a man do this) have set the incline on the treadmill to the highest setting and are hanging on the the bar for grim life as they bobble along for hours and hours – presumably wondering why they never seem to get slimmer no matter how often they go to the gym. Of course afterwards they always have nice skinny latte with their mates – and a biscuit (never a Jammy Dodger here – one of those nice ones with oats in) afterwards. Tee Hee Hee
It seems to me that people leave their brains in the boot of the car and go completely into auto-pilot when entering the gym. On each machine, the manufacturere has gone to some effort to make it clear what part of the body this machine works. But people heave away on these machines with shoulders in the ears, elbows flailing madly, backs flapping about like the washing on a line. News, people. If you can’t feel a muscle working, then that is because it isn’t. Other muscles are – and they shouldn’t be.
So we have the famous bicep curl. Worthy of a blog in itself. You know, I go on courses with men with HUUGE muscles. And I have witnessed The Biceps Curl. Why don’t people think????? (And yes, personal trainers are at the sharp end of this particular rant) What is the elbow – a hinge joint. To do a bicep curl, the only movement is at the elbow which hinges up and down. It does not involve the shoulders or the back. At all. Doing a standing biceps curl with a bar should not look like you are in the act of making love!! Shimmying your way through a set of hammer curls leads the physiotherapist’s funds for a new BMW. To do a biceps curl really really well, the weight may just be a little lighter than the ego likes – but, hey, engage a brain cell or two and you will not only grow bigger biceps, you will save yourself a trip to the sports massage parlour.
OK, girlies. Cardio sucks. So: typical gym = blokes heaving away with weights. Girlies doing CV. Hours and hours of it. Grimly plodding – or zooming - away for hour after hour. Eyes on the TV - brains in handbag. In fact I am so cross about Cardio Vascular I am going to write a separate blog on the subject. Anyway, for now, girlies, as Charles Poliquin would have it Insanity Defined = Keep Doing the Same Thing and Expect a Different Result.
It seems to me that people leave their brains in the boot of the car and go completely into auto-pilot when entering the gym. On each machine, the manufacturere has gone to some effort to make it clear what part of the body this machine works. But people heave away on these machines with shoulders in the ears, elbows flailing madly, backs flapping about like the washing on a line. News, people. If you can’t feel a muscle working, then that is because it isn’t. Other muscles are – and they shouldn’t be.
So we have the famous bicep curl. Worthy of a blog in itself. You know, I go on courses with men with HUUGE muscles. And I have witnessed The Biceps Curl. Why don’t people think????? (And yes, personal trainers are at the sharp end of this particular rant) What is the elbow – a hinge joint. To do a bicep curl, the only movement is at the elbow which hinges up and down. It does not involve the shoulders or the back. At all. Doing a standing biceps curl with a bar should not look like you are in the act of making love!! Shimmying your way through a set of hammer curls leads the physiotherapist’s funds for a new BMW. To do a biceps curl really really well, the weight may just be a little lighter than the ego likes – but, hey, engage a brain cell or two and you will not only grow bigger biceps, you will save yourself a trip to the sports massage parlour.
OK, girlies. Cardio sucks. So: typical gym = blokes heaving away with weights. Girlies doing CV. Hours and hours of it. Grimly plodding – or zooming - away for hour after hour. Eyes on the TV - brains in handbag. In fact I am so cross about Cardio Vascular I am going to write a separate blog on the subject. Anyway, for now, girlies, as Charles Poliquin would have it Insanity Defined = Keep Doing the Same Thing and Expect a Different Result.
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