For the record

I don't expect this post to interest our general readers much, but I include it here for my own record.

I stepped on the bathroom scales this morning to see my weight at 11 stone 9 pounds. That's a whole stone lighter than on the day we took ownership of Kantara. Now I know that some people lose a lot more than a stone in two years, but the thing is that I've not done this deliberately. It has happened simply as a result of a number of changes we have made in our eating habits, and of my exercise routine, aided to some extent by the physicality of life whilst cruising, with locks, walking and so on.

Neither of us is on "a diet", but we have changed the way we eat. For a start, we have changed to eating organic food as much as possible. This is often noticeably tastier than conventionally grown foods. Fruits and veg are not prone to contamination by pesticides or manufactured fertilisers. Meat is free from the antibiotics and chemicals often found in animal feed. We are careful about what we eat, but not faddy. We eat less meat, and more vegetables and fruit, lightly steaming the veg, and often adding them raw to salads. We avoid polyunsaturated fats, and replace them with butter, coconut oil and cold-pressed rapeseed oil. Much of what we do food-wise has been evolutionary, because it felt right, not always because of conscious decisions. But we have been very influenced by one Dr Joseph Mercola, whose web articles on health matters are very convincing, and backed with considerable research.  We still eat out fairly frequently, eat chocolate, drink wine. We usually avoid eating biscuits, cakes and other sugary foods simply because we usually don't feel the need for them. On the occasions we do, we don't have guilt trips.

My exercise routine has changed over the past year. Where I used to do a 15 to 20km cycle five days a week, I now do 10km twice weekly, and High Intensity Interval Training on the other three days - on the exercise bike, a 5 minute warm-up, then 6 repeats of 30 seconds of intense cycling followed by 90 seconds of "normal" cycling. The whole routine takes just 17 minutes, plus a few for muscle stretches and "warming down". Taking expert advice, I do no special exercise for the remaining two days.

This has resulted in a number of changes. It has improved my metabolism, such that I continue to burn calories at a faster rate for some hours after my exercise, especially after the HIIT. It has increased my stamina, and built muscle. It has lowered my resting heart rate to about 60bpm, and my blood pressure to around 120-125 over 62-68. My acid reflux condition has improved to the extent that I have stopped medication, and I have had no colds or flu for the whole two years.

I do need to build some strength training into my routine, and more limbering.

I went to see the doctor when we were back in St Albans the other week. For over a year, I had experienced occasional swelling of my feet and ankles. I had asked the doctor about this, and she said it was because I wasn't walking as much as I had been when I was teaching - and this was true, despite my habit of taking occasional long walks. But lately, I had noticed that the swelling was mostly in my right foot, and I was concerned that this might be symptomatic of something that needed treatment.

When I walked into the doctor's surgery, she said, "My goodness, you look well! What can I do for you??" 

The swelling of my foot turns out to be because of the presence of some small varicose veins, the result of years of ignorantly rubbing my legs in the wrong direction when drying them.

"Younger Next Year" had a profound effect on me, and I continue to follow its principles, although my exercise routine is now different from that of the author. I certainly do not feel my 62 years! and I'm told I don't look it.

I think a lot of how I feel is down to being retired, not having the stresses of work. But I think also that for us it's a lot to do with the change to living on the boat, a major change in our lives, doing something new. The change itself has been, is, beneficial to us physically and psychologically.

It's not everybody's idea of a way of life, but we recommend it!

Well, THAT didn't last long!

The weather continues to be quite unsuited to cruising, the main problem being the biting wind which has whipped up the marina pound into quite a storm on occasions. It's quite entertaining, watching people's attempts to moor at the service platform!

It's not all been bad, however. On Saturday, we walked to The Moorings at Crick for lunch, and the weather was pleasant, albeit still rather gusty on the highest point of the route.

As we started for home, however, it started to drizzle, and the wind got up again,and the drizzle turned into a downpour pretty much as soon as we stepped onto the boat. And this kept up for the rest of the day. The wind was ferocious, and continued that way throughout Sunday. There were moments when walking into the wind was actually difficult. The ducks were a hoot!

So, we're not encouraged to go out on the cut at the moment. Trevor and Sarah on At Last have set off for Oxford. I hope they don't regret it. And Nick and Margaret on Jasmine are planning to go out for a week from next weekend. We're in no hurry!

Simon came to sort out the problem with our battery charging circuit, so all's well with that now, except... He pointed out that whoever wired the domestic battery bank had used cable of inadequate gauge to be entirely safe, so he's coming back at the beginning of March to put that right.

We're going back to the house this weekend, to give Jess lots of driving practice before her test on the last day of the month. We'll be there until the day after that. Maybe, when we return... who knows? A cruise? Several cruises? Winter??

I had to laugh at a jar of Fair Trade whole cloves from Sainsbury's. Do you see anything wrong?

Oh, and I've broken the new exercise cycle! I've recently stopped doing my 15km hard cycle five days a week, and started doing High Intensity Interval Training three days a week, with more moderate cycling on the other two days. One day, the cycle started to make a nasty grating sound, so I contacted the makers in complaint and carried on using it. Until it ground to an abrupt and total halt, making a very terminal-sounding crunch, and shedding metal shavings onto the floor! I'm clearly far too energetic for it!