24th
10 -
2011
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no comment »
Oral Hygiene
My teeth are yellow stained and I was seriously considering teeth whitening, the £500 anticipated cost is what stopped me. The staining is due to using tetracycline based drugs from my past life of succumbing to the local drug pushers in white coats. I’ve not drunk tea or coffee or alcohol in years. Apparently, tetracycline stained teeth are very difficult to correct and require many months of bleaching with no guarantees.
I was initially horrified at the ingredients in the teeth whitening products and decided to investigate more. The whitening effect occurs due to the oxidising ingredients. There are some very undesirable chemicals, but one of these oxidising ingredients is hydrogen peroxide, which in small doses has many therapeutic benefits. I read extensively about it, along with other alternatives too. Here’s the things, that I know about, that help with teeth health, oral hygiene and possibly help to rectify staining:
- Sodium bicarbonate (not baking soda).
- Activated charcoal.
- Hydrogen peroxide.
- MMS activated.
- Oil pulling.
- Tooth soap.
- Super clean diet, mainly whole food, no animal products, no added fat food, and not much else.
- Only drink water, fruit and veg juice, smoothies, soups and that’s it.
- Ensure there’s a few hours between meals and don’t snack.
- Be careful of dried and sticky food.
- Avoid fluoride (fluoride treated water and toothpaste etc).
- Keep off regular toothpaste, it’s an assault on the human body.
Make sure that you search and read up on the above before trying them out.
If anyone has had any success with any of these or any other methods then I’m very interested in hearing more, please leave a blog comment. I’ve tried most of the above, over 5 or 6 months, a few days on a few days off. I’ve chopped and changed with different methods with no fixed plan. I’m pleased to say that my difficult to correct tetracycline stained teeth appear to have lightened… slightly!
Kind regards, Stuart Porter 
You can sign up to my health fitness and feel good news here… http://EatMoreRaw.net
6th
10 -
2011
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no comment »
If you are squeamish you may wish to skip this post, otherwise read on!
Recovering from an inguinal hernia operation – two years on
An inguinal hernia occurs in the groin area, off to one side, just below where the pubic hair starts. It typically effects 27% of men and 3% of women. Mine was a ‘direct inguinal hernia’. It can appear as a lump like half an egg size or sometimes bigger. For me it generally disappeared when I was lying down on my back to sleep. That’s when I was relaxing and the protruding intestine dropped back inside of me. You can read up more about types of inguinal hernia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inguinal_hernia
I was initially unsure about whether to have the operation or not, as sometimes the lump would disappear for many days. Eating lots of easy to digest raw food helped. Cycling helped too. I would sometimes push the hernia back in place and then go cycling. I think being crouched forward kept the hernia lump inside of me and the cycling strengthened up the muscles. I eventually decided to have the operation though, as the lump did keep re-occurring and it can be dangerous if the protruding intestine becomes strangulated.
I investigated the two main types of surgery on the internet and decided that I wanted open surgery. A female friend of mine had a similar hernia operation but using the key hole surgery method. In both of these procedures, a plastic mesh is placed covering the tear in the muscle. The mesh is stitched in place to hold it there whilst tissue grows around it to hold it further. The mesh and scar tissue then prevent the intestine protruding through the muscle wall.
My friend has had some very difficult complications as a result of her key hole surgery. Open surgery takes longer to heal from but the surgeon appears in much more control. I’m glad I went for that, mine healed nicely and I have absolutely no problems with it now.
My operation went really well, except for the fact that I had a horrible chemical residue coming off my lungs from the general anaesthetic. I now know that activated charcoal would have really helped settle my stomach. Due to the disgusting chemical taste, I was nearly throwing up on the night of the operation. I sat up most of the night awake and sipping water. With the pain, it felt like the retching, if it progressed to vomiting, would have burst my stitches! Thankfully the sipping of the water for several hours helped massively.
Recently, I coughed up the same disgusting tasting chemicals that I couldn’t cough up on the night of my operation. This was a few days into trying out using hydrogen peroxide to detox the after effects of years of antibiotics. If you want to find out about hydrogen peroxide then do an internet search for ‘the many benefits of hydrogen peroxide’. It certainly forces the body into detox mode!
It took 18 months for any hernia operation twinges to settle down. I actually found that weight training in a very slow and controlled manner helped settle down the final twinges. Despite not eating meat, dairy, fish, or eggs and going against what traditional medical doctors and nutritionists say we should eat, I have made a full recovery. I took no painkillers. There is absolutely no scar and no evidence that I have even had a hernia operation!
Best regards, Stuart:-)
18th
09 -
2011
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2 comments »
How about this for a recipe, the only ingredient is bananas. Here’s how I discovered it… by a happy accident!
About 9 months to a year ago, I had rather too many ripe bananas, so I peeled and froze some of the surplus and stored them in the freezer using large plastic food containers. They have been stored at -18 deg.C for at least 9 months. My wife was going through things in the freezer and turfed out my remaining long forgotten bananas! They needed to thaw out, so I left them all day and intended to eat them the next day, but unfortunately I forgot as we all went out for the day.
After two days sitting on the side, this afternoon I finally remembered the bananas! I very gingerly tasted the bananas, which were by now totally mushy, rather brown in places and sitting in their own syrup bath created as they thawed out!
WOW WOW WOW !!!!! They were so totally awesome! They were as sweet as dates and the super sweet syrup from the defrosted ripe bananas was even better than blended dates!
How ripe do you like your bananas?! If you have too many, don’t throw them out, freeze the really ripe ones and try out my happy accident. Perhaps don’t leave them so long in the freezer, or lying around for 2 days either!
Stuart
ps. If you’d like me to let you know when I have other health, fitness or feel good news, then please sign up to my ‘Health, Fitness and Feel Good News! at eatmoreraw.net
8th
09 -
2011
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1 comment »
How much to eat on a low fat diet
As long as I eat enough calories, then I’m equally satisfied eating either fruit and salads, or very simple low fat cooked starches and greens.
10 grammes of carb’s per kg of body weight per day
To make sure that you eat enough calories from carbohydrates, go and weigh yourself. For every kg of body weight, eat 10 grammes of carb’s in a day. ie 40 calories of carb’s for every kg of bodyweight. I first heard about this from Harley Johnstone, aka Durianrider. Harley used to suffer from fatigue. He’s now a lean, fit, energetic and passionate guy. Harley, eats a high carb low fat raw diet and can ride 350 miles on his bike in one day! Check out
30bananasaday.com , facebook.com/pages/Durianrider/197363716986830 and youtube.com/user/durianriders
If you weigh 10 stone, that’s 140 Lb, or 64kg. You need to eat 40 calories x 64kg = 2560 calories of carb’s a day. If you are following a high carb’ low fat diet, like ‘The 80 10 10 diet’ by Doug Graham, or the Dr McDougal programme of eating, then that represents about 80% of your total calorific intake for the day. So divide by 80 and times by 100, to get 3200 calories a day. That is the suggested calories for an active person, male or female, on a low fat diet when that person weigh’s in at 10 stones. A heavier or a very active person needs to eat more.
If you are eating a fruit based diet, then that is like eating 30 bananas a day plus large salads with plenty of leafy greens. If you are on a starch based diet, then that is like eating over 3kg of baked potatoes, with heaps of steamed cabbage, kale or other veg, or over 2.5kg (dry weight approx 800g) of cooked brown rice plus the veggies.
If you do the above without cheating on high fat food or animal protein food, then you’ll have plenty of energy to exercise and feel totally satisfied. This applies when eating fruit or cooked food, but don’t eat fruit and starches together though!
Sometimes I’ll do long bike rides. If so, then I might load up with dates, bananas and oranges. If I can’t get these, then I’ll load up with potatoes and rice.
As an example, a couple of weeks ago, carrying lots of gear, I did an 80 bike ride in the hills. I ate quite a few bananas for breakfast, then I carried with me another 8 or 10 bananas and at least 3kg of baked potatoes. I still had lots of energy when I arrived home. On a really long ride, with an overnight stop, I’ll also take with me a giant container of rice, or lots more fruit.
Hydration… I also tend to carry lots of water. I’ll generally drink 4 litres of water on a long ride (in cool Northern UK), this comes from 6 water bottles of 0.75 litres each. I don’t need to carry all this, I do it out of choice, it saves me having to stop off to refill.
Yes, it is a huge amount of extra weight compared to stopping off for fast food or carrying chocalate bars, but I feel so much better and have so much more energy when doing this. In spite of the weight, so far I haven’t found a hill on the roads that is too steep to cycle up!
On the long bike rides, carrying all that gear, I might burn off up to 8 thousand calories. Any short fall in calories, due to the long exercise sessions is generally made up in the previous day’s carb’ up and in the following days.
Advice to the uninitiated…
If you’ve never tried the low fat high carb’s way of eating before, then I’d highly suggest weighing everything out. The reason is that you need to appreciate the volume of food that you need to consume to get the recommended calories from carb’s. If you don’t eat enough calories from carb’s then you’ll end up being hungry and weak, or you’ll reach for fat food, grease burgers, piza, junk food and all the stimulating non- foods.
Carbohydrate contains 4 calories per gramme, fat contains 9 calories per gramme. Carbohydrate rich low fat food also comes with lots of fibre and water. The volume it takes up is huge compared to dense fat foods, many of which contain just fat and not much else.
If you like eating a lot, but also want lots of energy and want to lose weight, then the high carb’, low fat diet is the way to go!
*** Health Warning ***
Any attempt at doing any of the above is done at your own risk. Be carefull as it may result in you feeling seriously energetic and at risk of being called ‘obsessed’ by all your couch potato exercise phobic friends. You may also be at risk of overcoming many chronic degenerative diseases, as happened with me!
Kind regards, Stuart
ps. If you want to receive notification of articles like this, then please sign up to my ‘Health, Fitness and Feel Good News’ at eatmoreraw.net
25th
08 -
2011
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no comment »
I find that emotional stability follows a super healthy lifestyle. I’m by no means perfect in this, but when I get the diet right, keep well away from toxins, spices and anything other than the tiniest amount of fat, plus hydrate properly and exercise loads, then emotions that previously dragged me down no longer seem to be there. In fact, I am MORE emotional overall but with mainly beneficial emotions. It’s like a cork is taken off the bottle, allowing out emotions of joy and sometimes tears. I’m more able to connect with others.
We all have a certain capacity to cope with things. A toxic lifestyle can often use up most of that capacity. Then, when we go over that threshold due to circumstances beyond our control, it can lead to apparent emotional instability. Imagine our capacity to cope is like a wine glass. If we can stop filling it with a toxic load, then when the trials of life come along our glass can still contain them.
I’m always amazed that some people appear to get on with life in spite of totally horrendous circumstances, yet others fall apart at a bit of debt, or after an argument, or for being out of work or failing an exam etc.
It’s as though I don’t need any emotional healing once I get my lifestyle right. However, after a few slip-ups then a whole host of issues may reappear to surface, like my upbringing, things I should have done, or shouldn’t have done, disastrous decisions in life, feeling sorry for myself, blaming others for things etc., etc. These issues seem to materialise out of some sort of time warp and all of a sudden I need to deal with them, or be healed from them. What’s behind emotions is still real. It’s not about burying your head in the sand, but understand that a toxic lifestyle somehow seems to magnify the negative emotional aspects of life.
We also need to learn to focus on the positive aspects of things, this helps hugely with emotions. For me, being a Christian has helped massively. May I also suggest watching or reading some of the work by Anthony Robbins. Even if you are skeptical, please at least try out some of his suggestions, you may be surprised at how effective they are.
If you are still struggling with emotional issues, just remember that in-spite of how you feel about you, or someone else, or whatever circumstances you are facing, life is like a journey. This moment will pass, the world will go on and tomorrow will bring a new morning. Also remember that you and every other person on this planet are special.
Take care, Stuart
ps. If you’d like to sign up to my ‘Health, Fitness and Feel Good News!’, then you can sign up at http://eatmoreraw.net
28th
07 -
2011
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no comment »
My prolapsed disk and spondylitis recovery
Since my early twenties, I had a prolapsed disk and spondylitis in my lower back.
To start with I had excruciating back pain, sciatica pain down my right leg, leg numbness and a limp. The weakness in my right leg continued to the extent where my right leg lost muscle mass and looked skinnier than my left leg. I couldn’t stand on my toes using my right leg as my calf muscle was really weak. The sciatica and numbness did eventually stop and my leg recovered and I was able to resume exercise. However I had 20 years of not being able to sit comfortably in a couch and throughout that period I almost always had morning back ache. I had many occasions where the pain in my back was excruciating.
I used to go on a stretching machine at the hospital. An X-ray showed spondylitis. There was hardly any gap between the lower two vertebrae. When the pain became too much or if my back locked up and became totally inflexible then I saw various physio’s, chiropractors and osteopaths. Manipulation usually helped, but there was always a weakness there in my lower back.
I have no idea if any vertebrae have fused together, but things did become more manageable after a prolonged period of being super careful with my posture and any seating. I became an expert at assessing whether a chair was suitable or not. Most chairs and couches are absolutely terrible! For years I had pain after sitting in a chair that was anything less than ergonomically perfect. Couches were out of the question for anything more than a few minutes. If I did persist in sitting in a couch then I’d feel really awkward in my back for a few days, sometimes requiring expensive manipulation to make things ease off.
A raw food diet really helped, but I became massively better and symptom free once I cut out nuts, seeds and oil and started drinking more water! My back doesn’t hinder me in any way at all now. My fitness and strength have come on in leaps and bounds!!! Almost all the other various ailments and symptoms that really held me back are gone now and they generally stay away as long as I don’t cheat on my diet!
I’m eating a high raw very low fat diet, i.e. loads of carbohydrates, with lots of fruit, but some cooked food too. I eat loads of salad greens, drink lots of water and exercise lots. When I can get enough ripe fruit, I try and eat 100% low fat raw food to feel at my best. Quite often though, I can’t do this. So I decided that when I can’t get the fruit, then rather eat fat, cooked rubbish, or go hungry, I’d eat things like rice, lentils, potatoes etc, and sprouted grain and beans. In summary, the main food I strive to eat is low fat whole food, raw or cooked.
I aim to eat absolutely no processed food, no salt, no grease and I minimise strong flavours. I try to keep it really simple. Lots of salad greens are vital. The plain and simple cooked carb’s get me by until I can restock on the fruit from my supplier.
As a result of all this, I have found that my back and joints are still great in spite of not always eating 100% raw. On previous cheats or deviations from my diet, I found that my back in particular would begin to ache, followed by an old hip injury. Fatigue and a foggy head would come back too. I suspect the main reason for all this is that the fat, salt and other rubbish that is used to dress up cooked food messes me up. My old issues don’t tend to bother me if strict.
So perhaps it was all the fat (not that I was eating that much) and previous animal protein and processed food that caused and aggravated things like the spondylitis?
I read somewhere that regular exercise, if you can do it, helps relieve or keep at bay spondylitis. I suspect that the spondylitis is a blood sugar and possibly a candida overgrowth type of issue (I may be wrong though, please give me your comments!). That would explain why keeping off fat and exercising lots helps to bring the aches and pains under control. In my case, my back problems appear to be completely gone and I’m able to doing some serious stuff at the gym… and slouch in a couch again!
I don’t think I’ve been dramatically healed, although it feels like I have! I say this because my body does begin to show signs of reverting back to old problems if I let go of the diet and exercise regime.
Although I have come so far with my health recovery, even when I am strict, I do still have some remaining symptoms that can be explained when one has had (or still has some) systemic candida. It’s these remaining symptoms that rear their ugly head and become worse when I slip up. Because of this, I’ve decided to take additional steps to try and knock the remains of systemic candida on the head. I’ll explain more about my attempts at ridding myself of remaining candida related issues in the next few months. This will hopefully make me more resilient to the odd blip in my diet, which I think most of us suffer from, especially if living in a non raw family!
Kind regards, Stuart
If you’d like to receive my ‘health, fitness and feel good news’, then please sign up at, http://eatmoreraw.net/ . I’ll let you know when I have something to share that may help your health, fitness… or just make you feel good!
2nd
06 -
2011
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1 comment »
My blender, jug and many spares are interchangeable with the rather more expensive market leader’s parts. Although my blender is not as refined as the market leader’s, I was very happy with it. However, it was never the same since 20 medjoule dates suddenly hit the blades which were running at high speed.
On the motor unit base, the drive shaft bush snapped, which I replaced with a spare. Since then, it always sounded a bit rough and the blades increasingly became stiff. I finally stopped using the blender after smoke started coming out of the base of the jug. Once it cooled down the blade bearings were totally ceased.
I saw this video and decided to see if I could get the jug apart.
youtube.com/watch?v=dkbvuOI1ylU
I took out the blade mechanism from the jug and the blades came off very easily by undoing a single bolt. I was careful not to damage the threaded end of the shaft where the blade attaches. I used a vice and some improvised spacers such as big nuts and a long bolt. I managed to press the bearings and shaft seal out of the assembly shown in my sketch below (drawn from memory and not to scale!). I was careful not to put any force on the square shaft end or it’s thread. I used a long bolt that rested on the bottom of the saft to press it, complete with attached bearings, out of the housing. Very large nuts were used as a spacers to provide clearence so that the cog and bearings could be ejected freely down the middle. It took considerable force from the vice to press out shaft with the bearings attached. A similar method was used to remove the bearings from the shaft.
Blender jug blade assembly
I examined the ceased up bearings and the shaft seal, carefully measuring the internal and external diameters and the thickness of all three. The blender jug blade mechanism that came off my ‘Drinks Machine BL-010′ blender required the following items:
2 off: 8x22x7mm with rubber seals (608-2RS bearings – commonly used on skateboards)
1 off: 8x15x5mm nitrile rubber seal.
I ordered two new bearings and a shaft seal from simplybearings.co.uk. The total price was £9.56 including delivery. This was significantly cheaper than a replacment jug or blade mechanism.
The bearings and seal were carefully reassembled and then pressed together with the shaft into the housing. After sharpening the blades, the assembly was refixed into the base of the jug.
WOW!!! It’s as though I have a new blender! No more rattling about. Nice and smooth and quieter, no more smoke and much more tasty smoothies! It’s fixed!
If your blender ceases up and you are quite handy, then don’t throw it away, it may well be repairable. Any repair attempts are done at your own risk!
Kind regards, Stuart.
24th
05 -
2011
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no comment »
I had just a few hardly noticable tiny spots early on in using a sauna or steam room two or three times a week, but my skin feels so amazing. I believe that’s due to the toxins being expelled through my skin, leaving it fresher and healthier in the process.
Exercise is a massive improver of skin health. It oxygenates your cells and rids your body and skin of toxins due to sweating. The bouncing up and down movement helps your lymph fluid to move around your body and it helps your bowel movements. All these help you detox.
Sweating is what we are meant to do. If it’s something that you are suddenly immersed into it may well be too much. So build it up.
I find that my really long runs, cycle rides and workouts make me sweat a huge amount. On a very long cycle ride I might drink 3 or 4 litres of water. I sometimes drink 2 litres of water at the gym just to stay hydrated. Then I go for a swim, jacuzzi and sauna (or steam room which is even hotter!). Even before joining the gym, on a cold day I would still work up a good sweat.
Out of all the worlds animals we are probably the most suited to a hot environment where we need to be constanly shedding body heat. I don’t know of any other furless mamal that has sweat glands head to foot. Monkeys and other primates come close, but they have fur. Anatomically it appears that we are more suited than they are to a hot climate. Sweating is part of what we are designed to do. It helps us to keep cool and helps rid our body of toxins.
Sustained exercise will help you to sweat, as will saunas and steam rooms. I only stay in a sauna for about 10 minutes and then come out. I might cool off a bit and then go back in for another few mintues.
I have never failed to feel good after a sauna. If I combine that with prior intense exercise, I feel so chilled out and relaxed. Then if I eat something afterwards, that energy rush and that unspeakable joy comes too! It took time to develop and reach that feeling of elation, diet has a massive part to play in this.
If we allow ourselves to sweat enough we can expel as many toxins as we urinate. Not allowing ourselves to sweat is like disabling one of our vital eliminative organs.
I would suggest learning to sweat. Don’t just plonk yourself into a 15 mintute sauna session. Try the exercise method first. Wrap up so that you are comfortable, but not hot. Then go and do some excercise, go jogging, cycling, skipping, or on a brisk walk. You may find it uncomforatable having those wet sticky clothes against your body, but as long as you are not overheating then stick with it. If necessary take some layers off as you go, but don’t make yourself cold so that you stop sweating. Do that a few times a week. Try and build it up so that you are exercising and sweating for several hours over the course of the week, the exercise will do you good too!
The other option is to use the sauna. This is like having a short sharp shock treatment. If you are not aclimatised to sweating then you may find it too much at first. If you can’t build up your sweating ability by exercise, then please don’t give up on sweating! Go and have a sauna, or sit in a steam room, many public swimming baths and gyms have them. Just do this for a few minutes at first, then come out. Have a brief shower to get those toxins off you so that you don’t reabsorb them. Then when you feel comfortable, go back in for a few minutes. Keep repeating that: sauna -shower - cool down, sauna – shower – cool down. Aim for 5 miutes total intially and eventually work upto 15 minutes or even more.
It is not advisable to allow children to sit in a sauna. A child’s small body mass can rapidly over heat. It is also advisable to double check with your doctor if any medical condition makes it unwise to expose yourself to the heat. Well before entering a sauna or a steam room, what is absolutely vital is that you are really well hydrated. It is also vital that you have access to water during any long sweat out. I don’t normally recommend salt, but if you are doing a really long session and hydrating as you go, then something to be aware of is that your body’s salts can become diluted to such an exent where it becomes dangerous, this is called hyponatremia. You can collapse and die from this. If drinking anything more than a couple of litres of water in an hour then I’d consider adding a small pinch of sea salt to each glass of water consumed. Even Michael Arnstein who is the most dedicated raw foodist I know of, takes some salt on his 100 mile runs.
When in a sauna, until you know how your body can cope, then I’d suggest making sure that there is someone else in there with you. Saunas usually have a 15 minute egg timer on the wall, keep an eye on it to guage how long you’ve been in the heat. To start with, sit on one of the lower benches. If you have a low body weight, then limit yourself to 5 minutes maximum to prevent yourself overheating. Larger people, especially obese people, are able to spend much longer in a sauna. DON’T copy them. Big bodies take more time to heat up and cool down. That’s not an advertisment to become obese either! Unless there is someone in the sauna to talk to and keep a watch on you, then do not under any circumstance lie down. You may become drowsy and fall asleep and become like a lobster being slowly cooked to death in a pan of water!
In summary, take it easy at first, learn to sweat and experience the health and feel good benefits of ridding yourself of toxins through your skin.
Kind regards, Stuart Porter
14th
03 -
2011
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no comment »
People never get anywhere significant by being mediocre. For example, most successful people work extremely hard to get where they are with their work. The same goes for fitness and health. To improve these often takes an extended concentrated effort. To the couch potato or lazy person, or to someone with different priorities, what many successful people do seems extreme to them.
I’m not claiming to be some highly successful person, infact in some ways I’ve been the opposite, but I have been successful in turning around my health and fitness. It appears to many that I’ve had to do something ‘extreme’ to get better.
I do ‘extreme’ things like giving up tea and coffee and instead drink plenty of water. For breakfast I might eat a complete fruit bowl full of oranges. I might eat more salad in one sitting than a family might eat in an entire week. I might spend 6 to 10 hours training a week to claw back my fitness. I have been accused of being obsessed, or extreme, or worse! I’ve been slandered for removing toxic waste out of my mouth and ‘wasting’ money.
I’ve been accused of being a slacker or for wasting my family’s money or for taking time off to go on my occasional little adventures (a couple of which I posted on Youtube – see my channel ‘eatmoreraw’). I consider enjoying yourself as good therapy for recovering from anything, it’s also good fun!!! You see, enjoying yourself to some people is a waste of time and money when it doesn’t fit in with what they consider as important. I guess to someone who sits most evenings in front of the TV, or chooses to spend their money on beer, piza and medical care, then I must be wasting time by spending 2 weeks sailing on the trip of a lifetime. To someone who choses to buy a new car, then I must have my priorities wrong by spending money to have poisonous mercury removed from my mouth.
I have tried to help a few conformists, some of them close friends or family. Often, it’s just too extreme though to change their diet, or to do some exercise, or to drink 2 litres of water or more a day. What is not extreme though is to have bodily parts hacked out, to be in and out of hostital, or to die prematurely. Most sheople I have known chose to conform and suffer the consequences, even if this means death!
Are you prepared to do something to benefit yourself and others, or are you just hoping that somene else will do it all for you? Only when you decide that YOU will take the lead will you really see significant inroads to your health and fitness improvement. When you decide to take charge it is highly likely that you too will be called obsessive or extreme. Both these two words are just the doubting pessimist’s way of refusing to do something about their own life and intentionally or unintentially attempting to knock you down to their level in the process.
I would challenge you to accept these ‘obsessive’ and ‘extremist’ terms as a compliment and adopt the optimists translation of these misused words as: “well done on being so dedicated!” So when it comes to health and fitness, I prefer to use the term ’dedicated’! This is a much more empowering word.
Kind regards, Stuart
1st
02 -
2011
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no comment »
Create adventure in your life! … my skiing trip!!!
Last week I went skiing with a good friend, Simon, to Glenshee in Scotland for a couple of days. I had an absolutely fabulous time! It must be 15 years since I last skied on snow in my only previous skiing holiday.
On my first attempt I was hauled to the top of the ski slope with one of those button lifts that you stick between your legs and it drags you up using the cable overhead. As in my previous ski trip and in my usual style, I fell over as I dismounted at the top of the ski run!
I was a little rusty to begin with. I gingerly started off with my snow plough, to try and control my already slow speed, on the green run [by lift 4].
Glenshee piste map
Green = easy
Blue = intermediate
Red = difficult
Black = very difficult
I was really pleased with my progress. I had to really concentrate on some of the basic principles that I’d not used for many years. As I worked on the snow plough, I started to move my weight around to relearn the snow plough turns. It soon came right back to me, especially as I watched others skiing and I chatted to the occasional person about technique.
Later on in the day, I was chatting to stranger. I mentioned that I was struggling with my parallel turns. “You need to keep the inside ski as light as possible”, he said.
Bearing in mind that simple tip, off I went and practiced. Wow, what a difference! I could do parallel turns. Although I was not as fast as I would like yet, that came with more practice.
Stuart Porter - Glenshee, Scotland. Top of lift 19.
How often do we go through life struggling because we miss that very short but seemingly obvious tip? It was a bit like that with my health. I was convinced that the raw food diet was the be all and end all of diets, yet I was still very up and down with some rather serious bouts of chronic fatigue, IBS and depression. I was eating super healthy yet I was still ill.
I picked a little snippet of information up from watching a video of Dr Doug Graham, a raw roodist and sports fitness coach. To get better, all it took for me was to stop eating fat foods. Whenever I’ve fallen down since then, it almost always has been because I’ve eaten too much fat in one form or another. Eventually I came to the point where I just stopped adding any fat food at all to my diet, that is where energy levels sky rocketed and almost every day became a joy and an adventure!
What I find even more amazing is that even if I eat cooked food, then as long as I keep off processed food and fat food such as; nuts, seeds, oil, avocados etc, then I still feel fantastic. Given the choice, I would prefer fruit as my main source of calories, but in situations where this is not possible or very impractical, like on this skiing trip, then precooked potatoes, whole grain rice, loads of bananas and lots and lots of salad proved to be fabulous rocket fuel!
None of us knows it all, whether it is skiing or diet. What is a good way forward though is to find someone who appears to be getting the results that you desire and try and pick up tips from them. Go and ask them the secret to their success. You will find that the vast majority of people when you talk to them, on a one to one level, will be delighted to share themselves with you.
Back to my skiing. Towards the end of the first day Simon and I decided to use a chair lift [13]. As we attempted to dismount our skis became interlocked. I was fine and skied off no problem, but Simon came off worse, he fell over and twisted his knee! This happened a second time but this time his elbow suffered! The next day, Simon was struggling due to his injuries and couldn’t ski on, so he decided to go hill walking instead. He very kindly suggested that I carry on skiing. As it happened, Simon had a great time walking and he didn’t aggravate his knee or elbow injuries.
I used this as an opportunity to try out some of the more difficult steeper runs! All the time I concentrated on my technique of turning and trying to get the weight off the inside ski. That is vital when skiing down a steep hill, unless you want to do 150 miles per hour that is!
It was itching to see if I could cope with a black run! I could see most of the black run from the ski lift [24] and realised that if I fell over I’d probably be OK. I’d just end up at the bottom of the very long very steep slope! There were no trees or rock outcrops (that I could see!) to slam into. So I went for it! Boy that was some seriously steep slope!!!
It was a bit hairy trying to do my turns on a slope that I wouldn’t even dare to walk down if there were no snow! It was very hard on the legs and knees, but I managed to keep control on all those turns. I did it! I managed to get right to the bottom and was able to relax a little. However there was not as much snow coverage down there and I caught my ski on something and fell over! 50 yards later I hit a grass sod and fell over again!!! That’s typical isn’t it! As soon as we let down our guard we become less aware and relax a little, it’s then that we fall over! It’s like that with many things in life, from driving a car, to skiing, to adopting a healthy diet. When we choose to take it easy and become less conscious of what we are doing, it’s then that we often fall over.
After I picked myself up, I gingerly made my way to the button style ski lift for my trip back to the top. It’s a very long lift and to mount it you have to place a bar, that hangs down from the cable, between your legs. On the end of the bar is what looks like a large rubber button, you grip this between your thighs and the lift drags you up whilst you ski to the top of the slope. Due to the distance, this particular lift was rather fast though. I had to brace myself for being launched into mid air until my speed matched that of the lift!
At the top of the mountain it was now howling a gale and there was a blizzard! I knew the way now though. There were plenty of other skiers doing this run, so I wasn’t afraid of being stuck on my own. Whilst I was on the black run, it was quite difficult to even see the ground in places due to a temporary white out! I knew the way, in fact the only way was down! Once I came out of the cloud the weather calmed down. Then I did the whole thing all over again, and that was without falling over either! I wanted more, so off I went for three more of my downhill extravagances. I was buzzing and had the time of my life!
I have really enjoyed myself over the past year, I’ve had the best year ever! There are numerous things that have enabled this to happen, for example; diet, exercise and thinking the best in situations. One thing I’ve found really beneficial though is to have a sense of adventure! This doesn’t have to cost a lot either. This skiing trip cost me £200 in total. That’s for half the fuel, 2 nights a hotel and 2 days lift pass and ski gear hire.
Other things I do are free, such as when I went cycling and camped rough. Even if you have no one to do things with, go and do it anyway! Take sensible safety precautions, wear appropriate gear. Don’t take unnecessary risks, but do push and challenge yourself. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy trip either, just a day or two is a way of packing in some fun into a busy schedule.
I never used to like my own company and I would often avoid situations where I was on my own. Doing little adventures like this though has really helped me. I’ve made a new friend too, it’s someone that I’ve grown to like and appreciate and have fun with. That new friend of mine is me!
Kind regards, Stuart
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