Good Afternoon World,
Well, as promised I would let the world all in on my diet and lifestyle changes here on our attempt at a self-sufficient homestead. As well, I am going to go and make a couple rants – maybe someday I can look back and see it either I was, or they were, correct.
In relation to working out here on the farm, I previously mentioned that I have downloaded an App that motivates an individual to train up to one hundred push-ups. That is one area that I want to work on as bodyweight endurance and power exercises are an area where I know that I need improvement. It will be beneficial both in allowing for greater work potential but also for the added health improvements. I am happy to report that since my last date I have been disciplined enough to complete the stages of the workout as required and I think that I am already beginning to see that the repetitions are becoming easier even when maintaining strict form. Today is a day off from that but back to it tomorrow.
The other main workout portions of the last couple of days have involved the pitchfork and shovel starting the spring cleaning out the pig pen and wheelbarrow to get this outstanding mixture onto where one of our new gardens is going to be started early this summer. By getting this manure out and onto the snow before it melts off will allow the nutrients contained within to be released into the soil with sufficient time for them to be ready to feed the soil. If I was not able to get it out now, I would have to pile it up to age before being moved to the garden. This is especially important with the chicken and turkey manure because if applied fresh to the garden the concentration of nitrogen contained within can have disastrous effects on the plants. Besides the fork and shovel work I also accomplished some hammer and saw workout by building some new nest boxes and roosts for the chickens – I will have to do an article in the near future on how I built these out of all recycles materials.
Two lifestyle changes that we have made have appeared to be beneficial. I did not hide the fact that I suffer from some mental illness and because of the depression I experience one of my means of escape previously has been sleep. When asleep I don’t have to deal with the stress and anxiety issues. The first change is that I have begun to set an alarm so that I get no more than eight hours of sleep (in the past I could easily go 14 plus hours in bed). It many sound counterintuitive, but now that I am getting less sleep I have more motivation to get things done around here and the time to do it. The extra time has been occasionally stressful but I expect that eventually the positives will be more evident.
The second big change is that, as a family we decided to adjust the thermostat in the home. Instead of the regular room temperature of around 21 degrees Celsius, we now have it set at 15 and hope to get lower. It surprisingly doesn’t take the body long to adjust and there are many benefits to this change. First is financial – lower temp means that amount of oil consumed by the furnace is significantly reduced plus the electricity required to operate the heating system lessened. Secondly, the lower temperature causes the body to burn a great number of calories in its effort to maintain a constant core temperature. This is one of the two things required to lose weight – burn more calories.
Diet Book Complaint(s)
Really, what is the deal with all of these books and diets that are advertised? They all seem to promise that you will have that smokin’ hot body without any effort because they have this secret that nobody else has figured out so “call now, operators are standing by” infomercial felling. My previous post mentioned Kevin Trudeau’s book, which on the back claims that it is “…an all natural and effortless method that works for everyone…a lean, sexy body in just 30 days…”
Time to throw the BS flag on that! Reading the book shows how false and misleading this is. “All natural” but he is requiring the injection of hormones on a consistent bases in addition to various nutritional supplements, plus the regular use of colonics. Maybe it is just me, but having water pumped up inside my ass doesn’t seem to be very natural! As for his “effortless method”, I guess as long as you have time for walking a minimum of an hour a day, daily sauna and yoga, resistance training, use a trampoline daily, eat six times per day and get massages. Not only does that seem to be the exact opposite of effortless, but no one that I know could financially afford these demands but who has that much time?
Last complaint for today – every read the suggested diets some propose? First as a farmer doing things by hand, half a cup of yogurt sprinkled with granola just aint gonna cut it! Plus, unless you are a chef that lives between a market and health-food store that can shop everyday, where are you going to find the time to prepare all of these special menus? We need some reality.
Well stay safe everyone and wish me luck with this next workout. Time to carry some water buckets out to the critters.
Bubba Remparts Survival and Bushcraft 