Going for a climb

I've got a few friends who like to go climbing, and I've been a few times before, but here is my blog post about climbing.

What I do when I go isn't really climbing, it's bouldering. And to be honest, climbing with all the harness and safety gear isn't all that fun (done that before too).

This wall looks like it's got measles

To begin with, I'd get a bit bored of climbing. When you're nearly six foot tall with an armspan that would surround Hagrid fairly easily, when you first start and aren't too strong, you'll just do what's easiest for you to manage, so you don't follow any of the coloured routes. So really, you just end up stepping from hold to hold.


It's not until you've gone a few times that you build up your strength, and you start challenging yourself to try other bits that you start to feel the difference. I've not managed to drag myself up a wall that's tilting towards me yet, because I don't have the strength in my arms yet, and for the love of christ warm up before hand (tennis elbow is a menace in climbing apparently..), but it's a relatively cheap activity to just build up general strength and fitness.

You'll ache like buggery the first few times you go, but it's definitely worth it.

Here's a test shot of the place in Sheffield we went to;

And here's a link to the place in Nottingham I've been to as well. Both awesome places to spend an afternoon.

Kinda like camping

Went camping this weekend (4-5/05/2013). Due to travel restrictions and cash, we had to go for one that was proximity based rather than going somewhere interesting. So we ended up in Teversal Camping and Caravanning club. For folks that aren't familiar with the British rules of camping, it's kinda like this. If you're a member of the camping and caravanning club, you don't so much camp, as set up kitchens and bedrooms in flattened country locations along little picket fence style roads made for the purpose of making camping as comfortable and home like as possible. There's usually extras such as wifi, regularly cleaned showers and toilets and a coffee machine.

And these smug bastards with their windbreakers and blow-up mattress' are your neighbours.

I don't really count this as camping. It was more like spending the night in an open top hotel. Either way, a good time was had. We set up the tent, got a little fire going using one of these gizmos (which are really brilliant) Cooked some food that wasn't BBQd, but wrapped in foil and placed on the fire. We drank a couple of beers and played guitar like hippies. It was a lot of fun.

I think I'll plan to do something vaguely active next time like go for a walk around the surrounding countryside, and I think we took a bit too much stuff to be able to just pack up and move on.

Next time.. I'll learn how to build a spit..

SNOWBOARDING!

Hey everyone!

So.. this weekend (04/05/2013) I went for my first ever lesson in snowboarding. A couple of things to note, but let me tell you first off, IT IS NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS. In fact it's really freaking hard. We had 20-30 minutes of equipment/health and safety talks first, because your feet are literally strapped to a really big heavy board, and if you fall, your feet stay attached to a big heavy board. So I think that if you're thinking of taking up snowboarding, take it seriously, or you're gonna hurt yourself. Now unfortunately, my technology brain failed me that day, and I didn't get any footage of me snowboarding on my trusty GoPro. But to be honest, you don't do much except be guided down the slope until you can manage going forwards or backwards alone anyway, so not a huge loss. But next time..

So. To start with, the instructors at the Snowdome in Tamworth are sound. Funny guys, very good at what they do, really put you at ease. Which is nice, as you're quite possibly about to hurl yourself down an icy slope. They start off by telling you the stance you need to be doing, and walk down with you whilst you're doing it. You start off doing it backwards, then they do the same going forwards.

There seemed to be a definite divide in what people could do. I managed on my 3rd go down to go down backwards all by myself. I was thinking "holy fuck. Something i'm instantly fantastic at, where have you been all my life." Any euphoric smugness instantly dissipated, however, when on my fifth go down going forwards, that I was going so damn fast that the instructor helping someone at the bottom had to hop out of the way before I took him out. I then landed on my knees and bounced onto my arse. It hurt. A lot.

It is comforting to know whilst you hurtle to the bottom in spectacular fashion, everyone does. There wasn't a single person, in a group of varying age and fitness, that didn't in some way end up at the bottom in a heap. So don't think you're gonna be the only spanner that face plants. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful, but just accept that you're probably gonna look silly along with everyone else.

I'd recommend it to anybody looking to improve their general fitness and build up a new physical skill. I'm sure when you know what you're doing that you'd have a lot of fun. I know this blog is meant to be about things that you can do that are relatively cheap and easy, but having just had a quick google of skiing/snowboarding holidays, it looks like you can get a 7 night stay at peak time for around £500 per person, flights and accommodation included (from the UK). That's a lot of money, but in replacement of the annual holiday, it's a way to keep your family fit and healthy, even when they're relaxing.

Stay cool.

(attached a quick clip of what I did manage so you can look at the training slope. Not all that scary. )

Allotta' fun!

We've recently acquired an allotment!! Today in fact. It's got my ma so incredibly excited, and to be honest it's contagious.

We've always talked about growing our own veg on our back garden for ages, but there's only so much you can do with a limited amount of space. Whereas an allotment has an area roughly the size of our entire house & garden. OODLES OF ROOM!!

What does this have to do with keeping active you say? Watching stuff grow seems a fairly redundant way of keeping fit and active..

Have you ever spent an afternoon digging soil?? Planting?? Harvesting fruit/veg?? It's a lot of damn work. You've got to tend to it regularly or you won't grow anything. It's a brilliant way of staying active.

Why else should you grow your own fruit and veg? You can get healthy food that's inexpensive from any supermarket, and I don't have to spend all this time and effort growing it.

You may have seen this before..

Stella advice on the whole, but the important bits here are "avoid processed foods" and "eat plenty of organic fruit and veg".

Mass produced fruit and veg aren't as good for you as home-grown/organic fruit and veg. Even if you don't look at what they've done to GMOs that reduce the amount of good stuff that comes in fruit and veg, the crap they spray on it is so incredibly bad, you wouldn't trust it to clean your toilet, let alone clean your food.

See aspirational picture for reference on what our allotment is gonna look like>>

HAPPY DIGGING!

Reasons you should always carry a semi-decent camera around with you

Travelling from Nottingham to Leicester from Nottingham with the right kinda weather at the right time of year, and whilst my phone does an alright job of capturing this beautiful scene, if I'd had my Sony alpha 580, i could have had some serious stock footage to use, and practiced the kind of shot I could have achieved.

Moral of this story, NEVER GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT A CAMERA!!

Food post-Drinking your calories

This image is pretty self explanatory. It shows the amount of sugar you gulp down in a single sugary drink.

A lot of these are American, but the fruit juices and the coke bottles are relevant here as well. The big coke bottle is a bit bigger than the bottles that are common in vending machines, which are 500ml, but even in the can sized portion of coke, there is 40% of your daily sugar allowance as an adult. In the common bottle size, there is 60%.

You could say that even if you don't have any other sugar throughout the day (which is very doubtful) that 40-60% of your daily intake isn't that much. However, when you're taking in all that refined sugar in a single go, you're doing more harm that good.

The sugar hits your system and spikes your sugar levels, sending them sky high, only for them to crash when they leave your system. The short term effects can be felt in yoyo-ing energy levels, mood and appetite. It's the long term health ramifications from regular consumption of food and drinks with a high refined sugar content that causes more damage. Your teeth and gum health deteriorates, your pancreas will be constantly trying to counter the amount of glucose in your bloodstream with insulin, eventually making you insulin resistant. The stress of being overworked will make your pancreas stop working, causing diabetes, meaning you will be on medication for the rest of your life. A few of the more serious side effects of diabetes are deadened nerve endings, constant dry mouth, amputated limbs, and a seriously strict diet. If you're unlucky enough to have a history of heart problems in your family, diabetes specifically kills the nerve endings around your heart, so if you start to have any problems, the chances of you catching it in time gets slimmer and slimmer.

Basically, inform yourself. Get your sugar from unrefined sources like fruit, and stay the hell away from carbonated drinks.

I wanna live longer

There are all sorts of reasons as to why I wanna live longer. All of which I will explain in marginal detail. If you're reading this, I'm sure you wanna live longer too.

This Blog is the brain child of personal experience and college work. We've been asked to create a video that encourages people to be more active and eat healthier food. The demographic defined in the criteria is low income families, because being active and eating healthily shouldn't cost more than a months supply of big macs. Because I fit the criteria of low income and have the overwhelming idea that it costs money to do anything, I decided to go about it as a bit of a personal adventure. If I really look around, I can find all sorts of fun things that don't cost a whole lot and that give you a hefty dose of all the good stuff that keep you around longer.

As well as being a kick ass idea for a project, eating copious amounts of sugar, fat and bad carbohydrates make me feel f*king awful. After the initial gratification, I feel lethargic and grumpy. I get headaches and no amount of overpriced lotions or moisturisers can fix the state my skin gets in. It's not that I wasn't encouraged to eat well growing up, either. I was fed on homemade meals, lots of vegetables, a strict no-fizzy-drinks rule, and my dad got the eyebrows every time he bought us treats. But when you're bombarded from every angle with advertising for junk food that is addictive enough to make you want more after the first time regardless, it's even more important to make yourself aware of what's going into your body.

To the more personal side of why I wanna do this. I have diabetes mainlining down both sides of my family. My great granddad had a leg off before he died, my granddad has type 2, as did my dad before he died of a heart attack. Along with the various other members of my family on both sides who suffer from the maladies directly caused by a lifetime of drinking, smoking and eating the only way the working class generation in this area knew how, this has made me realise that I absolutely know better. Information on food and how your cardiac system works is at my finger tips. The worlds library is literally brimming with information. Seeing as I've spent the first 23 years of my life intentionally making myself important to those around me, it's about time I started to act like I had the same respect for my life as my friends and family.

So follow me, even join me. I'm going to be vlogging about all the stuff I do to keep active, and what I do to improve my diet, eating healthy, affordable, and just as importantly, delicious food.