diet and excercise | The Fynbos Blog

Category Archives: diet and excercise

The Day After the Hottest Day

Posted on March 4, 2015 by fynbosblog One comment

Yesterday, March 2nd 2015, was the hottest day in Cape Town for 100 years. Fires raged on the Cape Penninsula and we could do nothing but think of our poor friends all over the Cape evacuating their homes, of the animals that had to be evacuated and of the wildlife on the mountains that must be suffering terribly. In many areas all that is left is a bare lunar landscape. This blog is dedicated to all our friends who have been battling the fires for the last three days.

All the more terrifying because we live on a mountain that is overdue a big fire, and beside a huge pine forest. As we worried about our friends yesterday a small fire broke out on our mountain, but was quickly contained by our local fire services.

The strange weather has contributed; on Sunday this wild windy sunset light the sky, and was followed by unbelievable howling winds that stripped the young olives off our trees. The wind howled all day on Monday and then dropped in the evening, to be followed yesterday by a day of searing heat all over the province. We quite often get temperatures of over 40 degrees down in the valley, but almost never here on the mountain. It was 42 all over the Cape yesterday, even here on the farm at 5 pm as we wound down from a long hot day.

Wild and windy night

Table Mountain glows in the fiery light

As quickly as the heat appeared it was gone. This morning was remarkably cool and I went for a long run with the dogs. The sky was cloudy and drops of rain spat from the sky. This weather is most bizzare. There are not many flowers on the mountain, but some signs of life to come all the same. A pink tipped Protea Repens and a Pelargonium that can flower all the year round but still amazing that this plant should choose this hottest driest month to show it’s enchanting face.

Pelargonium myrrhifolium var myrrhifolium

The air was still and cool but the remains of the great heat still came as a powerful beat from the earth; there is no proper rain in the forecast and we can only pray that the Gods are kind to us and that fire does not come to claim us this year.

Diet and Exercise – The Truth of the Matter

Posted on October 30, 2014 by fynbosblog 3 comments

I reached a target today. This weekend I’m riding in a competition and I really wanted to lose the extra couple of kilos before the show. I weighed myself this morning. Wow, I actually made my target!

And as I was out running this morning it occurred to me that I’ve never talked about diet. Or, let’s call a spade a spade, dieting. This blog is about the run and the flowers. But why run at all? I saw a brilliant ad once, for Reebok shoes called “Belly gonna get you!” A man was chased around New York city by the fat belly he’d have if he didn’t run. That’s why I run; I’m afraid that belly will get me. I run away from the fat person I don’t want to be. The trouble is, I like to eat. Not in an unconsidered full fat sugar chocolate driven way, more a fine dining, excellent and delicious food kind of way. And as Peter said when I mentioned that his daughter complains that we don’t keep treats in the house, “our treats come in bottles”.

Perhaps it’s time for a flower, captured on this morning’s run, before I continue this little dietary indulgence.

This is an absolute favourite, if only for its splendid name. Not the best photos, they were captured early this morning and I was more focused on the run and my thoughts about weight and fat than flowers. There will be a few of them to come all over the farm and I’ll capture a better shot of this lily named Wachendorfia paniculata.

Wachendorfia paniculata

Back to the diet. All my life I have struggled. My family, on both sides, survived the Irish Famine in the mid-19th century for a reason. If we were horses we’d be called good doers. We do terribly well on terribly little. Most of my cousins have struggled as I have. If you stop the struggle, woah, clothes sizes accumulate with terrifying speed.

So I run away from the fat person I don’t want to be. And as I was running away down the drive this morning I couldn’t resist a shot of this Leucospermum lineare, the Vulnerable, from a baby plant on the drive. This endangered and quite rare member of the protea family is thriving here on the farm.

Leucospermum lineare

Here in Cape Town everyone is Banting. This is the name a doctor called Tim Noakes has given his diet which is a kind of super-powered Atkins. High fat, medium protein, very low carb. I think it’s rather revolting but I do have to admit that people who stick to it, really stick to it, religiously stick to it, do lose weight. Some of them have got quite thin. But as he says in his book, if you don’t stick to it, you’ll balloon. Now I’ve tried most diets; I really mean that, you name it I’ve done it; a lifetime of diets. It’s been my constant, rather boring obsession. But one thing I know is that if I’m required to cut out major food groups, I’m not happy. I might lose weight, but I’m not happy. I can tell you from experience that the best diet is abject misery, really proper, grieving kind of misery, like after a break up, or when someone you adore dies. That’s no way to live but unfortunately being happy makes you fat. I believe certain drugs can be fabulous, but again, not a way to live. Smoking was marvellous, but… once again, not a great option for life and I gave it, and control over my weight up when I was 28. I put on that stone that I’ve never really lost. I’ve lost weight on Weightwatchers and on the Dukan diet, but not really on any other, until now. Running is great for controlling weight, but not so much for losing it. Every holiday, every time I travel on business, a sneaky kilo or two is gained and oh, the dread of getting it off. Yet I’m not interested in never having another slice of bread, never baking a cake again, never eating an amazing dinner, all five courses, with absolute pleasure. And I do like a vodka and soda with a splash of Campari after a long day as I make dinner, usually a very healthy dinner during the course of a normal week. And a glass of wine, or two.

So I run. Three times a week, pretty much every week. Sometimes four times. If I run at the weekend I’ll do 5K or 6K, but otherwise it’s 4K. And I do Pilates twice a week. Vainly hoping that I may have my cake and eat it too, with a glass of champagne. Worrying about my weight has probably occupied more of my waking hours than any other single subject. You’d think that all that worry would mean I’d take control and just eat less, but it doesn’t seem to work like that. Those famine genes want feeding, but the famine’s over, so delicious things preferred, please.

In August 2013 I picked up a book, rather randomly, in an airport and read it on the plane. A colleague I’d been working with in Qatar was looking fantastic and told me about this diet. It is called 5:2 and I immediately knew it was for me. The logic is divinely simple. Two days a week you eat 500 calories, that’s 2000 kilojoules. The rest of the time you eat normally. And where before you might slightly overeat on a weekly basis and gradually gain weight, by cutting out 1500 – 2000 calories a week, every week, you gradually lose weight. I’ve always found it easy not to eat for a day, it’s following dietary restrictions day after day after day that I struggle with, especially with a lifestyle where we travel a lot, socialise a good bit and love to eat out. Never mind the “treats in a bottle”. The book also described huge health benefits that the diet provides – when your body doesn’t have to worry about digesting food, it finds all sorts of useful repair jobs to do instead. Intermittent fasting turns out to be amazingly good for you.

Peter doesn’t do it with me and is kind enough to fend for himself on my “2” days. He doesn’t love it, but he loves the result. It works. I haven’t become skinny but my average has come down. It’s not a totally steady loss. The closest way I can describe it is if you look at a one year chart of the FTSE, the London Stock Exchange. Take out the big plunge this October and that’s been my dieting year. In line with the FTSE, except we want the FTSE to go up and the weight to go down! The point is, the peaks don’t go up and up and the control has been stable. A trip, or a heavy social agenda, a kilo creeps on here and there. With the regular “2” days, once normal eating and exercise are established, off it comes. If I make a bit more effort, it comes off quite easily, never quickly, about 250g to 500g a week. But off it does come. And I don’t have to think about it. Just do it. It took me a while to get used to eating so little so little in a day, but now I enjoy it – I just don’t have to think about food. As for being hungry, that’s ok, for a day. Tomorrow I can have what I want. It’s no longer a diet, it’s a way of life.

I’ve told all my friends about this wonderful diet and only one has really got it, loves it and does it as a habit as do I. I don’t know why, everyone wants to lose, or at least control their weight, and this is the easiest, most pain free way I’ve ever found that achieves just that.

We went out one evening this week to run up the mountain and saw the glory of another sunset. The light in the olive groves, the view of the sun setting behind Paarl Rock with Table Mountain in the background. I may only be running away from my genes but at least I get to run here, on the mountain, with the wolfhounds, in the glory of the light.

Spring light in the olive groves

Sun setting behind Paarl Rock

A good fire and some snoring wolfhounds

Posted on June 14, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

We woke up full of good running intentions this morning and the first sound was the pattering rain on the roof. News from Cape Town to the west of us that the rain is pouring down and a look at yr.no (the excellent Norwegian weather service if there is anyone alive who still doesn’t know about it) confirmed our worst fears. If we can’t run, we can at least blog about running.

I spend the hot months of summer thinking how much I like the Cape Winter – yes it rains but it never, in my imagination at least, gets truly cold. And it is true that here on the mountain the temperature very rarely slips below 5 degrees. This was a rare week. It was freezing, almost literally, and 4 degrees on Wednesday morning and reminded me exactly why I like living in warm countries. Being the Cape it was a short snap and on Thursday a benign sun smiled on us. Now it’s raining hard but still mild.

Deilighted to be reunited the dogs and I had some splendid runs. I’m travelling too much to keep a proper level of fitness, but even at a plod there is nothing more joyous than time spent on the mountain with the dogs.

The first Erica plukenetii has come into flower and will continue flowering all over the farm from now until December. They come in many colours and well post lots of them. I love the way the evening sun gleams on the clustered pink tubes.

Erica plukenetii

The Protea nerifolia is one of the most magnificent shrubs on the farm and the bannerhead of The Fynbos Blog. Most commonly seen in pink, sometimes the flowers are cream or white and the soft velvety lushness is irresistible, to me as a photographer and apparently also to the tiny beetles you can see on the petals.

Protea nerifolia

The Oxalis are out now, studding the lands like tiny jewels. I worry when it rains for days on end – the flowers only open in the sunlight, so how can they survive without it? But survive they do. There are dozens of varieties, these three are found everywhere on the farm. Oxalis veriscolor is particularly exquisite with it’s shrublike form and tiny pink edged white flowers.

Oxalis veriscolor

Oxalis purpurea in pale lilac

Oxalis purpurea in bright pink

Yellow daisy like flowers can be hard to identify and I was happy to see this Haplocapha lanata again. When I started the blog it was one of the first that I did manage to name and if you look closely at this photo you can just see the pink edges on the petals that indicate the distinguishing red undersides.

Haplocapha lanata

The water is pouring down the rivers and streams and our waterfall is back to its full glory.

This tiny flower grows on a shrub that looks like Chaenostoma hispidum or Sutera hispida (both the same, a victim of renaming again). We are right on the edge of its territory but it does look right.

Chaenostoma hispidum

Seamus absolutely loves this cooler weather. He is exceptionally fit and well at the moment and bounds all over the farm with us. Here he is in one of his favourite poses, he’s just had a drink and a lie down in Fox Pan and now he’s letting the breeze ruffle through his coat as he looks out over the mountains and waits for me to catch up.

Seamus enjoying a sunny afternoon

One last flower that I have been meaning to post. It flowers very briefly and I missed it last year although we have lots of these pretty green shrubs on the farm. I caught one in the act a few weeks ago. The common name is wild asparagus, Asparagus rubicundus.

Asaparagus rubicundus

The Banting Wars

Posted on May 20, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

It’s been a busy time at work and most of the time I’ve been chugging back and forth to Europe instead of spending this marvellous month of May on the farm. Last Saturday I took a day off and went with Liz to the Franschhoek Literary Festival where we saw a splendid debate between Prof Tim Noakes and Prof Lionel Opie, entertainly chaired by Dennis Davis.

South Africans will need no introduction to Prof Noakes but for the benefit of everyone else, he advocates a way of eating that is very low carb, medium protein and very high fat. He’s written a couple of entertaining bestsellers; it is the hot topic here and the large hall was overflowing. It was particularly fun to go with Liz as we sit firmly on opposite sits of the debate. I don’t agree with that way of eating at all (a serial dieter I’ve been through all them all, Montingnac, Atkins, Dukan and many variations thereof) and none of them help me to lose weight. I haven’t tried the “Banting” way, as Prof Noakes calls it, but as is the case with so many diets I don’t know anyone who has lost weight on it after the first couple of weeks or so. Some people claim to feel marvellous on it though and it may be true that it is a good diet for people who are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Perhaps also for people who eat seriously bad diets full of sugar and fast food in the first place. Noakes is highly persuasive and passionate and Liz thought he won the debate. I heard a lot of theories and a lot of conclusions but the facts didn’t seem to justify the conclusions. Proof once more that you hear what you want to hear! Noakes uses himself as an example all the time, so perhaps the only safe conclusion is that it may suit insulin resistance high performance atheletes like him. Opie pointed out that the ONLY comparative research on the high fat approach that has been done was recently in Cambridge. The conclusion was that a low-carb high-fat diet didn’t help the participants to lose weight, but in a group of talented Cambridge students, there was a noticable decrease in brain function, particularly memory.

So what has all this got to do with fynbos flowers? Well the flowers and the run go together, and all that goes with a healthy lifestyle, hence our interest in the debate. Liz and I followed all this talk of diet with a splendid lunch where she stuck to her Banting and I ate a smoked salmon rosti with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce. And we shared a divine bottle of Chenin Blanc.

On the way home the light was amazing and I stopped on the dirt road to take this photo of the shining grasses in the autumn vines which are at their most beautiful at this time of year. A golden highway in the winelands.

The shining grasses in May

Back on the farm I took the dogs for a long walk on the mountain as the sun started to set. Maebh and Jemima Chew set about hunting every last gerbil, full of glee and joy as they bounced around the place.

Jemima Chew and Maebh enjoying the evening hunt

We are moving in to the serious season for fynbos now that we’ve had good rain. One is another tiny lobelia – I didn’t have room to fit my fynbos book in my bag on this trip, but it is different from the one we posted a couple of weeks ago.

Lobelia

The Protea nerifolia is now in flower all over the farm and will continue to flower for months now. Quite a hairy chap, it’s always particularly handsome when it catches the light, as in this photo in the very last rays of the sun.

Protea nerifolia

I can be silly in my joy when my favourites emerge and I see them for the first time in the season. One of these is Microloma tenuifolia which has emerged winding its tentacles around a protea. This tiny flower is as smaller or smaller than the nail on my little finger, little flashes of pinky coral in the lush green fynbos.