Back in January, James left us, like a traitor, for a research job in South Korea. To commiserate is leaving we went for a meal at Red Chilli. I’ve only just found the photo on my camera.
Last week was Elina’s birthday. I took her out for lunch. After, I hurried back to the office. However, something got in my way.
Hypothetically of course, we all know the bridges could open. However, I always thought there was a general understanding that they wouldn’t. People have to use those bridges. Because of this, I had to walk an extra 50 metres round the dock! No doubt you are now staring at the screen, open mouthed, in shock. Somehow though, I found the strength to carry on.
Worst of all, there was not even a boat going through it. It looked like it might be maintenance. At least a boat would have been mildly exciting.
I’m concerned about my weight piling on as I approach 30 so I bought us a set of scales for the bathroom. When they arrived I climbed on – and received a nasty shock. Admittedly I have not been on the scales for quite a long time, but I have put on 9kg since I did.
This takes my BMI from a just healthy 24.9 to an officially overweight 26.1. I never really doubted BMI as a measurement, mostly because I was in the healthy zone. I accepted it doesn’t work at the edges (short people and tall people), but it seemed like an accurate measurement for me. Now, I am thinking about joining the angry club of deniers.
I have recently been looking up the NHS recommendations for diet and exercise. Here is how it compares:
| What the NHS recommends | What I do |
|---|---|
| “at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as cycling or fast walking every week” | At least four and a half hours (270 minutes) per week. I walk to work every day, 25 minutes each way, and walk to lots of other locations in town too, including running up and down the stairs from my apartment on the 4th floor. It’s not concentrated exercise, but it is quite a lot. |
| or “75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, such as running or a game of singles tennis every week” | Two hours of vigorous aerobic exercise per week, on average. I spend 30 minutes doing the Parkrun on Saturday morning and three hours training with Leeds Samurai. I don’t always make both events, and sometimes there is standing around at training, but overall it averages to more than 75 minutes a week. |
I consider my diet quite good as well. I eat fruit every day, home-cook most nights, always with a range of vegetables, and sometimes without meat. We limit out intake of junk food and processed meat and I try to take healthier snacks to work, though with limited success. Just one area strikes me as a problem: we have a pudding every night.
I won’t claim my diet is perfect but it has given me pause for thought. If I can apply so many good behaviours to my life, like walking to work, like exercising every week, like eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, like avoiding junk food, which is all hard and takes a lot of self-control on my part, and still put on weight, how hard is it to stay thin? For some people, who put on weight easier than I do, it must be almost impossible.
I’ve heard people advocating that obesity is entirely the fault of the individual and they should just eat less. To me, this seems like a gross over-simplification of a complex problem. Even to practice some of these positive behaviours requires significant lifestyle changes: much of my time is structured around planning my diet and my exercise, and actually doing them, and I’m not even winning. If someone says to you “right, you need to find an extra hour per day to fit in exercise and planning and preparing healthy meals” where would you find that time? How would you motivate yourself to carry through on that, every day, for the rest of your life?
Many of us have found that time of course. But probably not overnight. Chances are we were raised with some of those behaviours also. If you are a regular person, who hasn’t had that benefit, and has a lot to deal with in their lives, it is a difficult problem to solve.
And that’s the story of how I tried to turn my weight gain into a social justice issue.
A recent photo of me
My recent speech “Morality Explained” was the final project I needed to complete in order to achieve my Advanced Communicator Silver award.
Legal tender is money, right? But what is illegal tender? If we have a term like ‘legal tender’, what does that mean, and what does it mean for things that are not legal tender? I was thinking about this on my walk home today. Luckily Wikipedia came to the rescue with a good write-up on the subject.
Legal tender is anything that can be used to settle a debt. If I owe Fred £10, I can give him a £10 note and the debt is paid. He cannot say “no, I only accept coins”, because a £10 is legal tender and therefore has to be accepted as payment of debt. The UK has some quite complex rules on it. For example a ten pence piece is legal tender, but only up to a certain value of £10. Someone is not obligated to accept a payment of £1,000 in 10p pieces. Guidelines are available from the Royal Mint.
Things get a little more complicated around the union. Notes issued by the bank of England are legal tender in England and Wales. Scottish bank notes however, are not. In fact technically Scottish bank notes are not even legal tender in Scotland, though they are typically accepted to be by general agreement.
Another issue that comes into play is whether you have a debt, or whether you are treating. If you have not yet established a debt, the trader is under no legal obligation to accept your money. So a shop or a bus could refuse to accept a £20 note from you (many shops due refuse £50 notes) because no debt has yet come into play. However, if there was a debt established and then payment has requested, so as an invoice or a restaurant meal, they would then be obliged to accept your legal tender.
It is sometimes claimed that stamps are legal tender. This is not the case, and was confirmed by the Royal Mint.
Occasionally, I do actually watch some TV. I was recommended The Inbetweeners by a few people and as the entire series was available on Channel 4’s on demand service All4, we decided to give it a watch. Best of all, with only six episodes to a series, and three series in total, it was small commitment we could get through easily.
It’s pretty funny. It’s not massively high-brow, relying on predictable stereotypes for humour. It is also Peep Show cringey at times. Entertaining nonetheless though. The film was also quite good. There was actual character development and everything.
It may only be February (March by the time you read this), but my mint plant has already re-grown it’s leaves. I’m impressed. My chilli plants still look half dead and probably will do for months. Everything else looks totally dead. However, the mint plant is battling back, even against the still-present overnight frosts.
I am also surprised that my parsley plant, which lives in a plastic greenhouse on my balcony, has survived the winter and continued to provide parsley leaves throughout it.
Over at Anxiety Leeds we have some brand new promo material for the group. Not only do we have some updated flyers but we also have some brand new glossy A3 posters as well. If anyone wants some for their work, school, community centre, etc, get in touch and I can have some sent!
Over the past five years my DVD collection has been reducing in size as they were replaced by digital media. However, I kept hold of a few just in case the world suddenly jumped back a decade. Now though, with increased pressure to find spaces for my books, I have come to the conclusion that they all have to go. Even my complete set of Dawson’s Creek DVDs, including the special series finale DVD. Farewell Mr Leery, see you on the iTunes Store.