Dietspan

Hard to cook for the 100km diet. 

Source: m.gifford

Source: photopete

Summer weekend in Central Park, 2005 - 16

These pictures were all taken on a Saturday afternoon stroll around Central Park — starting on the west side of the park at approx 86th street, heading south down past Tavern on the Green, and then up the East Side to the 104th cut, and back around…

The temperature was pleasant, but the sky turned from a hazy blue to a hazy gray during the walk, which washed out some of the pictures a bit…

Two young women, strolling along, chattering away about whatever it is that young women chatter about. Nothing particularly unusual about them — they were typical of dozens, if not hundreds, of other young, reasonably athletic young women out for some sunshine and exercise in the park.

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Note: this photo was published in an Oct 6, 2008 blog titled "Warm up to these 2 exercises." It was also published in a March 14, 2009 blog article entitled "Top 8 Exercise Myths." It was also published in a Nov 23, 2009 blog titled "Beauty 101: Get some PMS SOS." And it was published in a Nov 30, 2009 blog titled "Weight Loss Tips and Tricks."

Moving into 2010, the photo was published in a Mar 7, 2010 Slimsix-dot-net blog with the same title as the caption I used on this Flickr page. And it was published in a Jun 11, 2010 blog titled "My Weight Loss Tips"

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Note: on Jan 20, 2010 I replaced the original version of this photo with a slightly edited version. The original, which I took in the summer of 2005, was edited with the Apple-Macintosh "iPhoto" program, and all I did was crop the photo to remove irrelevant scenic elements … and perhaps a little color-saturation to highlight the various colors involved.

I’m now using the Apple-Macintosh "Aperture" program, and I realized that I could edit the dark shadows and nearly-black color of the shorts worn by the two women. The current version has a little more "noise" (aka "graininess," in the pre-digital days) than I would have preferred, but you can see more details of their legs than was visible before…

With or without the detail, they are both still beautiful young women. I have no idea who they were, never spoke to them when I took this photo, and will probably never see them again for the rest of their lives or my life. C’est la vie… 

Source: Ed Yourdon

Time to lose weight. Picture is free for you to use. There are more free stock photography shots in my Freestock set. 

Source: alancleaver_2000

I’ve been trying to eat a healthy diet for the past few years, but recently I changed to a new diet regime - the Paleo Diet. It works like this. Hunter/gatherers past and present apparently don’t seem to suffer many degenerative or obesity related diseases. They have an active lifestyle, and they eat a very different diet to us - the sort of diet that (it could be argued), we evolved to eat. Lots of plants, fish, wild-meats, nuts, etc. They don’t eat modern processed and refined foods such as sugar, transfat, bread, beer, pastry, cakes, junk food, sweets/candy, biscuits/cookies, etc. They don’t even eat foods that have been around rather longer, such as any grains, flour, rice, potato, any dairy products, etc. Paleo lifestylers argue that they eat an evolutionary diet - the kind of foods (and activity levels) that we evolved to.

Now, I can see weaknesses in some of their arguments - it is a low-carb diet; 6,000 to 10,000 years of grains and dairy is probably long enough to evolve to a new diet (e.g. most of us are lactose tolerant) of grain and dairy; hunter-gatherers have a shorter average lifespan, etc.

However, the prehistorian in me can’t help being attracted to this lifestyle, it just seems to make sense - it may be strict (well, how strict really depends on the consumer), but it certainly excludes the worst modern foods - sugar, processed fats, refined carbs, salt, etc - and it promotes in particular, crossfitness (a mixture of activities and exercises including strength training, but also cardio), and a healthier omega 3/6 ratio.

It could be used as an excuse to eat tonnes of red meat, but in actual fact it should promote the eating of fish, shellfish, offal, organic pasture grazed red meat, wild meat, and above all LOTS of plants - vegetables, fruit, nuts, etc. I try hard to find as much variety in foods - especially fruit n’ veg as possible each week. Five portions of fruit and veg a day? Not bloody likely, nearer to eight or more!

So to celebrate my conversion (or rather experiment) - here is a typical breakfast for this Paleo Lifestyler - all quickly grilled in my George Foreman this morning, a hearty grain, dairy, and junk food free breakfast - rich in omega 3 :-) 

Source: Trojan_Llama