r0dman.com

I was talking to some of my colleagues yesterday about all of the things in the world that just don’t seem right. One of them has always had a very strong opinion about drugs and what makes them either legal or illegal. As usual I harped on about diet and how we are all doing it wrong (tongue in cheek), and another brought up how he knows a guy that doesn’t use deodorant because of the aluminium in it – his father had Alzheimer’s and he is worried about getting it too.

We kind of joked around about the guy that doesn’t use deodorant, but this morning my mate tells me that he was watching something on tantric you-know-what last night, and the guy narrating the video suggested that everyone should stay away from products that contain or are stored in aluminium. Apparently it can affect the “performance” of males greatly, while also being something that women should avoid.

After doing some quick research, it looks as though the aluminium thing is something I should really look into. Cooking in aluminium, especially with acidic foods is a real and genuine thing to avoid, and it has been well and truly linked to Alzheimer’s and breast cancer in women.

Soft drink, that disgusting fizzy stuff that I’m so addicted to must eat the hell out of those cans – that can’t be safe either.

Oh well, it’s just more motivation for me to get onto the good food. Raw fruit and veg, all the way.

If there’s one thing that will get an office full of government employees out of their seats, it’s coffee.

Recently our social club organised a coffee machine so people in the building could buy cheaper coffee than the cafeteria supplied. While I applaud their reasoning for doing so (the cafeteria jacked up their prices), I can’t believe how much attention the thing has picked up.

I find myself forming strong opinions on things that aren’t really that important to me. For instance, since selling my car and riding to work more often I am in disbelief when I hear about people driving 8 minutes to work rather than riding or walking. I end up labelling them all sheep and just disregarding their opinions from then onwards. Ok so maybe it’s not that bad, but I guess you could say that it “fuels the fire”, the fire being my hatred for lazy car drivers. People that could be walking, riding, jogging, and catching public transport and usually have no good reason not to do so.

Coffee is fast becoming my newest and biggest gripe. I’ve always been in tune with my hydration. Right now as I’m typing this I know that I need more water, even though I’ve had a good 5 pints of water already today. It’s only recently that I have realised the affects that different foods and drinks have on my hydration, and how important it is for myself to be hydrated.

Up until about a month ago I used to have the occasional black coffee. I actually like the taste of it, but recently my “stand” is more important than my need to drink coffee. I’ve quit (until I go to Italy next year). There are a huge number of people in my office, and obviously worldwide that start their day with a coffee, have another coffee for morning tea, then have a coke with lunch, and later have another coffee for afternoon tea. If their body is lucky it will finally get some water with dinner! Living like this is terrible for your body, but it’s so accepted that I’m the freak for not having a coffee in the morning, and for going to the toilet every hour.

Anyway, this is my gripe and I’m sticking with it. Now do yourself a favor and drink a glass of water!

I went to a going away party last Saturday night and drank enough to have a hangover. While I had fun, I was planning on an enjoyable morning of trail-building and mountain biking on Sunday. I enjoyed both “events”, but it is obvious to me that mountain biking and digging trails is clearly more important to me than drinking myself stupid. By drinking on Saturday night, I just made the next day a much bigger challenge that it should have been, and in turn didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as I should have.

Over the last six months or so my drinking has declined more and more. Maybe I’m “growing up”, but I think my priorities have just shifted…

I have mentioned earlier that I’m not a very competitive person. I have no need to win an Elite race on my bike, but I love the idea of being fit enough to do so. Fitness is becoming more and more important to me, and I’m only really starting to learn this now.

Now I know everyone says “I’m never drinking again” after they have a big night of binge drinking – I’m not saying that. I think I’m just over the big nights. A couple of beers here and there are cool, but I don’t want to mess up my body’s hydration completely. My weekends are very important to me – the things that I live for are outside, in the hills just taking it all in. When I wake up with a hangover on a Sunday, the day is wasted and it will be another week until I get the chance to live again.

Now, avoiding the binge drinking sessions – that’s where the real challenge lies. Here goes!

About two months ago I read “The China Study”, and came to the conclusion that I should be eating a lot more fruit and vegetables. While I try and eat as well as I can, I believe that one of the main reasons why I don’t eat as much fruit and veg as I’d like is because of the quality that we get at the shops here in Adelaide. What concerns me is that apparently we have it pretty good here! It must be very hard for some people to eat well in places like London.

I came to the conclusion that starting my own veggie patch was the go, so my family can eat that bit healthier and hopefully we can grow some better tasting food too.

I found a spot in the yard that has three retaining walls around it, and purchased some straw-bales to lay across the front to act as another retaining wall. After filling it with organic loam we now have a raised bed. For the past two months I have been composting all of our organic waste with some straw and soil and that is going quite well. Unfortunately the rain got into it over the past few days but I have since sorted that out to keep it a little drier and warmer during the heavy rain season. While a slow process, composting your scraps will produce a great organic fertilizer for your plants and is well worth the effort.

Last week I bought some seed trays and planted broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts in it. After just one week I have some very strong looking seedlings. After another couple of weeks I will transplant these into the vegetable garden. Direct into the ground I have now sown carrots, lettuce (mixed), silver-beet, spinach and snow peas. I will encourage the snow peas to climb up the fence using wire.

My tips for starting a veggie patch are:

• Unless you have great soil, starting with a raised bed is much easier. Buy some organic loam to get you started.
• Compost all of the organic waste you have. It’s free fertilizer and is made by nature. It’s the best for your crop!
• Do some research as to what to grow and when. Gardenate is a great website for this.
• Start small and enjoy the process rather than feel the burden of a massive veggie patch. Go bigger when you are ready.

Sort of following on from my post the other week, “The Great Outdoors”, spending the time outside in the garden has been really enjoyable. Maybe because as a kid I was always outside – my dad was a landscaper and loved working in the garden – I would always be outside helping my parents in the garden.

Working with the environment just charges me up and gives me so much energy. Watching the plants grow is an exciting process and very rewarding too. It’s little “wins” like this in life that makes me a happy person. Try it for yourself. It’s a bit of work getting setup but well worth the effort.