Health

Last year I participated in a project: Cities on a diet (Byer på skrump) - where up to 9 cities in Denmark for 9 weeks tried to loose weight. Guess what? My city Furesø (above photo) won the race and was named Danish Champion !

It lasted 9 weeks and we are 30 people trying not only to loose weight, but also gain better condition with respect to muscle, blood sugar, fat percentrage, colesterol and the lot ..

For the first 4 weeks, I did not really loose weight, but my some of my fat was converted to muscles. Since they weigh more that fat, it explains it all, except: How do you then start loosing weight? Easy - our good coach said - eat less, use more energy, eg. exercise. Which was the whole idea of the programme: to change your bad habits effectively, so you can remain in a solid and robust condition.

Which again means goodbye to all the sweet things and hello to more exercise - that is why the group was presented with many alternatives - and I am sad to say, that horseback riding was not included in our program - but I will try to press it through next year, which is an election year, so maybe I'll be a rider after all.

Be careful that you don't get hurt by exercising. It happened for instance, when we went to a pool, where we should try-out a kayak - not the Greenland-model, where you are strapped into the boat, but a more loose one. After some difficult moments where I learned to balance and use the handle, it went very well to the other side of the pool, but I hat not learned to break, so I hit the fence and fell out. But altogether we had a great time playing.

And that is the whole meaningful thing about the project: That it had to be fun to last - because one time is not enough - you have to find a way, that fits you to move your muscles every day to compensate for your age and the greater intake of good food and so on.

Finally we are going to learn to cook - and I have a speciality, that is special wheat, which does not destroy your blood sugar, but keeps it in balance. It was used by the ancient Romans - they got 1 kg a day and made bread out of it. They survived somehow, as history will tell. It does not taste well, but combined with other things it can be good for you.

I watched a German Tv-program about Roman Wellness, and the name of the stuff is: Hartweizen - which in English is Durum Wheat - maybe you know about it? It is not grown all over the place, originally it comes from Sicily in Italy and in Denmark is is grown on the island of Bornholm, where my oldest son was living. When visiting him recently I bought 2 kg of a combination of this product in ecological format - what do you say?



Finally I am learning vegeratian habits, since the whole idea is to conentrate on making vegetables taste good. If you start with ordering meat, then you are lost - you should instead try to make the best out of these green things and THEN you might add some meat or fish or whatever. Long time ago I got a book from a friend, who translated it from French: Vegetables / Roger Vergé, and it was only later that I discovered, that it was all vegetarian - what a disappointment. But now - I recalled the fine photos in it, and I want to try out his recipes. It was an old story about a son, who wanted to pay tribute to his father being an amateur gardener, but with love for the "green things".

The morale of the story is: It is possible to achieve a perfect balance, if you are patient and start with moving your body around converting fat to muscle. Then you start dropping excess food, and all of a sudden you loose 2 pounds a week without hurting ...

What have we here: A winner ....