The Health and Fitness Thread

[Gus Mears]

I've also made the switch before and it made a positive difference for me quite quickly. The transition certainly didn't take as long as the initial ballache with Citalopram. 

[Keith Houchen]

Ah, that's more encouraging news.  I know I shouldn't have but I looked online for people's stories and it does seem that after a fortnight things settle down.  Of course, I don't help myself when my head isn't right and do all kinds of stupid shit, so the quicker the better as far as I'm concerned.

[D@mm]

So 2 weeks a go I started to walk 15,000 steps a day which is about 6-7 miles a day, I also went back to the gym and go 3 times a day and cut back on all sweet snacks etc, I have lost nearly half a stone already and I now after 2 weeks walk 10 miles a day, I got one of them Fitbit watches to track how I am doing, just need to keep it up.

[Monkee]

I went back to Slimming World last night after not going for 4 weeks (combination of stuff clashing and being to knackered). I was dreading it as I've not been cooking properly and thought I'd put on at least half a stone. But, it turns out, I lost 4.5lbs. I'm well chuffed as that's 2st 4lbs with SW and almost 6.5st in total. Still not quite there so it's still a work in progress.

For comparison - 2011 v 2017

 

[Surf Digby]

Bloke in pub.

His loss.

[jasmith85]

Pointless post

Edited July 31, 2017 by jasmith85
T'was pointless

[Kaz Hayashi]

I've obtained this with my new house. Fitness wise, I'm on to a winner here aren't I? It's going to take me bloody ages to sort this out and trim it down so it doesn't tickle your inner pockets as you walk through it.

Thing is, I see this as a proper opportunity to get the health bit right too. Not only is there plenty of space to grow veg and the like, there is a green house already upright at the very bottom behind a shed. 

I know absolutely fuck all about what to grow and I will obviously be doing a bit or reading.

But have any of you had any look with growing your own veg, herbs etc, any pointers on soil, what to start with, any tips at all?

Edited July 30, 2017 by Kaz Hayashi

[Tommy!]

I used to grow fruit and veg. 

Potatoes are easy if you have space, just dig the soil well and dig in lots off good compost and nutrition over winter, dig a row of trenches in spring and bang on. Just burry the shoots as they come through. My main learning point was digging in slug pellets to stop grubs. 

Fruit bushes are also great, just a bit of pruning once a year. But you only get fruit on shoots a year or more old, so don't expect much in the first couple of years. 

Broad and kidney beans are easy, just need a lot of watering and aren't self sufficient. You also need to watch for black fly, but it's easy to treat with a spray you can get from poundland. 

Fruit trees are great but take year's to establish.

If you have a greenhouse tomatos and peppers are great. Just grow them in pots. Again its nice and easy, just water regularly, make sure the pots drain well and you nip out the shoots from the 'V' as the tomato plant grows for less bush (ohh err) and more flowers and a bigger tomatoes. If they don't ripen even just turn the pots. 

Onions and challots are great and need little work beyond initial planting,  plus they can be planted early as a frost helps the yield. 

If you go for cabbage get a fine net to keep butterfly off. 

Strawberrys are good too, again you get more off them in year 2 on, plus you can plant the creeping shoots in a second pot. When they root you cut the initial creeping shoot and you have another plant. 

Best advice I can give is well dug soil and don't be afraid to dig in compost, horse shit, chicken pellets and fish blood and bone to get it in good order. Then don't forget to water regularly. 

Also don't be afraid to grow more than you need. Broad and kidney beans can be frozen (I'd have some all year round as a result), tomatos make great chukney. Stewed apple can be frozen and lots of fruit and root vegetables can be made into wine (also really easy if you want to know more) 

[Kaz Hayashi]

12 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

I used to grow fruit and veg. 

Potatoes are easy if you have space, just dig the soil well and dig in lots off good compost and nutrition over winter, dig a row of trenches in spring and bang on. Just burry the shoots as they come through. My main learning point was digging in slug pellets to stop grubs. 

Fruit bushes are also great, just a bit of pruning once a year. But you only get fruit on shoots a year or more old, so don't expect much in the first couple of years. 

Broad and kidney beans are easy, just need a lot of watering and aren't self sufficient. You also need to watch for black fly, but it's easy to treat with a spray you can get from poundland. 

Fruit trees are great but take year's to establish.

If you have a greenhouse tomatos and peppers are great. Just grow them in pots. Again its nice and easy, just water regularly, make sure the pots drain well and you nip out the shoots from the 'V' as the tomato plant grows for less bush (ohh err) and more flowers and a bigger tomatoes. If they don't ripen even just turn the pots. 

Onions and challots are great and need little work beyond initial planting,  plus they can be planted early as a frost helps the yield. 

If you go for cabbage get a fine net to keep butterfly off. 

Strawberrys are good too, again you get more off them in year 2 on, plus you can plant the creeping shoots in a second pot. When they root you cut the initial creeping shoot and you have another plant. 

Best advice I can give is well dug soil and don't be afraid to dig in compost, horse shit, chicken pellets and fish blood and bone to get it in good order. Then don't forget to water regularly. 

Also don't be afraid to grow more than you need. Broad and kidney beans can be frozen (I'd have some all year round as a result), tomatos make great chukney. Stewed apple can be frozen and lots of fruit and root vegetables can be made into wine (also really easy if you want to know more) 

Some bloody corkers there mate thank you. Fish blood and bone eh? Never would I have thought of that so glad I asked. In terms of water, we made the mistake in our previous house (back yard/potted plants) of thinking "we live in Newcastle, it always rains", so watered less than we should have. Silly mistake.

Another point you made there was about the long game (waiting for year 2 etc). It might sound silly, but I wouldn't have thought of that. I probably would have thought "it hasn't worked, I'm shit" and may have given in a bit... purely due to lack of experience, never had a garden previous and haven't really done any research yet. So again, I'm glad I asked.

It seems that there are a couple of well established plum trees and apple trees in this new garden. We found a few black berry bushes tonight too. Honestly, it's a bloody jungle and around 50 yards long. Very lucky to have nabbed it but the amount of work is scaring the shit out of me.

I had a chat with my wife earlier and we discussed the idea of allowing a local charity/food shelter that I work with through my job, or a school or something like that, to come in and use a chunk at the back in order to grow veg etc. There's plenty of space and if there's a couple of free carrots here and there, well aye.

Anyway, we'll see what happens, I'll let you know if owts grown by 2019.

[Onyx2]

Everything needs watering more than you think. During Spring and Summer you need to be out there watering almost every night.

Suttons is excellent for showing what to sow in what month, and what type of feed to encourage it with.

For quick wins, plant a lettuce variety you like. You'll have something usable in about six weeks, and can return once a week for fresh leaves. Herbs are also great to buy part-grown from supermarkets and re-plant. They should keep you going for the rest of the year.

I'd recommend growing as much as possible in pots. You can move stuff around to get the benefit of the sun, and you can control how far things spread. Or make up raised beds with a few railway sleepers / treated wood.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Onyx2

[Kaz Hayashi]

6 hours ago, Onyx2 said:

Everything needs watering more than you think. During Spring and Summer you need to be out there watering almost every night.

Suttons is excellent for showing what to sow in what month, and what type of feed to encourage it with.

For quick wins, plant a lettuce variety you like. You'll have something usable in about six weeks, and can return once a week for fresh leaves. Herbs are also great to buy part-grown from supermarkets and re-plant. They should keep you going for the rest of the year.

I'd recommend growing as much as possible in pots. You can move stuff around to get the benefit of the sun, and you can control how far things spread. Or make up raised beds with a few railway sleepers / treated wood.

Nice one mate and thanks very much for that link. I've actually made a planter but wasn't successful with the herbs I started to grow. Well, they started off well but I went away for s couple if weeks, then winter hit, then they became riddled with weeds, and I lost interest.

Also, I attacked the the garden with the strimmer (before I get my mower on Wed). 5 hours later I'm around 1/10th of the way through. Nightmare.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Kaz Hayashi

[Rey_Piste]

All you're going to be doing at this stage is prep ready for spring next year. So look into possibly renting a petrol strimmer for a  day to cut the grass down, it'll be a hell of a lot quicker than an electric one. Even the commercial  mower I use for work would struggle a bit with grass that long, let alone an electric home mower. Have a look on your local council's  website many of them have schemes where you can buy reduced price compost bins for putting the grass cuttings in. You can use the mower on a high setting just to collect the grass you've cut then use that to maintain it.

Mark out the plots for your fruit/veg and rent a cultivator/rotavator to turn over the soil in September/October digging in manure. You may even want to double dig the plots if you want to do certain root vegetables or have raised beds.

[Monkee]

So this was last week:

And this was tonight. I might've cried a bit.

[Thunderplex]

Well done love!  Woman of the year is quite a thing in the diet club community so you must have really impressed them.

[Monkee]

I was only for my particular class rather than the whole of Slimming World. They said I was an inspiration and keep showing up every week. I was really humbled and flattered that people had voted for me.